Fifty years from an uprising
I’m a big believer in the theory of cyclic social attitude. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot since coming to Japan. In particular, it is the paradoxical viewpoints of the ageing and young generations of Japanese towards the west which leaves me thinking that this country is falling slowly towards what I suppose is most easily - though not entirely accurately - labelled as nationalism.
This is a country of contradictions, I’ve said that numerous times here and elsewhere. And the generation gap provides the human face of it. The older generation, those who grew up in the aftermath of the second world war, and the subsequent American occupation are resentful of the western influence on Japan, from the dilution of it’s military power, to the lessening role of Shintoism and Buddhism within it’s societal make-up. Travelling into rural Japan as a gaijin provides ample examples of an unabashed anti-American sentiment which undoubtedly stems from this. The big cities - like those elsewhere in the world - are of course less cut-and-dry, the omnipresence of foreign visitors and residents has gone some way to eradicating the teeth grinding disdain for westerners even amongst the grey generation.
And on the otherside of the coin are Japans youth. Obsessed with myriad western nodes, from American R&B and British rock music, to European fashion and western diets.
So, in another twenty years time, when the generation who quite understandably loath what they still see as their conquerers and oppressors are dead, Japan will be further entrenched in the battle between Japanism and the culture of the world on the cinema screen.
Even now, only 55 years after America officially handed Japan back to Japanese control, the west is an ever present. The shopping districts where the brands you know and love in New York City are much coveted. The fast food which is in decline in the UK sells like hot cakes from the countless McDonalds, KFC and Wendy’s outlets.
So what will this become? Saturation. When Japanese no longer recognise the Japan from The Tales of Genji, when they stop visiting their local shrine on NYE (favouring a bar and a piss up), my opinion is that the inevitable result will be a rise of aggressive nationalism and unrest, the likes of which have - since the student riots of the sixties - not been seen in Japan.
For a foreign resident, Japan is a increasingly easy place to live. English is often spoken, even by the staff of the local convenience store, food is no longer the fish and rice based boredom you remember from all of those holiday shows. But as great as it might be to be an ignorant outsider in Japan right now, the risk is that the identity of a people whose country is built on their unblinking belief in their uniqueness will suffer from the influx of just about everything they can consume from American and European shores.
By the later part of this century, Japan may very well be an altogether less comfortable place for people whose cultures are again diluting this ancient and proud nation, though this time round it is Will & Grace, not ‘Shock and Awe’ doing the damage.
