Real facts about living in Japan

All too often, I get updates in my news feeds about the latest crazy thing going on in Japan.  The latest being that young Japanese adults have stopped having sex.  Actually, since a lot of bloggers have been calling those news stories out (and rightfully so being borderline racist), I haven’t seen anything as of late, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time before a journalist decides to get another story about Japan brewing for more page clicks.  To sum up these articles, they essentially extrapolate that since a very small subset of Japanese people act a certain way, then a larger super-sect of those people must be doing the same.  For example, let’s take something popular in American news right now… The Knockout Game.  Would it be alright if a Japanese person came up to someone and said (mind you, in perfect English, of course), “Oh, I don’t think I want to visit New York City or Chicago, I heard that random teenagers play a game where they try and punch someone in the face as hard as they can.”
Well, yea, that would be incredibly offensive, but that’s exactly what these news articles about Japan say to Japanese people.  Also, as it turns out, the Knockout Game is a phony threat as well!
So next time you see one of these “crazy” Japan stories, take them with a grain of salt.  There’s probably a lot more to it than what the story leads on.  After living in Japan, you learn that Japan isn’t crazy, but rather, has a different way of doing things.