Two years ago, the  BBC said Japan was the future,  but it's now stuck in the past.  I agree. Among the detractions is ownership of real estate.  You buy a home, and after paying off your mortgage in, say, 40 years, it is worth almost nothing. Japan recently had the third-largest economy, is a peaceful and prosperous country with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little political conflict, a powerful passport, and the sublime Shinkansen, the world's best high-speed rail network.  Actually, about GDP and the economy, Germany has slipped past Japan into #3, with India in the next few months easing by Japan. When the author of this article, Rupert Wingield-Hayes, first arrived in Tokyo in 1993, a third of a century ago, he was effusive about the country being exquisitely clean and orderly.  Actually still is. But he noted that Hong Kong was an assault on senses and Taipei had horrible air pollution. He could have said...

Japan had the first bullet train more than 60 years ago.  It was 10October1964, when the opening ceremony was held in Tokyo in anticipation of Japan's first-ever Olympic Games, which began that day. The  Shinkansen,  meaning  new mainline , with a separate track, arrived when normal train traffic had reached the limit for carrying passengers and freight.   A train trip between Osaka and Tokyo dropped from 6 hours and 40 minutes to 4 hours, shortened to 3 hours and 10 minutes by 1964, and is now 2 hours and 30 minutes.  From the Shin-Osaka Station to the Shin-Yokohama Station only takes a little more than 2 hours. In 1964 the track was 320 miles long.  Today, it's up to 1484 miles.  The original itinerary incorporating Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka now carries 159 million passengers/year.  In this 6 decade period, more than 10 billion passengers have been safely handled.  CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT NOT ONE PASSENGER HAS YET BEEN KILLED IN A DERA...