ifignow wrote:
> I grew up in rural Japan 20 years ago when it was a very
> different culture, where people were earnest and not pretentious.
> Tokyo today feels like a foreign country because people here are so
> obsessed with fashion, drinking, and sex. I'm not into that at all --
> 
Neither are a great many Japanese. But maybe living in the Valley too
long has let you to view everyone as obsessed with *something*.

> I am not a religious person, but I've spent the past ten years among
> software professionals in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, plus I am
> going to graduate school, where the majority of students are from
> places like rural China and have probably never been to a bar in
> their life. It's sort of like religious training, so this party
> culture feels pretty offensive to me.  Are there things to see here for 
> people who aren't into the shallowness?

I would hesitate to say I ever felt there was more of a 'party culture'
in Japan than in the places I've lived in the US. And I have
lived/worked in Silicon Valley during and after the bubble years, and
the 'party culture' was far greater there than I ever felt in Japan.
But, then, I lived in Kobe and Himeji, places where it's very easy to
live without partying. Actually, I think I could live anyplace in the
world and not party.

John W.