zlacker

That's because fax machines in Japan were much more widespread than in the west. It is easier to let go of fax machines if you don't really use fax in the first place.

One reason I heard is that in Tokyo at least, the usual way to communicate a location is to draw a map, often with directions from the nearest subway station. Postal addresses are hard to work with as most streets are unnamed, and usually, only local postmen and policemen can comfortably navigate with them. These maps were often sent by fax. Maybe kanji has to do with it too.

Also, it is common for people who have good access to at a time modern technology to take more time to get to the next advance, may even skip it entirely. For example Japan was along the last in the technologically advanced world to get to smartphones, because they already had really advanced featurephones while we were stuck with Nokia 3310s. So while for us, the first smartphones brought us a lot, for them, it was in many ways a downgrade.

So, for us, email was a replacement for slow and expensive mail, for them, it was a replacement for already pretty fast and effective fax machines. There is less of an incentive to change.

>>GuB-42+(OP)
"Postal addresses are hard to work with as most streets are unnamed, and usually, only local postmen and policemen can comfortably navigate with them."

Another example of a silly and easily fixable problem that will likely also go unresolved for years for the same cultural reasons.