The Japanese are a unique Nation that cannot be compared to about anyone else. What Country can you name in history that met Admiral Perry with swords and a few muskets and in about 50 years sunk the Russian Pacific and Atlantic fleets. Then, in about another 50 years takes on the US the same way ( but lost the war ).
My wife is married to a Japanese national and their boy studies up to 10pm almost every day. The school he attends expects every student to bow to every teacher, administrator, or adult the come across in class or in the hallway or their out of the class. He gets 1 week off a year during the summer.
The South is different too. I happen to have read a letter from a Southerner during the 1840's defending slavery. The culture was totally different. Without judging them as good or bad, I see the South having undergone change from Slavery to having Slavs like in Russia. While the Tsar abolished around the 1840s ( I think ) the institution, the mentality remained. Old ideas die slow.
I'll add this, though it's off topic. The Chinese Communist mentality is different too!. I'm married to a Chinese and when I met my father-in-law, his response to guns or anything else in the Bill of Rights was, "your rights comes from the government". Remember that when the Democrats want to be elected.