Marxy keeps it real sweating in Tokyo, while Momus sits in his ivory tower at Wired Magazine eating imported Pocky and playing with his girlfriend's keitai. ; )

I feel it dog.

On the other hand, can someone explain the connection between Kaguya-hime and reading manga on the train? I'm reeeallly close, but I don't quite have it yet.

actually, i think that the connection between JQA and post-war american sitcoms is summed up in the following quote by JQA:

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
John Quincy Adams

Heh, at least Momus doesn't asset that absolutely every moment of life in [country name] oozes kawaii and history (especially for the 99.99% of people who aren't journalists/tourists with nothing else to do).

i threw this up on clique opera for the drama queen, but i thought it might do some good here, so here it is...

david sez: You can always go back in history and find precursors to some modern event, but you can find an equal number of counterexamples, and it is almost always impossible to prove a those cultural properties' clean descent from the past.
and r. say: he "CAN always"? thanks giving him a little too much credit where none is due. "DOES always" would have been more fitting. if you take a quick overview of recent momusian pennings (i'd say over the last few years), a particular charachterizing factor becomes obvious: almost all of what nick writes about japan akin to some kind of 'japanophilic retcon'...
he excells in taking some cultural nugget that he perceives as 'current' (usually a little dated) or relevant (in this case, the keitai) and then jumping in his google time machine, or on his companion, to find some kind of abraham-like figure to explain everything away in some neat package.
naturally, he gets big points for his overactive imagination, but winds up in the red since more points have to be taken off for the bullshit factor. prince shotoku taishi? right! i'm sure if you translated this entry into japanese and fwd. it to everybody in the R&D department at docomo, they would be like "damn, that momus guy really sussed us out!"
or even if his penchant for postdiction WERE somehow accurate, it still does VERY little to empower the japanese consumer, no? next time i complain about the exorbitant per-PACKET charges by which the monopolistic big two or three keitai companies rake the yen in, i'll be sure to base my objections on the firm ground of good ol prince shotoku taishi! that'll get their attention!
all of the tech. issues and government over-regulation problems you bring up are much more applicable in explaning what has happened, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY (and here is where nick's 'japanophilic retcon' can't help us out) PREDICTING future trends. in other words, he is using the ancient PAST to explain the NEAR-PRESENT (party because it is well-documented in english, non-scientific, and therefore palatable to him in a 'textual' kind of way), and you are (with your master's thesis) trying to explain the NEAR-FUTURE using market-based info from the PRESENT.
of course, the best way for momus to disprove these 'japanophilic retcon' observations would be to write a few PREDICTIVE, 'time capsule' articles on japan and japanese culture. (he has done this at times in the past: remember that nick told us that a ROBOT WORKFORCE will be plugging the gap in blue collar work caused by the japanese population decline...instead of the japanese just porting in a SE asian and brazilian second and third gen. cheap labor force.) i'm sure if the three of us put our heads together, we could come up with a range of topical issues that might be worthy of his predictive pennings. up for that?
heck, if he keeps eating right, i'm sure he'll be with us for at least 20 more years or so, perhaps even more! so NOW is his chance to set himself up to be in a position to say "TOLD YOU SO!" by leaving us some hard, utopian, non-postdictive gems of thought. then, while he is going thru some kind of 'japan and ambulatory cool' phase on his blog in a decade or so, we can swallow our pride and offer to make the green tea for HIM.

carl sez: "I feel it dog."

and r. sez: it would've been funnier if you'd said..."I feel it demon!"

Momus's Japan is a lovely fantasy. Unfortunately it's one that could only exist in the mind of someone who doesn't live in Japan and doesn't speak or read the language. To keep his fantasy, he needs also to keep his distance from the actual place, so that it can remain an Other, to be exoticized and eroticized.

mitsuko say: (what she say above)

and r. say: i feel you, demon (errr...dog, but if you are a girl that would make it bitch, but whatever)!

and that's the funny thing about nick, isn't it? despite all his talk about his forthcoming "Friendly Album" he is in a self-imposed gaijin 'ghetto' with a population of exactly ONE, himself.

like the man himself says about cute formalism...

"there has to be friendliness and experimentation in equal measure for the formula to work"

...which sounds really convivial if you are japanese, but if not, i'm not sure how welcome you are.

hey, what would hannah arendt say about this i wonder?

http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2005/08/of-course-all-this-was-empty-talk.html

Momus's Japan is a lovely fantasy.

But Marxy's Japan is a depressing fantasy. It's a myth that privatization helps consumers, for instance, and it's a myth that Japan is in terminal decline, or that good taste is on the way out. Why prefer depressing myths to heartening ones?

Also, everything I report in the Wired article is true. Coca Cola sells additive-free green tea in Japan, and HMV sells Larry McCaffery books. Now, sure, I select details and I have an editorial point of view. Marxy selects details too, and has an editorial point of view too. Why prefer the negatives? What solace does that give you? Is it like a religion that talks all the time about suffering, and makes you feel better about your suffering? If so, wouldn't you do better to change your job or move house?

Is it like a religion that talks all the time about suffering, and makes you feel better about your suffering? If so, wouldn't you do better to change your job or move house?

Wait, but isn't the whole substance of Marxy's complaint about Sambomaster that today's J-rock is just designed to make The System less depressing? Clearly Marx is opposed to the masses having their opium. But as Hemmingway once said, "Is it wrong to touch the guitar? Let the people have their opium." Or something like that. I'm too lazy to check my bookshelf for it.…

I think the Wired piece was basically OK, but the whole Shotoku Taishi thing was such bullshit that it's for people to swallow passively. Now, obviously, a lot of essays are sort of pie in the sky bullshit (heaven knows I've used some dubious analogies in my day), and a lot of time that can be a fun way of examining things, but in this case, Shotoku is just fits a pattern of mythologize Japan that apparently the gang here isn't willing to accept.

Yeah, looking at the Wired piece again, I'll go so far as to say I like it, but it seems like you left the basic question unresolved (presumably on purpose):

Do marketers create markets or do consumers create markets?

It's a pretty deep question, and serious examination of it is almost certain to begin with "it depends."

Your thing with the keitai seems to suggest that the Japanese consumer spirit, which has descended from Shotoku, is now at last able to fulfill its previously unmet need for keitai usage. This suggestion seems highly dubious to me.

So basically, if your point on the other keitai page was, "hey, wouldn't it be funny if Shotoku had a keitai," then yeah, I'll go with that. But if your point was, Japanese consumers have a spirit that has existed since time immemorial which has now lead to the existence of the cellphone market as it exists in Japan today, then I'll say, bollox.

Why prefer depressing myths to heartening ones?

Is your world really that solipsistic, Momus? Of course, Sartre's fantasy of Stalinist Russia was much more heartening than Camus' depressing vision of it. But why prefer depressing myths to heartening ones?

Marxy is a Nirvana fan, or seems to have been at a formative point in his life. Now, I personally would love Kurt Cobain to have lived to make consoling records for office ladies, but of course he killed himself before he could do that. Anyway, I consider it the worst kind of rockism to talk about popular music as if it weren't always already a cog in the system. (As I said in my "Devendra Shakes The Money Tree" blog.)

The Shotoku thing was Hisae's comment, it didn't come either from me or from the keitai book. And again, I wonder why the ex-pats, who all have Japanese partners, don't do this very simple thing of asking the closest Japanese person direct questions about statements about Japan. Hisae was familiar and comfortable with the book's Sontoku Ninomiya anecdote, but provided a better metaphor for multi-tasking: Shotoku Taishi.

None of us are saying that these figures are all you need to explain keitai use, of course not. (Hisae mentions also the importance of the pokeberu devices, Pocket Bell numeric pagers adopted by young people who couldn't afford phone lines and used numbers to communicate in code.)

Do marketers create markets or do consumers create markets?

The jury is still out on that, and of course, as you say, it's a bit of both. The Wired piece does begin to suggest some much bigger things towards the end. The David Byrne quote raises the whole question of marketing creating identity, and if you put that together with Galbraith you get the idea that identity itself (national identity or personal identity) might be created by powerful producers. You then have to decide whether you like that idea or not. Personally, I have no problem with the idea of Japanese cultural producers creating Japanese ways of being, seeing and consuming, or "reproducing" them unconsciously in their products. I think only cultures with a lot invested in the idea of free will and the individual would really have a big problem with that.

It's exactly this kind of anxiety we see in Marxy's Sambomaster comment. What on earth is wrong with Sambomaster making songs that console OLs, or even grime lyrics that help kids pass entrance exams? Marxy should spell out why such wholesome visions disturb him, rather than just letting them dangle as self-evidently evil.

nick says: Why prefer depressing myths to heartening ones?

and r. say: indeed. hey nick, back when YOU were about the same age as david is now, were your lyrics (there were no essays at this point, right?) all that positive, sir? i think not.

when i root around on your webpage, all i can find are albums full of oblique literary references and some kind of strange christian guilt.

The Man On Your Street (1982)
http://imomus.com/index7.html

Circus Maximus (1986)
http://imomus.com/index9.html

now here you are 20 years later, with presumably a lot of life experience under your belt, and you seem to be 'over' (or almost over) these darker images, for whatever that's worth! but this new, utopianist phase is equally suspect.

in any event, did you really overcome things on your own? probably not. at least you were able to encounter a lot of anti-christian (or at least not pro-christian) writing and philosophy from which to be bolstered. after all, if nietzsche hadn't said what he said about god back in the day, who knows if you'd have gotten this far at all.

now i'm not saying that marxy should be compared to a kind of nietzsche figure, but when it comes to his writings on japan, isn't he just following the lead that you set when you proclaimed 'shibuya-kei' (as opposed to god) dead? hasn't he just taken your lead and run with it, extending it into directions and to degrees that impedes you from entering into a fully ruminatory mode of considering japan?

you often seem dumbfounded that david can be so smart and so (from your point of view) stupid about japan at the same time. i think something a little different it actually true. i think the reason that david gets under your skin (and that you use and abuse him as often as you do as an intellectual sparing partner...shame on you, 20 years his senior!) is that you can't imagine someone could be as smart as he is and NOT AGREE with you. i think this short-circuts your logic, and keeps you coming back here as often as you do.

and of course, i DO commend you for always looking on the bright side, but i chastise you (as i will continue to do) for not using your soapbox for effecting more practical social change in japan. if you are looking always on the bright side to the extent that you neglect the darker side of things, that is also being disingenuous to your readership. what you do inside of your own head for your own benifit is no concern of mine.

but in the event that in 20 years, david pauses, renigs everything, and lays the yoke of his momusian revisionism down by the river jordan (errr...the river edo), i promise you that i will be the first one to take him to task, and remind him that he is simply following once again in your footsteps.

not using your soapbox for effecting more practical social change in japan

David is the one endorsing the stance of the ruling LDP party on privatization, Bob. I'm all for the other guys kicking him out. But I don't consider it my job to try to change the Japanese election result. I am a gaijin, just like you and Marxy.

nick say: I am a gaijin, just like you and Marxy.

and special r. say: thanks for the super-responsive reply! but as far as this whole LDP postal issue is concerned, most of your comments have been misinformed so far. privatization will increase monetary transparency, something that japan really needs right now.

now getting back to the 'just like you and marxy' thing...well, not EXACTLY like marxy and myself, but i will grant you that you are a non-japanese at least!

but, wow, this is a very telling statement, since your are in effect saying that because you are not japanese this becomes some kind of excuse for someone to either:

a) not care about the japanese political world [not what you are doing. you do have your opinions.]

or

b) use their non-japaneseness as some kind of blanket excuse for absolving themselves of any and all political efficacy. (i.e. well, i HAVE an opinion, but i'm only a lowly 'gaijin' so why should i bother?). this is not acceptable, and most espectially coming from you.

...of course you didn't vote in EUROPE either when you could have recently, and then bitched about the vote's outcome on your blog later, so i guess you've really no right to complain either way, right?

...and naturally this is where we part ways as far as our non-japanese 'identities' go, eh nickie-poo?

i think japan needs many voices...in fact all of the voice of the people who live here (many non-japanese who are residing here are in effect DENIED the right to vote) PLUS people like yourself who aren't currently here (but as i've said before, i predict that you'll be 'retiring' here sometime in the not-too-distant future).

now, i know you perhaps better than i should, mr. currie, and i know that it isn't your cup of tea to spend the next 5 or 10 years of your life in japan writing political essays about why japan needs to listen to the voice of the 'other' (you are too busy doing your promo blogging of japan as the 'other'...all the while failing to remember that this whole 'other' business goes both ways!).

naturally you'd rather just spend a pleasant time here musing about...whatever it is you'll be musing about. but while you do so, there will be scores of people here (unless your ROBOT theory proves us all wrong) who would kill to have your voice (unfortunately they often only merely die in absence of it), or your 'non-third-worldness', or your 'maleness', your 'race' or any of the other enfranchisements that you seem to enjoy discarding as soon as you set foot on these shores.

i would actually LOVE to see you write a high-impact, high-profile essay on WHATEVER you think about this postal issue, and have it published in some reputable publication in translation here in japan.

and the crux of the whole things is that this 'disrobing' of your enfranchisements is the very thing that you helps you to kick your feet up and take a (as you see it) a much needed break from your european-ness. look...i know you are still bitter after that whole 'christianity' thing. we all kind of got a sour deal on it.

of course, there ARE many OTHER burdensome issues out there, aren't there nick? some of which weigh upon the shoulders of people who were born or who have chosen to live HERE...the place to which you 'escape'...but don't let our constructive crits and this country and our sometimes extreme characterizations of the situations fool you...i guess a warm cup of green tea really WILL make everything go away.

the famous r says 'of course you didn't vote in EUROPE either when you could have recently, and then bitched about the vote's outcome on your blog later'.

the other r points out : el Mome isn't French, so he didn't get to vote during our yes/no vote, the one that made a big splash. Nick could only vote on that issue during a British referendum. And Tony Blair has other cats to whisk right now than risking such a thing and getting a 'no' thrown to his face...

--r(emi)

The trouble with this (or any blog) being a terribly political newspaper-level talking shop in which gaijin argue about what Japan should do politically (and I can think of few things more boring, to be honest) is that it's a bit like eunuchs prescribing how people with dicks should use them.

None of us here have the right to vote in Japan, and none of us is a Japanese citizen. We struggle to understand what we see, sure, but we really have no right to any more than an opinion. In the Japanese context, we are political eunuchs. We might be able to sing beautifully, and be highly prized for it, but we are not suited to telling anyone how to have sex.

But if we really think political influence on someone else's state is the be-all and end-all of our writing, why are we doing it in English to other voteless aliens? Why aren't we on Nichaneru haranguing passers-by with our opinions?

It all reminds me of the kind of tragic anger management types who call up talk radio shows to channel their various disappointments. Or it makes me imagine the entire Japanese nation turning to this blog (as if they ever would!) and singing, in the words of Barney out of New Order, "But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me just how I should feel today".

I kind of follow your logic about us being non-citizens Momus, but some of us ARE residents, so for people like us, all the David Arudou style stuff does have an impact on our lives. Hell, I'm being asked to hand over my passport number before teaching an English camp this very weekend. So, Japanese politics does have an effect on my life. I think that gives me a right to complain, whether I'm allowed to vote or not.

Why prefer depressing myths to heartening ones?

Why prefer depressing myths to heartening ones?

I feel that what we should both be working towards is debunking all myths around Japan and instead trying to figure out where everything is headed. Japan is indeed ahead of the world in humanoid-robotic research and keitai culture, so we should ask, where are these technologies going to lead us? And how does not being psychologically hooked into the computer-based international Internet change the outlook for Japanese consumer culture? Why can't you have both keitai AND computer culture in Japan like you do in Korea?

Why prefer the negatives?

To most anybody gazing in objectively, the negatives of Japan are clearly its "meta-narrative" at this point - a stagnant economy with few signs of long-term recovery, a shrinking market for consumer culture, serious demographic problems. These are real problems, and while I'm not particulary interested in those problems per se, I think they absolutely have an impact on where Japanese pop culture is headed. Finding "details" that relate back to these larger trends is not editorial stovepiping, as Momus is claiming. Finding residual pieces of past structures to prove Japan's future potential seems to be more off-base.

I think that Momus and I's diverging opinions are based in what we are looking for in Japan. I liked Japan as an alternative to the Western First-World, but I am not sure anymore whether it actually provides a replicable or working model of an alternative system. Others may disagree, but they would need to support bureaucratic-run semi-democracy and oligopolistic economy to be intellectually honest about that support.

Marxy should spell out why such wholesome visions disturb him, rather than just letting them dangle as self-evidently evil.

From a purely rock-crit angle, these videos just seem "dorky." Anyone of Gen X would surely think so, and I'm just verbalizing an obvious response. I don't think these are "bad" for anybody, but I think that companies never win much ground with consumers by acting desperate. If Pat Boone had really been perfect for everybody, he'd would never have gotten booted out by all these rebellious rock stars of the 60s.

I think it's easy to say from the sidelines - oh, believing in controlling your own employment destiny and lifepath is just a Western myth! - without actually living inside that system. And much worse, this all comes from a guy who lives the most Bohemian lifestyle I could imagine. These OL-targeted videos seem to assume that young women have little choice other than becoming white-collar clerical workers and must accept the mind-numbing, soul-crushing boredom and stress of those jobs. No one is suggesting, BREAK OUT!, which, yes, may be a post-60s American concept. But I think it's in poor taste to have BROKEN OUT and yell at the people still in the system, STAY THERE!

I'm all for the other guys kicking him out.

I think this postal privatization debate is a difficult one, because if Koizumi loses, the big winners are not the DPJ or the Communist party, but the hard-right ex-LDP. My girlfriend listened to a JCP guy rail against the Koizumi plan and reported back to me their platform. What worried me about his points was the best the JCP could come up with is that the LDP is just using this issue as a trojan horse for raising the consumption tax. That may be partially true, but shouldn't the Communists have some kind of more concrete reasons that postal privatization is bad for Japan? From what I could tell, they were not supporting public control on principle, because they know the bureaucrats who run the MoF and the banking system are right-wing wonks.

This issue is not about public vs. private divided cleanly along Right (private) vs. Left (public) lines. Public control of the Post Office means right-wing bureaucratic control.

The trouble with this (or any blog) being a terribly political newspaper-level talking shop in which gaijin argue about what Japan should do politically

I agree that this is my blog's weaker point. In my defense, I didn't bring up the issue of postal privatization until prompted. I have some personal feelings, but you are right: they don't matter.

Thanks for answering those points in such a level-headed way. I must say the bit that jumped out and whacked me in the face was the admission that you have a girlfriend and actually consult her on some matters and change your mind as a result of what she says! It's a first on Neomarxisme! Hurrah for using this research resource and another hurrah for admitting it!

Why is it every English speaking gaijin in Japan feels they have some kind of diplomatic mission to explain Japan to other English speaking individuals? Residence is 90% of the Law? No. I could live and work on the Moon, that doesn't make me an authority on it,. . . And in terms of the 'future' as it's so quickly referenced and batted around isn't like China the next big thing. What are you all doing talkin' 'bout Japan, when China's going to be driving things in the so-called future?

I always use that research source, but I try not to get my friends and family too wrapped up in my writing. I'd rather have it that I'm the only one blacklisted at the end of the day...

I could live and work on the Moon, that doesn't make me an authority on it,. .

If you lived on the moon, I'd totally read your blog.

In his article, Momus writes about "pure, super-healthy green tea, without additives, without sugar."

However, most of the green tea sold to Japanese consumers is probably far from healthy - I have heard of off-the-record remarks by Japanese officials that Japan has trouble exporting tea to Europe because of contamination with pesticides and other chemicals. And considering this tea destined for export is probably of rather high quality, I do not want to imagine the pesticide levels of the stuff that goes into the cheap bottled teas.

Some evidence from http://www.teaontheweb.com/about_keiko.html

21 Japanese green teas were tested by "Stiftung Warentest,” a German foundation that rates and tests consumer goods.

17 were found strongly contaminated with pesticides.
2 were clearly contaminated,
1 lightly contaminated (...)

It is also interesting that these tests were done by a foreign institution that has no equivalent - i.e. an independent institution which checks products for health and safety and points out sub-standard or even outright dangerous ones to the public - in Japan.

A similar case can be made for mineral water - a few years ago there was a government report that a large percentage of bottled water bottled and sold in Japan is contaminated - but this report did not specify which brands were affected, and so everything went on as usual.

I wonder if this is can really be called capitalism that is "less toxic than others, less injurious to human health (...)".

You have to be a little careful with science quoted in adverts: your link is to a page endorsing Keiko organic tea. It's a product endorsement and runs, in full, like this:

17 were found strongly contaminated with pesticides.
2 were clearly contaminated,
1 lightly contaminated,
1 was free of all contamination: KEIKO

I checked the page of the Stiftung Warentest and although I found a report on green tea, I couldn't find anything about pesticides. Elsewhere on the web, people are talking about pesticides in green tea, but the consensus seems to be that it's Chinese green tea, not Japanese, which is the most contaminated, but that even the levels in Chinese tea present no threat and do not make green tea less beneficial for health:

"The pesticides were found in tiny amounts, in parts per billion, and pose no imminent health danger. DDT accumulates in our bodies and is carried in breast tissue, so ingesting contaminated tea is certainly undesirable. But the experts say that the benefits of drinking green tea probably outweigh the risks...

"Sherman, author of books on breast cancer and chemical exposure, agrees that people should not stop drinking potentially beneficial green tea because of the DDT findings. What those results illustrate, she says, "is that our entire food supply is now contaminated worldwide because of massive use of pesticides."

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/24/19/whittelsey2419.html

nick say: The trouble with this blog is that it's a bit like eunuchs prescribing how people with dicks should use them.

and r. say: not to distend this phallic fallacy any more than necessary...but taking a look around the real political world, doesn't it always seem to be the people WITH the dicks prescribing eunuchization? that's why your politically self-neutering statements hinting at the 'futility' of being an ineffectual 'gaijin' tend to be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

or from another angle, your postal privatization sour grapes might be more palatable if you try pressing them into something with more utility. now i'm not suggesting that you try to fashion yourself into japan's rosa parks (we already have that guy), but i'm sure with your silver tongue you'd be able to make quite an impact, and that's a start.

also, you must have considered that the things that we all enjoy about japan (some of us remotely and vicariously) are in danger of being ultimately diminished by this kind of non-participatory attitude? they will surely not be preserved or protected by it.

I also want to add that Momus is somewhat missing the point on all those different kinds of teas. There are indeed a plethora of non-sugared drinks, but there are also a hundreds other kinds of soft drinks available on the market involving sugar.

If there is something great about the Japanese marketplace, it's the breadth of offerings. Momus may not like sugared drinks (Cola tastes like American-style Capitalism, right?), but someone that has a sweettooth (like me) would surely not be disappointed with the variety available for purchase. (I recommend "Bubble Man" grape soda.)

In general, Japanese companies offer a lot more types of products than similarly-sized American companies. I believe one of the major chocolate companies in Japan offers 2 or 3 times more products than Hersey's, even though Hersey's is a bigger company. Truth be told, a huge selection is not usually not perceived as profitable, due to the subsequent "economies of scale" issues.

The other problem is stability - products come on and off the market in Japan without warning. Someone told me recently: if you see a pencil you like, buy 10. They won't ever make them again.

But overall, I do love walking into a convienence store and having 100 soft drinks to choose from and a countless stream of new products. I can't imagine this exists outside of Japan at the same scale.

david,

indeed. here in japan, we've got 'the real thing' right next to the green tea, and both by the same company...which is probably the most interesting thing about this whole non-discussion.

but if we take a look at what nick writes on his still percolating wired article...

"In Japan, even the Coca-Cola corporation was selling bottles and cans of green tea alongside Coke and Fanta...It seemed like an object lesson in the nature of capitalism -- capitalism didn't have to be inherently toxic. It didn't have to put too much sugar or salt in stuff, or sell you drinks that made you fat."

...his 'object' lesson really turns out to be more of an abject lesson, since correctly speaking, the coke company is just selling the good shit right beside the bad shit (in terms of the health factor), even here in japan. in fact, capitalism (at certain stages in its development) DOES have to sell the toxic stuff, at other stages it can diversify...to the extent that is is profitable. but does that mean that we should love the coke company any less for being Janus-faced in japan?

Well, you both avoid the big point my article leads up to, which is the culture question, which comes in three parts.

1. What makes the same company offer different products in different markets?

2. Do producers or consumers determine these differences?

3. What does this tell us about capitalism's relationship with cultural differences around the world?

Robert's comment elides the question of "different places" into a question of "different times", I'm not quite sure why.

There was a great story in the New York Times Magazine in 2001 or 2002 about how the Japanese soda market was different than the US one, but Coke was hoping to make the US more like Japan. That's why they bring out a new Sprite Remix every summer (or at least they did last year, when I was in the states)-- they're trying to get us to like the name, not the taste. It's also the reason behind the introduction of the Vanilla Diet Reverse Double Un-Coke Zero One Two Niner family of products. It's all about creating a more demanding consumer in the States, and the model economy is Japan.

(a bit late, but for what it's worth):
> Momus's Japan is a lovely fantasy.
But Marxy's Japan is a depressing fantasy.

See also: "evolution is depressing (all these species dying for no particular reason). I prefer intelligent design, it's more uplifting."

There is a serious issue behind all these recurring discussions (or is it the same one?): for cultural studies, all this (vulgarised) pomo "truth + possessive pronoun"-rubbish ("well, it's my truth") might not hurt (although Marxy's argument seems to be that people do get hurt in that oh so contractual society), but in other arenas, it leads directly to people demanding non-sense being taught (any theory is as good as any other), and Bush et al. being able to blatantly disregard facts ("you belong to the fact-based camp, we don't").

Marxy's economy-based explanations have the advantage of being quantifyable in principle (using well-established and understood statistical machinery) and of making predictions that can be wrong. Explaining some (present) phenomenon with the influence of some random historical figure doesn't give you a template to explain future phenomena (and hence doesn't enable you to be wrong). Which is why perpetuating those figures of argumentation plays in the hands of the people who don't like science (which by nature is critical).

sigh Late to the party once again, but still impeccably dressed.

Momus: Congratulations on the Wired gig. I think its perfect for you. Wired are nice fancy purveyors of Kultural Kool Aid and I believe your style is well suited to their pages. As you know I believe that you must adhere to your writer persona and please understand that I honestly believe you are a great man for their Chrysanthimum Club Desk. I hope you continue to derive money from them. None of that is intended to be snyde or damning with faint praise.

However I take issue with the following: I am a gaijin, just like you and Marxy. Carl already stated the main reasons (you dont live here) but the truth is that the issues in politics today affect those of us who live and work here just as much as the average citizen, if not more so since (besides Dabito Arudoru) almost all of us are disenfranchized and have no say in legislation which affects us. It is in our self interests to examine the negatives as much as it is in your self interest to focus only on the positives.

Marxy: The incompetance of the opposition parties is quite stunning isnt it? To this day I'm tickled by the fact that the only real opposition with an agenda is a faction of the ruling party. I'm very dissapointed that no one within the factions of the DPJ had the right mix of power and brains to come up with a working agenda as the leading formal opposition party. The Communists are a sad joke, they must be deep in someone's pockets to even be able to afford to exist as a party.

r: age does make a difference in not only in perspective but also in ones willingness to speak out. David is quite fortunate to have figured out the risks of blacklisting years before I did.

Well, you both avoid the big point my article leads up to, which is the culture question,

This issue is my central academic interest and the fundamental question of my current thesis. I will type up a bigger post on what exactly I'm working on in the near future.

I find it odd, however, that you agree with Galbraith's quintessential American liberalism - advocating government regulation to protect consumers from big business - but then constantly side with the Japanese government - who do not understand the concept that something good for big companies could possibly be bad for consumers. There may be a cultural difference between Japan and the West in that many Japanese youth consumers do not care what they buy as long as it is the "right" thing to buy. There are, however, plenty of strictly economic arguments that show mathematically how collusion, oligopoly, and monopoly control of markets are bad for consumers, most obviously in pricing.

There remains a basic question: what do we want our markets to do? If innovation and low prices are what you seek, a (government-regulated) free market tends to best provide. Oligopolistic firms are usually more concerned with keeping out other parties and new ideas than keeping ahead of possible innovative competitors. As Veblen says, innovation is subversive. So, if the #1 priority is stability (like in Japan), innovation must be introduced slowly and through pre-existing channels.

Momus and marxy are always talking at such tangents that it's a wonder they bother at all.

Momus = life in japan is great.
Marxy = the japanese media is corrupt.

what they really seem to disagree about has emerged in it's full glory here, optimism and pessimism. I don't know how many times momus has told marxy to be more positive.

I don't think either view is closer to any valuable truths, but I tend to value marxy's stuff more because I live in japan, and can judge the surface layer of the culture pretty well by myself... though momus is an interesting read.

Nate, you bring up a good point.

This blog is not about "Japan" as a whole, nor about my experience in Japan (which is 90% positive!). My blog is just me selfishly trying to deal with deeper issues of Japanese youth culture, consumer culture, pop culture, advertising, and media.

I *like* living in Japan - but I also understand my privilged position as a male of European descent who can speak/read an adequate amount of Japanese. I'm not going to assume that my experience somehow reflects that of 80% of the other residents foreigners or even many Japanese.

I'm not a Marxist (nor really a "Neomarxist" in the classical Adorno-related sense), but I think the "misanthropic utopianism" has rubbed off on me. I am positive about technology saving the world, but I do not see why we need to celebrate the traditional cultures - created in former economic contexts - that solely benefit the upper-classes of a society and block human progress.

I'm surprised you didn't blame thermometry
while you were at it.

from the 'me too' dept.

my experience in Japan is also mostly positive

BUT

i am not positive about technology saving the world

HOWEVER

i have mixed feelings on celebrating the traditional cultures

I just want to clarify that I did not use "traditional cultures' to indicate "ethnic cultures' or "folk cultures" or "non-Western cultures." By "traditional cutlures," I mean all of the socially normative codes of conduct created in former eras with different economic organization. Old things can be enjoyed in quaint, nostalgic ways, but I regret any beliefs thinking that national cultures have essential elements, always set in stone, that somehow a tea ceremony is more "Japanese" than Horiemon. They are both products of their respective eras.

marxy says: Oligopolistic firms are usually more concerned with keeping out other parties and new ideas than keeping ahead of possible innovative competitors.

I was trying to make a similar point with my post on contaminated green tea. Unfortunately I was unable to back up my claim with data - but the fact that there is no such data easily available is part of the problem, which is that Japanese capitalism does offer consumers neither independent information on products nor a real choice between alternative products, and therefore is not as humane and healthy and wholesome as it might appear on the surface.

Momus is praising the huge choice Japanese consumers enjoy, including the healthy alternative of green tea at vending machines. However, if you go shopping at an average supermarket and start reading the labels of the products, it becomes clear that a large percentage of the stock is produced by about a dozen huge manufacturers (Glico for Sweets, Asahi and Kirin for Softdrinks etc.), and smaller manufacturers are for the most part simply offering copies of the latest hit products.

As a result, the choice of Japanese consumers is very wide (lots of basically identical products) but very shallow - there are simply no real or meaningful choices outside what the large manufacturers offer, such as being able to buy organic, additive-free, or non-GM food. If I want to buy organic milk at my supermarket the best I can do is pick milk with "the contents have not artificially altered" on the package. If I want to buy organic fruit juice for lunch at the conbini - simply no chance.

As far as I know, the whole organic food sector in Japan is limited to Internet and mailorder - which proves that there is customer demand, but for some reason such products do not appear in the supermarkets or convenience stores.

So if Japanese capitalism is so superior, why is the consumer not presented with choices that are common in Europe, Australia, NZ etc.? And if Japanese capitalism is so healthy, why is there no chance for the Japanese consumer to get independent information about what is contained in their food?

"Why prefer the negatives? What solace does that give you?"

" ... human nature is essentially good, which means (somewhat paradoxically) that you don't have to tout some 'responsible' moral line every time you say anything. You can let people draw their own conclusions." http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/37370.html

there, I commented for once.

I'm lazy, so I'll just comment on other posters' comments:

The trouble with this (or any blog) being a terribly political newspaper-level talking shop in which gaijin argue about what Japan should do politically (and I can think of few things more boring, to be honest) is that it's a bit like eunuchs prescribing how people with dicks should use them.

I love this analogy! Though eunuchs do have dicks. "They whack their balls off. They don't whack their dicks off!" (Pope of Greenwich Village). Eunuchs are ideally suited to guard the bechamber of women, so who are the "gaijin eunuchs of Japan" (there's a band name) watching over?

...the choice of Japanese consumers is very wide (lots of basically identical products) but very shallow - there are simply no real or meaningful choices outside what the large manufacturers offer

"Same Shit, Different Wrapper" -- not coined with Japan in mind, but...

The heavyweight champion of insightful comments:

Why is it every English speaking gaijin in Japan feels they have some kind of diplomatic mission to explain Japan to other English speaking individuals?

Does this come in plaque form? May I alter to read "English (as a first language) speaking hakujin"?

Marxy, can you do a full piece on that riff about white men riding waves in Japan, being able to pick and choose what they like about life here, not having to bear the burdens that the locals do? I love that riff.

So if Japanese capitalism is so superior, why is the consumer not presented with choices that are common in Europe, Australia, NZ etc.? And if Japanese capitalism is so healthy, why is there no chance for the Japanese consumer to get independent information about what is contained in their food?

Yeah, fair enough. But I think that consumers in the West have only been given these choices recently. I'm from the UK originally, and until about five or six years ago, organic produce accounted for no more than a tiny slither of the market. However, once supermarkets started (grudgingly at first, then somewhat over-zealously) to stock it, its popularity snowballed - not least because of a lot of consumers automatically equating "organic" with "natural" and "healthy" (actually a bit of a dodgy supposition, apparently, but then I'm no nutritionist). Whatever: though you can eat organic without working up much of a sweat these days, this simply was not the case a decade ago. The same applies to the nutritional information given with food - again, in the UK, the quantity and quality of said info has improved significantly in the past 5-10 years.

Is it really fair to chastise Japanese producers for failing to offer something that's only just become widely available in the West (assuming, of course, that us Limeys aren't just lagging hopelessly behind everyone else)?

Marxy, I suggest this book on postwar economic planning if you haven't already read it:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fb20050731a2.htm

Let's ask Koizumi assassin Yuriko "Cool Biz" Koike what she thinks about foreigners being involved in Japanese politics:

"I believe it is women, foreigners and outsiders who are really capable of changing (Japanese) society."

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200508230377.html

Jrim, I know that the UK is quite advanced in this respect. And if you see Japan on an equal level with the West/Europe/etc., then of course there is no point in criticizing it and you should simply wait for Japan to catch up.

But Momus is arguing that Japanese capitalism has evolved to a higher level and is therefore superior to its counterpart in the West. So if Japan really is such an utopia, then surely consumers should be able to make informed choices on what they buy at least on a similar level than they can in Europe. One great thing about consumer behavior in Europe and the US is that consumers can boycott certain products, thereby forcing manufacturers to offer different ones (see animal testing in cosmetics). I do not know of any large scale boycott ever happening in Japan, and I think this is because - due to an oligopoly of large manufactures - it is very hard for consumers to first of all find independent information on the products they buy and even if consumers would prefer different products they cannot express their preferences by chosing products based on their preferences because such products are simply not offered.

I'm not sure how often boycotts actually cause change in the West, but two things that have made a huge impact are Ralph Nader/Consumer Reports and customer complaints. Japan does not have anything resembling Consumer Reports, because again, anything bad for big business is bad for Japan.

My professor once mentioned to us once that Japan has the lowest amount of customer complaints in the world. I've never been able to verify that, but consumers apparently just "put up" with problems instead of holding companies accountable. This should not be read as Japan having the most satisfied consumers.

Hmm, one of my least favorite things about shopping in japan (besides the high price of fruit) is the lack of transparency and uniformity found in the shops. Here's one brand of shampoo, gives you a weight, another brand gives you a volume, a third brand lists neither. Huh? 2 different types of onions, 2 different prices, no scale to weigh them. How the hell am I supposed to make an informed decision on that? Big bag filled with small KitKats=300, Box of Big Kitkats=100, no weight listed. Its blatant deception. I asked my girlfriend what she thought, and her only comment was "well, I guess you just have to trust them" So I don't know how much credit I'd give to the consumers here, they haven't even requested basic information about the products they buy.

And on another note, it's not that hard to find organic stuff, but it's a priveledge reserved for the wealthy. Bio Cafe in Shibuya is pretty good, Aveda has an organic vegan cafe in their Aoyama store. For shopping: Kinokuniya grocery store, and a few little ones also in Aoyama are ok. But if you're a vegetarian from the west, it's quite perplexing when there are 2 dishes you can eat at the average "organic" cafe.

Follow-up to Marxy's comment on "no complaints":
My experience is that Japanese customers complain alot, but not about products, about service. My girlfriend works at Seibu in Ikebukuro and customers complain to her boss all the time becasue she doesn't use keigo 100% of the time, or talk in a sweet voice or bow deep enough, etc.

(By the way, they never complain in person, always over the phone.)

Wow, Nick are you saying that Japanese people not only don't hate the super-high pitched Japanese shop girl voice, they actively complain if they don't get it????????

My mind is blown. That's like complaining about TV because Gilbert Godfrey doesn't do enough commercials.

organic veggies don't seem all to rare out here. the local megamart stocks what's in season, which is limited, but it's there. The frozen vegetables in our super markets are almost all organic.

seperately, I think momus sees our discussions here as no different from the tourist who wishes there were more starbucks in every exotic city he visits. But really, many of us are married to japan, for better or worse.
we can't leave this place unfathomable, socially and linguistically or just take on good faith that the powers that be know what's best, and focus on the small things that please us. we didn't buy round trip tickets.

12 day "funny" will expire, but will intermitantly post for exposure, its a horrible dredge..but will raise somes smiles and furrow some frowns, by all means ask it, it asks with courtesy http://www.kovac.co.uk it recommends it for the marxy as it may bring small sunshine for him (but only with hateful clouds どうしおう！)