Japanese Pop Culture
Gustavo Dore Rodrigues
Bekka Student – 3061037
Final Essay
Who says that Japanese people are losing their culture because the use of western things clearly never been to Japan. If you turn on the television you only will see Japanese culture. You see Samurai drama, you see Japanese pop, Kabukisa Theater, animes, etc. Rarely, in the open TV you see an American cartoon. Often you see American people, but doing their paper as a foreigner. The only pure western things are the Hollywood movies or the Sponge Bob Square Pants. You can fell the Japanese taste every time you think they are copying America. One can go to an Italian restaurant in Japan expecting an Italian taste and only will find Japanese taste, Japanese adaptations. Even in the McDonalds you can find differences: Japan is the only place in the world where the McDonalds stores have a different architecture according to the place the store is. Sometimes watching dance programs in the Japanese television we see people dancing music from countries all around the world, but the dance is Japanese, they don't make 100% equal. What we can take from this? It's all Japanese culture itself.
It is common in the Japanese culture to look outside as an example. From a long time Japan turned their eyes to China, and all the experiments and new things from China they tried to bring to Japan. Is not their first intention to modify something, the idea is that Japanese worry about the people who will receive the products, so they try to make it fit the taste. In the western countries, the garage bands that will play in small university events play their own set-list, the way they want. In Japan, some garage bands often do a reunion before the show and ask some of the audience what they want to hear. It is another way to think, nor better or worse, just different. Coming back to the relation China-Japan, we can think about the use of the Kanjis. The Japanese writing is a copy from the Chinese one with a lot of modifications, even new ideograms, hiragana and katakana, to simplify and fit the Japanese society.
If Japan was copying the West, shouldn't this country change for a less hierarchy society, a more open sexual thinking, try to break the gender statements? One of the most interesting observations from the authors of the documentary we watched in class was that "What comes to Japan is adapted and then stay the same way forever". They give some real good examples as the clothes of the high school students that copy the German style from the beginning of the nineteen century. But the best example is the fascination bye the American's 50's. They still sell posters and release new collections with movies like Casablanca and Elvis Presley. Maybe the 50's because we can see some similarities with the Japanese way of thinking like the idea of a "perfect housewife" that stays home taking care of the children and the house.
Videogames and domestication
This essay will take a look on the videogames and the domestication of western culture. This focus was chosen because of the importance of the videogame for the understanding of the Japanese culture. Japan is the biggest developer of videogames in the world. They have two of the 3 biggest videogames enterprises, Sony and Nintendo. Why this kind of entertainment fits the Japanese life? The people go to be workers, salary-man of companies, and the works take their whole day, they don't have too much time to go to a sport club or do any other entertainment activity during the day. They spend a lot of time in trains going to work or coming back home everyday. Is a society that normally enjoy spend time alone. The fantasy is something stimulate all the time. We have Tokyo Disney and their products as an example. And the Japanese way of thinking stimulate in the school is really mathematic and are not made to motivate the children to create or have their own opinion. According with the Japanese government they are trying to change it, but still far from the western.
The videogame fits all the necessities they can have about entertainment: is fast, you can do it in small packs of time; some of them are small, you can carry everywhere; and they have the fantasy which takes them out of the common boring life of the company. The Japanese society is not one that motivates the individual talent, so they find themselves special with the fantasy. We can use the Van Gennep theory to explain the games. They fit all the stages: discontinuity and separation from the present situation; marginal status separated from the mundane; going back to the normal life with a new status. Well, the Japanese became so good at this that when the western world needs this kind of entertainment we call up for Japanese games.
We have a lot of games from Japan in the West but the West doesn't have as many games selling in Japan. The Japanese culture, in some aspects, becomes more global than the American one. When the creators of the Matrix franchise wanted to make an animation for a global public they choose the Japanese style of anime instead of the American Cartoon. Some things in the American Pop Culture were Easternized. We have the DC Comics, which have the rights about Batman and Superman, which make the new cartoon of the Justice League with anime way of drawing and American way of animation. And one of the most recent releases was the anime of the Teen Titans, for teenagers, completely made in the Japanese way. Some Americans cartoons are even using giant robots in their stories. Hello Kitty is the best example of Easternization. She came into the Western world and created a new idea of feminine cuteness. Once more they Easternized.
Mixing, Mixing mixing
The videogame was developed in America in the 60's. America had an hegemony till Nintendo appears in the international market with a strange super-hero: an American plumber with Italian dissidence that get inside pipes and he is transferred to another world where he fights against dinosaurs and turtles with wings to rescue the princess of the Mushroom land, where only the princess and her father aren't mushrooms, but normal people. This history shows us something really important about the Japanese Pop Culture, the marvelous way the Japanese mix elements from everywhere.
The Japanese love mixed things. Like said before, their society doesn't motivate the individualization. So they look for special things to individualize themselves. But they were not motivated by the school or their parents as creative person. The way they find to create is mix things that already exist, take things that are and add a special touch. That's exactly what they make to domesticate. They want to have the same as the westerns but with their special taste. Special is a important word too.
The constant mix is something common in the Japanese life. In the text about the loan words, the documentary and the class about Japanese Pop songs, we discussed a lot about how they do this mixture without be strange for themselves. The Japanese bands fill theirs songs with words in English, and sometimes in other languages. Nowadays, ending of 2006, one of the most popular pop bands is one called Orange Range, from Okinawa. If you pay attention in the chorus from the song "Shangai Honey" you will see a perfect mixture of worlds from English, French and Japanese.
" Shanghai HANI- to hamabe shakou DANSU
Mitsumebbanashi tamannee megami
Shanghai HANI- to EIJIAN RANDEVU
Yosete wa kaesu shitagokoro to MORARU"
Remebering the mixture in another situation we should pay attention in the guy of the documentary who design motels in Japan. In one of the situations he did a room all decorated with Snoopy characters but with a Boxe ring as a bed. How he connected Charlie Brown with Boxe? I am making the wrong question on propos. The right question should be: how the Japanese people consume this kind of thing. If he made that is because somebody is buying this kind of material. The mix make the thing special, unique.
The videogame has a peculiar aspect: the Japanese became famous around the world for theirs games. Is the opposite, is the western being easternized. But if you are a Western reading this material and like to play videogames like "Super Mario", "Dragon Quest", "We love Katamari" or "Oz, Tatakae, Ouendan", you probably don't see your culture as easternized. But, at the same time, the Japanese seems to enjoy the idea of Westernization. According to some Japanese history books this was what brought a stable life to Japan, that's what makes them different from the others Asian countries. This is one of the reasons people say that Japan is westernized; they like to be seen that way. We don't want to fell Japanese playing their games but they want to fell, at least fantasize they are more westerns when they use western style clothes or eat western food. In Japan this word means modernity, prosperity, economical strength, power.
Part 2
Wow!!! It's Expensive
Why people go to a place that only has expensive things? To buy, of course. The westernization of Japan, like Joseph J. Tobin explains in his article is more like domestication. They take the western culture and transform it their way. The department stores in Japan are a example of a place that sells a west with a japanese face and sell the Japanese's things with a look of a foreigner. It shows the duality of the Japanese culture. The department stories came from the Togukawa era but grow up in the Meiji era because of the western products. But now they are a place of massive consumption and maintenance of Japanese culture. How is that possible? I will try to explain in the next paragraphs.
Why people go buy things in a departo if they are expensive. Like most of the Japanese aspects, they are based in a 'High context culture'. It means that most of the things don't really matter what it is but the value we put on it. When you buy something in a departo in Japan and give to Japanese he or she will really enjoy, no matter what it really is. It will happen because there is a status related with the department stores, most of the things are from famous brands and most of them are peculiar and special stuff like a different kind of food. The department stores in Japan are the best place to buy presents in Japan. Because is very important in Japanese society to keep a mutual reliable relationship. If you spend a great amount of money with somebody you show that you care about this person. That's why the Johnny Walker lowers his sells when it became cheaper. If you are going to buy a present the money that you spend on it is more important than the present itself.
One of the most interesting things is how the departo cares about the maintenance of the Japanese culture. After a long research with the Japanese population they offer courses and manuals teaching how they should live, mixing the west and the east. I saw a lot of food courses and a kimono course, teaching Japanese people how to be Japanese. I said west and the east because sometimes they give English or French courses too. 
A thing that surprises me was the Jinja upside SOGO departo. They mixed religion with shopping. In Brazil its not possible because we are a catholical country and they don't stimulate the consumption of material things. Its very interesting that Japanese can mix it and transform it in a thing in accord with capitalism. We can say that a departo store is one the higher levels of capitalism. The selling is all based in brands. Every big western brand has a stand in a Japanese department store, and we have just a few Japanese brands. But most of the products they sell are not western at all. When I was looking the clothes was easy to see that we don't use it that way in Europe, in America or even in Brazil. Even the toys are different, but all have a western brand on them.
The food is another important topic because 99% of the food is Japanese. Even when they have another country food it tastes like Japanese. The author of the article about departo explains that they have to change to adapt to the Japanese taste. I tried a pizza e it really doesn't look or taste like an Italian pizza, but the Japanese consume like it was. It's interesting to think that it happens in all countries because people have different tastes. In Brazil there is a lot of `Japanese food` that doesn't exist in Japan. They create things to sell as eastern and we buy because is exotic.
Other interesting point is the `self exotism`. With so many western things, the Japanese become to be the exotic. The same thing happens in Brazil with things we sell as Brazilian, like capoeira and carnaval. For most of the Brazilians, nowadays, this kind of thing is exotic, but it makes the value of things increase,
In Brazil we don't have that kind of store. We have shoppings like the one we can see in Lalaport but for the Brazilian way of life, the disposition of things n a department store is not very good. Brazilians like to enter the store prove, stay for a while and they prefer stores that is specify of one brand. In Brazil the stores are more silent, trying to stop the noise. But departo are a bit crowded with to much noise. There are too many people buying at the same time.
PS: just a curiosity, if you type Westernized in the Microsoft World, there's no problem. But if have to type Easternized the world is not found, Microsoft didn't added this word to their dictionary. Is there any problem to be Easternized?
2007/01/18
