Images of Japan
This page is UTF-8 encoded and requires Japanese fonts

Third Collage

Mercantilist Economy

As President Clinton once remarked at a meeting of Pacific Rim countries in Seattle, Japan is the only industrially advanced nation in the world, that has maintained an uninterrupted trade surplus with the US for more than two decades. More important perhaps is that Japan has been running a surplus with the world for just as long.

Money is a paper claim on a society's productive assets and output. A country that runs a surplus with another country trades its own productive output for paper claims on another's country's assets. These claims, should they become large, can threaten the sovereignty of the deficit country, if one has the authority to enforce one's legal claims over it. Such threats are an invitation to political tension and conflict.

During the 1980's when Japanese headlines claimed that Japan would overtake the United States economically, the French Prime Minister remarked with horror that Japan wanted to rule the world. These are strong words coming from the leader of a country that is Europe's severest critic of the US and has few economic ties with Japan. Was wanting to rule the world a hidden desire of many Japanese, or was it the frenetic exasperation of yet another Westerner who did not understand Japan?

Japanese character can be characterized in many ways, both good and bad, but in this context three of the more negative Japanese character traits stand out: envy, vengeance and suspicion. Many Japanese would sooner do injury to another behind his back for a perceived injustice than confront him with it to his face and put the matter to an end. Recovering economically that which Japan lost militarily during World War II could easily prove satisfying to those Japanese who are still bitter about the war. It would be a way for them to restore their sense of pride without a direct affront to the United States and to those Japanese who remain grateful to the US for Japan's recovery.

Many hundreds of years ago European merchant fleets roamed the world looking for new sources of wealth. Long after Adam Smith made it clear that gold was neither something one can eat, nor something with which edible goods are produced, the accumulation of gold continued to determine the national behavior of most European nations.⁹ The policy of "beggar thy neighbor" meant taking natural resources from undeveloped colonies abroad, producing industrial goods at home and then selling them to one's adversaries in exchange for gold. Obtaining one's neighbors gold was believed to be a means to impoverish them. This mercantile policy not only led to numerous conflicts of a global nature among the nations that followed it, but it left many other countries of the non-industrial world in misery from which they have yet to recover. Is not the paper, that Japanese so eagerly accumulate today, like the gold of 19th century colonists?

Japanese often excuse their country's behavior by stating that Japan's survival depends on the natural resources of other countries; moreover, they state that Japan donates large sums of money to international and national financial institutions. Although much of East Asia and many others countries of the world are grateful to Japan for this assistance, other more advanced nations of the world see it as a means for Japanese elite to improve Japan's world image and peddle influence among less industrialized nations. Why does Japan have to earn more than it consumes? Japan does not need a surplus to insure a steady flow of natural resources; it has only to make sure that it can make payment through the sale of its own goods abroad. Many Japanese denounce the profit motive of Western companies, but say nothing when their own national government is the world's biggest "profit taker". Surely something is amiss!

High Trust Society

Although both Japan and the United States have been labeled "high trust" societies, to suggest that state intervention has not been required in Japan to insure the formation and maintenance of corporate groups is nonsense.¹⁰ Nationally administered education programs, ­ a direct form of government support, play a vital role in the training of young Japanese to accept the organizational controls that determine the relationships of trust necessary to make Japan's large corporations function. This is not the case in the United States, where the teaching of behavior and social etiquette is more often left to the family and church. One may argue that Japan's family relationships contributed significantly to Japan's early industrialization; notwithstanding, the cause and effect relationship today appears to be quite the opposite.

Although young Japanese pass through a brief period at the beginning of their employment careers during which they likely switch jobs several times, most settle into one company fairly quickly and remain there until they retire. It is in their company of final choice where the group dynamics to which Japanese were exposed in school reap both economic and social benefits. Without the long term expectation of working in the same firm until one retires, the group behavior learned in school would likely disappear for lack of reinforcement. Certainly, the hierarchical traditions inherited from China and taught in Japanese homes also contribute significantly to the close knit organizational structure of Japanese society. Nevertheless, the corporate and industrial group spirit for which Japan has become famous could not exist without the rigorous group dynamics to which Japanese youth are subjected while in school.

Let us now turn to the other side of Japan's "high trust" society. The Japanese people have a reputation for being shy, humble, and polite. Notwithstanding, depending on the individual these same descriptive attributes can be easily replaced with introverted, distrustful, and deceptive. If one adds envious, conceited, and vengeful to this latter list, one quickly begins to understand why Japanese society requires such tight group organization to give it the "high trust" reputation that it has apparently earned abroad. It can also help to explain why many Japanese say of their own society and other Japanese that they are warui (bad).

Mind you, the goal here is not to trash Japanese society by diminishing its good points. All of the above attributes, both negative and positive, are thoroughly human and can be found in all societies. Like genes, human personality traits are generally universal, but found in different proportions in each culture. This is what gives each of us a particular cultural identity and each of our respective societies its own "personality".

So what would cause the people of a society like Japan to be so shy, humble, and polite? Of course, conflict avoidance is part of the reason, but there are others. Most everyone would agree, for example, that few Japanese want to be the nail sticking out. If it is the fear of being pounded down, that induces Japanese to conform, then there must be someone doing the pounding. Many Westerner's look to the iron hand of the Japanese state, when seeking a culprit, and thereby ignore some of the more built-in features of Japanese society -- ­ namely, one's neighbors, co-workers, and family.

In a society in which direct confrontation is to be avoided when someone does something that one does not like, one has either to grin and bear it, try to ignore it, or act on it. Running to authority is not a good solution, unless you have good reason to trust the person in charge. Though going to one's boss, teacher, parent, community leader, priest or law enforcement officer would appear the "grown up" thing to do, these people are often busy and do not want to be bothered by the petty squabbles of those over whom they exercise authority. Moreover, complaining to one's superior can easily backfire, because the person complaining can just as easily be perceived as the source of the trouble, rather than its victim. After all there are two sides to every argument, and people who complain are often considered weak or incompetent and unable to handle their own affairs. As a result, the resolution -- or often non-resolution -- of many problems is achieved through indirect means that by Western standards are considered cowardly, treacherous, or crooked acts -- ­ hardly the ingredients of a "high trust" society.

Revenge can be sought either together with one's peers, or individually, if the vengeance seeker fears that he may appear as the true source of the trouble. If one's peers are sympathetic, because they too have been offended by the same wrongdoer, then there is comfort in numbers, and bullying of various sorts is in the cards. Although such acts are often direct, they are more often not, because both sides are likely to be punished, if either side is caught. In most urban settings, where one barely knows one's neighbors and often prefers to ignore them, one is left to one's own invention. Unfortunately, alone or with others, getting back at one's opponent indirectly almost always leads to more misunderstanding, because the one who is being punished does not always know why or by whom, and may not even be the source of the trouble!

Moreover, in a society in which everyone avoids speaking to anyone whom one does not know, and everyone is either an insider or an outsider to one's own group, gossip becomes the primary source of understanding of those about whom we know very little. As a result correct information about oneself can easily be misinterpreted or purposefully twisted by those who perceive one as an enemy or a potential threat to the established order. Moreover, correcting the false interpretations that result is often difficult, unless one is already an insider to the group in which the gossip is being bandied about. Accordingly, saying a little to the wrong people might easily result in isolation from the very groups to which one wishes to gain entry, or might someday wish to belong.

Moreover, many Japanese are not good at self-expression, because they learn fairly early that their own opinions are rarely determinant and that following the opinions of those in charge is likely to lead to better reward. Notwithstanding, one cannot go through life forever doubting one's own importance, especially in a society that places so much emphasis on the results of highly competitive examinations. Consequently, the humble character that a Japanese typically displays on the surface necessarily conceals a strong sense of pride that could easily be tarnished by remarks on the part of those who only see the surface.

Thus, in the Japanese mind it is better to say nothing, nurture one's self-image with a minimum of exposure, do as one is told until the moment is right, and then pounce on what is "rightfully" one's own in such a way that no one sees or no argument is possible. Knowing the right moment is of course very important, and takes a good deal of familiarity with one's social environment. Thus, cultivating relationships within one's group and surrounding oneself with those whose behavior one can easily anticipate is of primary importance.

Obviously, not all Japanese think the same, and there are many ways to interpret the same phenomena. In any case, the images that Japanese portray and lie beneath are easily different. They are also images that can easily fool those who have not spent many hours living and working closely with those who portray them. A good salesman is someone who demonstrates concern for his customer and only shows the negative aspects of his products when he is compelled to do so. In Japan it is not so much what one sees, as that which one does not, and it takes an enormous amount of time to penetrate Japan's thick social veneer (tatemae).

Even as one moves away from the cold, impersonal, social atmosphere of manshon- living in the naka-ku of Japan's ultra-modern urban centers into the quaint single-dwelling residential districts of Tôkyô's shitamachi, superficial relationships with one's neighbors appears to be the preferred relationship.¹¹ The same thick, polite layer of propriety that pervades Japan's commercial sector also dominates Japan's neighborhood communities. Many years may pass before one advances beyond simple aisatsu (Japanese greetings), and it is quite possible to live side-by-side with someone for years without ever really talking to him. In Japan one observes one's neighbors and talks about them with others far more than one communicates with them directly. Communication, when it does occur, is often achieved through indirect, highly visible, symbolic gestures, that are made when one is not present, but suddenly discovered after those who have made them have already disappeared. Some of these gestures become permanent features of one's neighborhood landscape, others disappear just as quickly as they become known. Talking too much leaves one vulnerable to gossip. The less one says, the greater the aura of mystery under which one can shroud oneself. The unknown instills fears in one's neighbors that one offsets with polite greetings, and thereby gains respect. One does not leave one's doors unlocked, and one is wary of each and every stranger that passes in front of it. Barking dogs are every where to announce the coming and going of strangers.

Yes, it is true that one can forget things in public places only to find them again after many hours or even days, but this is because there are dozens of eyes watching them and waiting to see, if the original owner does not return to claim them. Things whose owners are easily identified are rarely taken, but things that are not, such as money, or things whose theft can be easily concealed, such as train passes left in ticket machines, are rarely returned even when they bare the person's name. There are not a few steel and iron grates in the most tightly knit, urban communities of Japan.

Collective Society
Privacy and Private Property

Many Western observers view Japanese group behavior and conclude that Japan is a collective -- even socialist society -- with little sense of privacy and private ownership. (There is a standing joke among foreign residents of Japan, that Japan is everything that the former Soviet Union wanted to become, but could not.) Although it is true that Japanese are gregarious, their sense of group belong differs significantly from say that of their Latin American counterparts, who often treat the personal property of another as part of the group's. Indeed, Japanese are very clear about what is shared and what is not. This is not to say that a public authority cannot invade a citizen's privacy or confiscate his belongings with relative impunity. What it does say, however, is that one Japanese citizen will rarely infringe on another's privacy or property without permission, unless of course, he is a thief or hopelessly ill-behaved. Nor does it say, that a person will not strongly object when one takes what does not belong to him -- even if it is a public authority. On those rare occasions when a person does accidentally take the belongings of another, a very long and sincere apology ensues. Indeed, in a society where suspicion of one's neighbors runs high and social harmony is sought, a known thief has little chance for survival.

Japanese do prefer to do things in well-organized groups; they even enjoy bathing nude in the mixed company of strangers. This does not mean, however, that they have a poor sense of private ownership, nor does it mean that they are lacking in privacy. Trains filled with people, like cattle going to slaughter in rush hour traffic, might indicate that Japanese have little understanding of where the individual begins and the public leaves off, but these are not the same as crowded beaches where carefully aligned towels measuring barely more than a foot in width serve as clear demarcation lines of one's personal space. Moreover, the neatly ordered lines that form atop platforms just prior to cramming oneself into a crowded train car suggests a very different image from the faces, limbs, and torsos squashed, squeezed, and pressed against the windows and doors just after loading and before unloading. Also, do foreign observers truly take note that just after baseball, sumô is Japan's most favorite national sport? The entire object of the support is to drive the opposing side out of the ring, or bring him to the ground while he is in it. Sumô was popular in Japan long before the commercial tug-of-war between Japan and the US took center stage and baseball became popular.

Without saying so much as excuse me someone might reach over another's bowl of udon (thick, soft noodles) to obtain a bottle of shôyu (soy sauce), because this latter belongs to the restaurant and is placed on the counter for everyone's use. Does this indicate lack respect for another's personal space? Probably not. Rather, it would be considered far ruder to break the silence that is carefully nurtured among strangers and serves as a protective shield against unwanted intrusion into ones private mental space.

Many foreigners are shocked that personnel managers would tap the telephone lines of troubled employees in order to determine the source of trouble and resulting social friction or disruption. On the other hand, many employees are fearful of talking about personal matters to other employees, let alone their bosses, because they wish to avoid placing personal interests above those of their group. No one wants to appear weak or unable to endure on behalf of the team. Indeed, where many Japanese fail to see the forest for the trees, many foreigners fail to see the trees for the forest.

In a society in which the majority of the population lives on a narrow stretch of land between Tôkyô and Ôsaka, and litigation is either strongly discouraged or highly impractical, private space and private property are defined and enforced differently. Indeed, Japanese have a very keen sense of personal space. Simply, one must understand that the group is more important than the individual, and when the welfare of the group is threatened those in charge are compelled to intervene. If they do not do it, who will? No one.

In Japan one is very clear about where one's personal space begins and ends.

Rice Culture and Village Society

A Japanese might wonder how a foreigner coming from the United States could ever begin to comprehend the intricacies of Japanese rice farming. The large wheat plantations of USAmerica's central plain states, the mammoth cotton, rice, and soybean fields of USAmerica's historical South, and the many acres of open Western prairie that serve the home of USAmerica's free-roaming cattle must contrast starkly with Japan's more traditional image of peasant rice farmers. The contrast was not always so great, however.

In 1820 -- just a few short decades before the beginning of the Meiji Restoration -- 80% of US citizens were farmers.^{12, 13}  If one goes back just a little further -- say, the life span of an average adult male in those days; the percentage of US citizens engaged in agriculture was a whopping ninety-five percent! With the exception of Southern plantation slaves and a small number of indentured servants from West and Central Europe the vast majority of early USAmerican farmers worked on small independent plots of land. These farmers depended closely on one another for certain vital, collective needs including protection against hostile Indian groups whose land they now occupied, the building of family dwellings for protection against the elements, and the organization of small towns and communities of varying degrees of sophistication.

Obviously the lives of late 18th and early 19th century USAmerican farmers and Japanese peasantry were different, but the more important differences lay not in the actual work and cooperative effort of individual farmers and peasants, rather in the relationships that these farmers and peasants shared with those who ruled over them.

In Japan powerful daimyô (feudal landlords) collected nengu (annual tribute) from peasants, who tilled the land controlled by the daimyô. This tribute sustained the daimyô and loyal bands of warriors called samurai, who enforced the daimyô's will and provided protection against the samurai of hostile daimyô. Competition between diamyô for land, wealth, and power was kept in check by a powerful military ruler called a shôgun. These shôgun were the effective rulers of Japan for several hundred years. During the Tokugawa shogunate that lasted from 1603 until the beginning of the meiji ishin (Meiji Restoration) one's social status and freedom of movement was strictly controlled. This did not prevent peasants from rebellion, however, when economic hardship and daimyô demands were in direct contradiction.

In contrast USAmerican farmers were relatively free of a central authority. After the  USAmerican War of Independence feudal agriculture was abolished. Although slavery continued in some states, it was banned in others.  In effect, the vast majority of USAmerican farmers were relatively free and independent. Although taxed by state government both the nature and the amount of tax that was paid varied from state to state. Many farmers paid no taxes at all. As free-land was generally available to everyone, few people went hungry, and one could always relocate should conditions worsen.

Although USAmerican farmers were obviously more independent than their Japanese counterparts, collective effort and individual hard work prevailed in both nations. Thus, Japanese who depict themselves as peaceful, collective rice farmers and USAmerican as wild independent frontiersmen perform a grave injustice to the peoples of both nations. How these same historians link Japanese rice culture with Japanese corporate culture also requires an important leap of faith only palpable within the framework of nihonjin-ron.

Of course, the Ninomiya Kinjirô of historical Japan are long gone, and their once inspiring image has steadily diminished in importance; nevertheless, independent Japanese rice farmers remain a bastion of Japanese history and tradition -- as they do in both France, South Korea, and other parts of the world.¹⁴ Then too, the agricultural trade disputes between the United States and Japan, and Japan and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are hardly limited to rice production.

Neurotic Society
A nation of many complexes

It is not unusual for Japanese to speak of feelings of inferiority toward the West and feelings of superiority toward the nations of the East. Although the historical justification for these attitudes is clear, it is also weak and difficult to rationalize upon careful examination. Nevertheless, these attitudes prevail in the minds of many who believe that Asians have little to offer Japan, and the West has little to gain from Japan in the way of culture. The underlying motivation for this conceptual diametric appears to be that of technological acquisition, military domination, and cultural isolation.

When Japanese look about them and see everything they have taken from other cultures, they feel that there is little left that is truly theirs. As a result they cling to what remains with the tenacity of frightened children, distrustful vagabonds, and wary peasants, fearful that the world's neo-colonial landlords will rob them of their only remaining cultural possessions.

Of course, many Japanese argue that this is simply untrue and point to Japan's world famous tea ceremony (sadô), flower arranging (ikebana), raw fish cuisine (sushi), rice wine (sake), wrestling (sumô), theâtre (kabuki, nô, kyôgen, etc.), and sound boxes (karaoke). Japanese have no reason to feel ashamed they claim, and they scold those Japanese who express shame toward the outside.

What many Japanese fail to understand is the often symbolic character of what they export.  For example, few Japanese practice ikebana and sadô, nor do they regularly attend kabuki and nô plays. Even eating sushi, watching sumô, and drinking karaoke -- activities in which most Japanese likely participate in some form or other on a regular basis -- are utilized as symbolic commericial tools. Indeed, sumô has become a world symbol for Japan's economic tug-of-war on trade issues with the United States, and sushi and sake are veritable business traps for overseas newcomers, who understand neither the language of sushi nor the logic of champon (starting a meal with beer and ending it with warm sake). Indeed, how many foreigners that visit Japan for the first time realize that each English word they speak is one less yen that their Japanese host must pay to attend still another hour of English language lessons?

In effect, these representations of Japanese culture have been carefully selected by Japan's appointed and self-appointed cultural ambassadors to achieve certain ends. So often have they been utilised for this purpose, they are now a standard package of cultural exchange employed by all Japanese when hosting foreign guests. Indeed, most foreigners coming to Japan as tourists probably feel cheated, if they do not experience at least some or all of them upon their first visit. This is unfortunate, because national culture is far more complex and much more practical. It is a vast complex of thought and behavior that dictate the way in which people of a common culture interact, think, and behave. Mastering a foreign culture usually requires mastery of its language as well.

Certainly, there are those many things that Japan has obtained from other countries, but this is true of most countries, and especially modern countries that have access to instantaneous communication and rapid transportation networks. The Japan that fears that its cultural heritage is somehow in jeopardy is more befitting of a fallen occupied nation in the throes of devastation, or a primitive South American Indian tribe seeking to escape the visible hand of global modernization, than a highly developed archipelago, whose firms' products are sold in every major urban center of the world.

Noteworthy in this light is that Japan was never colonized in the way that many other countries of the world were.  Surely Japan's sovereignty was compromised toward the end of the Tokugawa period, and surely many Japanese must feel that it is still compromised today; nevertheless, Japan has never had to fight a war of independence, and most changes that have occurred in Japan have been introduced by Japanese themselves. As the Japanese government was left largely in tact at the end of the war, and the ability of the US government to interfere in Japan's internal affairs was constrained by enormous differences in culture and language, the Japanese  government enjoyed a fairly free hand during most of its reconstruction.

In addition, the occupation of Japan did not begin until well after Japan had run roughshod over most of East Asia,

Yes, Admiral Perry forced the Japanese government to open its doors to a foreign presence, but one can hardly claim that Japan had fallen into the hands of evil masters. The Tokugawa shogunate had already outlived its usefulness, and the foreign presence provided Japanese with an excellent excuse to bring the shogunate to an end. Moreover, Japan suddently had access to an entire new world of music, literature, technology, science, medicine, and thought, that many Japanese willingly embraced and continue to take pride in today. True, it is likely that most Japanese probably never wanted to modernize, but when they viewed their intruding foreign guests, and thought of the likely consequences of further resistance, Japanese took it upon themselves to find out more, and as a result introduced to themselves most of what they would eventually obtain.

Perhaps the thoughtful humility and humorous condescension with which Natsume Sôseki depicted Western society and Japan's undeveloped rural communities in the late 19th century were necessary to encourage these latter to accept modernization as a form of self-defense against eventual, complete subjugation by a colonial power.¹⁵ Certainly, the early writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi were critical of Japan's technological, social, and intellectual backwardness. Nevertheless, it could not have been feelings of inferiority that motivated Japan's imperial house to sever its links with one of the world's three great religions only decades later. Whereupon it made an animistic, culture-specific folk religion Japan's national faith, and sought to impose it on its nearest East Asian neighbors. Today the images of Natsume Sôseki and Fukuzawa Yukichi appear on Japan's 1,000 and 10,000 yen bank notes, and shintoism serves as the religious basis for imperial ceremony in Japan's imperial house.

One must also ask just how many Japanese were suffering from feelings of superiority, when they imported Chinese writing, religion, and statecraft  during the 9th and 10th centuries. This self-imported technology soon became the basis for the creation of Japan's first nation-state. Then too, what feelings of inferiority were present when decades later Japanese intellectuals created their own system of writing, because the Chinese writing system was barely compatible with their own language.¹⁶  Was this not the same pride that allows Japanese to claim today that Japanese language and culture are too difficult for foreigners to master? Certainly for every Japanese, who is embarrassed about the clarity and precision of his language, there is another who praises its ambiguity, subtleness of expression, and detail.

Historically speaking, does building an empire and losing a war, make the difference between feelings of cultural superiority and inferiority? If so, then Japanese who talk about feelings of cultural inferiority and superiority need to ask other Japanese whether they feel culturally inferior to those Japanese who refer to themselves as Yamato.¹⁷  Surely, Japanese living in Okinawa would like a larger share of Japan's national tax revenue and a greater political say in what goes on in their prefecture, but are these desires so fundamentally different from the Yamato-Japanese living in Aomori, Ôsaka, and Kyûshû? Do people living in Tôkyô believe that Japanese living in Ôsaka and Okinawa are inferior, or that these latter feel themselves inferior to Tôkyôites? If so, perhaps more Tôkyôites should live in these regions, think harder about the difference between the social status of an individual and his cultural identity.

Then too, it is one thing to consider yourself superior to someone else, it is quite another for that someone else to feel inferior towards you.

What counts is not the culture that we are born into, rather what we do with the cultural assets that are developed in us. If culture is worth preserving it will be preserved by those who find value in it ­ -- not those who impose it on others against their will. Some Japanese and many Asians believe that the United States is imposing its culture on Japan. To the best of my knowledge it is Japanese importing it for other Japanese. In the market place Japanese are free to choose what is made available to them. More importantly, most of what is made available in Japan, be it foreign or domestically produced, is made available by other Japanese.

Governments can make it difficult for their citizenry to practice and maintain their culture, or they can actively contribute toward its enhancement, but they can rarely deprive citizens of what is rightfully theirs. There are millions of people living in former Soviet countries, who celebrated the day when the Soviets withdrew, because they could now practice their cultural traditions openly. Was 50 long years of Soviet dominance able to squelch these people's cultures? Certainly not.

Racially Pure Society

According to a popular Japanese high school history text the Japanese people are a mixture of two mongoloid races: an older racial group stemming from the warm southern regions of East Asia and a more recent group coming from the cold central north of the Asian continent.¹⁸ According to other accounts Japanese are the direct descendants of Korean immigrants, and the people who occupy the northern island of Honshû are descendants of the prehistoric Jômon peoples.¹⁹

Of course, few Japanese would ever want to admit that they could be of Korean descent, but there is reasonable evidence to suggest that Japanese are in fact Korean.

About 10,000 years ago toward the end of the last Ice Age small migrant groups of southern mongoloids came to the Japanese archipelago followed by small groups of northern mongoloids. Somewhat after their arrival the southern and northern land bridges connecting Japan to the Asian mainland were covered with water. In other words, having once arrived a period of several thousand years of geographical isolation transpired during which these groups developed cultural and racial identities separate and distinct from those of the Asian mainland. It is thus believed that the Ainu and Okinawa peoples, who currently occupy the northern and southern extremes of the Japanese archipelago, are the descendents of these early inhabitants. Yamato Japanese, on the other hand, those Japanese that occupy all of Japan between the archipelago's northern and southern tips, are believed to have originated from the Korean penisula. Evidence for this claim is found in the Japanese language -- a language that closely resembles other Altaic languages including Korean and Mongolian.

Thus, Japanese so-called racial purity is the result of the intermixing of several races over several thousands of years resulting in one dominant language and culture and a somewhat distinct separation of Japanese language, race, and culture into three ethnic groups -- the Yamato, Okinawans, and Ainu. This is to say nothing of a very large number of contemporary native Koreans, who were brought to Japan during Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula just prior to World War II. Indeed, what appears to unify the Japanese nation today is the Japanese state and Japanese popular culture as propogated by Japan's mass media. In effect Japan's sense of ethnic purity can be litte different from say that of modern France -- ­ a nation with a rich colonial history whose empire once spread across the globe.

Surely the number of Japanese residents of ethnic background different from that of the culture and linguistic traditions that originated in the yamato seiken are small. Nevertheless, a large number of loosely federated tribes (kuni) sharing a common religion can hardly be called a nation-state. Indeed, if the regional differences in culture and language that have persisted until today are any reflection of the differences that must have existed then, the Japanese notion of ethnic and racial purity can be little more than a way of defining what foreigners are not, rather than what Japanese truly are. With such a definition of purity single differences that foreigners lack but all Japanese share -- such as a Japanese parent -- are sufficient reason for making claims of racial and cultural purity. In other words, Japanese could be more different from each other, than are foreigners different from Japanese, but still Japanese would consider themselves unique and pure, because foreigners do not share those single characteristics that make them different.

---

⁹  Adam Smith. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Ed. Edwin Cannan, 1904. Fifth edition. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd. [online document] (5 July 2004). (text)

¹⁰ Francis Fukuyama. 1995. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press Paperbacks. (text)

¹¹ The term manshon comes from the English word mansion. In Japan it typically refers to an apartment house or complex. Naka-ku means central ward. These wards are typically a mix of residential and commercial activity. Many Japanese cities have a ward or city-district by this name. Literally translated shitamachi means lower city, town, village, or market. In ancient times it probably referred to that portion of a city or town that was down river or lower in elevation from another more central part. Today it can refer to a less well-to-do neighborhood, or one that is quite wealthy, but has somehow preserved its old identity and escaped modernizing fate of many Japanese residential neighborhoods -- concrete manshon. (text)

¹² Robert C. Puth. 1982. American economic history. New York: Dryden Press, pp. 44, 191. (text)

¹³ The Meiji Restoration 明治維新 (meiji ishin) marked the end of the Japanese shogunate (将軍), the restoration of the Japanese emperor to power, and the beginning of Japanese modernization. 1868 - 1912. (text)

¹⁴ 笠原一男。１９８５年。二宮金次郎：農業の発展に尽くした偉人。 世界の伝記。学習漫画。集英社版。Kasahara Kazuo. 1985. Ninomiya Kinjirô: A hero of Japanese agricultural development. World archives. Educational comics. Tôkyô: Shûei Shapan. (text)

¹⁵ 夏目漱石。１９０４年。坊ちゃん。ジュニア版日本文学名作選。１９６４年１０月一刷。東京：株式会社偕成 社。Natsume Sôseki. 1904. Bo-chan. Famous Japanese literature. Selected works. Junior edition. 1st edition. Tôkyô: Kai Sei Sha, Inc. (text)

¹⁶ During the 9th and 10th centuries frequent trips to the Chinese mainland provided Japanese with their first exposure to a highly developed civilization. During this period the Chinese writing system, the buddhist religion, and Chinese statecraft were introduced in Japan. Because of the geographical distance, language barrier, and important social divisions within Japanese society Chinese culture remained out of reach for most Japanese. It was not until after the 10th century that it was popularized and trade between China and Japan cooled. It was during this period known as kokufû bunka (国風文化) that the first complete version of the Japanese syllabary gojû onzu (五十音図) appeared. The gojû onzu is the basis for the hiragana (平がな) alphabet as it is known today. Source: 石井進、笠原一男、児玉幸多、笹山晴生。１９９４年。詳説日本史。東京：山川出版者、頁６９−７４。Ishii Susume, et al. 1994. A detailed history of Japan. Tôkyô: Yamakawa Publishers, pp. 69-74. (text)

¹⁷ Ibid. pp. 23-32. Toward the end of the 3rd century large grave sites began appearing in West Japan that would eventually cover most of what is known today as Honshû island. These grave sites marked what might be called the first appearance of a Japanese national identity. The political system, a loose confederation of ancient tribes, that accompanied this identity and lasted well into the 7th century is known as the yamato seiken (大和政権). (text)

¹⁸ Ibid. pp. 8-14. (text)

¹⁹ Jared Diamond. 1998. Japanese roots. Just who are the Japanese? Where did they come from, and when? Discover Magazine (June) 19, no.6. [online  document] (text)