Not only are toilets more sophisticated in Japan than in the United States, but this is a wake-up call for America, its lifestyle, and the state of tourism, hospitality, and the nation.
According to his posts on X, Nathan Lands, a well-known American entrepreneur, returned to the U.S. on vacation after living in Japan for two years, calling his country dysfunctional.
He has a point that should wake up not only elected leaders or those who want to be elected but also those who lead the U.S. travel and tourism industry.
Nathan explained:
After living in Japan for over two years, I recently visited the USA with my wife. It made me realize that the USA is dysfunctional in many ways and has a low-quality standard across the board.
Everywhere you go, you run into little things that don’t work. Half the escalators I saw were not working; soap was missing in the bathrooms. Once you notice it, you see it everywhere in America. Things don’t work. Everything works in Japan, and it would be unacceptable if things didn’t work.
Service is so bad compared to Japan, and you have to tip. We stayed at a nice hotel in Boston, and the workers went on strike. This meant our rooms weren’t cleaned, and they banged on drums outside the window.
My wife couldn’t believe people would do that. I get it.
From the Japanese perspective, it’s like, how could the people we were paying to provide us with service not provide the service? Furthermore, not only did they not offer the service, but they harassed us.
In contrast, while we were in Japan, my wife got gifts for about eight people at her workplace, including her boss, to thank them for letting her take time off. The culture and respect for work are just so different— Japan and the U.S are on different planets.
Everything is so expensive in the United States. To my surprise, living in Japan is dramatically cheaper. Waikiki and the State of Hawaii are especially nuts.
There is a sense of danger walking around US cities that doesn’t exist in Japan.
We had two homeless people harass us; one ran in front of us like a zombie, and it freaked my wife out.
And on two different occasions, we saw large men threatening women.
One was very bizarre. In a mall dining court in Waikiki, a man threatened his girlfriend, who was running from him, that he would “bash her f…ing brains in if she didn’t come back”.
When we returned to Japan, I felt a sense of relief. Here, you never have any sense of danger anywhere you go, at any time. I have a feeling a lot of people are living with anxiety from those kinds of encounters, and they don’t even realize it.
Homeless people in the US sometimes insult you if you don’t give them money. It happened twice in Waikiki. In Japan, homeless people are rare. And when you see them, they are almost always very respectful and don’t bother people.
There are more car accidents in the USA than in Japan. I got stuck in traffic twice due to accidents. I asked Perplexity, and, on a per capita basis, there are 2.5 times more car fatalities in the USA than in Japan.
Flights get delayed way more often in the U.S.
Perhaps this is another quality control issue?
In America, the TSA is very rude and threatening. In Japan, airport security officers are incredibly polite and helpful. They’re so different.
So many things are locked up in stores in the USA. My wife asked me what that was, but she didn’t understand. When I told her, she couldn’t believe how bad it was. It scared her to know that it was an issue.
Immigration in the US is slow, and they ask you tons of questions, which is wild considering our current border issue and how easy it is to get into the country illegally. In contrast, they asked one question in Japan, smiled, and let me in.
Oh, and of course, now, USA toilets feel incredibly primitive after living in Japan.
In cities, everywhere smells like weed. Or worse.
The portion sizes in restaurants are so huge. I gained 7 pounds in 2 weeks.
Of course, there are also good things about the USA, like the diversity of food. And there is something a little exciting about the chaos. But I now feel way less interested in moving back to the USA. It feels like something is more deeply wrong than I realized.
Small children (students) are boarding the subways by themselves in Japan. They may be as young as 6-7 years old and not accompanied by adults. It feels much safer than in the U.S.
So, we felt good enough to let our 12 and 14-year-old kids go out for the night in Kyoto. They had the best night of their lives. They walked downtown from our condo rental a mile away. They got food, went shopping, and then went to an arcade for five hours alone.
We noticed so much of what he said when we went there.
