Unbelievable! Shocking! Flabbergasting!

This has actually been published on a major website:

Analysis of an Apology: A Japanese thing?

The apology from Toyota President Akio Toyoda is being interpreted by the U.S. media as a uniquely Japanese thing...

...The media... ...is often trying to make Japan out to be a mystical place where everyone lives by some ancient samurai--or Buddhist, take your pick--code. In short, a special, inscrutable culture that defies understanding...

...What I learned in my 10 years in Japan is that the Japanese culture is different of course but not nearly as different as unwitting Americans make it out to be...

The author, Brooke Crothers, does have the advantage of actually having lived here and knows something about the country. It sounds like the same Japan I live in and not the fantasyland version I read about so often. The world must be coming to an end.

Thank you CNET and Brooke Crothers. One of the best short articles I have read on Japan in years. A must read even if he is simply stating what anyone who lives here (or who has actual knowledge of Japan) already knows.

(He specifically mentioned the ABC news report in which it was stated that by bowing in apology it was somehow samurai-related---sort of like offering his head. Oh yes, of course. And everything I do is cowboy-related.)

Edited at 11:25 and 11:59pm