Japan History
...ere sent out to Europe and the USA to observe and learn about all aspects of government and society, bringing that knowledge back to Japan and implementing it in a major national modernization project. The project of national citizenship gained momentum in subsequent years, aided by a national education system and nationalised administrative structure. It is interesting to note, however, that the concept of ‘Japanese citizen’ was not, at this stage, defined ethnically. Rather, it was a political concept, awareness of which was developed through cultural means, Thus it was that in the period of Japanese expansion, from 1910 to 1945, people in Korea and Taiwan were considered to be ‘Imperial subjects’, with similar nationality status and rights as Japanese citizens (Tanaka 1995: 62). It was with the signing of the San Francisco peace treaty in 1952 that Koreans and Taiwanese resident in Japan became ‘foreigners’. Since this post-war period, nationalism has had extremely negative connotations for most Japanese people. As the country prospered economically, however, a new wave of ‘cultural nationalism’ took hold and gained popularity. This ‘nihonjinron’ (theories of the Japanese) boom, which peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s, sought to explain economic success through theories of Japanese cultural uniqueness, emphasising homogeneity and cultural and ethnic purity. Fuelled by scholars, popular writers, business leaders and the media, the ideas propagated in this wave of cultural nationalism became (and remain) deeply rooted in the minds of many Japanese people. In order to create the discourse of national and cultural uniqueness, it was necessary to have an ‘other’ against which images could be formed. The predominant post-war ‘other’ has been the USA, and images of the USA are often extended to encompass all (English-speaking) Westerners. Lie (2000) has suggested the existence of a kind of class consciousness among Japanese people, where Westerners represent the ‘upper class’, Japanese the ‘middle class’ and other Asians the ‘lower class’. Most Japanese people would probably deny thinking this consciously in terms of class, but there is little doubt that this is a fairly accurate portrayal of the way in which many Japanese people have perceived themselves and others in the world in post-war years. Recently, however, the theories of homogenous and uniqueness have come under attack from many quarters (e.g. Befu 2001; Oguma 1995) and this is leading to a reconsideration of what it means to be Japanese and how Japan and Japanese people should relate to the Japan is known for its culture of conformity, and is a highly homogeneous society, but beyond the facade, the degree to which people are concerned with the golden balance is the same as you would notice in any other countries; only it manifests differently. Most Japanese high schools require their students to wear uniforms. They tend to minimize the opportunities to express individuality, but wherever it is allowed, they take full advantage of it. For instance, carrying a cell phone is allowed. This provides a window of opportunities to express individuality, not only in what kind of phones you can purchase, but also in what kind of straps you can attach to it (they often attach multiple straps to one phone), what type of carrying case you can sport (some are elaborately designed like a shape of animal), and how many stickers you can affix to it. The breadth of products available to express individuality using cell phones is astounding. From the perspective of the outsiders, it seems absurd that they obsess over such minor deta...