Japan

Japan is such a civilized country. It remains indelibly Japanese despite all the Western industrialism it has adapted to itself. While it's true we can travel all across the country and have a reasonable expectation of being treated reasonably decently, still, the basic "feel" of America is much less "comfortable," like it doesn't quite fit or it's a little off somehow. But in Japan, it feels natural, more at ease. They never really left the land. And the land is beautiful. They have a third of America's population squeezed into a space roughly the size of California. But it has plentiful water from rain and snow in the mountains and it's clean. They don't pollute their water. They don't clear cut the mountains either but they certainly do use the wood. And their land is made from the volcanoes that created them making it rich and fertile. Unfortunately tho, they too have lost species of animals, namely birds, especially in Tokyo. But their reverence for the land and all of nature runs very deep in them and so they have protected it as best they can. They know where their food and water comes from and how much their lives depend on it.

But they are changing now. Too much infection by the West. It's sad to see. I am hoping they will weather this period of the death throes of post-peak oil and learning to de-industrialize without losing themselves completely. But they are Japanese and deeply Asian. I think they will outlive this period.