When 9-11 happened, my first question was, "who did this?" My second question was, "what are their terms?" I was in the streets of DC that morning, having had a job interview canceled on me, watching the F-16s scramble overhead while people poured out of office buildings.
It may seem odd, but that morning I had lots of time to think. Maybe it was anarchists. They're always so angry about trade agreements. The World Trade Center makes sense. I bet they want an end of corporate hegemony. Maybe it was radical vegetarians, like in 12 Monkeys. Any minute they'll come on TV demanding the freedom of all animals from their cages and feedlots. I was wrong, of course. But then again, my thinking wasn't all that different from the experts that sent us to Iraq.
And that wasn't the only day a terrorist act has occurred. Many came before 9-11, and many since. With that, and every other attack, there are a few common points. Someone's claimed responsibility, and someone's made demands. The problem is that it's always someone different, asking for slightly different things. In almost 10 years since 9-11, I've never heard a satisfactory answer to either of those questions for any of the dastardly deeds committed across the globe, yet somehow we're embroiled in at least two wars.
It comes down to this. You can't go to Terrorist Headquarters and ask them what they want. In this context, the nearest analog to an "evil empire" is found in a bunch of caves in Central Asia. For all the World War II metaphors, Neville Chamberlain wouldn't know who to appease, and Winston Churchill wouldn't know who to fight. This is new territory. This is the decentralized, atomized and anonymized 21st century.
How do you fight a war when who you're fighting, and what they want is unclear, and when who they are changes all the time? Take the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad. Here's a guy who tells the court that terrorism won't stop until the US leaves Iraq and Afghanistan, stops flying drones over Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, ends its monitoring of certain Muslim-Americans, and who knows what else.
Whether you agree with his position or not (I don't), who is he to name the terms of a cease-fire? Who does Mr. Shahzad speak for? Can I threaten thousands of lives, get arrested, and speak for all Americans? Everyone who's right-handed? If I did, should anyone take me seriously? But if you say you speak for Muslims, there's an audience of suckers who always do.
Guys like Daniel Pipes keep viewing the problem of Islamic terrorism as if there were a specific country, army, or group of people to invade, conquer and maybe assimilate. For the hawks, bombing Iran, rounding up all Palestinians, and maintaining permanent garrisons across half the world is the only response. Not knowing who they're fighting, they pick everyone. They propose the most disproportionate of responses to a relatively small threat.
And it is a small threat. The worse-case scenario for a terrorist attack is something like a small nuclear device going off in a city. That would be terrible, but this is nothing in comparison to all-out conventional warfare that nations regularly engage in, or the specter of Mutually Assured Destruction that loomed over us all during the Cold War. We shouldn't allow any terrorist act to happen on ours or our allies' shores. But we can't pretend that this is war in any real sense, with any serious historical comparison to the bloodshed of the past.
Some people on the left think that terrorism will stop if the West embraced a certain set of conditions. All of this would stop if the Palestinians got a fair shake. Leave Iraq and Afghanistan alone, and they'll leave us alone. But whose conditions are they? Who can guarantee that all elements of Islamic society will be satisfied once we cross everything off some list? There is a subset of individuals who are genuinely interested in taking over the West in the name of Islam. Are they the leaders of a particular country? Do they have a real army? No, but they exist, and they should be dealt with.
Terrorism is a tactic. It's not a people or an ideology. It's used by different people with different ideologies. There is no Al Qaeda Mission Statement, no bylaws, no dues structure. Most people are neither paranoid and belligerent nor are they naive and foolhardy. Knowing what we don't know, most people might agree that you can't defeat terrorism in a traditional war, nor can we negotiate a cease-fire with someone who isn't there.
To me, all this lends itself to a mixed approach. Neither nuke nor negotiate. It also represents an opening to define the terms of this battle, instead of being led by them.
Clearly the world would be better off if the West worked towards resolution of some of the major geopolitical issues relevant to the Muslim world, like Israel/Palestine, oil dependence, economic and political development, and a hodgepodge of others. But we can't expect that changing the context alone will lead to an end of terrorist aggression.
Clearly we can't let a gaggle of bearded illiterate cave-dwellers threaten our cities and towns. But they will cease to dominate the discourse of the Middle East when people there have something better to do, like going to school and working. In the meantime, as we do what we can to improve the context that feeds this abhorrent thinking, intelligence and special ops cleans up the crazies. But invading a country and killing thousands of civilians is no way to create good will.
This isn't a simple "us versus them" scenario. They never are. In many ways, soft and hard power work against one another. Too much diplomacy and good cheer allows cynical, genuinely evil people to take advantage of us. Warfare makes people mad, generating an endless supply of suckers for the cynical and evil among them, making diplomacy all the more difficult.
A fractious enemy requires a fractious approach. Anyone who proposes a simple solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism is either crazy or selling you something.
Those who forcibly argue for simple solutions to today's geopolitical dilemmas are either: 1. psychotic, 2. a human rights lawyer, or 3. a defense contractor. Each are part of a solution, but think that they're the whole thing. For them, there is wisdom in knowing the limitations of your own powers of persuasion. This goes doubly for the 1's. This goes triply for Daniel Pipes.
For our leaders, there is wisdom in identifying, isolating and ignoring the 1s, while using the 2's and 3's in a mix of varied tactics to achieve a strategy leading to an end of terrorism, peace and prosperity. Having clear objectives and listening to the right advice is what being in charge is about.
Interests that employ terrorist tactics don't have anyone in charge. They don't have rational, obtainable objectives. There is no negotiation with that, but like our own hawks, not knowing exactly who the enemy is, or what their objectives are, leads to endless, all-out, incoherent war to the death. We must think bigger than they do.
It's time to re-imagine an end to this mess, present a vision of that image, and make it happen. That's leadership.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Japan, Now and Then
The first thing I noticed on our arrival was the massive, silent crowds. Coming out of the Tokyo Central Station at rush hour, cars whiz by, people move across intersections en masse, and hardly a voice is heard. Nary a scrap of paper blows in the wind. It is the quietest, cleanest big city I’ve ever seen. Even for a city-smart Tokyo native, New York must feel like Lagos, Nigeria. Clean, Courteous Canada must feel somewhere more average, like Chile.
As a foreigner, the Japanese rules of daily life can seem halakhic-- mysterious, complex, and eminently practical. Food is always a central source of rulebound behavior, and a good starting point for explaining how things work in Japan. Before nearly every meal at a restaurant a hot towel arrives. The towel is for face and hands only, and is to be folded neatly and placed on the tray it arrived on. If your meal is a sandwich from a convenience store it will come with a plush moist towelette whose package reads, “let’s wash our hands.” Chopsticks should never touch the table. Place them strategically on a napkin or the edge of a dish so that the ends are in the air. Never leave your chopsticks stuck in your in rice. Don’t put soy sauce on the rice. Don’t pour your own drink. Don’t blow your nose at the table. But it’s OK to slurp your noodles.
Such extensive rules aren’t for nothing. Like religiously devout communities, the military and certain secret societies, long lists of rules produce a cohesiveness among their followers. At times it can seem to be less of a society and more of a hive. Everyone has their place, everyone takes pride in his job, everyone does what they are told. I’ve never seen “please” and “thank you” wielded as weapons in quite the same way as they do here. The tradeoffs between our own strict individualism and Japanese version of harmonious collectivism are obvious and manifold. Empathy gives way to pragmatism. Order comes at the price of fervent compulsion. But people here live good lives, with close connections between friends and family, a long, healthy and balanced way to be.
Any good diagnostic approach takes a look at what happens when things go wrong. A cultural look at Japan is no exception. While eating at a French restaurant in Kyoto, our meal was punctuated by the shouts and cackles of the sloppy drunk. Across the room, a boisterous table of young Japanese men and women was falling into excess and disrepute, seemingly egged on by a Western guy with wonderful command of Japanese language and terrible command over its delicate ethics. He laughed and shouted with heavily Italian inflections, so let’s call him Enzo. The group got louder and louder, banging on the tables, spilling glasses of wine. Enzo was at the center, encouraging his friends to drink and get louder, the familiar Pied Piper of Sin found at social gatherings everywhere. The other men were soon completely out of control, redfaced yelling and flailing. One soon slumped over into his meal, remaining passed out for the duration of the event. No one knew what to do.
There was a cultural contradiction in play. On one hand, it is unacceptable anywhere, but especially in Japan to ruin the meals of others with boorish behavior. On the other, conflict is avoided at nearly all costs, unless, like a police officer, it’s your job to conflict with others. No one could do anything, no matter how irritated they must have been, it was a room of poker faces, ourselves notwithstanding. Aside from a few furtive glances, people remained focused on their meals. Nobody even nodded a head. The waitstaff were getting shifty, huddling together and puzzled on what to do, but no one did a thing in a situation that would have been dealt with nearly anywhere else in the world, no matter the level of accustomed disorder. Eventually it was the girls who noticed the shy glances and the nervous waiters. It was the girls who told Enzo in near whispers to kindly keep it down. It was the girls who got the check, and managed the extraction of their unconscious friend from his booth seat. (It’s always the girls, isn’t it?) Utterly unabashed, Enzo stumbled out the door to his bicycle as a taxi arrived for the others. After barely able to get his leg over the frame, he took off weaving into a quiet street. As our last course arrived, an ambulance raced past the restaurant headed in Enzo’s direction, making us believers in Karmic intervention, as if God Himself could somehow enforce the unspoken rules. I hope he was only bruised, waking up with a headache and a lesson.
Putting the occasional Enzo incident aside, most of the time, Japanese culture functions with a high level of fluidity. People know what to do and they do it well. With a culture of universally understood and personally internalized rules of conduct, Japan has come a remarkably long way in short order. We know the stories. The first big story takes place during the 92 year span between Admiral Perry’s famous demand that Japan open itself to the West and the end of the Second World War. Japan transformed itself from a highly refined yet insular economy governed by feudal traditions to a centralized military and industrial powerhouse that dominated the Pacific Rim. During the Meiji period, Japan’s feudal lords retooled themselves into family-led mega-corporations that were the forerunners to many of the brand names known today, like Mitsubishi and Nissan. Within living memory, Japan went from a largely medieval set of economic and political conditions to an advanced, modern state. The second big story is the development of Japan’s export-led economy and the establishment of a stable, enduring democracy. From the 1950s to the 1990s, the same companies that powered Japan’s earlier economic development and war effort reorganized themselves to sell a massive array of industrial products to the world. Between 1965 and 1980, Japan’s GDP grew elevenfold; from $91 billion to over a trillion dollars.
Japan’s postwar growth was coordinated by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and underwritten by the Bank of Japan in a vertical arrangement where money and production directives came from public bankers and bureaucrats. MITI decided which company would produce sedans, and which one would produce trucks. The Bank of Japan would guarantee loans giving them a majority stake in many of Japan’s industrial interests. It wasn’t just a vertical arrangement. Companies coordinated efforts horizontally as well, cooperating to produce cars and other durable goods that were competitive with European and American companies.
Conventional wisdom in the West was (and is) that vertical economic liberalization and horizontal competition between firms creates economic growth. Japan’s 20th century success story is a major exception that should not be overlooked by economists and policy thinkers. No country has ever undergone the fundamental changes that Japan did in a generation. No country has been able to repeat Japan’s successes at state-run enterprise. No country has developed a rational and efficient means of production through collaboration. Why Japan? Russia’s history is a rough parallel of transformation from a feudal state to an industrial and military superpower with heavy state intervention in all aspects of economic life. Europe and America underwent similar transformations, though over a far longer time period and with less state involvement.
For my money, the difference between the Japanese and the Western or Socialist models is not economic or political. It’s cultural. Without universal cultural conventions that place a high degree of trust in authority and a high value on social harmony, Japan’s story of growth might have looked more like our own narrative of hardscrabble competition and studied independence. Policy follows values. Consider a few assumptions that work on the “vertical-horizontal” conception of culture presented earlier. Russia is an authoritative, competitive place. America is not particularly authoritative but it is extremely competitive. Japan is authoritative and cooperative. To assume that the same policy that works in one place can be grafted onto another is dangerous. Just ask Latin America and Africa what they think about Western economic advice. Japan was well-served going their own way. We should not be surprised at other nations’ success arising out of seemingly foolhardy policy.
It is enough to say that Japan does things differently. Having now spent some time in Japan, the large tour buses, group photos and smartly dressed women in white gloves leading everyone with a flag makes more sense. Compared to Japan, the rest of the world must seem like differing degrees of chaos. When Japanese people are abroad, many people have noted the Japanese tendency towards cloistering. It is not unusual for a group of Italians, Americans and Mexicans to end up going out for a beer together, but it is tough to imagine a lone Japanese traveler joining them. In Saipan I saw Japanese tourists studiously avoid contact with Westerners and natives, all while enjoying the simple freedoms afforded elsewhere like spreading out, laughing out loud, and leaving cigarette butts on the ground. Despite these small liberties, Japanese people travel lightly and quietly.
It’s no wonder that so few people here speak good English, despite years of compulsory study, or why there is so little written in Latin script, despite the country’s cosmopolitan outlook. Japan takes what they want or need and leaves the rest. They are utterly uninterested in adapting their way of life to suit others’ needs. Everything works fine here, thank you very much. We’re happy to help where we can, but Japan is Japan. For Westerners who feel starved for individual expression in Japan, the only route to salvation is through assimilation. Expatriates must join the ranks or face a polite though thorough alienation. While I could imagine retaining an identity as an American in most parts of the world, something fundamental would have to change for me to function successfully over the longer term in Japan.
With the looming presence so much silent order and authority, it is no wonder that many Japanese seem have a quiet yearning for liberty. Instead of a noble, romantic sort of suffering, this yearning often manifests as stunted and perverted. People in Japan expect foreigners to be fast and loose with the rules. As we walked down a quiet Tokyo street back to our hotel, a drunk business man followed us, seemingly in hopes that we would witness some devious act between us. Riding the Tokyo subway after about 10 in the evening, all women face the leering glances of drunk businessmen, sad pick-up attempts, and lame exhibitions of bravado. I had the luxury of witnessing this as an outsider, but as a 6-foot blond, Katie attracts attention in ways that similarly dressed Japanese women could never expect. It was seldom flattering. On one occasion, as we climbed the stairs to a train station, a man approached Katie and asked her, “how much,” just as I stood there. Perversion, insularity and drunkenness is a poor combination-- an unfortunate confluence of values and actions. No one is perfect.
Japan is far from uniform in all places and all circumstances. Despite its fast pace and formalism, Japan functions on a human scale while moving at a humane rate. In Takayama, a traditional town in the mountains famous for shrines and sake, we found a more open culture. Visitors and residents alike smiled far more than in the cities. The pace was slower, the prices lower, the social pressures relaxed within reason. We stayed in a family-operated Ryokan; a traditional Japanese Bed and Breakfast. The family spanned four generations, headed by a woman who was well into her eighties who bounded up and down the stairs full of energy, enthusiasm, and a sense of humor.
On one of our last nights in Tokyo, after days of ramen, sashimi, miso and yakitori, we looked up a Greek a restaurant for a change of pace. While we had an address, we were in a large, crowded place with no posted addresses, and few readable signs. After about 20 minutes we still couldn’t determine what street we were on. A man in his mid-thirties stopped and asked us in good English if we needed help. We showed him the address and he used his phone as a homing device to find the restaurant. It was hopelessly on the other side of a few intersections and a sprawling train station. We invited him in for a beer, which led to a pleasant evening that entailed a couple more beers and dinner. The man looked like so many others racing past, coming off work from a long day at some company or other. But he stopped and stayed. At the end of the meal we went to pay the check. The man was flabbergasted to find out that we were buying. The whole time he’d expected to pay his own way. I will always remember the upright earnestness that is at the center of Japanese character, and I will try to help them when they lose their way in my hometown.
For all this talk of insularity, there is an insatiable curiosity for the rest of the world. Jazz clubs abound. For the seas of bad suits that traverse Japan’s cities daily, there is a thriving fashion industry. With all of the prepackaged uniformity expected of Japanese products, it is host to some of the finest art, design and architecture in the world. Japan’s museums house supreme examples of art and history representing all places and times, from Mesopotamia to modern folk art. The Kyoto train station is a hub of commerce on a geological scale, with ten open-air stories linked by skyward escalators and viewpoints, all abuzz with activity, all atop a modern, spotless transportation hub.
In a globalized world full of challenge, adaptability and openness are high-value commodities. When people must face the challenges of their day, something has to give and Japan is no exception. Japan’s birth rate is one of the lowest in the world, with the highest life expectancy; portents of disaster for Japan’s social institutions. Looking at the trends, it's tough to imagine how Japan can retain its standard of living without a massive and rapid influx of immigrants. With a rapidly aging ruling class, Japan will not be able to adapt to the highly dynamic and competitive world economy, but Japan's past dynamism was a result of the uniform rules and trust in authority that is seldom found in heterogeneous places. For many reasons, economic, social and cultural, a country cannot sustain itself indefinitely with the stifling authority and growing needs of old men, but the solutions pose problems of their own. Unless there is some heretofore-unknown model where a few young people can prosper while the elderly are legion, something has to change. Unless Japan's immigrants can accept the rigors of Japanese management and lifestyle, it is unclear how the country can continue to pursue its current social and economic model.
So what will happen to Japan? What happens when outsiders enter and gain influence within a nation whose successes have been predicated on homogeneous social order and cooperation? Will immigrants from the youthful and chaotic world majority upset Japan’s delicate cultural ecosystem? Culture changes out of necessity far more effectively than it does out of choice or fiat. The degree of necessity points to the degree of cultural change. In Japan’s case, that change is likely to be profound. In Tokyo, a few foreigners add some color and character to an otherwise drab, pinstriped subway ride, but they are almost all guests. What happens if they move in? We'll have to wait and see.
A few observations about Japan:
The time zones are strange. Despite its middling latitude, in high summer, the sun rises at 4 am and sets at around 7 in the evening.
People bike everywhere on the sidewalks and expect pedestrians to be aware and move at a moment’s notice.
At baseball games, cheering is the almost exclusive province of cheering sections. The rest of the stadium acts like it’s watching golf.
Old men don’t care about the rules. We saw an older gentleman unbutton his pants to relax on the train, sprawling in plain view. I guess old men always think they’re the exception.
There is a lot of Italian food in Japan. I don’t know why.
All Westerners must ritually ignore one another when passing on the street. Nobody wants to acknowledge that they're an outsider, even though it's plainly obvious.
As a foreigner, the Japanese rules of daily life can seem halakhic-- mysterious, complex, and eminently practical. Food is always a central source of rulebound behavior, and a good starting point for explaining how things work in Japan. Before nearly every meal at a restaurant a hot towel arrives. The towel is for face and hands only, and is to be folded neatly and placed on the tray it arrived on. If your meal is a sandwich from a convenience store it will come with a plush moist towelette whose package reads, “let’s wash our hands.” Chopsticks should never touch the table. Place them strategically on a napkin or the edge of a dish so that the ends are in the air. Never leave your chopsticks stuck in your in rice. Don’t put soy sauce on the rice. Don’t pour your own drink. Don’t blow your nose at the table. But it’s OK to slurp your noodles.
Such extensive rules aren’t for nothing. Like religiously devout communities, the military and certain secret societies, long lists of rules produce a cohesiveness among their followers. At times it can seem to be less of a society and more of a hive. Everyone has their place, everyone takes pride in his job, everyone does what they are told. I’ve never seen “please” and “thank you” wielded as weapons in quite the same way as they do here. The tradeoffs between our own strict individualism and Japanese version of harmonious collectivism are obvious and manifold. Empathy gives way to pragmatism. Order comes at the price of fervent compulsion. But people here live good lives, with close connections between friends and family, a long, healthy and balanced way to be.
Any good diagnostic approach takes a look at what happens when things go wrong. A cultural look at Japan is no exception. While eating at a French restaurant in Kyoto, our meal was punctuated by the shouts and cackles of the sloppy drunk. Across the room, a boisterous table of young Japanese men and women was falling into excess and disrepute, seemingly egged on by a Western guy with wonderful command of Japanese language and terrible command over its delicate ethics. He laughed and shouted with heavily Italian inflections, so let’s call him Enzo. The group got louder and louder, banging on the tables, spilling glasses of wine. Enzo was at the center, encouraging his friends to drink and get louder, the familiar Pied Piper of Sin found at social gatherings everywhere. The other men were soon completely out of control, redfaced yelling and flailing. One soon slumped over into his meal, remaining passed out for the duration of the event. No one knew what to do.
There was a cultural contradiction in play. On one hand, it is unacceptable anywhere, but especially in Japan to ruin the meals of others with boorish behavior. On the other, conflict is avoided at nearly all costs, unless, like a police officer, it’s your job to conflict with others. No one could do anything, no matter how irritated they must have been, it was a room of poker faces, ourselves notwithstanding. Aside from a few furtive glances, people remained focused on their meals. Nobody even nodded a head. The waitstaff were getting shifty, huddling together and puzzled on what to do, but no one did a thing in a situation that would have been dealt with nearly anywhere else in the world, no matter the level of accustomed disorder. Eventually it was the girls who noticed the shy glances and the nervous waiters. It was the girls who told Enzo in near whispers to kindly keep it down. It was the girls who got the check, and managed the extraction of their unconscious friend from his booth seat. (It’s always the girls, isn’t it?) Utterly unabashed, Enzo stumbled out the door to his bicycle as a taxi arrived for the others. After barely able to get his leg over the frame, he took off weaving into a quiet street. As our last course arrived, an ambulance raced past the restaurant headed in Enzo’s direction, making us believers in Karmic intervention, as if God Himself could somehow enforce the unspoken rules. I hope he was only bruised, waking up with a headache and a lesson.
Putting the occasional Enzo incident aside, most of the time, Japanese culture functions with a high level of fluidity. People know what to do and they do it well. With a culture of universally understood and personally internalized rules of conduct, Japan has come a remarkably long way in short order. We know the stories. The first big story takes place during the 92 year span between Admiral Perry’s famous demand that Japan open itself to the West and the end of the Second World War. Japan transformed itself from a highly refined yet insular economy governed by feudal traditions to a centralized military and industrial powerhouse that dominated the Pacific Rim. During the Meiji period, Japan’s feudal lords retooled themselves into family-led mega-corporations that were the forerunners to many of the brand names known today, like Mitsubishi and Nissan. Within living memory, Japan went from a largely medieval set of economic and political conditions to an advanced, modern state. The second big story is the development of Japan’s export-led economy and the establishment of a stable, enduring democracy. From the 1950s to the 1990s, the same companies that powered Japan’s earlier economic development and war effort reorganized themselves to sell a massive array of industrial products to the world. Between 1965 and 1980, Japan’s GDP grew elevenfold; from $91 billion to over a trillion dollars.
Japan’s postwar growth was coordinated by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and underwritten by the Bank of Japan in a vertical arrangement where money and production directives came from public bankers and bureaucrats. MITI decided which company would produce sedans, and which one would produce trucks. The Bank of Japan would guarantee loans giving them a majority stake in many of Japan’s industrial interests. It wasn’t just a vertical arrangement. Companies coordinated efforts horizontally as well, cooperating to produce cars and other durable goods that were competitive with European and American companies.
Conventional wisdom in the West was (and is) that vertical economic liberalization and horizontal competition between firms creates economic growth. Japan’s 20th century success story is a major exception that should not be overlooked by economists and policy thinkers. No country has ever undergone the fundamental changes that Japan did in a generation. No country has been able to repeat Japan’s successes at state-run enterprise. No country has developed a rational and efficient means of production through collaboration. Why Japan? Russia’s history is a rough parallel of transformation from a feudal state to an industrial and military superpower with heavy state intervention in all aspects of economic life. Europe and America underwent similar transformations, though over a far longer time period and with less state involvement.
For my money, the difference between the Japanese and the Western or Socialist models is not economic or political. It’s cultural. Without universal cultural conventions that place a high degree of trust in authority and a high value on social harmony, Japan’s story of growth might have looked more like our own narrative of hardscrabble competition and studied independence. Policy follows values. Consider a few assumptions that work on the “vertical-horizontal” conception of culture presented earlier. Russia is an authoritative, competitive place. America is not particularly authoritative but it is extremely competitive. Japan is authoritative and cooperative. To assume that the same policy that works in one place can be grafted onto another is dangerous. Just ask Latin America and Africa what they think about Western economic advice. Japan was well-served going their own way. We should not be surprised at other nations’ success arising out of seemingly foolhardy policy.
It is enough to say that Japan does things differently. Having now spent some time in Japan, the large tour buses, group photos and smartly dressed women in white gloves leading everyone with a flag makes more sense. Compared to Japan, the rest of the world must seem like differing degrees of chaos. When Japanese people are abroad, many people have noted the Japanese tendency towards cloistering. It is not unusual for a group of Italians, Americans and Mexicans to end up going out for a beer together, but it is tough to imagine a lone Japanese traveler joining them. In Saipan I saw Japanese tourists studiously avoid contact with Westerners and natives, all while enjoying the simple freedoms afforded elsewhere like spreading out, laughing out loud, and leaving cigarette butts on the ground. Despite these small liberties, Japanese people travel lightly and quietly.
It’s no wonder that so few people here speak good English, despite years of compulsory study, or why there is so little written in Latin script, despite the country’s cosmopolitan outlook. Japan takes what they want or need and leaves the rest. They are utterly uninterested in adapting their way of life to suit others’ needs. Everything works fine here, thank you very much. We’re happy to help where we can, but Japan is Japan. For Westerners who feel starved for individual expression in Japan, the only route to salvation is through assimilation. Expatriates must join the ranks or face a polite though thorough alienation. While I could imagine retaining an identity as an American in most parts of the world, something fundamental would have to change for me to function successfully over the longer term in Japan.
With the looming presence so much silent order and authority, it is no wonder that many Japanese seem have a quiet yearning for liberty. Instead of a noble, romantic sort of suffering, this yearning often manifests as stunted and perverted. People in Japan expect foreigners to be fast and loose with the rules. As we walked down a quiet Tokyo street back to our hotel, a drunk business man followed us, seemingly in hopes that we would witness some devious act between us. Riding the Tokyo subway after about 10 in the evening, all women face the leering glances of drunk businessmen, sad pick-up attempts, and lame exhibitions of bravado. I had the luxury of witnessing this as an outsider, but as a 6-foot blond, Katie attracts attention in ways that similarly dressed Japanese women could never expect. It was seldom flattering. On one occasion, as we climbed the stairs to a train station, a man approached Katie and asked her, “how much,” just as I stood there. Perversion, insularity and drunkenness is a poor combination-- an unfortunate confluence of values and actions. No one is perfect.
Japan is far from uniform in all places and all circumstances. Despite its fast pace and formalism, Japan functions on a human scale while moving at a humane rate. In Takayama, a traditional town in the mountains famous for shrines and sake, we found a more open culture. Visitors and residents alike smiled far more than in the cities. The pace was slower, the prices lower, the social pressures relaxed within reason. We stayed in a family-operated Ryokan; a traditional Japanese Bed and Breakfast. The family spanned four generations, headed by a woman who was well into her eighties who bounded up and down the stairs full of energy, enthusiasm, and a sense of humor.
On one of our last nights in Tokyo, after days of ramen, sashimi, miso and yakitori, we looked up a Greek a restaurant for a change of pace. While we had an address, we were in a large, crowded place with no posted addresses, and few readable signs. After about 20 minutes we still couldn’t determine what street we were on. A man in his mid-thirties stopped and asked us in good English if we needed help. We showed him the address and he used his phone as a homing device to find the restaurant. It was hopelessly on the other side of a few intersections and a sprawling train station. We invited him in for a beer, which led to a pleasant evening that entailed a couple more beers and dinner. The man looked like so many others racing past, coming off work from a long day at some company or other. But he stopped and stayed. At the end of the meal we went to pay the check. The man was flabbergasted to find out that we were buying. The whole time he’d expected to pay his own way. I will always remember the upright earnestness that is at the center of Japanese character, and I will try to help them when they lose their way in my hometown.
For all this talk of insularity, there is an insatiable curiosity for the rest of the world. Jazz clubs abound. For the seas of bad suits that traverse Japan’s cities daily, there is a thriving fashion industry. With all of the prepackaged uniformity expected of Japanese products, it is host to some of the finest art, design and architecture in the world. Japan’s museums house supreme examples of art and history representing all places and times, from Mesopotamia to modern folk art. The Kyoto train station is a hub of commerce on a geological scale, with ten open-air stories linked by skyward escalators and viewpoints, all abuzz with activity, all atop a modern, spotless transportation hub.
In a globalized world full of challenge, adaptability and openness are high-value commodities. When people must face the challenges of their day, something has to give and Japan is no exception. Japan’s birth rate is one of the lowest in the world, with the highest life expectancy; portents of disaster for Japan’s social institutions. Looking at the trends, it's tough to imagine how Japan can retain its standard of living without a massive and rapid influx of immigrants. With a rapidly aging ruling class, Japan will not be able to adapt to the highly dynamic and competitive world economy, but Japan's past dynamism was a result of the uniform rules and trust in authority that is seldom found in heterogeneous places. For many reasons, economic, social and cultural, a country cannot sustain itself indefinitely with the stifling authority and growing needs of old men, but the solutions pose problems of their own. Unless there is some heretofore-unknown model where a few young people can prosper while the elderly are legion, something has to change. Unless Japan's immigrants can accept the rigors of Japanese management and lifestyle, it is unclear how the country can continue to pursue its current social and economic model.
So what will happen to Japan? What happens when outsiders enter and gain influence within a nation whose successes have been predicated on homogeneous social order and cooperation? Will immigrants from the youthful and chaotic world majority upset Japan’s delicate cultural ecosystem? Culture changes out of necessity far more effectively than it does out of choice or fiat. The degree of necessity points to the degree of cultural change. In Japan’s case, that change is likely to be profound. In Tokyo, a few foreigners add some color and character to an otherwise drab, pinstriped subway ride, but they are almost all guests. What happens if they move in? We'll have to wait and see.
A few observations about Japan:
The time zones are strange. Despite its middling latitude, in high summer, the sun rises at 4 am and sets at around 7 in the evening.
People bike everywhere on the sidewalks and expect pedestrians to be aware and move at a moment’s notice.
At baseball games, cheering is the almost exclusive province of cheering sections. The rest of the stadium acts like it’s watching golf.
Old men don’t care about the rules. We saw an older gentleman unbutton his pants to relax on the train, sprawling in plain view. I guess old men always think they’re the exception.
There is a lot of Italian food in Japan. I don’t know why.
All Westerners must ritually ignore one another when passing on the street. Nobody wants to acknowledge that they're an outsider, even though it's plainly obvious.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)