The following may be in a similar vein.

A look at the nose indicates that it is clearly not an Asian face.

However I tend not to worry about such things. That road leads to madness ...

Seems the url was removed here it is again, without the html:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v333/sparkligbeatnic/smoking_face.jpg

I've been very struck, back in Tokyo, by how much self-consciously Japanese imagery I've seen in the advertising. I think there's no doubt that positive images are being seen more and more in terms of specifically Japanese customs and forms, and negative images are being associated with western and particularly American forms. This is a long-term development; if you look at 1980s Japanese magazines, you'll see a lot more pro-American stuff, more western models, etc.

Where I probably differ from you is that I completely welcome 'the myth of Japanese exceptionalism' (or positive self-regard on the part of the Japanese). Anything that keeps dubbed American crap off the TV is fine with me. American food is worse than Japanese food on just about any sane measure, and American foreign policy is giving the nation a bad name all around the world. But 'positive Japanese self-regard' also helps Americans, because it's nothing more than a culture maintaining its identity, preserving differences of lifestyle, perception and values which can serve non-Japanese as well as they serve Japanese.

Anyway, I promise not to take you to McDonald's when we meet on Friday, Marxy!

But, Marxy, we are more vulgar! But better than hamburgers, I see delicious tonkatsu in our future...

Couldn't we all meet halfway and try a Mos Burger?

And: Momus and Marxy (finally?) meeting? Now that's going to be interesting...No hair pulling, okay guys?

shall the meeting be audio blogged? will mr. snow moderate?

Momus makes good points. I also think there is more Japanese Pop Cultural Nationalism these days, and I just wrote a piece about it for OK Fred. In the 90s, this all worked out for the best, but now it's caused a rift between the older generation who are somewhat Internationalized (think Konishi and Oyamada) and the younger generation who have no interest in what's going on in the rest of the world (think 175R).

Yes, Japan is not importing bad American television, but it's also not importing blogging, free information policy, cable television culture, acid folk, central heating, or some of the most positive aspects of Western life at the moment. When the Japanese were directly copying the West, they never ever got it right so it always ended up being a weird, fanciful bastard. Now they are just copying themselves and doing it perfectly... yawn. I don't need any more bands to be the Blue Hearts.

The key here is balance. Early 80s Japan had too little self-confidence in japanese culture, but I think the snobbery of the 90s has just turned into hubris.

i can't get with ya on, cable, acid folk, and central heating be all that great. i could do with out all of them. heated floors.. heated toliet seats [well both are technically available, you won't find them around, in the US] are beyond great.. with central heat, there is no need for those cool tables with heaters under them! and, less need for hot tea..
24 hour news is so NOT good. [crossfire! hardball! do we really need that stuff?] and i disagree completely with the blog thing too. seems like everyone [j] has blogs, and i can't read them. chocolat, hideki kaji, shugo has one, usagi chang, a-g, people at IVY. plus there is the whole digio craziness.. http://dedio.jp/

Is central heating really such a good thing?
It seems a waste of energy to heat a whole house.
For apartment buildings, central heating/air conditioning makes everyone breathe the same air. Not a healthy approach.

I quite like the localized approach to heating/air conditioning. It's sufficient for Japan's moderate climate: I almost never use my air conditioner and use my air heater sparingly.

It's conversations like these that make me realize how much I fucking love this website and its study of Japanese culture

If I had central heating in my house, maybe I could venture upstairs to watch TV without freezing to death. At this point when I leave my space-heated roon, I can see my own breath in the hallway. The Japanese for whatever reason do not believe in constructing houses with insulation, so it`s often colder in the house than outside when I wake up.

We do have a kerosene heater upstairs and it reeks of kerosene. Plus you have to turn it off once and a while so that you do not die of asphixiation. (I am not joking.)

Central heating may be wasteful, but it`s comfortable.

NPR reporting on a story about peeps being up in arms about, well, lack of sensitivity in how the mentally ill are portrayed by a bear in what was thought of as a harmless valentine's day present.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4282964&sourceCode=RSS

Wouldn't you agree that's it's quintessentially
American to say "to hell with energy efficiency, and global warming, all I care about is my own comfort"?

My advice would be to get rid of your sekiyu stove (the fumes are unhealthy) and replace it with a gas or electric heater, or an oil radiation heater (an efficient option popular in Europe).

Better still get a kotatsu!

Am I the only one, or does anyone else enjoy seeing their breath when they leave a comfortable, locally heated room? It reminds me that it's winter. It keeps my body in touch with what's going on beyond the walls of my apartment building.

I think it is lamentable that Japan's increasing use of air conditioning, and descreasing use of traditional methods of keeping warm like the kotatsu show increasing loss of touch with and disinterest in the natural world.

haha ...you should go further- it's also misogynistic and heteronormative .

i hear ya spark. i'm down with your jive.

about heating: I have several gripes with the heating/cooling here.

1 no insulation == higher bills/waste of energy/loss of heat
2 metal framed windows == same as above
3 single pane windows == same as above

Sure the kotatsu is nice and quaint and comfy, but I'd really prefer energy efficient construction methods. For those of you who bitch and whine about americans wasting energy with central heating, guess what? Most families I ever knew kept the thermostat set below 70F and often shut the vents to rooms that were not in use. People who pay their own bills tend to care about these things.

"blogs": as I understand it web page diaries were actually popular here before "blogging" kicked off in the west. Did the Japanese "get it" before whitey? Who knows/cares? Maybe Joi Ito could answer that one better than I ever could hope to.

Momus: I'm not sure I agree that rejection of one thing == promotion of another. The series of teddy bear ads seems fairly balanced in terms of mixing images which would only make sense here to those (like this one) which would give the same message to a westerner. The last two in the series used japanese specific imagery, including the drunken salarybear, the one before that was the make up bear which would be understandable to western women as well. Genreally I think the bear behavior modification series is culturally neutral and the use of the bear is just a cute image in line with all the other cute symbols which are so pervasive here. As pointed out previously, even the Police need to use a cute mascot here.

I understand you need to keep something that looks like an anti-American cultural stance to maintain your web.persona, but would you care to give some specific examples of "pro japanese cultural imagery" and "anti western imagery" to back up your claims? If you have already done so on your livejournal page, please excuse my ignorance.

Marxy: as far as importing bad US TV, do you think Sex in the City has had a positive or negative impact on Japanese viewers?

Will you continue the behavior bears on a regular basis? I have been considering adding them to my photo journal.

I very much liked kotatsu when it came up in my life. But now back in Chicago, I realize how utterly insufficient it would be around here. Kotatsu use presumes your hands would not develop frostbite if the rest of the room settles towards outside temperature. Outside my single-pane window it's 14 F (-10 C). I like my noisy radiator.

I think what makes blogging a phenomenon in the United States is that it plays a role in public affairs. If someone more literate than I in Japanese knows of a Japanese site that does so, let me know. From what I've read and read about, however, China is further ahead than Japan on the influential private blogs front.

The bear is using a gingham napkin, what more do these people want?

Actually I just noticed the title of this post "Happy New Bear". Not to nit pick but the new years bears were the ones before this. They were dressed in traditional japanese clothes and the message was "akemashite omededo gozaimasu" (roughly happy new years). Cant remember what they were warning me not to do though...

In response to the nit picking, the new year bear advertisement was reminding those partaking in the festivities of the new year to not forget anything is they left the train. You may or may not recall an enormous human-sized red bag on the bench behind and to the right of the two bears as they were leaving the train. the ad seemed to lack anything to really gripe about.

while i agree completely with marxy's recent analysis of the sloppy fast food bear (who if you look closely isn't even SITTING in her CHAIR! *gasp* she's sitting on the terrible excuse for an arm-rest that exists at the ends of some of the metro cars. that's the last straw, I say that bear is crossin' lines! In all seriousness though, while I do agree with the whole greasy fast food analysis, I also agree with Chris that these bears are an effective mode of communication for a population that seems to have an undying appreciation/respect/obession/attention-span for all things kawaii - a point I believe Marxy may have drawn attention to a few months ago?

momus, you talked about "dubbed american crap"...but have you spoken to anyone who works for japanese television or entertainment (and hasn't sold themselves to the yen/has their heads on their shoulders)? The feeling I've gotten from friends that I've spoken with is that the standard accepted level of quality/excellence - in terms of content, production, and simply talent - is getting worse, not better. If i turn on my telebi I can't say that I disagree (thus explaining why my television is seldom on). I've been getting the same message from members of the music industry (artists and producers). Is it not possible that the marketing (or some other proponent of the consumer-producer relationship, ex: the almost brand-like obsession with music 'artists' such as morning musume or the blue hearts copycats) in this country is so developed that it is causing an invisible-to-the-masses drought in creativity and real talent in the mainstream? I've discussed this in great length with my coworkers in our english conversation class, and for the most part they seem unconcerned and unaware that such a phenomenon would exist. nonetheless, friends involved in these factory-like-creative-industries insist quite strongly that the future is bleak for pop due to the cornering and eventual smothering of quality creativity that really pushes boundries. the same phenomenon thrives in many facets of American life including corporate-controlled news/entertainment (reality tv?) and yes, our very own beloved ashley simpson and other popcorn saturated crap. however, the internet has been the only real saving grace for all things underground of quality. Japan has typically been behind by a few years in revolutions/changes/trends, but is anyone else concerned by the lack of online music sharing and blogging that is going on as Graham mentioned (or is that just an out-of-date/out-of-the-know perception)? These have been some of the more crucial tools for change thus-far... unfortunately though, I don't have enough dialogue with the younger generation (those below 20) in this country to assess the future integration of the internet and its democratic tools. As Graham mentioned, it just doesn't seem as though Japan's blogging is showing up on the world's radar (much less its own - with the excpetion of a few Joi Ito's perhaps)... but then again, it isn't difficult to see why China's blogging gets the attention that it does, considering the circumstances that China's 'Stainless Steel Mouse' Liu Di and others have been blogging under. Okay, so I've rambled off-topic completely, and I honestly should have just written this all on my own blog. Unfortunately I haven't really finished getting it up, but I will begin writing at http://www.culturedrone.com/feed/ in the next week. okay...must.stop.now. any thoughts?

As I'm sure Momus will discover, and to my continual great amusement, housed in Japan DO have central heating - at least, they do in Hokkaido (and Aomori.) I lived with a family there in a house that had triple glazed windows and a central (sekiyu) stove to heat it (sadly this meant that I never experienced the joys of kotatsu on a regular basis.) In fact they all laugh at Tokyo people who
a) Build crappy houses so they are cold all the time in winter
b) Arrive late at work and fall over (on ice) whenever it snows a bit in Tokyo (I did experience delays on JR in Sapporo once - 2 feet of snow (on the ground) fell in about four hours, but generally speaking a foot or even two midwinter doesn't delay trains or even buses - and that's on roads that are covered in 5 inches of ice!)
c) Generally experience a considerably colder winter despite the fact that the outside temperature in Tokyo is a lot warmer.

(The price you pay for this superiority is people saying e~~~ samui desho~~! and having an inane conversation about how "cold" it is in Hokkaido.)

As for internationalism vs 'nationalism' - bah. I think you mean 'constructed image of the USA' vs 'constructed image of Japan'. There's lots of focus on the USA as the 'other' but little realisation of all of the similarities that Japan has with the rest of the world or the rest of Asia.

It's actually incredibly amusing to see all of those cute little nihonjin ron arguments fall apart completely in the face of historical fact whereby plenty of other Asian cultures are actually very similar.

A friend of mine recently spent a few years in Japan after studying modern and classical Chinese for a number of years in New Zealand and Taiwan. He mentioned to me how astounded he was at the arbitrary decision about what is 'Japanese' and what is not - for example the texts that are considered 'kokugo' vs. otherwise in classical 'Japanese' (which he was able to read more easily than the modern, due to the fact that it's the same as the literary Chinese that was used in China for thousands of years.) People know about the 'old' new year, but have no idea that in fact the lunar new year is actually not traditional 'Japanese' culture, but something still marked in the rest of Asia (if not a large part of the world.)

However I don't want to imply that Japan is necessarily particularly bad on this... I'd say that the USA is probably just as bad in ignoring the fact that the French actually invented the vast majority of ideas behind their government, for example.

Whether everywhere is as bad seems unlikely - certainly when I was in New Zealand I noticed that the flow of people in and out of the country (immigration, emigration and almost a social norm for young people to go to other countries to live and work for a few years in their 20s), coupled with small size and a far shorter history make it much harder to build up a collective myth about the national identity. Maybe in the future Europe will be as bad vs. places outside Europe - who knows.

"I think it is lamentable that Japan's increasing use of air conditioning..."

sparkligbeatnic, have you spent many summers in Japan?

1. Ted wrote: And: Momus and Marxy (finally?) meeting? Now that's going to be interesting...No hair pulling, okay guys?

We are way more civil in real life.

2. Trevor wrote:
seems like everyone [j] has blogs, and i can't read them.

The Japanese all have navel-gazing diaries, but as Graham writes:

I think what makes blogging a phenomenon in the United States is that it plays a role in public affairs.

Blogs have not become a part of Japanese political or cultural discourse like they have in the U.S.

3. Sarmoung wrote: The bear is using a gingham napkin, what more do these people want?

Good point. Although the ad seems to point to the smell of the food as the main culprit, not the messyness of eating.

4. Nick wrote: but is anyone else concerned by the lack of online music sharing and blogging that is going on as Graham mentioned (or is that just an out-of-date/out-of-the-know perception)?

I am very concerned, and I often raise this point to show how Japan has fallen behind in terms of technological culture. Gadgets do not increase media literacy they way that computers do.

But also we should remember that the Japanese lack of critical review in their media does not give the marketing system a chance to level the playing field by supporting high-quality innovative works that may not have a high promotion budget. Japan's been behind on this for decades.

5. Dave wrote: Houses in Japan DO have central heating - at least, they do in Hokkaido (and Aomori.)

Thanks for bringing that to our attention. It makes sense that they would adopt this up North. Anyone know why they don't do it in Kanto etc? I suspect that the yakuza-staffed construction firms want things done cheap and fast and are not open to much innovation in building strategies.

6. Chris wrote: Marxy: as far as importing bad US TV, do you think Sex in the City has had a positive or negative impact on Japanese viewers?

I was in NYC and watched "Sex in the City" with my sister, and commented that this kind of lifestyle doesn't exist in Japan. To which she replied, it doesn't really exist in NYC either.

I have heard that a lot of young Japanese women are flocking to NYC because of that show. It certainly presents a glamorous lifestyle not available to the average Japanese woman. But it's not based on reality, so I can't imagine this is a good thing for the Japanese conception of the Occident.

"..But it's not based on reality, so I can't imagine this is a good thing for the Japanese conception of the Occident."

These "young women flocking" sound suspiciously like that earlier post about Japanese women in Paris suffering some specific psychiatric illness (or possibly unconsciously developing existential tendencies...becoming French maybe...). Flocking? Are they geese? That's not an entirely rhetorical question...!

There may be some, but how many? As your sister notes this lifestyle doesn't really exist in NYC, but there are comparable lifestyles available in Japan and they're not so dissimilar in nature although they're similarly restricted to a certain metropolitan clique, but I don't see anything in Sex and The City (which I'm no fan of) that's so different from things I've experienced in Tokyo. You're just mixing with the wrong crowd Marxy and that's not necessarily a bad move on your part.

One thing that did occur to me about the bear poster was the nature of the food. In London terms, that bear's etiquette is fairly exemplary for the underground. The burger will scatter its debris into that paper wrapper. Here, it would end up on the floor of the train. But, as the London transport posters instruct you also, fast food smells. Onigiri don't.

I know women in London who have gone to NYC with Sex &... in mind. They know it's not real, but it's a reference point for their week of shopping, cocktails and hanging out. I'm not convinced that Japanese female experience of NYC is at all different in the vast majority of cases although your wide-shows and similar are going to pick the more extreme of cases.

pardon me for not adressing posters directly.

central heating: thanks for pointing out that our countrymen in the north are not as nuts as those down here on the plains.

Sex In The City: I was kind of joking but marxy seems to have got it. A number of the OLs have asked me if NYC business women really have such good lives. The girls often have stars in their eyes when asking this, I never know whether I should shatter their dreams or not.

File sharing: japan has had some home grown file sharing apps (Winny, etc) and these have been mostly needed because the ones written in the west didnt support double byte file names so unless some poor otaku wanted to spend hours romanizing the file names of his MP3 stash, he couldnt share them. As far as Japanese artists putting up samples of their work, I've seen a bit of it, but not much and it usually tends to be DRM crippled files or 30 second samples. Most of the japanese musicians I like are either dead or not recording any more so I dont really search out much these days.

gadgets vs "real" computers: that is a problem and will continue to be one IMNSHO. As long as actively using a computer is regarded as an otaku thing its going to stay that way. Gadgetizing technology is a good way to keep the masses down since gadgets (and I include multi function keitei in this class) limit the user experience and obviously prevent the user from discovering anything outside of the walled garden. I have heard that email on keitei is more suited to the nature of japanese people, but like most nihonjin-ron, that falls apart under examination. The only truth I can see to it is that the read ahead kanji prediciton is better on the keitei than on any mass market computer OS.

web pages & national debate: It just doesnt fit here. The US has a tradition of citizen activists and tree stump pundits, Japan doesnt really. Maybe in 20 years, but not now.

Nick != momus nick: real foxy web page. Are you in the kanto?

Chris B writes:

gadgets vs "real" computers:Gadgetizing technology is a good way to keep the masses down since gadgets (and I include multi function keitei in this class) limit the user experience and obviously prevent the user from discovering anything outside of the walled garden.

I totally agree. I wonder if there's anything academic out there that suggests the same thing. Certainly, the Japanese business community wanted keitai Internet over computer Internet because they could charge for looking at webages and downloading more efficiently. I don't think the establishment minds, however, that people aren't at home reading about information on their computers that they are not supposed to know about.

Just a quick note on the file sharing - since you can rent CDs in Japan (as I recall, even for 3 hours) at a reasonable price, there's actually a much smaller incentive to use it.

Maybe you can't get the indies on rental, but you can't always get the indies via file sharing either.

When it comes to keitai internet vs. computer internet, I think you might want to reposition things slightly -

"DoCoMo etc wanted keitai internet because they could charge for it, so they got their act together and made it happen ASAP." Computer companies (which are *competitors* to DoCoMo etc by the way) would appear to have just failed at selling the value of an expensive computer and connection at home vs. keitai that are 1 yen - even if the screen is bigger.

As for why no central heating in Kanto etc - I think it comes down to expectations. If you haven't seen it, you don't want it. When I was in Taiwan nigh on every building had mesh screens on windows so they could be open at night in summer (which is even hotter than Japan) without letting in mosquitos. In New Zealand and Australia, people just don't realise that buying the screens means that you never need to use flyspray or fly swats - they're not standard items and probably most architects wouldn't put them on a building anyway since they don't look pretty.

Just a quick note on the file sharing - since you can rent CDs in Japan (as I recall, even for 3 hours) at a reasonable price, there's actually a much smaller incentive to use it.

True, but we should also remember that Japan doesn't have the huge networks of college students in dorms with T3 connections that mothered the file sharing boom in America. They are still behind in things like Bit Torrent, in which you can file share things NOT available at rental stores.

DoCoMo etc wanted keitai internet because they could charge for it, so they got their act together and made it happen ASAP.

This is a better revision. However, I wonder how much the government realized that their sloth to deregulate the over-expensive NTT was conveniently stopping the development of a freedom-of-information-based Internet.

As for why no central heating in Kanto etc - I think it comes down to expectations. If you haven't seen it, you don't want it.

I feel like this sums up the Japanese system in general. Structural information barriers prevent Japanese citizens from seeing alternate social systems and "systems of being" and then comparing those systems to their own. For example, nobody in Japan knows that colleges don't have to be spartan until you've seen an American university campus. Where there is no choice, there's less suffering or complaint - so the Japanese system can work better when successful alternatives are kept hidden. Most kikokushijo who lived abroad had a chance to see a Western system work - even without social obligation or rigid orthopraxic rituals - and come back to Japan both wanting the freedom of those alternate systems and questioning some of the tenets of Japan. It's hard to work at a successful American company that has no dress codes, morning rituals, or mandatory tsukiai and go back to having every moment of your day under surveillance and scheduling.

The Japanese hegenomy needs these information barriers to keep things running without doubt or question. If you haven't seen the more less rigid Western systems, you won't ask for those freedoms. (Whether Western systems work better is a different issue, but they do their job without requiring so much personal sacrifice from their citizens.)

Now I think we're really getting to the heart of the matter - is there just a lot more inertia in Japan overall?

I think we need to be careful about what we say, though. It's quite easy to have an idea that 'culture' or 'society' is all moving in the same direction, so if there is something in the US that is new, other societies are 'behind' because 'they don't have it yet.'

Firstly, even if you follow this line of thought, comprehensive examination will show that Japan, for example, might be way ahead of other places in certain areas - mobile phone culture being one of them. (That's if you think that heavy use is actually progress.)

Secondly, one can realise that societies aren't changing (or progressing) along the same path towards the same final point anyway. Japan and the USA are never going to converge towards a similar final society sometime in the future. This idea that Japan doesn't have lots of blogging, so it must be behind, computers aren't used as much, Japan must be behind... back in the Meiji era both Japanese and Westerners thought that Japan was behind because Japanese people didn't eat enough meat!

There is something to be said for selection, after all. I'd be very happy to live in a home without a television, and if I had the choice I'd rather not have a telephone, but live within walking distance of friends. And if I spent an hour each way on trains going to work (instead of a ten minute walk), email on my mobile would be rather compelling. Just because people aren't like you doesn't always mean they haven't considered what you are like and decided to be different.

I think we need to be careful about what we say, though. It's quite easy to have an idea that 'culture' or 'society' is all moving in the same direction, so if there is something in the US that is new, other societies are 'behind' because 'they don't have it yet.'

We have the convergence theory discussion on this blog a lot, and while I am now careful not to confuse Modernization (or Post-modernization) with Westernization, I still think that Japanese society exhibits reminants of pre-modern society that block free market/democratic structures which could ultimately provide more consumer surplus and power to its citizens. When the Japanese system really worked in the 1980s (well, mostly for those who had already accumulated wealth), I can understand a confidence in the institutions, but now with all the problems of the last decade, the government has decided to just go with inertia and infighting as the solution.

Firstly, even if you follow this line of thought, comprehensive examination will show that Japan, for example, might be way ahead of other places in certain areas - mobile phone culture being one of them. (That's if you think that heavy use is actually progress.)

My point has always been that Japan was ahead in many areas during the 90s, but that the paradigm shift from gadgetry to computer-based technology has suddenly made them behind at their own game. The Japanese prided themselves on the most well-designed, advanced gadgets, and they lost big time to Apple with the iPod - precisely because the system focused on keitai Internet instead of PCs. Mobile phone culture has also syphoned away money from the music and fashion industries, which in the past, gave consumers much more product diversity in a mainstream setting. As far as I see it, the Japanese are advanced in an area that is ultimately the wrong avenue for innovation in the 21st century. It will be easier for Americans to catch up on cell-phone technology than the Japanese to catch up on computer/media literacy.

Japan and the USA are never going to converge towards a similar final society sometime in the future. This idea that Japan doesn't have lots of blogging, so it must be behind, computers aren't used as much, Japan must be behind...

Blogging leads to freer information and a breakdown in traditional information power structures, which is good for the market and consumers. It's not blogging itself, but the movement towards free information that Japan is missing.

Just because people aren't like you doesn't always mean they haven't considered what you are like and decided to be different.

This is the issue underlying everyone's debate here on this blog: do you believe the Japanese system was imposed from above without democratic choice or do you believe that the populace supports the system with full knowledge of all possible alternatives? I go with the former, and I know Momus goes with the latter.

As written in the chapter "Theory" of Japanese Encounters with Postmodernity by Yoshio Sugimoto and Johann P. Arnason:

"One of the most pronounced divisions in the field of Japanese studies is the disagreement between those who treat cultural traditions as an autonomous and decisive factor and those who claim that Japanese history was and is mostly about 'power disguised as culture' (26)."

Marxy wrote: "Blogging leads to freer information and a breakdown in traditional information power structures, which is good for the market and consumers. It's not blogging itself, but the movement towards free information that Japan is missing."

Hey there lay off the KoolAid, you are starting to sound like Joi Ito in regards to "blogging". Please dont praise something that doesnt actually exist. You got it right in the last sentance of that quote though. "Blogs" are nothing more than personal home pages with a few server side improvements in regards to posting and presentation. As with most personal web pages, they tend to speak in an authoritative single author voice with the discussion relegated to comments which must be displayed seperately. I'd guess this has something to do with why keijiban (bbs/message board) pages became more popular here since they are by nature group discussion. The voices of many speak more authoritatively than those of single authors here. 2chan and other BBS pages have already had some effect on public discourse. Based on some of my work in a large Japanese company, I do see evidence that more people are seeking out information from web pages run with "blogging" software than they were two years ago, but keijiban are still much more popular.

Dave on convergence: "Just because people aren't like you doesn't always mean they haven't considered what you are like and decided to be different."

Right on!

Computers vs Gadgets (redeux): How many of you were here before broadband? Do you remember paying by the minute for analog dialup? Do you remember that the folks who wanted to be online would get the free minutes after 11PM program from NTT (telehodai?) and thus all the analog dialup points would go busy at 11:01 PM? Even people who had "high speed" ISDN went through this. My point is that NTT has always profited from Internet use by charging more for exchanging data, its not new to keiteis but they did refine the billing model.

For that matter, how many of you remember when the US envied Japan's rollout of ISDN to provide high speed Ineternet? Things changed and the US got consumer DSL first while NTT activly blocked DSL for years (the free market wins). If you don't believe me on that one find someone who worked for Tokyo Metalic (the first DSL provider in Japan) and ask them about it. Nowadays thanks to some bureaucratic decision to get Japan connected as announced by PM Mori, we got a nation wide rollout of faster DSL and FTTH. This was impossible in the US due to squabbling telcos and a weakened regulator. With a monopoly telco pushing Flets-B fibre and a little bit of deregulation/market directives to let other companies run fibre, Japan now has the fastest, cheapest consumer Internet connectivity on Earth (closed market wins). Now the western press is once again praising Japan.

I like having a 100Mb connection to my home, but I also recognize that this is not Japan's markets surpassing those of the West, its government ordered catch-up, just like in the Meiji era. It wasnt Perry's Black Ships this time but perhaps it was Roger Boisvert's Black Routers (in joke, sorry). So what if you have great connectivity when most people dont own computers and arent even aware of why they might want such a general purpose tool? Pure consumers want gadgets, consuming creators want tools.

You may be thinking about how personal computers have been available in Japan for a long time, why hasnt the general purpose platform computer caught on? I'd say this is due to a few things:

- Besides the MSX platform (invented here) the IBM PC standard (not invented here) was never an open standard here. (NB that the MSX standard saw some success outside of Japan as well and since it was an open platform, build on markets grew around it.) There was the NEC PC standard and the Fujitsu PC Standard and maybe some others I cant recall. Vendor lock in is the Japanese way. Closed markets are well behaved markets because if the consumer doesn't know any better they wont complain (as pointed out elsewhere in this thread). The open PC standard produced lots of innovation from lots of countries.

- "network effects" when more people have something they can share, the maret improves, also when more nodes are connected the value of the network goes up. If the cost (buyin/cost of use/learning curve) of connectivity is too high, the perceived value of the network goes down. NiftyServe being a quasi exception. Now that connecting to the network is cheap this may change.

- Proprietary Protocols (mix of previous two points). Until the late 90s, the TCP/IP protocols saw very little use here outside of externally connected academic servers. For many years, home grown implementations of "pure" OSI protocols could be found everywhere. Why? Because at some point, the government had ordered that networks (LAN/WAN/whatever) should follow the OSI 7 layer model. TCP/IP (not invented here) was officially not approved for some nihonjin-ron type reason I cant remember exaclty (something like foreign skis cant be sold here because Japanese snow is different).

All those "closed" factors have lead to a lack of innovation since until quite recently, there hasnt been a common reference platform of hardware, software or operating systems to build upon. Obviously there are exceptions and the number have grown in the recent past, two which are notable is how Japan pushed early on for global development, standardization and adoption of IPv6 as well as Unicode standards.

The refusal to insulate homes or in general build them to last (excuse me, but the modern landscape here is shabby and squalid looking) stems from the fact that homes are generally not considered investment properites. They are typically built to last only 20-30 years. New buyers of existing homes usually are not buying the houses but rather the land they're situated on. They buy the land, raze the building and build another one designed to be razed just as easily. One reason, there is no tax advantage in buying and renovated an old home. Tax breaks on new home construction is designed to support the construction industry. Longevity and aesthetics don't figure into it.