I worked for a Japanese car manufacturer in Derby for 12 years, working alongside workers from our parent plants in Toyota City, it took me quite a while to adjust to the way they worked and thought. Their training was very different to ours with no formal apprenticeships like we did. At work they were solemn and very focussed, but take them out of work for a beer and they were hilarious, so different. In the end I actually preferred working with them more than the Brits, honesty was something they had in spades, no back stabbing to get to the top, keen workers, pretty much everything the Brits were not. I was advised(not by John Cleese) to not talk about the war, but some did, they seemed very sad that their forefathers had behaved the way they did. I was invited to go to Japan, but as I was leaving the company a few weeks later, I declined and let a colleague go, my mistake I should have gone as it was my project, oh well.