Chris Arnade walking across Japan, part 2:

So the technocrat/policy types look at Japan’s last few decades of relative economic stagnation as a failure, while the Japanese just shrug it off and chalk it up to one of the costs of maintaining their cultural identity.

Haven’t thought about it that way before, but isn’t another country set on preserving its identity also in a period of economic stagnation? Craig Mod noted how and why they are not the same, however, and I like Japan’s prospects better.