Now you say that the cultural shock for a westerner &quot;is no more than you&#x27;d find going to any other country in the far east&quot;.<p>The problem is I never said it wasn&#x27;t and that Japan is somehow more shocking that other far east places. You were the one that attempted to trivialize it, saying that the shock would be the same for Japan &quot;as for anywhere&quot;. In fact I specifically mentioned several places that would be more foreign to a westerner and some that wouldn&#x27;t, not just Japan. At least now you seem to concur that Japan would be as foreign as those &quot;far east&quot; places.<p>&gt;<i>Which I didn&#x27;t think I had to spell out. Yes, it will cause some difficulties. No, that doesn&#x27;t mean they can&#x27;t take it in stride. Again, Japan is a wealthy country, and these are problems that can be papered over with wealth.</i><p>You said: &quot;they&#x27;ll be a lot better for it, too&quot;, when in fact there will be ONLY difficulties. What would be better about an aging and shrinking population, plus economic difficulties? More parking space?<p>That they can &quot;paper over these problems with wealth&quot; (and for a country with a huge national debt and an problematic economy compared to the eighties early nineties), doesn&#x27;t diminish the problem. It&#x27;s just another way to say it would be costly. If you mean that they&#x27;ll survive and still exist, yeah, duh.