Analysis of Japan

I still get surprised by the Japanese world around me every day!

How come?

My co-worker (Brazilian, who is living for 20 years in Japan now) told me:
"I understand you. You get surprised every day. I only get surprised every other day". The real funny thing about this statement is: it is most probably true!

To understand Japan better, I had recently read a lot about Japan:
- Blogs about Gaijin (foreigner) superpowers: 1, 2 (I fully agree on both articles)
- "The Blue-Eyed Salaryman" (describing my general situation at work almost 100%)
- a German book about a guy's life in Japan (I fully agree with the facts in the book. However it is written in such a smart-ass way that it's not so much fun to read)

It is very interesting to see how much I can relate to these stories. Why are our experiences in Japan so similar?

A reason might be that Japanese people are extremely similar to each other ("Gleichschaltung").
Almost 1 year ago, my company had sent me to a seminar for "inter-cultural communication". One thing that we had learned there: assume that you take 2 random citizens of a country. In which country is the similarity between them the highest? I do not remember the exact statistics, but Asian countries were on top and Japan one of the leaders.

But to return to my initial question: The only thing that I have understood so far is that
it is impossible to understand the thinking processes of Japanese people.
I mean: of course, some high-level things always hold true (like the Gaijin Smash).
But the small details will always stay a mystery for me!

Anyways, I like surprises. It seems that Japan is the best place in the world for me :-)