Funny you mention the Japanese...my company's headquarters are in Japan and the culture in my facility is kind of a bastardized version of what the Japanese were doing years ago. The Japanese expats in my facility are quite honestly more reasonable and logical in their thinking and actions than many of the Americans that run the place are.

I remember asking an expat if the kids there (in JP) still had 6 day / week school and he said "no we figured out it's bad for them so we stopped doing that".

I don't mind working hard and I like being productive but the corporate culture in the U.S. has become completely insane to the point where it's nearly impossible to get anything meaningful accomplished. Unfortunately I've only been in the corporate world for just shy of a decade so I can't say "oh it didnt' used to be this way..." and know for sure that I'm correct in saying that.