Author Archives: japansociology

Balancing justice, motivation, and inequality

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by Mao Shibata

There are many differences all around the world: female and male, and youth and elderly. All of the people have their own uniqueness or characters and these differences are necessary. However, there are many injustice differences in this global age. While only few people reap great benefits, almost others are suffering from such as famine, poor and social classes in the world and the gap between two of them get more and more wide. If we do not consider or come up with something measures, injustice differences will keep bringing serious impact on the lower people’s life and break down the economy balance.

For example, there are over 1 billion people in India. 80 percent, majorities of Indian-such as rural or urban middle class- are not affluent and they have to work as farmers, clerks, police officers, and teachers and in other mid-level civil service positions. Meanwhile, only 20 percent of affluent enjoy their life with Western life style and many of Western luxuries. According to Rawls, the reason why these injustice differences happen is that one’s life prospects are determined by their family’s assets or traits in society. That means no matter how intelligent and talented he is, he cannot get proper status or job due to insufficient income or assets of their families.

It is obvious that we should take some measures immediately, and a lot of countries have tried to balance fighting inequality with providing incentives for economic growth, however, this problem is really hard to solve since it is difficult to figure out what is fair for everyone. For instance, if he who has great skill or capacity and try and succeed but get same salary with others who do not have some special ability and not as much strive as he did, he would lose his motivation and unwilling to take part in society. It is impossible to distribute everything to everyone evenly in the world because all of us have our own differences.

Then how should we deal with injustice issues? I consider that we need a fair equality of opportunity, to bring everyone to the same starting point. People who have less well-off family are unable to get high level college degree, English-language skills, and good job so that they cannot participate in the new global economy. It is really severe and unequal situation. Opportunities should be open to all of the people. Moreover, I also believe that we should draw up a certain minimum standard that everyone can get surely and equally, and then give an additional reward depending on one’s talent and achievement. Though injustice differences are not easy to deal with it, we have to figure out fair measures to change income and economic opportunity inequalities conditions.

The world trend

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by Mayu Shibata

In the last class we watched TV commercials of cosmetics for lighter skin, which are mostly on air in darker skin nations. We simply enjoyed watching it but it meant a lot. It’s not only about western culture coming into a nation. Well, I read a book about Indian economic growth before and it tells that in India many women seek cosmetics to get lighter skin. According to the book, Indian women pay more attention than ever with the influence of TV shows and magazines and its beauty market has been expanding. Among beauty goods, cosmetics for lighter skin are selling best. As for Indian women, they have cultural and historical backgrounds that they want to get lighter skin. In early days they had the caste system and the higher caste people had lighter skin than lower castes. Their castes were decided partly on their color of skin and therefore they had dreamt of lighter skin for long. And what boosted their adoration is an influence of western TV shows and magazines.

Here’s another story in India. With the rapid economic growth more women are taking part in society. There are more career women and women students and motor scooters are popular with those women now. Honda and local company cooperated and produced motor scooters for women ‘Just for Her’, which hit the market. In India women still struggle with local custom which requires women to stay home and do all the house work. Many men even marry a woman to look after their family and home.

These two stories represent a variety of culture coming into India.

I visited Malaysia last summer to study its culture. In stores there are many cosmetics for lighter skin, American instant noodles, foreign daily products and other countries’ TV shows are on air like Chinese, Japanese and American (with Malaysian/English subtitles). I felt that they live in a much more multi-national country and so that they know about those countries and its culture very well.

It’s pretty much the same in Japan, I think. People like American music, fashion, gossips and TV shows. They know about those stuffs through media and moreover they are mostly available here in Japan, too.

I think it’s fine that another culture comes into a country because I think it has externality in an economically good meaning. In my opinion it’s a matter of people whether the other culture invade the country or not so just let it be because that’s what people want. I do concern that the world goes standardized but I’m not sure if we should avoid it even by sacrificing people’s desire, dream and consumption. I mean that’s a lot. In any way I think now we cannot totally avoid other cultures from coming into a nation.

Problems of outsourcing in India

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by Misato Okumura

There are a lot of call centers in India and many Indians are educated to speak in an American accent to talk with their clients in the United States. The call center itself belongs to IT companies in the United States but it is placed in India and Indian workers there are educated to have an American accent and playing a role of customer service as company members. This is because it is cheaper to employ Indians than employ Americans. Indian employees are well educated and they usually have IT and programming skills but they have struggled with getting job though they graduated from good school. So this sounds very nice because this creates a job in developing country.  But this causes a lot of problems. You can find problems both in India and the United States.

First, problems in India are about their identity and career. Customers call the company and expect that they are going to talk with an American worker. So first thing to do for their job is learning American accent, speed of talking and expressions. Also they need to learn American culture to pretend to be American workers. They check local weather and news in the States on the internet and talk with customers there as if they were also there. They are forced to keep themselves surrounded by American culture and to make themselves think they are not Indians but Americans. So they kill their own identities to get money. This is not good but they need to do that because otherwise they can’t get money. IT companies take advantage of it because they know India have a lot of young people who have knowledge of IT are having hard time to find a job and they can hire them for very cheap. If they work for 7 hours a day, they need to be Americans for one-thirds of a day. It might make them confused.

Second, these Indian workers are doing the same thing every day. It’s just pretending and talking and it doesn’t require any professional skills. This keeps them from a professional and good job even though they graduated from good schools. And you must not forget that there are problems in the United States, too. Because they started outsourcing, a lot of Americans have lost their jobs and opportunity to get a job in their country. The last two problems about career in both countries bring inequality to our society. Japan also has this problem. We don’t have enough job spots for Japanese today but Japanese companies build their factory outside of Japan because it is cheaper. Some people say we are creating job in developing countries but we must not forget this also creates inequality.

Environment and Technology Information

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by Ayaka Nishizaki

Environment and social are mutually created and environment inequality is one of sociological aspects. I think environment is also liked to technology and information. I would like to think environmental problems from these points: The unequal limitation of access to information, ineffective use of information, and relationship between information and unclear responsibility.

During class, I learned residents of lower class neighborhoods face a variety of risks. The manufacturing jobs are often given to immigrants or poor people who don’t understand English well and don’t understand what they’re being exposed to. I think it is connected with unequal access of information between the rich and poor. The poor is limited to access information, so they can’t get enough knowledge about environment (the article of ‘connecting communities: on and off line’). Also, the lack of information will cause not only their health can be exposed to danger by toxic materials in industries, but also people take some action for the environment in a wrong way.

I learned the concept “inverted quarantine” from the reading and class. We often don’t know how much the “eco” products help the environment. I think inverted quarantines are caused by a lack of correct information. I learned environmental issues since I was an elementary school student. But I was shocked that I haven’t known the exact meaning of “eco” until I started to learn by myself. In fact “eco” is not equal to “save energy (省エネ)”, but I saw many people and TV commercials use “eco” incorrectly.

It is true that we are surrounded by a bunch of information to learn, but why does the kind of wrong actions happen? Many Japanese including me had studied global warming or depletion of ozone layer in school. I studied a lot of definitions and words about the environment. However, I wondered ‘how can I use the knowledge in daily life in order to reduce CO2 or waste?’ We have learned a lot of things like helium or CO2 are bad for the environment, but I think those knowledge is not linked to taking environmental actions. Some people would say that recently, more Japanese schools have required students to take actions for environment, but I think some actions are not contributed to environmental improvement directly. Japanese people learned how to separate trash appropriately, but how many people know separating trash (分別) doesn’t always lead to recycling, or it encourages people to increase more consumption of plastic bottles? My point is that although there are many chances to access information, we don’t choose information effectively and don’t link such information to environmental improvement.

In addition, a lot of information make responsibility for polluted environment unclear. For example, mass media criticizes the Japanese government about an accident of nuclear power plant in Fukushima. On the other hand, other people say this responsibility is TEPCO. How can we decide who will take this responsibility? If people think the bad governance was the biggest cause of the accident, they will require Japanese government to take responsibility. If the old nuclear power plant was the most cause of accidents, TEPCO which haven’t reconstructed the plant for about 40 years should take responsibility. In my opinion, through a lot of information, responsibility becomes more unclear because information diversifies people’s thoughts and ideas (as we discussed ‘what is positive side when new culture/information is brought into our country?’). If a state-level accident such as the nuclear plant is related to many actors such as government and companies involved in the case, it is difficult to clarify the responsibility because of many people’s points of view.

As I mentioned above, the environment is strongly connected with information. Environmental problems, diversification of people’s ideas help our standard of living, but on the other hand, it makes it difficult to think what the most correct choice of information for the environment is.

Western Culture Invention versus Japanese Society

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by Ayaka Nakamura

Since Japan was defeated in World War II, Japanese society had been strongly influenced by the Western culture. Wearing Western clothes, following its fashion trend, putting on fake eyelashes, wearing high heels, and looking for love marriages, Japanese have imitated Western lifestyles. However, people could not simply get rid of their own cultures and identities, so that they have been struggling in a process of acceptation of a new lifestyle. Different social groups show different reactions to get involved in the Western culture invention.

Although globalization has enabled Japanese people to have access to greater information of what Western cool people wear, eat, and buy, their different financial levels caused various reactions to the Western lifestyle. For example, the rich could buy the exact same products that they saw in Western TV dramas, but the poor could not. Young Japanese women buy western trendy clothes and dye their hair in lighter colors following an influenced perception of beauty, but some of them cannot afford many new clothes and/or monthly hair care. It seems, in this westernized consumerist society, people who cannot follow the dominant lifestyle are marginalized and labeled as “different,” which often contains negative images.

However, the relatively poor also try to get involved in the Western lifestyle stream. Those who cannot afford expensive Western goods create new affordable products to still adopt the Western lifestyle. In Japan, many cheap fashion brands have been established, such as Honey’s, INGNI, earth music&ecology, moussy and so on. They retail around 5000 yen items that most of all Japanese can afford. Borrowing the essence of the high end fashion, a new fashion was produced for the relatively poor to follow new values.

Moreover, as to Western images of independent women and love marriages, few Japanese women can enjoy the Western career women life because the most of women are still valued within gender ideologies. Although Sex and the City got very popular, in reality around forty year old women who have not married yet are called makeinu (負け犬), losers, which goes back to an old-fashioned idea that women’s happiness is marriage. Yet, other groups of people have started opposing this, and cerebrated those independent unmarried women as ohitorisama (おひとり様), which simply means one person but without any miserable nuance. Japanese social structure had conflicts with the Western value of career women, but creating new norms the whole society are involved in the process of adaptation. Independent “makeinu” women gained new identities as ohitorisama.

All over, it is difficult to determine what is bad and what is good of Western cultures. Globalization brought many changes in Japanese society, and certain groups of people have struggled with them. However, the whole process of acceptation of new values rolled up all groups of people and produced various solutions to join in the Western lifestyle. Adding new Western cultures on existing Japanese cultures, society and people are getting culturally globalized.

Globalization and the image of success

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by Asako Morita

Globalization brings us so much information by mass media such as TV and Internet. Historically, America and other western countries have led world economy and therefore they who have succeeded in business and living sophisticated life became the model of success. Whether they are actually happy or not, media especially TV dramas which shows how free city life were broadcasted all over the world and people tend to think this would be the life when they become rich. The scariest thing is globalization even change typical life style and people’s life aim.

Especially, I was interested in women’s global beauty. The globalization made the ideal women and people take it as a big market. This global market and the typical ideal beauty invades society and culture, and sometimes people think it can destroy tradition and originality, I think no one can stop it in this capitalism leading world economy and even it influences a lot, the basic identity and tradition would never change.

For instance, since pale became the image of success among worldwide women, whitening products were targeted by multinational companies and sold thousands of them. These advertisements such as TV commercials also created the image clear and even more penetrate in society.

Not only whitening products but also choice of clothes is influenced. When I visited India, I was so surprised when I saw TV programs. Most shows broadcasted totally western lifestyle. Women are dancing at dance club wearing sexy dresses. Even woman wear a sari which is a traditional Indian dress was exposing shoulder and the breast. It was like Indian actors and actresses imitate part of American culture. I remember that I felt so strange the pictures I saw on TV were completely different from what I saw on the street outside.

However the fact TV programs, other multinational products and other factors affect on different countries and culture, I think this is the result of globalization and capitalism. As long as America which is a capitalism country leads the world economy, we can never stop the image formation and marketing of multinational companies. It may influence on different cultures, but it does not ruin each culture. Traditions and basic cultural morals cannot be changed easily since they have taken over for long time. The western influence may create different life aims but culture and lifestyle have changed in each time and I think people are just adapting how to live the present age.

Three Questions of Cultural Globalisation

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by Hiroki Matsukura

We have several issues around cultural globalisation, such as the conflict between globalism and localism. On this post, I would like to focus on three topics which cultural globalisation is facing, in my opinion. These three topics, or questions, challenge us on whether we continue to cope with cultural globalisation in the way we are doing at the present.

The first question about cultural globalisation is a suspicion on the equality of each culture in midst of the globalisation. In other words, when we treat cultures in globalisation, each of them has its own power to influence people’s lives in the world. Some are stronger and others weaker. For example, as we experience now, the American and the Western European cultures affect our lives around the world very much. They are so powerful that globalisation seems to mean the global access to the Western cultures. On the other hand, taking a look at the Bolivian culture, for instance, we notice the difference of treating between them. With an extreme strong expression, people perhaps will see globalisation as a Western non-territorial invasion. In international society, culture can be a form of soft power. Thus, cultural globalisation has a competitive nature among cultures as one of its characteristics. That may be associating to exclusiveness of one culture from others.

The second is the possibility to strengthen the situation in which culture leaves its essence. Cultures can be stated as consisting of the home land and/or ethnicity. However, because of the globalisation, cultures are leaving them. Last Christmas, I went to my Italian friend’s place in Rome, and experienced a traditional catholic Christmas. It was totally different from what I had imagined. In the dinner of Christmas and its Eve they did not eat meats, and the cake was not decorated. They visited churches in the night. They celebrated Christmas for almost whole a week since the Eve. They visited their kin and ate together. Actually, it was quite similar to the tradition of the Japanese New Year’s Day fiesta. There is a possibility that others’ cultures we got to know through globalisation are not genuine, or are faked. Moreover, when we read foreign books, see foreign films, and listen to music from overseas, we may face a difference of norms. We might get completely different feelings from the native people’s feeling while touching on the culture. Even though we do not notice the difference, the norms, the basis of culture, should be completely different from what we, outsiders to one culture, imagine about it. We possibly will misunderstand the cultures from others. Thus, the questionable point is whether the globalisation can transport real and genuine culture toward others.

The third is a point that cultural globalisation is not moral globalisation. Similarly to the difference and gap of each cultural norm, the idea of morality on each culture is not same. Even if we would like to transport our moral idea to others, we might not know whether we could or not. Culture as form can be easily transported, but when it comes to think about the mentality on culture, the transportation will be not easy as the norms show us. Which side, left or right, of escalators standing on is still a cute matter. Probably, respect toward lives or the value of violence will be not same on each culture. This is not a small gap.

With these three questionable points, however, we cannot stop globalisation. It already has preceded our recognition. It cannot be helped as a fact though we have to try not to let the situation be. This is because the gap of recognition and the exclusiveness of our cultures might be leading us to much larger misunderstanding and turmoil. In the situation that the values and goals of each culture are different, the cultures are facing power-relationship and a sort of race now. Since our mixture and co-existing with others through cultural globalisation, we will need to strive to revise the influence of our cultures.

Recursion of ‘Japanese Beauty’ through Globalisation

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by Eriko Maruyama

Back to ‘Japaneseness’

Since Japan opened its door to the world in the end of 19th century, Japan has been trying to surpass the Western world. In order to achieve modernisation, Japanese society copied Western style. As a result, from the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was successful in growing its economy and now, we are the one of the richest countries in the world. With economic modernisation, Japanese culture has been changing as well. I think that the Western culture has firmly established itself into Japanese society from late-1980s and 1990s. Simultaneously, the sense of beauty has changed as well. Through movies, TV dramas and fashion magazines, Japanese women were attracted to actresses and models in Western world, so they tried to copy the Western beauty. However, the more Japanese people imitate Western beauty, the more they realise the goodness of Japanese beauty. In this paper, I will argue how the sense of beauty has changed in Japanese women’s mind, and how they reinterpret the Japanese original beauty.

With the inflow of Western culture, traditional Japanese lifestyle disappeared and people adopt their lives into the Western style. From late 1970s, the ladies fashion changed dramatically in Japan. With the great trend of Twiggy’s mini skirt, Japanese women started to wear more Western fashionable clothes. In this period, Western TV dramas were broadcasted on TV in Japan, so there were more chances to get image of beauty in Western world. From 1990s, women began to imitate not only clothes but also making-up. Women yearned big eyes, long eyelashes, sharp nose and white and light skin of Western women. All cosmetic companies promoted the Western beauty and used Western women in advertisement and TV commercial. Moreover, when we open Japanese fashion magazines, there are many foreign models or half-western and half-Japanese models on the magazines. Cosmetic companies produced fake eyelashes and whitening skin care products and women buy them and ‘remake’ their faces into Western looking. Behind this trend, I think that Japanese women feel inferior to Western women. Thus, Japanese women have been influenced a lot by Western culture and they have been trying to get closer to the images of beautiful Western women.

However, this movement looks to have calmed down recently. Women look back at the goodness of Japan. This is because that the sense of Japanese beauty has been praised by people in foreign countries. For example, Kurara Chibana and Riyo Mori got Miss Universe. Some foreigners say that black hair, almond eyes and pure skin of Japanese women are so beautiful. Through these compliments, Japanese women realised the original beauty of Japan again. With this trend, some cosmetic companies changed the way of their promotion. Shiseido promoted ‘Tsubaki shampoo’, with the phrase ‘Japanese women are beautiful’. This marketing was successful. Thus, Japanese women have overcome the inferiority complex to Western beauty and begun to feel confidence as Japanese women.

In short, with globalisation, Western beauty came into the Japanese society and Japanese women copied the Western style. However, as globalisation proceeded further, the Western society realised the Japanese beauty and paid great attention to Japanese women. Japanese women are now able to notice the good points of their own beauty and feel confident as being Japanese women. Thus, globalisation changed the sense of beauty of Japanese women, but at the same time, thorough globalisation, Japanese women realise and reinterpret that traditional Japanese beauty is great.

Gender Norms and Sexual Minorities in Japan

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by Akie Kuwano

Globalization has changed our lives in many ways. We now consume products imported from countries outside of Japan, while products “made in Japan” receive attention worldwide. Clearly, products are not the only thing that are exported and imported; we also trade values and norms at the same time. Gender norms are one thing that is deeply influenced by these exchanges of culture. In last few decades, gender norms in Japan have changed dramatically. More women are working outside, and still not many but more men are helping raising their kids compared to 1980s. However, when it comes to the debate of sexual minority, Japan is still conservative about their traditional sexuality of gender binary.

The recently elected and now the biggest political party in congress, “自民党” (jimin-toh) answered to a questionnaire made by a Japanese LGBT supporting group asking whether it is necessary to protect human rights of LGBT persons. Their answer was “it is important to set a law to protect transgendered persons, but not for homosexual and bisexual persons”. This idea seems somewhat radical, when thinking about the global trend of promoting rights of sexual minorities altogether, as the term LGBT is used in UN resolutions. However, the idea is widely prevailed in Japanese society at large.

One of the reasons why the Japanese people are more accepting about transgendered person than non-heterosexual is attributed to a character in famous TV drama “Kinpachi-sensei”. In the drama, the famous Japanese actress Aya Ueto performed the role of a transgendered female student suffering bullying in high school. This was shocking to Japanese viewers in two ways. In one way it was sensational that the drama openly talked about sexuality, which was usually regarded taboo in Japan at the time. In the other way it surprised Japanese people because the drama depicted the girl as having a gender disorder, and this created sympathy for the “poor girl.” From this drama, Japanese people became aware of the existence of transgendered persons, and at the same time became very sympathetic toward them.

After the hit of “Kinpachi-sensei,” transgendered people became active on TV shows in Japan, mostly in the fields of comedy. One of the famous figures of them all is Ai Haruna, who won Miss International Queen in 2009. Some TV shows featured and interviewed her suffering before she had sex reassignment surgery. This also gathered attention from Japanese people, and again created sympathy and understanding toward transgendered persons.

On the other hand, the Japanese are critical about homo- and bisexual persons. The former governor of Tokyo prefecture, Shintaro Ishihara, spoke to the media that homosexuals have something wrong with their genes and that they are defective in some way. Even some of the well-educated students studying around me openly say that homosexuals are disgusting that they don’t want those people around them. Japanese people have completely different feeling toward transgender people and toward homosexual people.

Now, we can see how countries are selective about accepting ideas from other cultures. Japanese gender norms have been changing, and we already became more open to transgendered persons while getting the information about values of other cultures where sexual minorities are respected. However, we still exclude homo- and bisexual persons. It is the same as the instance of Indian men, who welcome the imported image of men reinforcing his values, while complaining about the values liberating Indian women, although both of the values are from the same origin. From these instances, it is clear that the benefit of globalization is limited to some individuals. The influence from outside world is unstoppable, however, we can still be selective about which to take in and which to exclude.

REFERENCES

『「同性愛者への施策は必要ない」自民　アンケートに回答』2012年12月5日retrieved from http://www.sponichi.co.jp/society/news/2012/12/05/kiji/K20121205004710960.html

“UN issues first report on human rights of gay and lesbian people” Viewed on December 22nd, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40743

ゲイに優しい政党、嫌われる政党　Viewed on December 22nd, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.tokyo-sports.co.jp/nonsec/63855/

Bridging the digital divide

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by Yurino Kawamura

The digital divide is creating a huge loss of opportunities for those without Internet access. As we have learned in class, or in fact, as we have been currently enjoying benefits from our PCs and mobile phones, access to the Internet enables people to stay in touch with the latest information throughout the world. Exposure to cultures from other countries would affect peoples’ lives and ways of living.

As we have learned, Internet access tends to be available only for residents of affluent countries, or to limited rich people in developing countries. The average citizen would be located on “the lower side” of the digital divide, unable to reach for latest news or cultures. To ensure all citizens high-speed Internet access, countries must possess enough budgets for investment. However, data indicate that the countries with a high percentage of Internet popularity tend to be affluent.

graph

Figure 1. Relationship between percentage of individuals using the Internet and Gross Domestic Product per capita

Figures 1 shows the relationship between the percentage of individuals using the Internet (ICT, 2009) and the gross domestic product per capita (World Bank, 2009) of 204 countries worldwide. As seen in the figure, the more residents have access to the Internet, the higher GDP per capita a country holds. The correlation factor between them, which shows the relationship between the two factors, was 70.8%. This means that there is a strong relationship between the Internet access and GDP per capita. It is said that same kind of link exists between the literacy rate and GDP per capita, but according to a calculation, its correlation factor is only 36.6%. This indicated that the effect of the digital divide is stronger than that of illiteracy.

Establishing high-speed Internet access throughout a country is not an easy task. Developed skills and much investment would be required, which would be a tough burden for developing countries. What I am concerned about is that would lead to an even larger gap between the affluent countries and poor countries. Difference in economic power of the countries would enlarge the digital divide, which would make rich countries even richer.

It is easy to predict that this relationship will lead to very unfair opportunity for people within developing countries. Supports to build high-speed Internet infrastructure and teaching Internet literacy would be very important. The data indicates that its importance is equal to or even higher than that of elementary education. Although relatively high cost will be required for technology investments, strong support is required to maintain equal opportunity for people on the other side of the digital divide.

References:

ICT (2009). Free Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/

World Bank (2009). World Databank. Retrieved from http://databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do?Step=12&id=4&CNO=2