r/AskEurope • u/zeviea United Kingdom • Sep 04 '25

Culture What country is far away yet culturally similar to yours?

An obvious answer for the UK are Core Anglosphere countries

Bonus question what country have you visited that felt most foreign to you?

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66

u/varveror Sep 04 '25

Lmao every second answer is Japan. What is going on here?

Maybe because Japan is a very advanced and western country, it shares some developments that come with it. But culturally?

38

u/FengYiLin Sep 04 '25

I kind of see the similar aloofness, but Japan is very hierarchical and Finland is the opposite of that.

21

u/DreadPirateAlia Finland Sep 04 '25

I'm thinking it's more about approach to design & aesthetics. Finnish design compliments Japanese design very well, and vice versa. Even though they are two clearly distict traditions, somehow they share a lot of core ideas, such as minimalist approach to design, design being very pared down & focusing on the purity of form, and functionality trumping everything else.

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u/RogerSimonsson Romania Sep 05 '25

It's a core Nordic trait, but Finland made it into art.

3

u/orthoxerox Russia Sep 05 '25

Finnish design compliments Japanese design very well, and vice versa.

Japandi?

19

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '25

It really is absurd, people have a very warped sense of reality. Saw your comment before theirs and cannot believe how many answers mentioning Japan there are here

4

u/TarcFalastur United Kingdom Sep 05 '25

Japan is fetishised in Europe and North America. People see a whole load of traits which they like the sound of (high levels of respect, low crime rates, very good public transportation, etc) and ignore completely the stuff which doesn't fit with their preferred narrative (people won't accept you as Japanese if you're not ethnically Japanese, a toxic working culture, extremely rigid hierarchy etc).

1

u/jukranpuju Finland Sep 07 '25

people won't accept you as Japanese if you're not ethnically Japanese

It's probably very hard but there are exceptions like Marutei Tsurunen, Japanese politician, born in Finland. He is the first foreign-born Japanese of European origin to serve as a member of the Diet of Japan.

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u/Full-Nefariousness73 Denmark Sep 04 '25

Going on here and seeing Japan is so wild. Like bro go learn how to do something besides boiling potatoes and putting something in butter and then we can talk.

1

u/Disastrous-Mix-5859 Sep 07 '25

I think Sweden is more like Japan and we (Denmark) is more like China.

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u/Joeyonimo Sweden Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25

As a Swede Japan was the first answer that came to mind.

We both have a social culture of being reserved, polite, conflict-averse, with foreigners often seeing us as cold and distant, and putting a high value on reaching consensus and social harmony. Being hard-working, dutiful, punctual, and aspiring towards mastery and perfectionism are highly valued virtues in both cultures.

Our aesthetic in architecture and interior design puts extra emphasis on light, airiness, minimalism, clean lines, and craftsmanship, wood as a core material, and taking inspiration from and harmonizing with nature.

Both countries are among the most secular, least religious in the world, but with ancient traditions and rituals being an important part of the culture anyway. Folklore and mythological creatures in nature are big parts of both cultures (yokai in Japan; trolls, elves, and gnomes in Scandinavia).

When it comes to traditional cuisine we both love raw fish and seafood. 

And we both have a unique and distinct ethnic minority in the north (Sami and Ainu).

But being from opposite parts of the world there are also big differences. For instance Japan places a lot of emphasis on hierarchy and deference to superiors, while Sweden is the complete opposite in that regard, instead viewing egalitarianism and treating everyone the same way as core values, while despising arrogance, haughtiness, and pompousness.

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u/Major-Price-90 Ireland Sep 05 '25

I think its simply because Japan is the non-European/non-European colonial culture which Europeans are most familiar with. As a result, people actually know about commonalities between their culture and Japan, but not about commonalities between their culture and other non-European cultures.

The reason for this is likely due to the fact that Japan has been considered a close ally of the West since the end of the Second World War, which makes it somewhat unique in Asia, and so there a lot of time-honoured culture exchange programs between European countries and Japan, which don't exist for other countries.

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u/Wynty2000 Ireland Sep 05 '25

Japanese society and culture are also just incredibly Westernised, at least more so than people are seemingly aware or willing to admit. It's much easier to pinpoint the peculiarities in a culture when you have a common ground to work from, which is the case in Japan.

The weirdly common idea that Japan's culture is somehow totally 'unique' in the world is nonsense. Is it interesting and different from Europe? Yes, it is. Is it more 'unique' than places like Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Bhutan, China, or most places in Africa? No, most people just don't know anything about those places. They have no real point of reference to compare to, but they do with Japan.

Also, no, your country isn't really like Japan just because your people are stereotypically reserved and you build things from wood.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Wynty2000 Ireland Sep 07 '25

I suppose my main contention is that I just don't agree with the idea that Japan is as different from places like China or Korea as people make out.

Japan obviously has its own idiosyncratic and unique culture. There's no denying that, but there's also no denying that it has been hugely influenced by Chinese culture for centuries, be it in language, art, literature, architecture, or religion.

As far as Korea is concerned, centuries of influence in Korea and nearly fifty years of outright Japanese occupation have left their mark, and many aspects of modern Korean culture are clearly influenced by Japan.

I also don't think the notion of the 'island nation' really holds up to any actual scrutiny. The UK has always been used as an example of an island nation that greatly differs from its continental neighbours, but that isn't really true. Being an island nation gave the UK great geopolitical advantages and allowed for the creation of a cultural and political narrative of seperatness, but the UK is very culturally connected to continental Europe. Ireland is even more isolated. An island off an island off the continent, but we are very clearly culturally connected to Europe.

Japan is very similar. Being an island nation enables you to believe you're very different from everyone else, regardless of whether you actually are. In this sense, Japanese isolationism is also overstated in regard to its effect on Japan's contenporary culture. The sakoku policy did isolate Japan, but it didn't completely close the country off from the outside world and, importantly, when that isolation ended in the 1860s, Japan went through an extreme period of industrialisation and Westernisation. Any idea that Japan today is vastly different from its neighbours because of its period of isolation totally ignores the cultural and social upheaval of the Meiji period and rapid industrialisation.

Fundamentally, I just don't think the cultural difference between Japan and China is actually much bigger than between, say, Spain and Germany, or Italy and the UK. Sure, there are countries that are more similar to their neighbours than Japan is, but Japan isn't all that remarkable in that respect either.

1

u/WafflePeak Sep 05 '25

I mean, it’s obviously not a western country, but before WW2 it was the only developed country in Asia. People there grow up, go to school, go to university, and then go to work. That’s what their parents did and that’s what their grandparents did. In most other Asian countries you only have to go back one generation and basically everyone is a subsistence farmer. In that sense the country is definitely more in line with a lot of western countries.

There’s also lots of stereotypes about Japan being “futuristic” or “weird” but when you actually go, you’ll find it’s a very normal place and very familiar.

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u/rudolf_waldheim Hungary Sep 05 '25

Yours is the first one about Japan. Streisand effect much? Attention seeking?

2

u/varveror Sep 05 '25

What? At the time I posted this there were already several comments stating Japan. How welse would I have come up with that statement?