Continuum:The Australian Journal of Media & Culture vol.

8 no 2 (1994)
Critical Multiculturalism Edited by Tom O'Regan
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/8.2/Iwabuchi.html

Koichi Iwabuchi, 'Complicit exoticism: Japan and its other'

Who Imagines 'Japaneseness'?: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Self-Orientalism

The steady, systematic work to which we Nordic people were educated is

unknown here on the average. (Eggert '89', quoted in Linhart 27')

The Japanese worker is hardly willing to submit himself to the military

discipline which according to our standards must rule the modern factory. He
takes his holiday whenever he likes, he comes and goes as he pleases, and if he is
scolded for such behavior, he leaves the company. (Paalzow '908, quoted in
Linhart 27')

These western observations of Japan are both familiar and unfamiliar. Made by German
missionaries around the turn of the century, these remind us of a familiar colonial
discourse which draws a sharp distinction between "us" and "them" ("their" otherness is
always spoken about in terms of the difference from us"; "our" superiority is unmarked
by marking "their" inferiority). These observations can be read as western Orientalist
discourse on Japan; after all, they are strikingly similar to those discussed by Richard
Minear. Drawing on Said's Orientalism, Minear argues that western observers of Japan
(like Chamberlain, Samson and Reischauer) shared ontological assumptions about the
West and the exotic but inferior Other, Japan. They were fascinated with some exotic
parts of Japan, and lamented the loss of "authentic" Japanese tradition in the process of
modernisation. But, they were all quite sure that Japan's future was to be modelled on
western civilisation:

All the causes which produced the Old Japan of our dreams have
vanished...Old Japan is dead, and the only decent thing to do with the corpse is to
bury it. (Chamberlain, quoted in Minear 509)

"Their" present laziness is "our" past, and "their" future is "our" present diligence.

But equally, nothing could convince us more about the artificiality, historicity, partiality
and falsity of "Japaneseness" than precisely these observations of Japanese indolence
and incapacity for systematic work. After all, diligence, loyalty and systematic work are
now widely acknowledged as national cultural "traits" of the Japanese and are expected
as such. These now unfamiliar observations suggest that such national "traits" are
cultural constructs in dynamic process rather than a static set of given essences.
National identity is not authentic so much as a battleground where various social groups
compete with each other to define the meaning of the "national".

To construct a unified nation, various ideologies, myths and 'invented traditions'

(Hobsbawn and Ranger) have to be represented and disseminated. In Japan, the process
through which the dominant ideologies or myths have constructed "Japaneseness" since
the mid-nineteenth century, has been one of 'samuraisation' (Befu Japan 50). The
Confucian values of the samurai (warrior) class which composed only six per cent of
the population were massively disseminated through education and the workplace. Such
values included loyalty from below, benevolence from above, respect for hierarchical
order, diligence, and the low status of women. The observations of those German
missionaries eloquently testify to the unnaturalness and imperfection of 'samuraisation'.
They also indicate a fragmented Japanese social formation that is by no means
homogeneous.

Japan's constructed and celebrated unity has never been a monolith but is
precarious. However, debunking the myth of "Japaneseness" is quite different
from understanding the symbolic power of national identity. In spite of the easily-
known falsity of a unified "Japaneseness", and of the inequalities which exist in
the "real" national society, why and how are 'imagined communities' (Anderson)
maintained? The crucial issue here is how the differences 'stitch up'...'into one
identity' (Hall "Question" 299).

Hodge argues that national stereotypes which can be read in multifarious ways within
the nation, serve to construct 'unity while sustaining difference within the national
groups' and to 'mark off those who belong to the nation from others through their
possession of the secret... to read it'(443). Thus, it can be argued that internally, the
'imagined community' may be supported by people's diverse and complicated readings
of ideological constructions of national identity. At the same time, this ambiguous
inclusion is sustained by unambiguous exclusion, and

the critical factor for defining the [national] group therefore becomes the
social boundary which defines the group with respect to other groups...not the
cultural reality within those borders. (Pistoi, quoted in Schlesinger 235).

Purity cannot mark itself through itself. Only impurity marks purity.

I would argue in the same vein that "Japaneseness" has maintained its precarious unity
not only by differentiating itself from an "Other" but by being differentiated by the
Other. Both the Other and the Self deploy the same discursive strategy, and the
'reciprocal recognition of others' (Schlesinger 237) solidifies each identity as somehow
factual, confining internal divisions and differences to the realm of the domestic secret.
In the eyes of the Other, the complicated and contradictory reality of Japan, where a
dialectic between the ideological construction of "Japaneseness" and people's diverse
readings of and resistance against it is always at play, disappears. Japan tends to be
represented only as an entity, no matter whether the people are described as "lazy" or
"diligent". And this, together with Japan's self-representation, confirms in its turn the
distinct otherness of Japan to the Japanese. It is this interaction between Japan and its
Other that makes it possible for Japan to differentiate itself from other nations in a more
or less unambiguous manner. "Japaneseness" has to be "imagined" by the Other as well
as by its own members, though differently.

The western Orientalist discourse on Japan has supported the construction and
maintenance of "Japaneseness": Japan's own construction of "Japaneseness" has
successfully utilised the difference from the "West". It is what Miller calls 'self-
Orientalism':

It is rather as if the Japanese were...determined to do it to themselves and

to their own culture before others can do it for and to them...what Said calls
 establishing the Other...in the case of Japan, we have to deal instead with the
rare spectacle of a culture vigorously determined to Orientalise itself. (209)

In the process of Japan's self-Orientalisation, the geographically and culturally imagined

entity of the "West" has been discursively created in a quite systematic way. Although
this has been done intensively in the last fifty years, even around the turn of the century
we could discern the construction of the "West". As Gluck argues, what had mattered
was the idea of the West that the Japanese had created for the purposes of self-
definition. The real West was irrelevant ('37).

Images of the West for this purpose were contradictory; on the one hand, western
nations were imagined as superior, enlightened and civilised entities to be emulated, but
on the other hand, they were condemned as individualistic, selfish and cold-hearted
(Dower War, Robertson "Japan"). Both positive and negative images coexisted as two
sides of the same coin, and either side was emphasised, depending upon circumstances.

Even if Japan has developed such a dehumanised discourse of "the West", Japan's self-
Orientalism cannot be seen as Occidentalism which Said rejects as 'the answer to
Orientalism' (328). This is because Japanese self-Orientalism lacks the power to
dominate the West. Moreover, Japan talks about the Self, while the West talks about the
Other.

However, it is simplistic to see Japan's "self-Orientalism" as a passive strategy of the

inferior. Japan's strategy to construct and self-assert its national cultural identity has
been the active exploitation of "the West" which effectively counters Orientalism.
Especially when Japan got ahead of most western countries, at least in terms of
economy and technology, and developed an institutionalised style of thought based upon
a binary oppositioning of Japan and the West, self-Orientalism stopped being a merely
defensive dichotomising tendency (Morley and Robins, Robertson "Japan"). Ironically,
it is the very change of supposed "Japaneseness" which western Orientalists anticipated
about the future of "pre-modern Japan" that makes "Japan" quite scandalous to "the
West", and Japan's "self-Orientalism" problematic to Orientalism. In this sense, the
observations by German missionaries also confirm the subversiveness of "Japan"
against the "West".

But it would be also misleading to see Japanese self-Orientalism as a serious challenge

to western Orientalism. On the contrary, the relationship between the West's Orientalist
discourse on Japan and Japan's discourse on itself is characterised by a profound
complicity. Both tend to use the Other to essentialise the Self and to repress the
heterogeneous voices within. This perspective opens up a dimension of
power/knowledge alliance within the nation and between nations; how the discursive
construction of dehumanised Others has been subtly utilised by the power bloc to instill
nationalist sentiment into people's minds; how the heterogeneous voices of people
within the nations have been repressed through the homogenising discourses of an
imaginary "us" versus "them".

As for Japan, in the path to Japan's modernisation, the emphasis on "Japaneseness" has
been crucial for the power bloc as a means of mobilising the people. This strategic
"Japaneseness" is something which maximises national interests and minimises
individualism, consisting of traits such as loyalty to or devotion for the country. As
Gluck noted

in the imagined West, people were incapable of loyalty and filiality, and this
was sufficient to define these traits as essentially Japanese. ('37)

Thus "the West" has been utilised to counter "undesirable" consequences of

modernisation such as the rise of individualism or labor unionism, which give priority
to people's rights. For example, it was when social movements like labor unionism
became popular in the '9'0s that ie (household) ideology was intensively advocated
(Crawcour). This ideology stressed the traditional values of paternalism, through which
Japan itself and companies were compared with families. Clearly, this myth of
"Japaneseness" was utilised to repress people's demands for "democracy" or human
rights, by attributing social conflict and dissent to western "disease".

Through selective comparisons with key significant Others, self-Orientalism also

unmarks the exclusion of the voices of the repressed such as minority groups like Ainu,
Koreans and burakumin (Japanese Untouchable) which make up four per cent of the
population, and women or the working class. By asserting "we Japanese" as opposed to
"them, the westerners", the discursively constructed "Japaneseness" is reified. Kano has
argued that the strength of the concept of "the Japanese" lies in its all-inclusive
meanings and that the concept of "the Japanese" implicitly includes all aspects of land,
inhabitants, language, race, ethnicity and the nationality, all of which have not been
historically differentiated from each other (quoted in Nishikawa 226-7). Any discourse
of "Japaneseness" tends to start with taking such an ambiguous definition of "the
Japanese" for granted. Thus, Japan's self-Orientalism has been quite selectively
manipulative and repressive. Self-Orientalism obscures the fact that Japan's
particularism is actually hegemonic within Japan. "The West" is necessary for Japan's
"invention of tradition", the suppression of heterogeneous voices within Japan, and the
creation of a modern nation whose people are loyal to "Japan". Self-Orientalism is a
strategy of inclusion through exclusion, and of exclusion through inclusion. Both
strategies cannot be separated from each other and work efficiently only when
combined together.

Japan's particularistic view of itself colludes with Orientalist discourse in that it defines
the West as the universal referent. Both complement one another (Sakai). No matter
how willingly Japan tries to differentiate itself from the West in order to represent itself
on its own terms,

this is nothing but the positing of Japan's identity in Western terms, which in
return establishes the centrality of the West as the universal point of reference.
(487)

The more eagerly Japan attempts to talk about itself in its own language, the more
seriously Japan is represented in western terms.

But Japan and the West 'are never in real conflict'. The universal center marks its own
position by unmarking itself; it only has to confirm its superiority by speaking about 'the
Other'. By contrast, the particular marks its own position by using the universal frame of
reference, without which it could not even speak about itself, much less assert its
superiority. In short, Japanese particularism and western universalism demand each
other.

Last but not least, in its views of other non-western countries, Japan shares the
Orientalist discourse of the West. Combined with self-Orientalism, Japan has developed
an "oriental" Orientalism through the uncritical acceptance of the hierarchy of
civilisations constructed by Orientalism, as a slogan of the Meiji era, "Datsua-Nyuo"
(escape from Asia, enter the West) shows. After all, Japan has been the only non-
western imperial power in modern history. Japan's defensive strategy of speaking about
itself is never innocent. Japan's imperialist aggression manifested in World War II,
suggests that the rhetoric of Japanese national identity not only helped it catch up with
the West, but helped it become the centre, at least, of Asia.

More recently, this manifests itself in the facts that Nihonjinron (theories of
"Japaneseness") hardly deals with relations between Japan and other non-western
countries. Indeed Japan is surprisingly insensitive to how these other nations look at it.
Japan does not have to mark its position in relation to the non-West, because it is
absolutely certain about its superiority. Inferiority to the West could be compensated by
superiority to the non-West (Russel). Japan's challenge against the western hegemony
tended to lead less to the deconstruction of western hegemony than to changing the
dichotomy of "the West" and "the rest" into the trichotomy of "Japan", "the West" and
"the rest" without changing the binary logic. "The rest" has changed from the "marked"
inferior to the "unmarked" inferior.

Nihonjinron Discourse as Complicity between Orientalism and Self-Orientalism

Nihonjinron is a non-fiction genre of literature consisting of theories of "Japaneseness".

Most works are based upon the construction of binary oppositions between "Japan" and
"the West", particularly "the USA". Many excellent works have been done concerning
the history and criticism of Nihonjinron (Mouer and Sugumoto Images and "Cross-
currents", Kawamura "Historical", Befu "Ideorogii, Aoki), and below I will follow the
periodisation basically developed by Kawamura and Mouer and Sugimoto, in order to
show how the interplay of "Japan" and "the West" has supported the continuity of
stereotypical representations of "Japan".

Nihonjinron literature emerged in the '930s as a genre (Mouer and Sugimoto Images,
Kawamura "Historical"), when Japan gradually moved towards World War II. Japan's
imperialist expansion was carefully scrutinised by the Western powers, and Japan was
becoming isolated from and aggressive towards the West as well as Asian countries. In
this context, the power bloc and those intellectuals who were disillusioned with the
West, searched for a distinctive Japaneseness in "indigenous" theories which could
explain Japanese society, through various fields such as climatology or the vertically
structured family system (Mouer and Sugimoto 4'-44, Kawamura 46-49). A
romanticised and narcissistic "Japanese essence" was sought after in a systematic
manner to contrast it overtly and covertly to the idealised West. Common assumptions
were to see 'Japanese society as an integrated and harmonious whole and...that all or
most Japanese possess the same national character' (Mouer and Sugimoto 43-4). These
essentialist assumptions are the core of Nihonjinron discourse.
In this same period, naked racism became conspicuous on both sides, Japan and the
West, particularly the United States. The American government actively promoted
national character studies of Japan, most of which tended to 'reinforce a whole series of
assumptions about the Japanese that were also commonplace to racist thinking' (Dower
War '22). In contrast, the Japanese national character studies concentrated upon the
search for its own uniqueness. But a huge amount of racist portraits of the United States
and Britain appeared in the Japanese mass media and through the government's
propaganda. If western racism against Japan was based upon an orientalism, Japanese
racism was 'embedded in an occidentalism which centered upon claims as to the selfish
individualism, materialism, decadence and arrogance of westerners (particularly
Americans)' (Robertson "Japan" '92). The status of imperial power allowed Japan to
speak actively and dismissively about "the West".

In spite of the sharp confrontation, however, there was an interesting collusion in the
way both sides looked at each other. Both saw "Japan" as collectivistic and "the West"
as individualistic. What differentiated one side from the other was the valuation of the
stereotypes. Especially, the Allied Forces appropriated the Japanese self-images
promoted by the Japanese government's patriotic propaganda to portray the Japanese as
'an obedient mass with but a single mind' (Dower War 3'). More importantly, not only
Japan but also the Allied Forces enthusiatically emphasised Japanese "uniqueness",
although in quite opposite ways. These bipolar views on "Japan" and "the West" have
not changed since then. It is this reciprocal recognition of Japanese "uniqueness" that
has made Japanese self-Orientalisation solidly hegemonic.

Since World War II, the valuation of "Japan" has been intermittently shifting.
Immediately after the defeat of the war, many aspects of supreme "Japaneseness" were
regarded as "feudal remnants", obstacles to Japan's democratisation. Although the
dominant evaluation of "Japaneseness" changed from positive to negative in Japan
itself, there was a continuity in that Japanese society remained to be seen as a culturally
integrated whole (Mouer and Sugimoto 44-47, Kawamura 49-52). Theorists of
democratisation such as Maruyama or Kawashima still tended to rely upon 'static
description and popular theories tied to the premodern-modern dichotomy' (Kawamura
50), by idealising western democracy and individualism and deploring Japan's failure to
produce "modern democratic individuals".

An important political and cultural trait in the postwar period was the strong influence
of the United States on Japan. In this context, it was Ruth Benedict's study of Japan
through its POW's in US detention camps, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, that has
most strongly influenced and supported Nihonjinron in both Japan and the United States
in the postwar period. Benedict begins her book with the statement that

The Japanese were the most alien enemy the United States had ever
fought...Conventions of war which Western nations had come to accept as facts of
human nature obviously did not exist for the Japanese'. (')

In this work, a fundamental assumption for the comparison was that the USA is modern,
democratic and rational, while Japan is feudal, undemocratic and inconsistent; the USA
is characterised by individualism, Japan by collectivism; the USA by a culture of 'guilt',
Japan by a culture of 'shame'.
She argued that Japanese behaviors are characteristically paradoxical in that two
contradictory traits can be discerned in them, as symbolised by the title of her book:

the Japanese are both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic,
both insolent and polite, rigid but adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed
around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new
ways (2)

In short, chrysanthemum and sword. This paradoxical view of "Japan" has dominated
western discourse on "Japan" since then (Glazer).

Although the book was criticised in Japan for treating Japan like a small community
where all people share common cultural traits and values, and although its purpose was
to help the USA know the hated enemy, it has long been appreciated by the used-to-be-
enemy, the Japanese themselves. This is because many Japanese have thought that the
work sharply pointed to the weakness and essence of "us", the Japanese (Yoshino ch.6,
Aoki). While this was the beginning of a marriage between politics and academic theory
in the field of Nihonjinron in the West, especially the United States, the importance of
the work also lies in its persuasive endorsement of Japanese otherness, all of which
could be reduced to Japan's "unique culture". This time, the national character of Japan
was endorsed not by nationalist ideologues but by a "democratic" American intellectual
who had never been to Japan. The defeat of the war pushed the Japanese people back to
being hyper-sensitive to how Japan is seen by "the West". Benedict's work nicely
matched such a trend in Japan. Since then "the West", particularly the USA, has been
seen as the positive point of reference. As long as Japan admitted its inferiority to the
West, the myth of Japanese unique otherness satisfied the needs of both Japan and the
West.

The political nature of Nihonjinron became clearer in the '950s when Japan was selected
as an honored student of the American version of modernisation in the Cold War era.
Japan's modern history was presented as a positive model of capitalist development in
opposition to the Communist bloc. The defeat of the war made the Japanese Left quite
powerful and active. In order to repress the Japanese Left and to mobilise the Japanese
towards an ideal capitalist development, the United States tried to implant a sense of
superiority against the Communist countries in the Japanese. John Foster Dulles, who
was assigned to negotiate the peace treaty with Japan argued in '950 that

it might be possible to capitalise on the Japanese feeling of racial and social

superiority to the Chinese, Koreans and Russians, and to convince them that as part of
the free world they would be in equal fellowship with a group which is superior to the
members of the Communist world. (quoted in Dower Norman 40).

For this purpose, Japan's traditional values and structures and its modern history were
for the first time positively defined and valued by the West.

The rapid economic growth of Japan also lent itself to Japanese scholars' recovering
confidence in their society. The peculiarity of Japanese industrial relations such as
lifetime employment, seniority wages and enterprise unionism, came to be emphasised
as the secret of successful modernisation. This tendency increased especially in the late
'960s when Japan's economic power became much stronger. From the perspective of
modernisation theory, Japan's "miracle" could not be totally explained because western
experiences of modernisation and the Japanese one did not entirely converge. Thus,
reasons were sought in the realm of culture. The cultural characteristics which had been
regarded as feudal remnants came to be evaluated positively 'as the driving force behind
Japan's economic miracle' (Mouer and Sugimoto Images 49). This led to a revival of a
positive emphasis on Japanese uniqueness which was so strong in the '930s.

Anthropologist Chie Nakane's work Tate Shalai no Ningen Kankei (Interpersonal

Relationships in a Vertically Structured Society '967) marked the beginning of a
Nihonjinron boom. (The English version of this book, Japanese Society was published
in '970.) Her work was quite similar to Aruga of the '930s and Benedict in that it treated
Japan as a culturally holistic unity and emphasised group-orientation and vertical
structure as core cultural values, although she does not mention these previous works
(Mouer and Sugimoto Images, Kawamura "Historical"). Nakane emphasises the
importance of 'vertical relationships' in institutions rather than 'horizontal relationships'
within classes in analyzing Japanese society. She argues:

Even if social classes like those in Europe can be detected in Japan, and even if
something vaguely resembling those classes that are illustrated in the textbooks of
Western sociology can also be found in Japan, the point is that in actual society this
stratification is unlikely to function and that it does not really reflect Japan's social
structure. In Japanese society it is really not a matter of workers struggling against
capitalists or managers but of company A ranked against company B. (Japanese 87)

The fatal flaw in Nakane's work is the neglect of power relations. She regards vertical
relationships as a static and ahistorical cultural phenomenon. It is true that Japanese
social relationships are predominantly vertical or hierarchical, but this is not a cultural
given. We should pay attention to how this verticality has historically developed and
been maintained and by whom. Nakane, however, just insists that because Japanese
society is basically vertically structured, Japanese social relationships are vertical.

What makes Nakane's work so powerful in spite of these shortcomings, is its appeal to a
cultural relativism. At the beginning, she argues that one cannot judge Japanese society
with a western yardstick, but only with an indigenous Japanese yardstick, kujirajaku
(whale measure) (Tate ''-'4). This call for cultural specificity is a challenge to
eurocentric modernity and suggests the possibility of alternative ways of theorising
modernisation, without regarding the western experience as the model path to the
modern stage.

However, Nakane's discourse does not escape the idealised dichotomisation of "the
West" and "Japan". Her implicit assumption is that western social theory completely fits
the West, where people are supposedly completely individualistic and rational, and that
modern Japan is essentially and absolutely group-oriented and emotional (Mouer and
Sugimoto Images). And this leads her to searching for a Japanese 'informal structure'
which governs human relations (Tate '85-6). As the subtitle of her book, Tan'itsu Shakai
no Riron (A Theory of a Homogeneous Society) clearly shows, the presumed
homogeneity of Japan is the unquestioned basis upon which her theory is constructed.
Nakane argues that 'there seems not to exist such a homogeneous society as Japan in the
contemporary world' ('88). And in such a homogeneous society as Japan, the similarities
within the society are much more important than the differences.
It is not surprising that the power bloc welcomed and disseminated this view. The fact
that Nakane's work was frequently quoted by members of Japanese elites and was
promoted to be published overseas by the government, shows how it was seen as
ideologically useful for supporting the status quo in Japan (in that it naturalises the
group-orientation displayed by many Japanese and their relative lack of class
consciousness (Kawamura "Historical" 55, Mouer and Sugimoto Images '77)).

To do justice to Nakane, I must admit that she neither "admires" the verticality of
Japanese society as the secret of economic success nor "intends" to contribute to the
government's strategy of ideological manipulation of Japanese people. However, what is
at isuue is that Nakane's discourse on "Japan", like many other Nihonjinron 'tends to
minimise the importance of or need for control and coercion', by mixing up culture and
ideology (Mouer and Sugimoto 403). Under the disguise of cultural relativism, Japanese
"culture" was reified as "essential", free from power relations and historical changes.
Thus, the Japanese self-assertion of its own uniqueness is necessarily an ethnocentric
"Japaneseness" and the national self-confidence aroused by the economic "miracle"
adds a sense of superiority to this uniqueness.

Following Nakane, a number of books which tended to essentialise the Japanese

collectivist "culture", using varying approaches such as psychology, anthropology,
management studies or biology, were published in the '970s. They were consumed to
such an extent that Nihonjinron became a popular commodity (Befu Ideorogii). In the
'980s the number of Nihonjinron books published in Japan decreased. This may be
because 'Japan's improved status internationally has reduced the need to stress
constantly the uniqueness of Japanese society in order to establish an acceptable
national identity' (Mouer and Sugimoto "Cross-currents" 9). Yet, this does not mean that
Nihonjinron is disappearing; Nihonjinron is still well-received (5) and more
sophisticated theories are emerging such as exploring the ie (household system) as a
continuing norm in Japanese society or the unique pattern of Japanese civilisation
(Murakami et al). No matter how seemingly sophisticated, the fundamental assumptions
of Nihonjinron are still shared, namely homogeneity, group-orientation and intuitive
comparison with a supposedly monolithic West (Mouer and Sugimoto "Cross-currents"
5-9).

These developments of Nihonjinron in the '980s have much to do with the Japanese
government's support for the search for Japaneseness. In order to circumscribe Japanese
"uniqueness" and to disseminate the correct image of "Japan" in the world, several
official research centers were established. In '979, then prime minister Ohira Masayoshi
started the research programme of Bunka no Jidai (Age of Culture), declaring that time
had come for "us" to reevaluate Japanese 'traditional' culture and values, lost in the path
to modernisation. Japanese 'tradition' was seen as the key to restore 'warm human
relationships in the family, workplace and local regions' (quoted by Harootunian 462).

Along the same line, the government of Nakasone Yasuhiro established an International
Centre for Japanese Studies in Kyoto in '986 where many scholars are engaged with
research on Japanese "essence", including the Emperor system. As Japan's economic
power became stronger, the connections between the power bloc, Nihonjinron and the
official construction of national identity became obvious. The purpose of such official
and institutional support for the discourse of Nihonjinron is to disseminate the
essentialist view of "Japaneseness" not only among the Japanese but also throughout the
world, so that "Japaneseness" would be 'properly' recognised by Others (Mouer and
Sugimoto "Cross-currents").

Japan's "economic miracle" also changed western views towards Japan, because Japan
has emerged as a strong competitor. However, the secret of its success was still sought
less in terms of modern rationality than in the cultural otherness of Japan. As a threat to
western power, the future of Japan's economic power was the main focus of concern in
"the West". Around '970, there was a clear ambivalence in western commentaries on
Japan's "miracle". An optimistic view was expressed in Kahn's The Emerging Japanese
Superstate, in which Kahn referred to Japan as 'Japan Inc.', declaring that the twenty-
first century would be the Age of Japan. A more pessimistic view however paints the
dehumanised image of the Japanese as 'economic animals'. As Wilkinson argues, '"Japan
Inc." is more easily understood as an echo of the age-old fear of "Oriental Despotism"',
which 'is a negative image easily evoked at a time of war, and one which satisfies the
emotional need to identify a single malefic enemy' ('39).

Glazer points out that American images of Japan have not fundamentally changed since
Benedict. Americans continued to see Japan as paradoxical, alien, unpredictable and
unstable. Moreover, he argues that 'the American image of Japan I have described is
based in large measure on Japanese images of Japan' ('66). As a result of the efforts of
the Japanese power bloc to disseminate Nihonjinron overseas, books such as Nakane,
which I discussed above, have been influential on the shaping of American images of
Japan. And, in turn, Japan's own image of itself has been influenced by the American
view. Here we see clearly the complicit relationship between Japan and the West.

As Japan's economic status became firm and American economic power relatively
declined, some scholars in the West, mainly the United States, advocated learning from
"Japan" (Dore, Vogel). Although Vogel's Japan as Number One, in which he advocated
'yokon-wasai' (western spirit, Japanese technology) awakened a great reaction both in
Japan and the United States, the book must have had opposite appeals. The reciprocal
Self-Other relationship has been constructed as a kind of zero-sum game: when Japan
gains points, the West loses. Unlike the '930s, "the West" had now lost so many points
that it began to speak about itself. As Robertson argues,

the decade of the '980s was one which witnessed the emergence of something like an
American equivalent of nihonjinron with much debate about the ways in which
American national culture could be enhanced and protected from global relativisation.
("Japan" '89)

At the same time, against the essentialist view of the uniqueness of Japanese culture,
which is produced in Japan and the West alike, a considerable amount of criticism has
appeared in Japan and the West since the '980s (Mouer and Sugimoto Images,
Kawamura Nihon, Dale, Befu Ideorogii, Lummis). Many such works try to demystify
notions of the uniqueness of Japanese society, instead of hypostatising cultural
attributes. These works deny Japanese exceptionalism and attempt to pull "Japan" back
to the rest of the world.

However, there is a thin line between this kind of debunking and a more aggressive
criticism which is vehemently anti-Japanese, contaminated with the interest of "the
West". Around the mid-'980s, many scholars, together with the power bloc in the West,
mainly the United States, began to blame Japan for unfairness in playing the trade
game. These so-called revisionists, interestingly, share with the Japanese Nihonjinron
theorists the view that Japan and the West are irreducibly different (Fallows, van
Wolferen). Although they rightly criticise Japan for utilising cultural uniqueness as an
excuse for Japan's trade surplus and as a legitimation for Japan's underdeveloped
democracy, they still treat the Japanese 'system' as 'alien' or totally different from the
West. As a result, this view easily leads to western ethnocentrism. As Morley and
Robins argue,

The comparative lack of success of the European and North American economy must
then be a consequence of abiding by universal principles and moral code. Through such
reasoning, it is possible, even in the face of competitive failure, to reaffirm the essential
(that is, civilisational) supremacy of western culture. ('52)

Ironically, however, Nihonjinron's strength was only reinforced by the aggressiveness of

Japan-bashing, because of its strong emphasis upon the difference between "Japan" and
"the West". In response to Japan-bashing, the Japanese power bloc stressed that Japan
was used as a scapegoat to justify the decline of western economic power. The more
Japan was criticised as a homogeneous cultural unity, the more the differences between
"us" and "them" were absolutised, and the better the defensive nature of Nihonjinron
worked. Here came America-bashing.

'No' to Ieru Nihon (The Japan That Can Say No) written by right wing politician,
Ishihara Shintaro and Sony chairman, Morita Akio became a million-copy bestseller in
Japan in '989. As a popular Nihonjinron, it marks an important shift from defense to
aggression. Ishihara's arguments boast especially of Japan's superior technology,
condemning the racist tendency in Japan-bashing and declaring the opening up of a new
era where Japan will share world leadership with the West.

According to Ishihara, Japan is of the future; it is riding on the crest of a great historic
wave and will shape the next age, a more human age beyond western modernity.
(Morley and Robins '38)

Japan has begun to speak about the Occident again and Nihonjinron is becoming a
weapon in the economic war between Japan and the West, mainly the United States, in
the '990s (for details of Japan-bashing and America Bashing, see Morley and Robins
and Miyoshi). Japan's economic power made its self-assertion of uniqueness no longer
merely a matter of the construction of Japanese national identity, but also the
construction of the western Other (Morley and Robins, Robertson "Japan").

It should be stressed, however, that in spite of considerable historical, political,

economical and cultural changes in both Japan and the West and in the relationship
between the two, we can see how the construction of Japan as a "unique" cultural entity
has remained essentially the same. The 'intriguing overlay of hostile stereotypes and
positive self-stereotypes' which Dower (War 3') observes in the propaganda of both
sides during World War II, has never really stopped. And Japanese Otherness, in turn,
confirms the western universal Self. Both need each other in order to define themselves.
A complicit relationship between Japanese self-Orientalism and western Orientalism
comes in sight when the previously unmarked superiority of "the Occident" has to mark
itself, when the boundary between the dominant and the subordinate is blurring. In the
age of globalisation, which increases the political, economical and cultural
interconnectedness of the world, this tendency will be intensifying. It is to the
inter/national context of the complicit relationship between Japan and its western Other
that we will now turn.

Kokusaika: Exoticism and Inter/Nationalism in the Age of Globalisation

The popularity of Nihonjinron has been inseparable from the discourse on kokusaika
(internationalisation) which has accompanied the impact of globalisation in Japan. In
the discourse on kokusaika in Japan, Japan's "backwardness" in internationalisation has
been repeatedly lamented and the necessity of promoting it strongly stressed. In so
doing, however, globalisation is subtly substituted for inter/nationalism, the other side
of nationalism. Japanese self-Orientalism transforms global homogenisation into
domestic homogenisation by appropriating the western gaze through which Japan's
otherness is defined. It may be that "Japan" is now most fascinated with its own "exotic
otherness", which can be somehow shared among many inter/nationalising Japanese.

Since the defeat of World War II, Japanese elites have always advocated a popular
slogan. Minshuka (democratisation) in the '950s, kindaika (modernisation) in the '960s
and kokusaika (internationalisation) since the '970s. Each slogan has been closely
related to the political circumstance and discourse of Nihonjinron, serving as 'a new
symbol and torchlight to guide the people' (Befu "Internationalisation" 262). Of all
these, kokusaika has been the most popular and lasted the longest. Although the precise
period of its emergence cannot be determined, kokusaika seems to have appeared and
become popular around '970 (232-3). Since then, it has been a dominant guiding
principle.

What is kokusaika? How does it relate to the historical processes of globalisation? Hall
argues that globalisation refers generally to

those processes, operating on a global scale, which cut across national boundaries,
integrating and connecting communities and organisations in new space-time
combinations, making the world in reality and in experience more interconnected.
("Question" 299)

The main characteristic of globalisation can be described as 'time-space compression'

(Harvey), through communication technologies, transnational corporations and the
massive trans-border flow of people. Although the resulting forms of interconnectedness
are too complex for a single definition, and 'for convenience can be summed up under
the term "globalisation"'. (Hall "Question" 299)

Kokusaika can be seen as a Japanese version of the discourse of globalisation. The

emergence of the term kokusaika almost paralleled the acceleration of the globalising
process which is generally agreed to have taken place in the '970s. By the '970s, Japan
had become an economic superpower. It had achieved its earnest wish to catch up with
the West economically and joined the First World club as the only non-western member.
It was time for Japan to change its role from a mere importer of western technology and
ideas to 'an exporter of Japanese technology and ideas' (Mouer and Sugimoto "Cross-
currents" '9). What distinguished internationalisation from westernisation for Japan was
the prominent status and role of Japanese multinational corporations in the modern
world system. The ultimate purpose of kokusaika has been, thus, to promote national
interests; the other side of internationalism is nationalism (Yamamoto).

This overtly nationalistic purpose tends to be softened by the positive connotations of

the ambiguous term, kokusaika. It does not have an exact meaning, but sounds
attractive, because it implies the rise of Japan's economic status, affluence and
cosmopolitanism. In addition to this, there is another sort of ambiguity concerning
kokusaika. Mouer and Sugimoto (Images) found that when asked what kokusaika meant
to them, most people could not point to its purpose, although they associated it with
various means of achieving kokusaika, such as 'learning English', 'learning about
foreign countries' or 'stop behaving like an economic animal' (380-'). In other words,
most of respondents evaluated kokusaika positively as 'a desirable process of change'
towards 'an undefined goal' (380).

It might be that these two dimensions of positive ambiguity have made kokusaika so
popular and hegemonic in Japan. The term manufactures an empty space within the
dominant ideology, into which people can invest their own desires differently but
positively. The empty space is being filled with "how to" internationalise Japan and the
Japanese "correctly". The popularity of Nihonjinron since the '970s has to be understood
in this context of kokusaika. Nihonjinron tends to function as a "manual" for kokusaika.

The Nihonjinron boom was enormous. According to a survey by Nomura Sogo

Kenkyusho, at least seven hundred Nihonjinron books were published between '945 and
'978. The number of books published annually doubled around '970, and in '977 there
were five times as many books as in '960. '982 estimates have Nakane (Tate) selling
over 760,000 and Doi (Amae) over ',250,000 copies. Vogel and Reischauer have also
sold more than 400,000 copies (Mouer and Sugimoto Images 86-7). Japan's self-
Orientalism is no longer a monopoly of intellectuals. In the kokusaika period, it became
a part of popular culture. No longer a mere ideology it offers reading pleasure to many
Japanese. How, then, should we understand the enormous popularity of Nihonjinron in
the context of kokusaika?

The reason for this popularity is often connected to the search for identity. Befu
("Internationalisation"), for example, argues that massive westernisation and
globalisation have given rise to cultural insecurity and identity crisis among the
Japanese. Some argue that the excessive interest in its national character is itself a part
of the Japanese national character or reflects a psychological trait of the Japanese
(Minami). Kano argues, for example,

psychologically, a Japanese tends to be insecure, uncertain of his [sic] relationship

with others around him, his relative position in the community or the group(s) he
belongs to. This tendency...creates a national hyper-sensibility about international
reputation and image. ('57)

This kind of explanation is typical of Nihonjinron discourse itself, and displays an

upside down logic of cause and effect. However, "I like what I get" and "I get what I
like" is not the same. As a popular commodity, most Nihonjinron are written for
commercial purposes, on the principle of 'commodify or die' (Morris). To this end,
audiences are 'imagined' (see Ang, Audience) as having an identity crisis, and wanting
to know how they are seen by and are different from "the West" in the age of
internationalisation. Of course, the popularity of Nihonjinron must have to do with
something people can identify themselves with, but before taking for granted that the
Japanese have an insatiable hunger for national cultural identity, we should ask whether
they are really in an "identity crisis" in the first place. Perhaps the question is not posed
properly. We should not start with an a priori assumption about the influence of
globalisation in weakening Japanese national cultural identity.

Yoshino's ethnographic study of Japanese educators and businessmen [sic] on the

reception of Nihonjinron and the perception of Japanese national identity shows this
tendency. He finds that although there are diverse reasons for reading Nihonjinron and
diverse reactions to it, many people read Nihonjinron for practical reasons rather than
for the search for identity, as we shall see in detail shortly. Moreover, Yoshino discerned
a strong tendency that Nihonjinron makes readers more actively conscious of abstract
Japanese identity. By 'abstract' he means 'the more intangible aspects of culture' such as
'cultural ethos, national character or modes of thinking and behaving that exist and are
believed to exist behind objectified institutions and practices' (''3). Many respondents
associate "Japaneseness" with interpersonal communication (contextualism), groupism,
homogeneity and active emulation and innovation of foreign cultures (''4), all of which
are the main themes of Nihonjinron. Indeed, the massive publication of Nihonjinron
functions as a self-fulfiling prophecy (Mouer and Sugimoto Images '86-8).

The construction and maintenance of national identity is a precarious project which

constantly has to reproduce abstract "naturalness" out of inherent incoherence. National
identity might be most stable when it is so taken-for-granted that it does not have to be
clearly marked. The globalisation process which tends to make people encounter foreign
people and cultures more often and more directly than before, may activate a
consciousness of "Japaneseness". However, the discourse on kokusaika did this before
people "really" experienced the effects of globalisation on their own lives. As
Yoshimoto ("Postmodern") argues, the purpose of kokusaika is 'to transform the real
into the imaginary or to establish a discursive space in which the distinction between
imaginary and real is not preserved even as an imaginary one' (22). Kokusaika tries to
erase 'any direct encounter with Others' and instead encourages people to meet abstract
"Japaneseness".

As mentioned before, the strength of a concept, "Japaneseness", lies in its multiple

meanings which cover ethnicity, race, language and nation. Nihonjinron starts its
argument with unmarking this myth and kokusaika reinforces this unmarking by
emphasising inter/national differences. It takes for granted and romanticises the
"coherent" national community, all members of which presumably share the same
ethnicity. That is to say, kokusaika tends to evoke a nationalist sentiment while
encouraging people to become internationalist. As Martin-Barbero argues concerning
Latin American countries,

identity not only has to face up to the blatant homogenisation at the transnational
level but also to another, disguised, form of homogenisation which comes from the
national level as it acts to negate, deform and de-activate the cultural pluralism that
constitutes these countries. (453)

But it would be misleading to attribute the latter form of homogenisation, which could
be the Nihonjinron boom in Japan, totally to the conspiracy of the power bloc. As I
mentioned before, the boom was not only forged out by the collusion between Japan
and the West but also based upon the capitalist logic of marketing. Cultural industries
were also playing a significant role in it. As Robins argues, globalisation 'exploits local
difference and particularity' (3'). Cultural otherness sells in the age of globalisation.

The Japanese case seems similar to what Hall ("Local") calls 'the world of the global
post-modern' in which 'exotic cuisine' and traditionalism coexist. On the one hand,
global differences are softened and consumed pleasurably in the affluent local, and, on
the other hand, traditionalism is also keenly advocated. What is significantly
conspicuous in Japan is that its own traditionalism is exoticised and becomes a part of
the range of postmodern, international cultural commodities available to the domestic
consumer. This is internationalism through nationalism and nationalism through
internationalism. Both are strengthening one another; internationalism masks and tries
to absorb all domestic diversity and nationalism makes internationalism less threatening
and more pleasurable. In so doing, the gaze of Others appreciating Japanese otherness
or exoticism sells perhaps most to the Japanese themselves.

The myth that Japan is too unique to be understood by others exploits "the western
gaze": how we are seen by "the West". The popularity in Japan of books written by
westerners such as Vogel is an indication of this. Some Japanese Nihonjinron authors
are believed to pretend to be western, using western names (Ben-dasan). Furthermore,
Japanese mass media repeatedly report on how stereotypical images of Japan circulate
in western countries. The most well-known image is a paradoxical combination of
traditionalism - samurai, geisha etc. - and high-technology, which can be seen in
Hollywood films such as Bladerunner or Black Rain. This image of paradoxical
alienness has a long history since Benedict, and suggests a western desire to enclose the
otherness of Japan with "knowable" mysteries in order to control it. This is what Morley
and Robins call 'Techno-Orientalism'.

The Japanese response to this "postmodern" stereotype is first of all one of frustration:
"we are misunderstood; we have to make an effort to disseminate correct images of
Japan". Many Nihonjinron are written about how "we" are misunderstood, particularly
in the late '980s when Japan-bashing became harsh (Kawatake, Ayabe).

But, many people read Nihonjinron for practical reasons, to get advice on how to
communicate with westerners smoothly as an internationalised person. As kokusaika
reaffirms the notion that Japan as a nation is not internationalised, because it is a
"homogeneous mono-racial" country and too unique to be understood by foreigners, one
of kokusaika's purposes is conceived in terms of the need to explain the cultural
differences between Japan and its Other (the West) in order to reduce international
cultural friction.

Some large corporations publish books whose original purpose is to educate employees
who do business with foreigners. Two books published by the Nippon Steel Corporation
became quite popular. Their attractiveness lies in their concise explanation of Japanese
"culture", in Japanese and English. Following the popularity of Nippon: The Land and
its People which sold more than 400,000 copies (Yoshino '76), Nippon: Talking about
Japan uses the form of practical conversation between a Japanese and an American. For
example, the Japanese explains Japanese uniqueness as follows (J:Japanese,
A:American):

J: Foreigners often criticise us Japanese for not giving clear-cut yes or no answers.
This is probably connected to our being basically a homogeneous society and our
traditional tendency to try to avoid conflicts. (405)

J: I believe they [reasons for Japan's high quality products] are all closely related to
characteristics of the Japanese people.

A: That's interesting! I'd like to hear more about that. (255)

A: Why then are there so many people working overtime and coming to work on non-
working days?

J:...This comes from the long-term employment policy of Japanese companies, which
gives the employees a sense of the company being 'their company'. There is also the
group mentality that we Japanese have. (4'7)

Apart from essentialist explanations offered here, what is interesting is the "imagined"
but "realistic" attitude of the American. He or she is portrayed as someone who is
puzzled by the otherness of Japan. Interestingly, this kind of book also clearly
recommends readers not think of Japanese culture as too unique. However, the very
problematisation of Japanese particularity also lends itself to instilling and endorsing the
abstract knowledge that Japanese culture is unique, to the extent that "uniqueness" itself
becomes one of the abstract features of "Japaneseness".

This suggests that the stereotype of paradoxical alien strengthens a feeling that "they"
cannot understand "us". It is unusual for people to be worrying about contradictory
aspects of their own society. No matter how westerners stress what they see as the
paradoxes of Japan, the Japanese do not experience them as paradoxical, but as
"natural". This leads to the decisive difference between Orientalism and self-
Orientalism. While Orientalism enjoys the mysterious exoticism of the Other, self-
Orientalism exploits the Orientalist gaze to turn itself into an Other. It is something like
declaring that Japanese possess "the secret and ability to read the stereotype". "Japan" is
not an inferior orient any more, and, no less importantly, has become "pleasurably
exotic" to the Japanese themselves.

In '984, there appeared a massive campaign of domestic tourism by the Japan National
Railways, called 'Exotic Japan'. This was the second campaign, following the 'Discover
Japan' campaign in the '970s. 'Discover Japan' was a nostalgic campaign. The copy was
written in English, suggesting that "lost tradition" as a result of westernisation was to be
"discovered" in the countryside. Caucasian-like young female models were used
together with "typical" Japanese countrywomen in the campaign to stress Japan as a
westernised modern nation. This was when Japan had achieved its "economic miracle"
and when "Japaneseness" was reevaluated positively, as indicated by the Nihonjinron
boom.
In contrast, 'Exotic Japan' was written in katakana as 'ekizochikku japan'. Katakana is
square Japanese syllables used mainly for words borrowed from foreign languages. The
use of katakana both signifies an indigenisation of the foreign and marks a difference
from Japanese tradition. Katakana-written "japan" signifies that "Japan" has indigenised
westernisation to an extent that there is no longer a traditional Japan anywhere. The
difference between the urban and the rural has disappeared. So, in order to promote
domestic tourism, the "exoticism" of the countryside has to be "invented" (Kogawa).

However, as Ivy points out, this invented "exoticism" is based upon western stereotypes
of Japan, such as geisha or Fuji-yama (Mt Fuji). Such images are playfully and stylishly
exploited in the campaign. Ivy argues that here we can see an interesting coexistence
between 'the non-Japanese seen through Japanese eyes' and 'Japan as seen through
Western eyes' (26). It seems that this is a moment of declaring the triumph of an Orient
which is no longer "Other", and has indigenised both "tradition" and "the western".
"We" have both "tradition" and "modernity", while "they" have the only latter, because
"their tradition" has "melted into air". The struggle with westernisation is over.

This is a self-confident self-Orientalisation, which boasts about its own cultural

"hybridity". Ang ("Chineseness") urges westernised overseas Chinese, who are often
called "banana" (which means yellow skin, white content), to take their hybrid identity
positively ('3). What is happening in Japan may be a similar celebration of hybridity.
But the decisive difference is, of course, that while the cultural hybridity of people of
the Chinese diaspora would serve to deconstruct essentialist notions of "Chineseness"
Japanese hybridity tends to essentialise "Japaneseness". Japanese cultural hybridity has
a long history to an extent that it has become part of the essence of Japanese identity
(see Robertson Globalisation ch 5), and is often related to the secret of the Japanese
economic "miracle". And there is a thin line between self-confident self-Orientalism and
arrogant cultural nationalism.

Many observe the emergence of neo-nationalism in Japan. For example, Tsukushi

Tetsuya refers to Nihon wa Saiko Sindoromu (Japan is best Syndrome) (quoted in
Goodman 222). Also Nishikawa found that the majority of university students mention
Japan as their most favourite country, responding to a question about favourite countries
(35-6). This is a recent phenomenon and suggests the resurgence of nationalist
sentiments (ibid.) (but Nishikawa does not mention the exact year when Japan became
"the most favorite country" for Japanese themselves). At the same time, interestingly,
Japan ranks high as a disliked country as well (37-8). On the one hand, this ambivalence
towards Japan reflects an anguished, divided self, torn between Japan and the West. On
the other hand, however, it also suggests a narcissistic obsession with one's own
national identity.

The Japanese word "Japan" is usually written in Chinese characters and is pronounced
as nippon/nihon. Recently, however, "Japan" is frequently written in katakana,
"nippon"/"nihon". This usage suggests, like "japan", that Japan has indigenised
westernisation and has been internationalised to such an extent that there is emerging a
new "Japan". The use of katakana also connotes "Japan" seen through the Other's gaze
and its distance from the "real Japan" known only by the Japanese. But the use of
katakana, "nippon"/"nihon" unlike "japan", also reflects a cultural confidence that
Japan's economic status is increasing the number of those foreigners who speak
Japanese and appreciate Japanese "culture", thus making "nippon"/"nihon" a universal
term. It signifies the Japanisation of the world.

The title of a popular film of '993 in Japan was Sotsugyo Ryoko: Nihon kara Kimashita
(A Memorial Travel on Graduation: I came from Nihon). "Nihon" is written in katakana.
The story is about a male university student who becomes a pop star in a fictional Asian
country. He travels to the country where people are immersed in a "Nihon boom" and is
scouted as a pop singer. The film is described as 'cultural gap comedy', and the media
refer to the story as 'quite likely' (Shukan Posuto, '993 July 30:26). It does not seem
improbable any longer that Japan's "artificial" exoticism is profitable to Japan itself as
well as to the West.

However, in this film, the object of exploitation of Japanese otherness is Asia, not the
West. It suggests Japanese hegemony over Asia and reminds me of Miyoshi's argument
about the aggressiveness towards the West of Ishihara's book, The Japan that can say
No!;

the danger of Ishihara's challenge is that his anti-Eurocentricity is always on the verge
of being transformed into a perverse program of alternative hegemonism, proposing
Japan's leadership in Asia. (92)

The film claims that as Japan has admired the western culture, other Asian countries are
now worshipping "Japaneseness".

It is also possible, however, to read the film in a different way. What is "worshipped" as
exotic is not Japanese tradition per se but the hybridity of modern Japan, postmodern
Japan. It is less the "westernised" Japan than the "Japanised" West that matters; any
country can be westernised, but cannot indigenise the West like "us". Such a reading,
however, would reflect not only pride but fear: the fear that "we" are being caught up
with by other Asians, are being indigenised by the Other as Japan has done to "the
West", and are losing a "halo" of Japanese particularism; the difference between
"nippon"/"nihon" in katakana and that in Chinese characters, or "Japan" seen through
Others and "real Japan" understood only by the Japanese, is disappearing. "Japan" is
being multifariously simulated and is becoming beyond the reach of the Japanese
themselves.

As Japan's economic status became stable, other countries, particularly Asian countries,
began to try to emulate the Japanese model which is supposed to be based upon
"unique" Japanese culture. Malaysia's government policy, 'Look East' is a good
example. But the Japanese themselves have displayed ambivalence about this export of
abstract "Japaneseness". While many Japanese think that traits of "Japaneseness" like
groupism, which are thought to be the secret of the "economic miracle", are worth
imitating, they believe they are still exclusively Japanese and that others cannot acquire
it perfectly (Yoshino '26, Breger '90). Indeed, there is no guarantee that "Japaneseness"
will ever 'melt into air' in the age of globalisation. I would argue that Asian countries,
not the West will be in a position to deconstruct Japan's self-exoticism. One reason for
this is that they are too well familiar with Japan's hidden ambition of becoming the
centre of Asia through their experience with Japanese imperialism earlier in the century.
It seems true that Japan's power has reached the point where the notion of hegemony
has to be reconsidered to understand the relationship between Japan and the West
(Brannen). However, Japan's challenge against the West has not changed the status of
other non-western countries. The otherness of the non-West, particularly of other Asians
and blacks as inferior others is still an indispensable basis upon which both Japan and
the West can assert their cultural superiority. For Japan, the supremacy over the non-
western Other is a crucial psychological buffer to secure the collusion with the West,
because, as Russel argues concerning the black Other, the non-western Other 'serves...as
an uncomfortable reminder of the insecurity and ambiguity of Japanese racial and
cultural identity vis-·-vis an idealised West' (22). It might be precisely this uneasiness
that most urges Japan to foster its complicity with the West.

Towards Anti-Orientalist Secularisation

As Japan has become an economic world power, kokusaika has fortified it by softening
the cultural impact of globalisation. Kokusaika successfully utilised western Orientalist
discourse on Japan. "Japaneseness" has become a "universally" acknowledged
particularism, as "Japan" and "the West" alike image the Japanese as exotic. Kokusaika
urges the Japanese to transcend this particularism by becoming actively conscious of it.
Japan-bashing in "the West" only strengthens the mysterious alienness of Japan and
Japan's sensitivity to how it is seen through the western gaze. It seems a vicious circle.

The "Japaneseness" which most Nihonjinron point out and many Japanese identify with
concerns characteristics having to do with social relations and communication, such as
groupism and contextualism. These "cultural traits" have been crucial to Japanese
national identity, because of their supposed inexportability and their persuasiveness as
binary opposites to western "individualism". In the age of globalisation, which tends to
deprive all "things" of their origin and makes them hybrid, "quasi-natural" cultural traits
would be the last resort in the claim to an exclusive national identity. This is what is
called a 'new racism' which 'has taken a necessary distance from crude ideas of
biological inferiority and superiority and now seeks to present an imaginary definition
of the nation as a unified cultural community' (Gilroy 53).

Yoshino's ethnographic study among Japanese business people and educators shows that
most respondents seem to think about the "uniqueness" of Japanese in terms of what
Yoshino calls the 'racially exclusive possession of particular cultural characteristics'
rather than 'genetic determinism', though he strangely attributes the latter to western
racism (see chapters 2 and 6). This suggests that many Japanese still link racial
homogeneity to distinctive Japaneseness. It might be argued that Japanese racism is
more "primordial" than the new racism, as exemplified by the then Prime Minister
Nakasone Yasuhiro's '986 assertion of the low intelligence of coloured Americans such
as Blacks, Puerto Ricans or Mexicans. Because he stressed that the superiority of Japan
was due to it being mono-racial and homogeneous, Nakasone's remark was not only
directed against coloured Americans but also against minority groups in Japan such as
Koreans, Ainu or foreigners... However, as Mouer and Sugimoto point out, many
Japanese did not think that Nakasone's remarks were racist at all ("Cross-currents" 2').

Nevertheless, "fortress Japan" is becoming more and more precarious. Increasingly its
"reality" can only be found in representation. This is a "reality" of which people have to
be actively conscious, with the help of the Other's gaze and whose plausibility is based
upon a presumed Japanese homogeneity. However, the very popularity of Nihonjinron
seems to prove how Japanese identity is neither homogeneous nor coherent.
Japaneseness always faces challenges both from the inside and the outside.

For Arjun Appadurai, global cultural flows can be analysed in five dimensions:
ethnoscapes (people), technoscapes (technology), mediascapes (image and information),
ideoscapes (political ideas) and finanscapes (money). Appadurai emphasises the
disjuncture between these. Indeed the globalisation of ethnoscapes is the most
"undeveloped" in Japan. It cannot remain so undeveloped as "Japaneseness" becomes
emulated in the West and the East alike, and as the diversity of the people living in
Japan becomes more conspicuous, due to the massive influx of foreign labor, the
increasing number of Japanese either living abroad and or married to foreigners and the
existing and long-standing minority groups (Koreans and Ainu). They are all
challenging the taken-for-grantedness of who is or is not Japanese. In this respect, the
katakana-written word, "nippon"/"nihon" also reflects a profound transformation of
Japanese society in terms of the hybridity of people.

"Foreigners" who speak fluent Japanese, live their everyday lives with Japanese food
and in "Japanese" ways are, gradually but definitely, changing the meanings of the
"Japanese". Such foreigners used to be called "hen'na gaijin" (strange foreigners). The
increasing number of such foreigners is making that phrase more and more out of date.
In the sports scene it is an Hawaiian, Akebono, who represents the Japanese national
sport, sumo wrestling, as the first foreigner yokozuna grand champion. A Brazilian-
Japanese soccer player, Ramosu Rui, is a popular representative of the national team.
His significance lies in the fact that he plays soccer for the nation, not only for the
money. Ramosu often emphasises this and even urges other Japanese soccer players to
be proud of wearing a uniform with the Japanese national flag - 'the most beautiful in
the world' (Shukan Bunshun '993 October '4).

The threat to "Japaneseness" from inside is represented by the kikokushujo (returnees)

who lived and were educated for several years overseas (mainly in western countries)
due to the transferrence of their fathers to an overseas branch of corporations. This
kikokushijo problem has attracted public attention since the '970s, because all of them
have been categorised as problematic youth who are too 'westernised' and
'individualistic' to adapt themselves to Japanese society (Goodman). They are thought to
have to 'peel off their foreignness' (Befu "Internationalisation" 247). Recently, however,
the status of kikokushijo has significantly improved. Globalisation dynamics have
placed pressure upon Japanese corporations to employ 'internationalists' who are
supposed to be creative and fluent in English (Goodman). Princess Masako who married
Prince Naruhito this June is also a kikokushijo who graduated from Harvard and worked
for the foreign ministry. She is the symbol of an internationalist who serves Japan in the
age of kokusaika. Kikokushijo has emerged as a new elite class (Goodman).

Of course, we should not applaud these examples without reserve. They might equally
be read as a process of domestication and hegemonic incorporation of "non-
Japaneseness" into the existing structure of "Japaneseness", through exaggerating
discursively constructed entities such as "foreigners" or "kikokushijo". As for the latter,
over 40% of Japanese children overseas now attend Japanese schools, where they are
educated to acquire "Japaneseness". They live in Japan outside "Japan" so as to be
accepted in Japan. Significant changes of "Japaneseness" might be limited within the
field of entertainmant or be gendered (Interestingly, a recent survey by a private
preparatory school of lower high-school students in Japan shows that females tend to be
more "pro-internationalism"; 83% of female students want to be a friend with foreigners
as opposed to 59% of the male students; about 60% of the female students want to study
abroad as opposed to about 40 percent of the male (Asahi Newspaper '5 March '993)).
Even Ramosu's emphasis on 'for the nation' can be read as a new Nihonjinron in which
"Japaneseness" is evoked by a non-Japanese Japanese who wants to be accepted in
Japan. After all, they are the elite which constitute a small part of Japan's neglected
diversity. No doubt there still exists considerable discrimination against minority groups
and foreigners in Japan.

But, at least, those example show that Japan is neither static nor homogenous and closed
as a society. The crucial next step for demystifying "Japaneseness" would be to find
ways of recognising this irreducible diversity and the heterogeneous experiences it
represents in terms of their own specificity, transcending "natural boundaries" and
resisting their incorporation into the categories of (self-)Orientalist discourse. As Tobin
points out, the boundary between Japan and the West, 'though vigilantly maintained and
universally ackowledged [is] continuously shifting' (26). What has made the shifting
boundary keep its rigid line is the complicity between "Japan" and "the West".

As long as the logic of identity is based on the binary opposition between self and other,
we will always categorise the world into the dominant cultural map. In response to the
rise of Japanese power, some western left critics tend to be too preoccupied with self-
criticism to participate in global critical discourse. In criticising western Japan-bashing,
Morley and Robins argue that 'we should be less concerned with what we think it [the
Japan that can say no to "the West"] reveals about "them", and more attentive to what it
could help us to learn about ourselves and our own culture ('55, emphasis added). A
well-intentioned critique, but it reproduces the "us" versus "them" logic.

Anthropological criticism further encourages this tendency. Geertz recently reevaluated

Benedict, arguing that the exaggerated differences between Japan and the United States
result less in emphasising Japanese mythical alienness than in deconstructing 'occidental
clarities' ('2'). 'Benedict dismantles American exceptionalism by confronting it with
that...of a spectacularised other' ('22). According to Geertz, historical and political
circumstances deprived Benedict's work of its subversiveness. Now the time has come
for Americans to see the Self rather than the Other in her work.

It is true that "Japan" is offering an opportunity for "the West" to abandon the binary
opposition between the modern "West" and "the pre-modern others". Modernity is no
more a monopoly of "the West". It is time for "the West" to recognise the Other 'as truly
Other, that is, the Other in its own Otherness...The Other that does not just serve the
purpose of being a foil or contrast to the Western self' (Zhang '27). However, Japan's
challenge against western hegemony suggests that Zhang's remark must be directed to
the modern non-West, that is: Japan and increasingly other Asian countries such as
South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan as well. Indeed, it is all too tempting to see
Japanese exoticism as a corollary to western domination, and to raise the question of
'whether Japan is controlling or being controlled by westernisation' (Savigliano 25'). But
this kind of question, which has haunted Japanese intellectuals for more than a century,
not only essentialises "Japan" and "the West" but also obliterates attention to Japanese
domination over other parts of the non-West. Although Japan's self-Orientalism proved
effective in countering western Orientalism, it cannot recognise the heterogeneous
voices of those in other non-western countries, in Japan and indeed the West itself.

If we want to transcend eurocentric Universalism of "the West" and ethnocentric

Particularism of "the non-West", criticism must eschew the collusive, binary opposition
of self/other and be directed towards deconstructing this complicity itself. Japan's self-
Orientalism and western Orientalism strengthen and require each other. They are the
opposite sides of the same coin. If we want to disenchant ourselves from the essentialist
view of national cultural identity, we have simultaneously to debunk reciprocal
imaginings of other communities as monolithic entities, and recognise the fragmented,
multiple and mobile nature of all identities. We have to ask 'what process rather than
essences are involved in present experiences of cultural identity' (Clifford 275).

This project is one of anti-Orientalist secularisation. It releases us from any abstracting

categorisation of "lived reality" and takes the specificity of heterogeneous voices all
over the globe seriously. Differences are always within "us" and "them". Similarities are
always between "us" and "them". Any identity is always becoming, not fixed. We have
to start authorising such diversity to transgress rigid national cultural boundaries, in
favour of people-to-people rather than nation-to-nation, speaking and listening to each
other rather than speaking exclusively about the self and the other.

Yoshimoto ("Difficulty") argues that 'the Other cannot be misrepresented, since it is

always already a misrepresentation' (257). And the same must be true of "the self". Anti-
Orientalist securalisation does not mean the total suppression of culturally specific ways
of life or thought, but the 'decoupling of ethnicity from the violence of the state' (Hall
"New Ethnicities" 257). Even if we still tend to cling to any "ontological security"
which provided existential meaning for people in "traditional" society, such sentiments
do not have to be exploited by exclusivist "imagined" nations. Anti-Orientalist
securalisation can release all of us from the prison of complicit exoticism which has
positioned us into the closed space of the nationally unified identity, and urges people to
speak to each other from their own specific, different experiences, without
'marginalising, dispossessing, displacing and forgetting other ethnicities' (Hall "New
Ethnicities" 258).
This is a shortened version of my Honours dissertation. I owe much to my supervisor,
Ien Ang who has patiently supported me and made critical comments on the original
version. I am also greatly thankful to Tom O'Regan and Stephen Frost for productive
advice on this version.
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