The Westernized Japan

Today's　Japanese life style is similar to the western one.　For example the clothes, diet, and houses were westernized, and today I want to focus on the Starbucks Coffee as a example of globalization in Japan. There are numerous coffee shops in Japan, and especially the foreign affiliated coffee shops have a high popularity among Japanese.
Starbucks Coffee is the one of the most popular coffee shop in Japan. It was born in us in 1971, and it came to Japan in 1996. at that time there were only 3 Starbucks in Japan, but now there are 686 shops in japan, and near Hirakata station there are 3 starbucks (picture). The growth of the number of shops is amazing, and also it implies how Japanese are westernized, The atmosphere and the music which is being played in the Starbucks are western, and such western style is accepted and preferred by Japanese. If Japanese are not westernized, they cannot feel comfortable in such place. However many Japanese can feel relaxed by being there and having coffee, so it is the evidence that western life style is established deeply in Japan. 　

Are They Shy?

This week’s topic is “Japanese people”, so I’m going to explain about character of Japanese people. Japanese are often described as shy people, but by my observation in Karaoke box, it is not true. Karaoke culture is born in Japan in 1971, the name “Karaoke” is the abbreviation of two words which are Kara(空, empty) and Orchestra. At first it was not a popular entertainment, but now Karaoke is very popular entertainment not only in Japan, but also in other countries. Needless to say Karaoke is a place which we can sing freely, and also it is a place you can break your stereotype about Japanese character. In my opinion to sing in front of many people is very hard, so if he/she is really shy, they will not go to Karaoke, but many Japanese enjoy going Karaoke, so it is the evidence that many Japanese are not shy. These photos are taken in Karaoke box, and as you can see they are really enjoying Karaoke, and especially the woman who are singing with dance seems not shy at all. If you have the stereotype that Japanese is shy, you might be surprised at the truth, but these Japanese is not unusual.
If you have Japanese friends, I recommend you to go to Karaoke with them. Your eyes to see the Japanese might change.

The Wild Commuters

The train is very important transport in Japan especially the urban side of Japan. Many people use the transport to go to the company and school. Actually I use the train to go to school every day, and I think by observation of the commuters you can see the wild aspect of Japanese .

You can see that especially at the rush hour. In my experience the rush hour congestion of the train is awful. In the first picture, 5 people lined, and after about 30 seconds the number of people became 10 (second picture), so as you can see people increase like virus at the rush hour. In these two pictures commuters are lining very politely, but once the train comes they almost forget about a manner, and start to rush for the door.

Here is a video about Japanese rush hour from YouTube. In this video you can see the scene of the awful rush hour. As a stereotype to the Japanese people may think that Japanese is polite, but indeed Japanese seems wild by the observation of the commuters.

The Importance of Festival

I’m going to introduce the neighborhood Neyagawa where I live now as my second blog for anthropology class. Especially I focus on the Shinto shrine which is called Sumiyoshi shrine, and which is near the Neyagawa station. Here is the photograph, as you can see it is the common shrine.　There is a two pair of stone guardian dos and offering box, and there is no one in the precinct as usual. I pass through the precinct to go to the station and to go home almost everyday, but it is rare to see the people who come to this shrine to pray, so when the people come to this shrine?














The answer is when the festival is held. 7 festivals are held in this shrine for a year, and only then many people gather in the precinct. The picture of below was taken at the akimatsuri which is held in the fall (from the web page of Sumiyoshi shrine). There are many people there and the atmosphere seems completely different from the above two photographs.
In the video which I watched in the class one anthropologist says that festival has a role to build up the relationship with neighbors, indeed it’s one of its role, but I think festival also has the role to gather people and to introduce about Shinto. This role is very important to give Japanese chances to rethink about their religion, because most of Japanese especially young generation doesn’t care which religion they believe, as the evidence they mix up different religion. For example most of Japanese have family Buddhist alter, and in spite of this, they cerebrate Christmas, moreover they go to shrine to pray their happiness on the new years day, like this they mix up at least three religion. Therefore to think about their religious festival is important in today’s Japan.

Visual Anthropology of Japan

When you think about Japanese culture, what do you come up with? Actually many of you may think of Japanese traditional culture such as the temples, kimono and samurai, indeed these are important part of Japanese traditional culture, but to know today’s Japan you need to know the new Japanese culture such as anime, manga and otaku. Especially the word “otaku” is widely used in Japan, and many otaku exist in Japan. In the dictionary otaku is defined as young people who are highly skilled in computer technology. However most Japanese use “otaku” as the people who are crazy about something such as anime, young age idol and electricity products, and most of otaku are not so attracted by the opposite sex, and sometimes the word “otaku” is used discriminatorily, so when you use “otaku” you need to be careful. Although otaku is becoming the important part of Japanese culture, most of Japanese have prejudice to them, so not to destroy the culture we need to rethink the definition of “otaku”.