I don't think anyone is saying that Asian cultures are strange an alien, just that there's a lot of media set within Asia that deals with concepts of honor so, you know, if you wanted to make a campaign based off of
the half of the things on this page that happen to be set within Asia or made by Asians, that could be a useful game mechanic for that feel.
Plus, you might want to look up the idea of Shame Societies and Guilt Societies at some point. And then think about if morality in those stories comes from the person or from the society in whicih they are embedded. And then for extra fun, think about Japan's crime rate and why American media loves the Kardashians.
But here it's not "In order to roleplay as an Asian, you must have an Honor score because this is a real-world biological difference between people," it is "Here is something that might be useful for emulating pulpy samurai movies from the 70's."
Except... you are.
If you don't think there are Japanese equivalents to the Kardassians, you don't know much about Japanese celebrities. They love scandal. There are magazines put out every week blasting the scandals of various celebrities. The worse some act, the more attention they gain.
The truth is-- the "honor" thing is all a matter of translation. You REALLY don't think that concept exists just as strongly in the West?
From the launching of a thousand ships towards Troy to retrieve one woman and a siege upon the walled city of Jericho without any siege weapons (and systematic slaughter of all living things in the city) to the men who fought impossible odds at the Alamo or by Custards' side to the men who ran up the hill at Iwo Jima just to plant a flag when still surrounded by enemy fire or the Russians men who charged the Nazi lines and kept fighting even when it cost half the lives of the men of that nation (some even going in there unarmed expecting to loot the bodies of dead friends or foes alike to arm themselves!).
There are countless stories in the west of family feuds, some of which go too far (Romeo & Juliet) but just as often vengeance for one's family is considered righteous. Hell, it is probably the #1 motivation for pulp heroes today-- the Phantom, Batman, Punisher to Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards... Just as often are stories of missions passed on from fathers to sons or from uncles to nephews, taking up the dreams of one's family after they fall is by no means limited to Japanese stories.
There is no difference except translation. Somehow if one were translating from Japanese or Chinese, the tendency is to write "honor, honor, honor, honor" all over these things to express the motivation of every person who chooses to take on something with little to no hope of victory and risking ones life in violent pitched battle-- whether it be out of loyalty to one's nation, obedience to one's tribal leader, adherence to one's religion, living up to or redeeming one's family's name, wronging another in order to "even the score" against them having wronged you....
The thing is that when it is done in western stories you describe all these various things with different words to describe the different shades of these motivations. Patriotism, loyalty, obedience, faith, duty, justice, vengeance, redemption... oh, and PRIDE. PRIDE is a BIG one. Probably half the time you claim a Japanese person is acting out of "honor", you would describe the same person from any other culture acting out of pride. But once the person you are talking about is Japanese, you ball it all up into one word "honor" and attribute that to the only possible motivation that anyone who is Japanese could possibly have rather than giving them the same nuisance you would if you were talking about a nonJapanese subject.
On the other hand, the only time I have heard Japanese people in a modern day setting prattle on about "honor" it was those written by white people. I've seen several dozen dramas made by Japanese for Japanese in Japan, I have lived in Japan for 5 years and I swear I have never once heard the word "honor" used ever. Only very rarely do I hear it in period pieces set during wartime. It is just white people who think Japanese use the word every third sentence they speak. Seriously-- it is a racists stereotype. Take any Japanese person written by a white person and see how long they can go before saying the word "honor". Maybe it occasionally comes up in a period piece, but even then it is RARE compared to when white people are writing it.
But, more to the point, just because there is a tendency to use a dozen words to describe the same motivations when talking about western people in no way means that the overall concept is valued any less or any less lionized. It is quite clearly just as important to Americans and Europeans and they have just as much disdain for people who display a lack of it.
Hell-- that ought to have been starkly clear with Americans saying things like "You are either with us or against us!" and plastering "I support the troops!!" everywhere indicating that once a single soldier had been sent to war, the entire nation must be 100% in favor of the war and contribute to the war in every way possible or was otherwise a traitor to the nation. There is nothing even remotely approaching that mentality in modern Japan-- so, frankly, it would be more true to say Americans are far more obsessed with "honor" than Japanese are. You just avoid calling it that.
