why so yo think japan has the highest rate of atism

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Hmmm, idk.
Good question.

I don't think it is a case that they have autism, I think it is generally down to the way they are brought up. In countries like China and Japan there is a lot of emphasis on studying, in fact some kids leave at 7am and come home at 11 at night! Obviously, they don't have much time to build social skills outside of school and are highly intelligent, which may count towards the fact they seem autistic but most of them are not.

This. @magz will probably agree that Google has the worst time translating Japanese. So much is based on context. There are no pronouns, for example, so the "subject" of a sentence must be identified from context. Also the refusal to express one's true feelings about anything, yet participants in a conversation are expected to intuit those true feelings from subtle cues.

Only the most NT people can rise to the top of any hierarchy there, especially corporate hierarchies.

Also the fact that many institutions enshrine bullying as part of their culture. In particular I can recall reading the story of a boy who went to a special boarding school for baseball, and the hazing was non-stop. Also the way they fire you there (i.e. from a corporate job) is to ostracize you until you quit (or jump off a roof).

The way I have understood Manga and Anime is mostly as a pressure valve for people who have to survive that culture, in other words it's a symptom of the problems with that society, not a celebration of its "coolness". This is exactly why so many Aspies embrace this (just look at some of the avatars!). I think most of us are wise enough to be thankful we don't have to live there.

My NT wife once said that she'd like to live in Japan, but only as a foreigner--which means you're not expected to conform to Japanese expectations.

I've spent a lot of time there and liked it, but I was associating with actors, designers, musicians, photographers and other artists, who more or less have their own separate world. Living among the corporate drones there would make me crazy--even more than living among the corporate drones in the West.

We lived in a really small village surrounded by rice fields. It was lovely. Every Saturday a truck would park opposite our tiny apparent and two people would bellow out something in loud speakers. We didn't pay much attention. We thought it was some kind of election propaganda or something. As we prepared to leave after a year we finally asked someone and it turned out they were protesting against us - the foreigners in town!

Foreigners are never considered equal in Japan. You can live there (typical Euro looking JET teacher type) with a Japanese spouse and two kids. You'll never be considered Japanese enough and neither will your half and half kids. You can live there for 25 years and you'll still be given English menus even if you are fluent in spoken and written Japanese.

My JET (Euro guy teaching English to Japanese children) friend has an Aspie son. They moved from Japan because the SPED services are so much better in the US. They told me their son would be eaten alive in the culture. He's Aspie enough to stand out, and the nail that stands out gets hammered down. It gets hammered hard, especially for men.

While everyone makes it seem like a huge plus you don't look people in the eye in Japan, there is so much unspoken culture and rules that are never brought up. If you are native born, it is assumed you pick this s**t out of the air because you ARE Japanese. Like, you should have no problems learning Japanese because you have Japanese blood.

Japanese do not embrace Aspies, and most native Japanese do everything to avoid a diagnosis. It's considered shameful. Your family did something to cause it. Schools that handle special education are sort of dumping grounds. My friend's son was booted from his "regular" school with two suggestions...

Put him in a school (much like a self contained school in the US) or blow a s**t ton of cash on the international school and see how long the kid would last. They tried the second option, the boy lasted 6 months. That when they moved to the US as my friend received a decent job offer.

Japanese culture is like peeling a never ending onion, and no one tells you how far to peel down. You are just suppose to know when to stop. In the US, someone might actually yell what the hell is wrong with you, in Japan they aren't yelling but silently judging you stupid.

I can't understand why the ASD community has such a hard on for Japan. I lived there for 6 months and still have friends over there. Foreigners have an easier time since you wouldn't have a clue, and the average Japanese person wouldn't bother telling you (don't embarrass the person). The Japanese national who has any sort of "I stand out from the herd" issue really has a rough time.

ETA:about the protest vehicle yelling about the foreigners. I LMAO. Immigration is not a huge selling point to the average Japanese person. My friend's son was blamed every time some random kid got sick in his class. Foreigners are considered disease carrying vectors. So when Yuki got the sniffles, Yuki blamed my friend's son for getting her sick.

出る釘は打たれる
Deru kugi wa utareru.

Many people on the spectrum have a huge fondness for manga and anime, so they feel a strong affinity for that aspect of Japanese culture. Just look at some of the avatars on this site. I see a lot of manga and anime (although there are many different genres) acting as an acceptable outlet for Japanese who for whatever reason do not feel successful at conforming, or who just struggle with all the pressures of living in Japan. The sort of fantasy and humor found in manga and anime also appeals to westerners on the spectrum. Where somebody might be misled is if they think, for example, that a manga set in a Japanese high school (for example Ranma 1/2, a manga from the 80s and early 90s, or Ouran Host Club, to cite something more recent) is an accurate portrayal of Japanese high school life. In fact, these portray absolutely preposterous goings-on compared to the reality of life in a Japanese high school. They offer a fantasy world that suffering Japanese high school students (and even older Japanese who still haven't gotten over the trauma of high school) can lose themselves in.

I've not heard anything about about that. If it was true it'd be news to me but I guess its not totally unbelievable.

MaxE,

That is the reason that I tend to confuse autistics with otaku, but these group tends to be attracted to manga and anime lonely. But although, as a non-Japanese, am autistic and attracted to manga and anime, there are still other things that I am attracted to, than manga and anime.

In Japan otaku are attracted to these things. We may associate "otaku" with other things.

Yes, different things. My brother-in-law is otaku but not autistic. I'm autistic but not otaku. Though I suppose some people might be both.