In the Land of the Rising Yen

...Discipline and paternalism go hand in hand...

...The more Japan excels, it seems, the more it relies on ancient values and attitudes...

...Today we are again in danger of letting our narrow-mindedness blind us to world realities," warns Sono...

...What you see is merely a case of high and low fashions being appropriated from the rest of the world and put into a Japanese context...

...It is hard to argue with that judgment as you wander through the glittering, opulent shopping and business districts of just about any city or town in the country...

...And if you started buying up property in the 1960s, when it was still relatively cheap, you could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars...

...Talk to a Japanese old enough to retain adolescent memories of World War II, and you soon learn that it is foreigners, particularly Americans, who inspire bitterness, not the wealthy landed class...

...Now the Japanese see American Jews as part of a conspiracy against them...

...The first concerns the supposed influence of the American Jewish community over Wall Street and international finance...

...Few Japanese see the mannequins as anything other than "cute...

...In the age of the rising yen, Japanese travel abroad in greater and greater numbers, buy more than ever for themselves, yet somehow manage to keep up a rate of personal saving exceeding that of Europe and the United States...

...Let the foreigners sell a few more cars and chips, the feeling seems to be, but don't yield more than absolutely necessary to maintain a relationship that has been the most immensely profitable in world history...

...It is a safe bet that the Japanese pattern of absorbing and improving on whatever knowledge the foreigner has to offer—but in the end rejecting the foreigner—will repeat itself with software...

...Yasuhiro Nakasone, while he was still prime minister, raised a storm in the United States by making that observation publicly...

...These days, however, the superiority that eluded the Japanese during the War seems within reach to many of them...

...The biggest differences between baseball in Japan and the United States are player attitude and the concept of a team," Yamagiwa writes...

...They tend to smoke American cigarettes (currently pouring into Japan, thanks to a trade concession hammered out after years of negotiations), and they dance to American music...

...Somewhere, no doubt, there are real estate billionaires living high off their fortunes, but you would not know it surveying the rush-hour mob at Shinjuku Station or the rows of diligent individuals hunched over their desks in gleaming office towers...

...You can detect it in personal contacts, in the press, in advertising, even in the public pronouncements of national leaders...

...We're way ahead of them in software...

...That is at once the strength and the weakness lying at the foundation of this yuniku society...

...Still, you tell yourself, more must have changed than the prices...

...They roar down the streets in BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes both hot sellers among the trendy new car imports...

...A strain of racism is also increasingly noticeable here...

...And nobody sees the Black Shops of Commodore Perry on the horizon...

...models earn thousands from Japanese magazines and ad agencies, and American rock and film stars garner handsome fees from product endorsements...

...What about creativity...

...We have never been so prosperous or secure...

...What you hear goes beyond the mere expression of national / ethnic pride in Japan's emergence as possibly the world's leading economic superpower...

...But major displays of anti-Establishment sentiment are rare, and getting rarer...

...They don't think much about what the ultimate consequences might be—the ossification of the economic class structure into a new social order that could dominate their existence until the next great war brought about by those horrible gaijin (" outside people...

...Hecame after the surrender in World War II, as a GI trained in the country's language and culture...

...We too need a perestroika to reshape our national values...

...Admittedly, the sounds of demonstrators—Right-wingers careening through the streets, Leftists leading strikes—are so familiar now that they almost blend into the cacophony of urban background noise...

...The lowliest blue-collar worker here can take consolation in the fact that Japan is revelling in the "Pacific Century," and that his country by the year 2000 may have soared past the two military behemoths, the United States and the Soviet Union, as the world's real superpower, with a bigger gross national product than either...

...Although yuppies abound in Japan, the most visible members of the "new species" are in their late teens...

...We are at the peak of our history," says Tomohisa Sakanaka, who retired recently from the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's most prestigious national newspaper, and now teaches at Aoyama Gakuin, a university in Tokyo...

...Once the idea that the Japanese and Jews were linked together in a common struggle against ancient prejudices was the topic of sympathetic discussion in this country...

...No, in fact, they are even worse than in the past...

...Culture is busting out all over —in the form of theaters that charge as much as several hundred dollars a ticket for concerts, ballets and performances by drama troupes from Europe and the United States...

...For their pleasures they pay prices most American young people could not possibly afford...

...If they expect to continue functioning as a world economic power, they have got to knock off their incredible xenophobia...

...Despite the superficial resemblance of these Japanese to their Western counterparts, they hardly exhibit the individuality that is frequently the hallmark of youth liberated by wealth and permissiveness...

...Clyde Prestowitz, a onetimeU.S...

...In the years since World War II, Americans have taught the Japanese how to make cars, television sets, and computers, to give a partial listing, only to see them subsequently take command of the markets for these products...

...Baseball in Japan is] a lifetime commitment"—unlike, he says, in the United States, where "the system is brutally fair and egalitarian" in accordance with "America's history as a nation of immigrants where people of talent canshine...

...Images of white Americans, to be sure, are also used by the Japanese for commercial purposes: Washed-up U.S...

...Talk long enough, though, and you begin to discern a subtle shift in attitudes, one that cannot be read off the smooth surfaces of new buildings and restaurants and railway cars, or the taciturn faces of tired salarymen and of fice ladies...

...Nor do polite interviews over cups of coffee and tea in the of fices of large corporations reveal anything particularly novel in the national mind...

...We don't need American products," says one Japanese businessman, avoiding the question of why a maze of regulations and red tape prevent Japanese consumers from making that decision for themselves...

...What about all those stories describing a "new species" of young Japanese in the age of endaka, "the rising yen...

...American companies don't have the facilities to repair or replace them quickly...

...The young engineer is probably wrong on the last point...

...The American GIs were arrogant," says a veteran bureaucrat...

...The offensive comments focus on two quite different aspects of American life that in the Japanese mind are related, since both have to do with the presence of minorities in U.S...

...In keeping with their habit of drawing from alien cultures—including borrowing the Chinese ideographic system of writing in the third and fourth centuries—the Japanese have seized on a foreign word to characterize themselves and their quasi-religion...

...The Japanese do not seem moved to protest the economic disparities occasioned by the skyrocketing value of scarce real estate...

...He is probably exaggerating: Few Japanese I have asked actually remember the confiscation of swords following the War, much less harbor such deep resentment—but the example is nevertheless symbolic...

...Sleak new railroad cars glide through subway tunnels and over surface rail systems, replacing older models that were in perfectly good condition...

...In the great ownership sweepstakes, luck has played an enormous role...

...It might occur to [the Japanese] that their anti-black attitude might spark resentment among blacks, but it would never occur to them that white Americans might resent it too," commented Robert Christopher, author of the book The Japanese Mind, to black American columnist William Raspberry...

...You might be tempted to go on a shopping spree yourself, were it not for those daunting price tags—making Hong Kong or New York look like bargain basements...

...The Japanese are showing an increasing propensity for casting aside all modesty and admitting that they are convinced they have never been in better form...

...They made us give up our swords," he explains—referring to an Occupation-era edict requiring the surrender of the lethal instruments swashbuckling warriors used to slash off someone's head inastroke...

...Our future depends on changing Japan's self-contained, egocentric worldview," says retired diplomat Akira Sono...

...Because of astronomical real estate prices, few Japanese can afford to locate within a reasonable commuting range of Tokyo or most other major cities...

...Homes surprisingly bare of decoration burst with electronic gadgetry—a new TV set for grandma, a computer for the boy in school, a personal telephone for the teenaged daughter, a washer-dryer for mother...

...Yet by degrees a rising moneyed class is assuming not only ownership of the precious pieces of land where the middle class lives, but also dominant political power...

...Donald Kirk, a longtime contributor, is a veteran observer of Asian affairs...

...Still, a few doubts linger on the matter of Japan's destiny...

...Novelist Junji Yamagjwa finds the sport an interesting point of comparison between the two societies...

...Suppose in the decade after the "Pacific War" (as the Japanese persist in calling World War II) you happened to acquire an undesirable-looking plot of land with a run-down shanty on it...

...Nothing of the kind appears imminent...

...The second aspect of American society that brings out Japanese bigotry is the participation of blacks and Hispanics in the U.S...

...This is especially true for Japan's wellheeled and cosmopolitan younger set...

...But Japan is not a utopia...

...Real estate now accounts for no less than 50 per cent of Japanese wealth—a statistic suggesting that a new landed gentry holds the future of the country in its grasp as surely as did the samurai of old...

...Thenheadds, "Nobody forgets that...

...Sometimes you get the feeling that entire office towers are sprouting up overnight...

...A recent Yale graduate assigned to a small computer company told me: "They seem to hang on my every word...

...As members of the mighty race that four decades ago conquered the Japanese, they have a special aura...

...The attitude here toward black Americans manifests itself in curious ways— such as the spectacle of Little Black Sambo mannequins in department stores...

...So you check the figures on the menus more carefully, you are much more inclined to window-shop than to buy, and you derive a certain pride from never taking a taxi...

...Far beyond the urban centers, blocks and blocks of danchi, or apartment complexes, blur into the distance...

...In fact, some people contend that the store-window caricatures of American blacks are actually rather kindly...

...society—non-Asiatic minorities, that is...

...International University, writing in the monthly magazine Shokun, points out that the statement, "The Japanese people are unique," can also mean that they are "unsurpassed, the greatest in the world...

...Japanese teams are tightknit communities, somewhat akin to a traditional farm village, and the manager acts like the patriarchal village head...

...It's an intoxicating sensation, one that goes beyond confidence and borders on arrogance...

...The Socialist and Communist parties are losing their reputations for galvanizing real opposition...

...American Jews, it is suggested, may be responsible for creating some of the friction between Japan and the United States by driving hard bargains, by concerning themselves primarily with the value of stocks and bonds, and by persuading Congress to extend a helping hand to business interests threatened by Japanese competition...

...Getting to the office and back again means spending three to four unpleasant hours each day in packed trains...

...There is no doubt that Japanese feel somehow wronged by the United States, asif they have been made the scapegoat for the ills of a society that had no business subduing them in the first place...

...Nonetheless, a feeling of Japanese material and cultural ascendancy is endemic among the "new species," and it may soon become a matter of national consensus again, just as it was in the 1930s and well into the disastrous '40s...

...Office ladies bloom, get married and fade away into distant suburban obscurity, raising kids to begin the familiar cycle all over again...

...More than a decade ago, Edwin O. Reischauer, former U.S...

...No wonder, then, that some trouble is taken to ensure that every one will feel they are sharing in the national good times...

...Decked out in modish styles, copied from Europe as much as the United States, they haunt the fashion districts of Harajuku, Dogenzaka and Roppongi, filling bars and coffee shops...

...They want to know everything I can tell them...

...government trade official and the author of How We Allowed Japan to Take the Lead, has cited the "tribal pride" of the Japanese as reflected in a "near obsession with their uniqueness...

...The sense of imminent national grandeur entertained by many Japanese contrasts oddly with their living quarters, referred to as "rabbit hutches...

...Indeed, there is little qualitative difference between the lifestyle of the managing director and that of the employees beneath him...

...Maybe never...

...By contrast, the Black Sambos—with their puffed lips, wide glittering eyes and yes-massah grins—are amiable idiots...

...Young American engineers working for Japanese companies in relatively new exchange programs are amazed by the respect accorded them...

...And from this conviction that they are special, set apart from the rest of the world, distinctively different, it is an easy jump to the conclusion that their small island-nation will inevitably beat the odds and be triumphant at last...

...American-made parts break down," says another businessman...

...Historically, though, the Japanese have required an external "shokku" to shake up their values before restructuring could get under way...

...A sense of "Japaneseness" seems to be embedding itself more deeply, more rigidly in the national psyche...

...Aside from the scarcity of housing—which has rendered the middle-class dream-home unattainable for the average young Japanese couple—there are numerous symptoms of what might be called social malaise...

...National discipline and pride conspire with social reverence, obedience and timidity to discourage dissent among the vast majority of people...

...It is almost an article of faith in Japan that U.S...

...Japanese managers returning from tours of American factories do not hesitate to blame these ethnic groups for problems in output and quality control...

...Rather, it is as though the people here, having undergone a long program of study and devotion commencing at birth, were becoming confirmed in a religion —whose essence is being Japanese...

...Work crews resurface streets at the least sign of wear, performing in the after-midnight hours the kind of job that would block traffic on an American street for days...

...At least a few Japanese worry about their country's traditional insularity and its spirit of domestic communalism...

...The word is yuniku—"unique...

...workforce...

...ambassador to Japan, called attention to the " Japanese sense of being somehow a separate people—of being unique...

...Official statements, editorials and on-the-street conversations reveal a willingness to compromise on trade, yet one gets the impression that any concessions are strictly tactical...

...at present, as a result, you may easily qualify as a millionaire in dollar terms...

...And Sam Jameson, Los Angeles Times correspondent in Japan and doyen of Tokyo's foreign press corps, has remarked on "the widespread belief— often reaching the level of an article of faith—that the Japanese culture, language and the Japanese people themselves are unique in more ways than all other cultures and peoples of the world...

...Closely connected is the idea of Japanese uniqueness...

...The ruling LiberalDemocratic Party, in charge for the past generation, may be factionalized, yet few doubt it will be in power next year, 10 years from now, and well into the next century...

...Japanese often note that their corporate executives earn far less than those holding similar positions in America...

...High school students commit suicide at an alarming rate as they experience the "examination hell" that will determine their advanced education—and how they will spend their lives...

...The threat of the United States imposing retaliatory tariffs on Japanese goods may be annoying, but it is less than shocking...

...Japanese today pride themselves on being part of a truly middle-class society...

...Salarymen, dedicated to one company for their entire career, lead prototypical lives of quiet desperation...

...In innumerable luxury stores and boutiques, tastefully arranged display cases offer jewelry and gems, brocades and embroidery, bone china and lacquerware...

...The notion has been cropping up for years in the popular press, in intellectual discussions, and in a succession of books about the country's real character by natives and foreigners alike...

...The Japanese are coming to believe that they can best the West at its own game and forge ahead on new frontiers of research, finance, and maybe even world power...

...The crowds look the same on the subways, you get the accustomed courtesies from the shopkeepers and ticket-takers, and the prices, as always, are staggering...

...The director may spend more time wining and dining at the company's expense, but he makes sure his subordinates participate in the corporate fun...

...The labor movement is turning into a bore...

...The player] who is loyal to the team can count on a job as coach or scout when his playing days are over...

...Christopher made his first trip to Japan courtesy of Uncle Sam...

...He added that he does not think they will ever really catch up...

...The company limousine that picks him up every morning is viewed as a fairly minor detail...

...Try to persuade a Japanese of the benefits of cultural "diversity" as epitomized by the United States and you are likely to encounter a wall of incomprehension...

...The Japanese can perfect and produce, butcan they invent...

...protests over "hidden trade barriers," the "distribution system" and government-aided monopolies of one sort or another are coverups for American inefficiency...

...He was forced to apologize, but few Japanese believed he was incorrect in his judgment...

...While this thought may fail to reduce the agony of the morning rush, it's rather heady...

...Professor Kiyoaki Murata of Yachiy...

...The Japanese, he says, "took the fact that we had beaten them as a demonstration that our system was better than theirs, so they adopted our system to a very remarkable degree...

...Heasks: "What more conceited accolade can you give yourself...

...In the late 19th century the Japanese imported baseball from the United States and adopted it as their national pastime...