Well, that is not a phenomenon happened in East Aisa society. Actually, it happened in every developed country in their early stage. People just forget how their great great parents worked in the factories.
That is simply like a new employee with zero experience, less knowledge. How does he or she get promoted? Working harder, longer and study when other people is sleeping.
Actually, India is doing the exactly same thing:
Indian employees work longest, paid least globally with no leisure hours, claims ILO report - BusinessToday
For the countries which has been existed for thousand years, the belief that they don't know how to adjust their life and social culture is just laughable as believe that a society has only one kind of structure and life style.
Actually, if you take a close look of these East Asia countries, you will find that things have always been changing. The new generation of youth is starting to choose a different route of their education, life and career.
Japan's problem is that they already reach their roof economically but they can't break their political and diplomatic limit put in by Americans: they are not a genuine independent country.