Western Imagery
and Social Roles and Boxes
This page is UTF-8 encoded and requires Japanese fonts

Western Imagery in Japanese Society

Exploited imagery

Advertising is a useful source of information for discovering a nation's self-image. Because those who produce advertisements seek to sell their clients' products, they must understand well their clients' patrons -- namely, the consumers who purchase their clients' products.

One of the most striking things about Japanese advertising is the frequency with which it contains Western imagery. This imagery is not, as one might expect, limited to famous people like foreign-born, professional sumô wrestlers, baseball players, and other world renown talent; rather, it includes a whole host of nameless models, whose faces and bodies appear on advertising posters, television commercials, and magazine adds. The products that these images accompany run the entire gamut of Western goods available in Japan, as well as many Japanese produced goods and services with no Western counterpart in Japan. Frequently these advertisements contain only a single Western image, but it is not infrequent to find them together with more familiar Japanese images. Moreover, these images are not restricted to the hakujin of North America and Western Europe, but include images of people from all over the world.³⁷ Truly the selection is diverse, but all of it caters to that one important source of revenue -- the internationally conscious Japanese consumer.

Foreign Imagery

Of course, what is particularly fascinating about these images is the way in which Japanese advertisers cater to Japanese tastes. By way of example, consider how one of Japan's major foreign language schools frequently displays models with caucasian features made to appear like humanoid aliens -- including greenish gray skin, protruding antennas, and pointed ears suggesting an "alien" intelligence. Although surely meant as a joke for some, these posters are likely better thought of as a rude, social critique on Japan's international mentality by many others.

Still another series of posters advertising brand name coffee produced in Japan portray a young Japanese dressed in North American buckskin next to the portrait of a much older North American Indian. Does this advertisement suggest a second migration of North Asians to the North American continent, prehistoric North Asian entrepreneurship in North America, a merging of ancient North American traditions with modern Japanese entrepreneurship in Japan, or an expectation of second-class citizenship on the part of overseas Japanese living in the United States? Or have I missed the meaning altogether, and it is simply a critique on the continued USAmerican military presence in Japan? In the end, what do any of these images have to do with coffee likely grown in South America, Southeast Asia, or East Africa? Might a Japanese find stimulation in seeing himself dressed in North American buckskin?

On still another poster advertising Japanese beer a somewhat older Japanese sarariiman (salaryman) is found clinking beer mugs with what appears to be a West European gentleman clad in medieval european armor.³⁸ This daliesque confusion of ancient European chivalry with international business and the Japanese kaisha is unlikely mistaken coincidence.³⁹ The loyalty of Japanese sarariman (salarymen) to their firm is sometimes, if not often, equated with the fidelity once demanded of ancient Japanese samurai (warriors) by local daimyô (feudal landlords) during Japan's early and middle Edo periods).⁴⁰ This feudal bonding, although an important part of both European and Japanese history, played a much smaller role in the history of North America. Both Europe and Japan are often criticized by their North American competitors for wallowing in traditions that retard productive efficiency and hinder economic growth. In contrast, both Japanese and Europeans chastise North Americans for what they perceive to be a chaotic, innovative society run amok. Alcohol is often employed by Japanese sarariman and their section chiefs (kachô) as an elixir to mend interpersonal relationships that have soured.⁴¹ Wounded individual pride and ambition can be detrimental to good teamwork, and alchohol tends to smooth over the rough edges of damaged personal relationships by drowning them in dionysian euphoria.

Then too, there are the cigarette posters of an Australian yachting team, a single women with an exposed navel and the caption "Be yourself", and any number of other Western images that must appeal to the physical appetites, cultural habits, and already deeply embedded mind-sets of bored, middle-aged workers and young adults. Escape from previous misadventures and unrealistic aspirations appear to be the invisible themes that underlie much of this ad-work.

In addition, there are advertisements of Canadian pre-fabricated ji-taku (single family houses), spacious ultra-modern kitchens designed for large North American homes, and handsomely dressed Japanese men in polished automobiles striding the Western Rockies and Mexican Baja penisula with Japanese bijin (beautiful women) waving as they pass.^{42, 43} What one observes in this jungle of confused Western and Japanese imagery is hardly a developing country aspiring to modern Western living standards, rather, a cross-section of an advanced industrial, psychologically distraught society with a need for international recognition and global definition.

How these images are chosen is difficult to say, but consideration of the Japanese press might contribute to one's better understanding. Unlike their domestic counterparts, who are busy at home cultivating interpersonal relationships and their respective group identities, Japan's international press corps roam the European and North American continents in search of news to send back home. Much of this news has to do with the personal life-styles of overseas Japanese whom these reporters meet at tourist hot spots and sophisticated urban hang-outs frequented by overseas sarariman. Of course, overseas life-styles and leisurely pass-times are not the only things that peak the interest of Japanese consumers; overseas violence  regularly flatters Japan's domestic self-image of a peaceful nation.

Moreover, it would be wrong to consider much of the Western imagery as a generally pro-Western attitude on the part of the Japanese public. In many cases, it is more probably a tool employed by Japanese and Western advertisers in Japan to cater to various segments of the Japanese population each with its own set of stereotypical prejudices that may or may not be flattering to the West. How these images play themselves out in cross-cultural communication between Japanese and foreigners living both inside and outside of Japan is important, but not always easy to understand.

At least two sides to every image

Since the vast majority of people living in Japan are Japanese, one easily assumes, as was performed above, that advertisements employing Western imagery are not targeted toward a Western audience. Nevertheless, these images serve as the visual backdrops before which Japanese and foreigners alike must associate in most public places.

In addition to the obvious cultural biases with which Japanese and foreigners necessarily interprets the same commercial imagery, there is another important source of difference that may be less obvious to one or both -- namely, the ability of either to read and understand the captions that accompany the imagery.

Although pictures can tell a thousand words, captions are often a crucial way to influence the way in which viewers interpret what they see. Even if Japanese and foreigners could interpret advertising imagery in the same way without captions, the presence of captions -- often incomprehensible to foreigners lacking a solid understanding of Japanese script -- lead different viewers to different interpretations of the same images. Since most foreigners, with the important exception of Chinese and Japanese-born Koreans, cannot read Sino-Japanese characters well, one is led to conclude that these various interpretations are both commonplace and frequent among foreigners. In addition, the imagery forms the backdrop to most public discourse, and as a result its actual content rarely comes to the surface of discussion. Rather, it guides subtly in different directions the sub-conscious awareness of everyone present. Furthermore, not only do both sides interpret the same imagery differently, but many receive only a portion of the message. Thus, whereas USAmerican, French, and Australian visitors may feel something warm and fuzzy, while standing in front of a poster colored white, red, and blue, their Japanese counterparts may feel a strong desire to burst out laughing or turn away in utter disgust depending on the captions that their foreign counterparts can neither read nor understand. In summary both sides incorporate this imagery into their waking consciousness in subtle ways that ultimately finds expression in the way they talk and associate, but is never touched upon directly.

This same phenomenon must surely apply to non-commercial media and other environments void of media content. For example, when a bilingual Japanese is talking in English to his non-Japanese speaking foreign counterpart, he is often listening to at least two conversations at once: the one in English with his foreign partner, and any number of other conversations in Japanese occurring in his immediate vicinity. Because the foreigner is often unable to understand these other conversations, he is only partially in tune with his social environment. Thus, the probability of miscommunication, even with someone whom he knows fairly well, is likely to be high.

Moving beyond the way in which Western imagery is passively interpreted by its receivers and actively employed by commercial producers, let us examine still another utilitarian aspect of this imagery  -- the way in which it is actively employed in everyday life by those with no commercial intent.

If its from the West, it might just be permissible!

Because Japanese place a high priority on group conformity, Japanese can sometimes escape burdensome collective rituals by opting for the use of foreign loan words and imagery. By using well-chosen and adequately measured foreign elements in their speech, dress, and conduct Japanese are sometimes able to achieve special outcomes otherwise not possible in their own language and behaviour.

On the one hand, they can introduce something into their group, that might otherwise be considered inappropriate or difficult, if it were introduced in Japanese. On the other hand, they can introduce it with little or no risk of blame or disapproval should it not be well received. In the first instance they consciously or subconsciously play on Japanese international pride; in the second they play on Japanese collective self-awareness. If the introduction is well received, then its introducer automatically succeeds in elevating the status of his group; if the item, word, thought, or behavior is rejected, then it is simply regarded as foreign and everyone laughs. This social game works because Japanese have a strong need to see themselves as international on the one hand, but never so international that they risk sacrificing their Japanese identity on the other. It is for this reason, that there are few things in Japan that are simultaneously authentic in origin and enjoy broad-based appeal. Certainly this is a tendency everywhere in the world, but it is particularly strong in Japan.

---

³⁷ Although it is not clear when the terms hakujin (白人 or whiteman) and kokujin (黒人 or blackman) were introduced into the Japanese language, they appear to have been around for a very long time. A careful look at 16th century Japanese paintings of Portuguese traders demonstrates this clearly. See Portuguese Embassy, Japan. 1993. ポルトガルと日本。年の追憶（Porutogaru to nihon. Nen no tsuioku）Portugal and Japan. Reminiscing of years long past.  C&C Offset Printing Co., Ltd. Various pages. (text)

³⁸ The term sarariiman (サラリーマン) in its simplest form can be thought of as a salaried employee of a Japanese firm. Associated with this word is an entire complex of thought related to the Japanese firm, Japanese life-style, and Japanese industrial organization not included in its English pseudo-equivalent -- salaryman. (text | More on the nature of groups in Japanese society)

³⁹ Like the word sarariiman the Japanese word kaisha (会社 firm or company) suggests a way of organizing a nation's factors of production considerably different from that typically thought about in the West or at least North America. (text | More on the nature of groups in Japanese society)

⁴⁰ The word sarariiman can be translated as either salaryman or salarymen. In some cases it can also be translated to mean salarywoman and salarywomen. The words samurai (侍 or Japanese ancient warrior), daimyô (大名 or ancient Japanese feudal landlord), and Edo (江戸 an ancient city that preceded modern Tôkyô) have already been discussed elsewhere. (text | More on the nature of groups in Japanese society)

⁴¹ The Japanese word kachô (課長 section chief or head), like the Japanese words sarariiman and kaisha, is poorly understood from its English equivalent. Not only does the Japanese kachô wield far more power in a Japanese firm than does a person of similar rank in say a US firm,  but the path by which one becomes a kachô also differs considerably. (text)

⁴² The term ji-taku (自宅) refers to a dwelling inhabited by its owner. The character ji (自) refers to the self. The character taku (宅) has a variety of meanings including dwelling, residence, and home. (text)

⁴³ The term bijin (美人) literally means beautiful person. In Japanese advertising  it usually refers to an especially attractive model. (text)