> I guess it's maybe a cultural thing, I've heard that the Japanese still place a lot of emphasis on handwriting letters and notes.
Sorry to be this guy, but, nope. It's quite opposite. Old generation, yes, they do. New generation, especially smartphone generation, are not writing anymore. And to the point that they have problems with handwriting some kanji characters. Most of the stuff is printed, now, or written on the keyboard slash phone. It's just much faster for them. OTOH it's hard to blame them. Kanji characters require much more effort to write properly and there's much more of them to remember than Latin letters.
It's definitely cultural, but I think this is something different. Obviously it's generalization and my opinion, but I deeply think there is something to it.
Like any other nation I know, Japanese tend to master things they do. I've experienced this first hand. They can perform a single task whole life, improving it, until they become exceptionally good at it. It may seem to be a tedious everyday chore, but through all repetition and improvement they are raising it to the level of art. Often, they even put an additional effort for something that doesn't directly pay off financially but increase esthetics, comfort and overall experience. I love them for that and I hope they'll never change, for the sake of the whole world drowning in a sea of ugly, cheap and minimal effort products.
Sorry to be this guy, but, nope. It's quite opposite. Old generation, yes, they do. New generation, especially smartphone generation, are not writing anymore. And to the point that they have problems with handwriting some kanji characters. Most of the stuff is printed, now, or written on the keyboard slash phone. It's just much faster for them. OTOH it's hard to blame them. Kanji characters require much more effort to write properly and there's much more of them to remember than Latin letters.
It's definitely cultural, but I think this is something different. Obviously it's generalization and my opinion, but I deeply think there is something to it.
Like any other nation I know, Japanese tend to master things they do. I've experienced this first hand. They can perform a single task whole life, improving it, until they become exceptionally good at it. It may seem to be a tedious everyday chore, but through all repetition and improvement they are raising it to the level of art. Often, they even put an additional effort for something that doesn't directly pay off financially but increase esthetics, comfort and overall experience. I love them for that and I hope they'll never change, for the sake of the whole world drowning in a sea of ugly, cheap and minimal effort products.