Embracing defeat

This is not about the book with the same name, though it is similarly about Japan. Somehow, through my interactions with the Japanese, I get this impression from them that they feel it is okay to lose. I mean, I am not against being willing to admit defeat, after all, that is one of the mentality important for taiji (which I practise). However, the Japanese seems to think very lightly about the concept of defeat. It almost seems to me that they think it is okay to lose. They don't seem to understand the severity of losing. The concept "there is no prize for second place" seems like an alien concept to them.

Maybe it is because they have never really lost... no foreign power has ever conquered Japan except for the US, which occupied Japan after WW2. And even then, the US treated the Japanese very different from other occupation forces; there was no widespread rape, pillage or oppression. Then again, it was also because the end of WW2 was also the start of the Cold War, and the US needed a cooperative Japan to contain Red Soviet. Having never suffered under the hands of victors, this might be the reason why they do not have a concept that defeat can bring dire consequences.