Japan is going nuts, my friends. What I mean by that is Japan is becoming more and more like the USA day by day and it's not good. I've said for a long time that Japan was thirty or forty years behind the USA and I stand by that statement. Several decades ago, America was generally a good place to live, had good industry and service was done with a smile.
Today, Japan still has good service with a smile and industry... But for how much longer?
I even remember when McDonald's had the campaign in the USA that burgers were a dollar but the smiles were free. Not anymore in the nuthouse that today's USA has become. I lived in the USA as a kid in the sixties and seventies. I think it was the golden age of the richest country in history. Those days are long gone.
Unfortunately for Japan, as I said, I believe my axiom holds true: Japan is thirty or forty years behind the USA... Today Japan is now heading into some very bad times and I don't see a way to avoid them. Please refer to: Japan's Collapse Will Be Absolute and it Cannot be Stopped - Here's Some BIG Reasons Why.
Like a rash that at first starts off small and slowly spreads, the symptoms of Japan's decline have started to appear and are unmistakable for those who are alert enough to notice them.
Things are happening in Japan today that were unheard of just a few years ago. Did you know two women got into an altercation at a pub yesterday in Nishi Arai (Adachi ku, Tokyo) that resulted in one of the women dying? It hasn't hit the English language news services in Japan as far as I can see but here's a Japanese link from Yahoo Japan. What happened was that it seems two women went separately to a pub. There, for some reason, a argument broke out between them. Soon the argument turned into into a fist fight with one woman using a beer mug to hit the other woman in the face and over the head. When the woman who was stuck by the beer mug collapsed to the floor, the other woman jumped on her and began kicking her repeatedly while she was on the ground.
The collapsed woman was taken to a hospital where she died.
Now, if this were the United States, we'd all say, "Ho-hum. So what's new?" But in Japan? This is unheard of. To prove that this is not an unusual occurance in today's USA, I went to Youtube and searched "Fight at McDonald's" I got over 5,500 results. "Fight at Chuck E. Cheese" resulted in over 15,700 results. "Fight at restaurant" received 8,530 results (and climbing)...
To compare with Japan, I searched "Fight at restaurant"（レストラン 喧嘩）and found 76 results. None involved people fighting. The top video was of some pigeons fighting over food.
What is the cause of this? Scoff now, my friends, but I am convinced that it is all a part of the Zeigeist of the times and has much to do with the food and water people consume. Now, it's come to Japan. The rise - and current dominance - of the western diet and fast food culture in Japan will result in more crime, dissatisfaction, clinical depression, medical maladies and an more unhealthy populace in general. And, "unhealthy populace" means not just physically unhealthy, but mentally unhealthy too.
Some people will argue this but it's laughable to think that eating chemicals and processed, unnatural foodstuffs won't cause all sorts of problems. Think about this: Do you know why homeless people generally go crazy after about two months on the street? Well, it should come to no surprise to learn that homeless people do not eat well and consume lots of fast food. Just add two and two and you'll get four.
I was just telling a friend of mine yesterday that, 15 or 20 years ago, you never saw very fat Japanese people. But you see them now. I find it not just a coincidence that, as the Japanese increase vastly their intake of western food they become more and more obese like Americans.
This chart is a bit dated but we can compare it with what I'm saying: 15 ~ 20 years ago, you rarely ever saw a Japanese person who was fat... Sumo? Yes. Obese people? I mean really fat people like you see in the USA? No. This chart compares the obesity rate of many countries around the world including Japan:
Country by country comparison of obesity
As you can see, twenty years ago, in 1990, about 2.5% of the Japanese population were considered obese... Trust that there aren't that many sumo running around so we can figure that this rate is pretty true. Compare that with the '88 ~ '94 rate of the USA that was about 24%.
By the mid-1980s the American inspired fast food fueled boom was deeply entrenched in Japan amongst an entire generation of young people. Those twenty-year olds of 1980 are now 50-year-olds today... Gee, I wonder how that has affected Japan's obesity problems? I'm not exactly sure about that and have no data but it is common knowledge that today's Japan is beginning to have an obesity problem too.
I do have anecdotal evidence in the fact that the word, "Metabo" became a common word in the Japanese vernacular over these past 5 years. "Metabo" is short for "Slow metabolism." It is the lame excuse that overweight people use for being fat as in,
Fat person: "Oh, I am getting over-weight. It's that darn slow-metabolism!"
Me: "No. It's not your slow metabolism. It's because you eat too much junk like a pig and don't exercise."
Of course the obesity problem in Japan is nowhere near the crisis porportions of the USA but judging from the chart below, we might get a good idea where we're heading.
The next chart give us clues. It is an interesting chart on the exponential growth of obesity in America. I haven't any chart like this for Japan with regards to up-to-date information, but while Japan is still decades behind the USA in the overweight department, Japan is growing exponentially too... Thank you McDonald's!
But it's not just obesity and all the health problems that follow the American diet wherever it goes around the world. I've mentioned mental health problems. I submit to you that insanity also follows along with the Standard American Diet (SAD).
The SAD diet is chock full of chemicals and preservatives. People think eating that hamburger is just food that goes right through you and out the other side. Wrong! Thinking that way is just plain ignorant. That food doesn't go though you folks, it goes in you and is processed by your body. It becomes you.
They don't say, "You are what you eat" for no reason. Eat junk, become junk.
And on that note, did you know that cancers and heart diseases were unheard of diseases in Japan and Asian countries before the 1950's? Yep. It's true. There's even a movie about it. It's called Knives Over Forks. Here's a trailer.
Over the years, I've heard many anecdotal stories about America going crazy and have told my fair share myself too. The noticeable thing is that these stories get more and more common and wilder and wilder. I've often wondered if it was fluoridation of the water or the poisoning of the food. Let me guess though, it's both. It's everything. It's all the crap that people ingest in their food, water and air.
Everyone knows about the fights and insanity going on in America... Now that we have fast food in Japan on every street corner, Japan is indeed becoming more and more like the United States.
This isn't turn out good. Just look at the USA to see what's going to happen...
