Here is an aspect of society which Africa, which also has a strong tradition of group identity and belonging, might be able to learn from. Other aspects of Japanese life are even more traditional. Although romanisation and even the official adoption of English were considered at one point, Japan has been able to modernise and even computerise with its own language and a writing system adopted from the Chinese. There is even a special greeting used only on the telephone. Although foreign food is becoming popular most Japanese meals are traditional.
People are comfortable eating and sleeping on mats on the floor.
Visitors must remove their shoes in residential houses and many other places as well. Some Japanese tell me they cannot relax if their shoes are still on their feet. Some of the aspects in which Japan resembles Western societies were not originally intended to be borrowed. The fact that they have been adopted suggests that they are inevitable byproducts of development, rather than simply Westernisation. The Japanese legislature, or Diet, was not set up immediately after the Meiji government of 1868 abolished feudalism and began the industrialisation of Japan.