I often hear people excusing the way Japanese people behave by saying 'it's because we're an island nation', as if that holds any truth. New Zealand is also an island nation. Does that mean our culture is the same as Japan's? No way. That doesn't mean to say that Japan isn't at all different. Not at all. It just means that people shouldn't make excuses for things based off basically nothing. Actually, people probably shouldn't make excuses at all. They shouldn't have to. Other people should be understanding enough to take things at face value.

Anyway, one instance of this was that in Japanese schools, students aren't generally asked to form an opinion, and then when it comes to things like debates, they get offended too easily, and therefore are unwilling to join, or even have debates in the first place. This was put down to Japan having an isolated period during the Edo period (1603-1868). I'm not sure if there is a real connection there, but this seemed like enough for someone to excuse not having debates or other things where you spread your opinion in class. Because of some archaic time in the past. If something like this were enough to stop people from doing something, then we really need to reconsider how we make our decisions.