> It is pretty beautiful how such small, centuries-old traditions seem to abound in Japan, where the condition of the west seems to be a state of persistent impermanence.
Orientalism at its finest...
First of all, "the west" is not a single monolithic block, but dozens of countries, each one with its own peculiarities.
Second, Western countries also have plenty of traditions, in the case of Europe going back centuries or even millennia. The thing is that the environment you grew up in doesn't seem fancy to you, it is just normal life.
Third, some Japanese people care about traditions, some do not, same as Western people. Heck, to me it seems like Japan lives in a state of permanent consumerism, always catching the latest popular anime or idol group.
> It is pretty beautiful how such small, centuries-old traditions seem to abound in Japan, where the condition of the west seems to be a state of persistent impermanence.
Japan is a monoethnic nation. Much of the West isn't anymore for various reasons, to the degree where people engaging in "centuries-old traditions" are seen as weird or even racist.
And in a different tack, there is the fascinating concept of "change merchants"[0] that may help better understand why everything seems to be swirling around so quickly.
> Now the Japanese people are understandably concerned about maintaining their traditions in the face of massive Western cultural influences.
I lived in Japan for some time and this sentence is a gross generalization. Some right-wingers in Japan are attempting to maintain their traditions, but the rest of the population either couldn't care less, or has fully embraced western culture. You don't have to look hard (or at all, really) to see the evidence. Speaking English is (and has been) considered "cool" and you can find popular music artists dropping the occasional English words in songs, in their mangas, anime or in their dramas. A walk around any city with over 20k people and you can see western influence quite literally everywhere. Nobody is rushing to tear it down or even denounce it.
There are a few extreme right-wing nationalists who might, but they're the fringe. They're smaller in size than America's Tea Party and should not be taken seriously.
> Thus, when Japan sent troops to Korea and annexed it in 1910, Japanese military leaders celebrated the annexation as the restoration of the legitimate arrangement of antiquity.
No, this is incorrect. At the very least, it's extremely misleading. China and Japan were fighting and both countries attempted to snatch up Korea as part of the first Sino war. It had nothing to do with their "restoration of legitimate arrangement of antiquity". That may have been their reasoning long after but it's not something any historians worth his salt would say was the reason for China and Japan's interest in Korea. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sino-Japanese_War#Conflic...
> Regarding social development, my feeling is that Japan is one or two generations behind Western countries.
There are a great many “western” countries where this is even worse than Japan including the one so often named the primordial “western” country.
I have no idea idea why so often when Japanese culture specifically is discussed the idea is sooner or later proffered that there is some homogeneous “western” culture with common elements that supposedly exists. It certainly doesn't seem to rise when, say, Russian, or Indian culture is discussed.
>But from what I have read in this thread, much of the speculation about the loss of the 'unique' Japanese culture has more to do about what is happening in the west than what will happen in Japan.
Yes. Japan has become sort of an ideal example of a successful modern ethnostate for Western opponents of multiculturalism. A lot of fears Westerners express about Japan losing its cultural homogeneity are just a proxy for fears of the loss of white power and identity in the US and Europe, as an expression of the current right-wing xenophobic reactionary shift going on in the West.
It's just a weird new form of Orientalism. Instead of fetishising them for their art, or their business practices, or their "submissive" women, we're fetishizing their ethnic identity and racial purity.
> It is pretty beautiful how such small, centuries-old traditions seem to abound in Japan, where the condition of the west seems to be a state of persistent impermanence.
You own traditions often seem trivial and normal compared to foreign ones. Especially so anglosaxon ones because of all the popculture and merchandise. But they are just as bizzare and ingrained in culture when you look at them from a different POV.
I'm from a western Slavic country - not that much different from western Europe. Yet Haloween, "telling the bees" or even baby gender reveal parties seem completely alien to me.
On the other hand we have a barely christianized fertility ritual during which boys sprinkle girls with water :)
>It's not correct to lump all westerners into one group like that.
You're nitpicking. Sweedes, Danes, Russians and really everybody in the Western hemisphere is miles more individualist than the Japanese.
The irony is that you seem to be mistaking me for an American while having no real counterpoint; the fact remains that we're probably missing a cultural element.
>Isn't there any room for respect for traditional Japanese culture?
Is culture a blanket excuse for bad behavior? Just because a country has a history of doing something doesn't make it worth respecting. Bad things are bad no matter how long they've been practiced.
> I think you hearing an alt-right dog whistle is exactly the Western-centric attitude I was referring to.
That's because the alt-right uses Japan as a proxy for its own anti-immigration and racialist views, particularly in regards to to Muslim and Eastern European immigrants. It seems to me to be a new form of Orientalism.
>If you think there's no racial tension between native Japanese and Korean/Chinese immigrants I have some news for you.
There definitely is, but that depends on one's definition of "race."
But that tension has existed for hundreds if not thousands of years (obvious post-WW2 sentiments notwithstanding) so I don't see that contributing to the disruption of Japanese culture since it's been a constant in Japanese culture for so long.
I find this is mostly because the West can't fathom that Japan might have different values -- for example their unwillingness to sacrifice cultural homogeniety on the altar of economic growth.
> I would sincerely like to get a breakdown of all the factors that contribute to the Japanese living to such an old age, rather than the usual "this one weird trick" bullshit that Economist and others try to swindle on the Western readership.
Why is it that the term “western" is so often at some point introduce with some implication some culturally cohesive unit called “the west” exists any time Japan in particular is mentioned somewhere?
I find that very often when this happens, and when attributes of this supposed “western” culture are listed, it seems to mostly mean “The Anglo-Saxon world”, not so much “the west”.
The last time it happened on H.N. where someone complained about a sensationalist “western" article about Japan, it was pointed out that it was posted in a Japanese newspaper, and a translation from an original Japanese article, however sensationalist it might be.
Other than that, yes, there is probably not a single simple rule that governs it but a myriad of factors that contribute with many no doubt also working in the opposite direction, such as Japan's famously stressful workplace life and the high suicide rate of office workers.
>or example their unwillingness to sacrifice cultural homogeniety on the altar of economic growth.
Every time I hear this argument (and it comes up in just about every thread about Japan's economy or culture) I can't help but hear an alt-right dog whistle.
Because, of course, Japan has a long history of incorporating culture from elsewhere - both from their Asian neighbors and the West, but when you talk about "homogeneity" in relation to Japan, people tend to think first about ethnicity and race, since they're ~98% ethnically Japanese.
And I'm not entirely certain can I see the link between "cultural homogeneity" and "economic growth" ... until I realize you're talking about immigration. Which is odd because most immigrants to Japan are Asian, and not likely to disturb their "cultural homogeneity" much, and the tiny, tiny fraction from elsewhere are definitely not likely to do so.
Maybe that's just me and my cooling fan is acting up, though.
> It's ingrained in Japanese culture that they often put too much pressure on themselves.
This just sounds like reverse Orientalism. Japanese culture might have a bigger emphasis on civic duties, but on a national level it's clearly a hit and miss: consider that WW2 apologists are still popular in some sector of Japan. (And I'm not trying to blame Japan here, I mean, most countries aren't much better.)
> Obviously, as the author notes, it didn't really pan out that way. Some cultural exports of Japan are without much doubt very popular and there are commonalities in culture, but every region and country still has its own way to deal with future changes, and in many cases very different demograhpics. There's no need to reduce it to any generic *-ification.
Very true. I think it’s undeniable that certain subcultures arose due to influence from Japanese cultural exports. But it’s a bit of a stretch to call it “Japanification”.
> If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly.
In my experience, these tactics don't really work in any culture.
> They have being open to foreign cultural influences since Meiji era, and I don’t see that changing.
Their legislature is called the Diet, after German practice, for crying out loud.
It's good that you brought up the Meiji Restoration, as the very fact that Japan became a world power, whose cultural projection is now global, was because they carefully adopted foreign practices and brought in foreign advisors as necessary for their society to flourish.
> Is Japan of 1950 also Japan of 2050? Its a sort of ship-of-Theseus issue
Is a house the same house if your tear it down and build a factory?
> but when we recognize that cultures evolve, grow, mix, adapt, and continually become something wonderful, it's less of a concern in my mind.
It should be noted that's the opinion of Western liberals, who are pretty culturally imperialistic and expect and demand that other cultures adopt their values and adapt to their preferences.
> Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a cultural desert for us, Westerners, right now.
I'm a late millenial and I would completely disagree. In fact from my perspective growing up and living on the West coast I'd argue that the only significant cultural imports into the US are from Mexico, the UK, and Japan, and to a much lesser extent Korea.
For one, sushi is incredibly popular amongst virtually everyone I know. Probably the single most popular foreign food choice, perhaps in a tie with "Mexican" which I put in quotes because American Mexican food is typically significantly different from authentic Mexican food while American Sushi is far closer to the real thing, at least in my experience.
As other people have mentioned video games are another absolutely huge cultural import from Japan, and the Japanese have created at outsized number of the most beloved franchises. I'm not sure I know a single person who isn't familliar with at least one Japanese-created video game character, Mario and Pikachu have a lot of reach! I don't think I could say that about even US videogames. Pokemon all by itself is absolutely massive, and I think in this conversation it is noteworthy that Pokemon Go! is the only successful AR title to date (that I'm aware of).
Not to mention Samurai and Ninjas are well known amongst virtually everyone I've met. I can't claim similar about the warriors of other countries.
It's also worth noting the Made in Japan is very much synonymous with high quality, and they have tons of brands that are very successful in this vein: Toyota, Honda, Sony, Hitachi, Makita, Nikon/Canon just to name a few.
Finally I think saying that "apart from anime" is a pretty huge cop out. Most people around my age watched a significant amount of anime shows growing up, and many still do. These aren't tech bros either-I didn't grow up in the Bay- just normal people with blue collar careers who will very much talk your ear off about anime. If we're talking about movies, Studio Ghibli continues to be *extremely* popular even amongst people who *aren't* into anime.
Elsewhere in the thread you say that you were under the impression that Japanese fever had eclipsed, but I really don't think it has, you also wrote
>I certainly do notice the fascination Japan as a country still holds among many in the tech-crowd scene like is the case for many HN-ers in here, but I thought that was a local and contained phenomenon.
I can honestly say nope! fascination with Japan is a very common phenomenon amongst a lot of people, from many walks of life and I honestly don't see it changing.
> Most cultures absolutely do. Japanese culture is teh exception not the rule.
By what measure? Most of the world is African and Asian, and those cultures are not individualistic.
> Of course it does. Those two things are not mutually exclusive at all. Unless you take one of them way too far like the Japanese do, with no discernible benefit.
The Japanese system produces tremendous benefits: an orderly society where everyone behaves according to rules.
> That's not because of individualism, that's because of corruption, lack of regulation and enforcement, wealth disparity etc.
Japan has corruption, wealth disparity, etc., as well. That isn't the thing that makes it different. Every society has those forces. Individualism just makes it harder to build a nice society in spite of them.
> Other western countries with the same focus on individualism have very nice and clean cities.
Most western countries aren't as individualistic as America. They're different than Asia, which is based on strong family networks, but it's not the worship of self that prevails in America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante.
> The sooner any and all religions become forgotten, the better we will all be for it.
I wouldn't hold my breath, given that the world is becoming more religious: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is.... Christianity was the glue holding American society together, and now that's breaking down we are seeing the consequences.
Of course. It's 2014, and "western influence" includes things like technology and pop culture.
That doesn't mean that "attempting to maintain their traditions" is confined to some right wingers.
You probably conflate people trying to maintain their traditions actively (as most Japanese do) to vocal ideologists about maintaining traditions.
Maintaining traditions is not about that.
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