I can already hear the "Don't you know they're authoritarian??!!!!! ๐ก๐ก๐ก๐ก"
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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Well theyre clearly doing something right
Also I love how all the objectively toxic parts of East Asian culture are suddenly romanticized if it's Japan or South Korea we're talking about. Stuff like conservative family dynamics, overbearing work culture, predatory consumer fads, fat shaming and openly commenting on how people look, etc.
When I spend time reading about culture in other countries, especially Japan and South Korea, but also China, it sometimes sounds intolerable to me. Not because I think it can be said to be overall worse than the one I'm in, it's just bad in ways that I am not acclimated to and would struggle to tolerate. I grew up in the United States, and I have developed spiritual/psychological callouses that let me operate here. Maybe another analogy would be microbiome and immune response.
Anyway, I'm sure the reality is different. These are just the way I make sense of what I hear. After all, people do travel and manage to thrive in many places.
"In Japan, the local establishment ban foreigners from entering to preserve theory culture for the regular patrons."
Bruh, that's just xenophobia.
OP forgot the racist propaganda against Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, that's despite Japan being a US vassal and a capitalist state.
I agree that Westerners hate China because it is a successful socialist state but they would still hate it just because it is a successful East Asian state.
China having success contradicts their orientalist view.
The Western Orientalist framework historically constructs China as static, decadent, or intellectually inferior: a civilization perpetually awaiting external modernization. Therefore, when contemporary China achieves rapid technological, economic, and political success on its own terms, it directly contradicts that orientalist view. Orientalism relies on a binary opposition between a dynamic, rational โWestโ and a passive, irrational โEastโ; Chinese success disrupts this hierarchy, revealing that non-Western agency, innovation, and global leadership are possible without Western templates.
https://newcriterion.com/article/edward-saids-ldquoorientalismrdquo-revisited/
Tokyo Sky Tree ๐๐๐
Except it's Shanghai ๐ก ๐ก ๐ก (/s)
Also looks like fancy minaret
Why tf would I care what country some escalators were in??
I honestly don't personally know any real-life person who acts like that - they're either just not scared of cool infrastructure, or they're the occasional 'patriot' freak who's nationalist/racist enough to consider Japan a threat too.
Leave the straw-man circlejerking to the rightoids, comrade.
I think it works as a spin on
Comrade, I'd like to introduce to r/UrbanHell
Average r/UrbanHell user at the sight of free public housing: ๐ ๐ก๐คฌ
"True but yk it looks pretty dystopian ngl."
I honestly don't personally know any real-life person who acts like that - they're either just not scared of cool infrastructure, or they're the occasional 'patriot' freak who's nationalist/racist enough to consider Japan a threat too.
It's a subconscious prejudice rather than active thought. But it's very real, and very common. People will react differently to the same image depending on where you tell them it's from.
I think this particular bit came from the "Urban Hell" community on Reddit, where they got trolled hard with pictures of cities from India or China that were intentionally mislabeled as Japanese. Giving birth to the meme:
- Coolest Thing Ever, Mumbai, Maharashtra: ๐ค๐คฎ๐ฉ
- Coolest Thing Ever, Munbai, Maharashutora-shu Prefecture: ๐คฏ๐๐ธ
Ok sorry :(
Looks more like America TBH.
I donโt get it, the bottom person is mad cause the top one was spreading misinformation?
No. The OP likes Japan but hates China.