Half his examples start with "my student", which also makes me highly suspicious - one student does not make a representative statistical sample.
One can also just look at the media being produced in Japan to see that they too value and admire characters that rebel, go against the grain and question the status quo in their books and movies. They're obviously a different culture, but you can't abstract away their difference with some high-level statement like "more obedience"; it's subtler than that.
The article is titled "An Insider's Educational Experience" so it is mostly based on one student's experiences.
Living here in Japan now, I sometimes wonder how my life and beliefs would be different had I grown up and gone through the education system here. Since it's impossible to go back and re-do that, the next best thing is to get the impressions from people that have gone through another education system and the Japanese one because they can easily compare the two systems.
One can also just look at the media being produced in Japan to see that they too value and admire characters that rebel, go against the grain and question the status quo in their books and movies. They're obviously a different culture, but you can't abstract away their difference with some high-level statement like "more obedience"; it's subtler than that.