Customer Reviews

Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, Enlarged Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I highly recommend this book to students, business people, and anyone who needs information on Japan and the Japanese. I have yet to find any single volume work on the subject of contemporary Japan as comprehensive as "The Japanese Today." I found the volume well organized and easy to read.

This book is a bit bulky, but the information contained on the pages is a fantastic overview of almost all aspects of Japanese culture. Highly recommended for the business, or pleasure traveler, ahead of, during, or even after your visit to this fascinating country.

This book is one of the best general introductions to Japan that exists.
It is meant for the layman and because of that, stays away from
a scholarly bent. For anyone who has an interest in Japan, while this
should not be the only book you read, it should definitely be
the first.

Having lived for more than six years in Japan, and being fluent in Japanese, I have a quite clear idea of the society there. This book is not only too old, but it shows that Reischauer (like the other members of the Chrysantemum Club) has a one-sided point of view, and is still ganging with the American "reformists" that put Japan back on the rails (so to say...) during the occupation. Of course Reishauer knows quite a lot about Japan, but he tells only what he thinks is important to him and to his old-fashion Orientalist group. Read any Murakami or Yoshimoto to understand on your own how this book is very superficial. There are much better and objective introductions to the complex Japanese reality.

This book is an observation of Japanese society written by an an American who grew up in Japan, who spoke and taught Japanese, who married Japanese, who served as US Ambassador to Japan, who was popular in Japan, and whose first printing of this book sold a quarter of a million copies in Japan.

Note: This review was published in 1988 and is of the first edition. Nothing that has happened in the past 20 years causes me to change it.

It is often said that Americans ought to learn more about other countries. It could start at the White House.

In January 1987, I listened to Alan Reynolds, one of the Reagan administration's economic advisers and a pundit who frequently writes for the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal, predict a dismal future for Japan. The country's economy was, he said, "pretty sick>\."

"It's sad."

Well, a nation doesn't have to be smart, tough, tenacious, adaptable and farseeing to outperform a rival that takes advice from people like that. Since Japan is all those and more, it's been no contest.

The eyes of the world are on Japan because of what it has done. And according to America's No. 1 authority on Japan, Edwin Reischauer, the eyes of Japan are also on Japan. Always self-conscious, success has made the Japanese even more so.

Reischauer, however, does not give a high rating to most the "explanations" of Japan and its 122 million inhabitants. So he has had to update his well-received book of 1978, "The Japanese."

In a world that is increasingly homogenized, the Japanese stand out. Reischauer finds in them at least 15 characteristics that are the biggest or best, from best educated population to "world's most enthusiastic diarists."

He contends that the key Japanese value is harmony. Other observers think that the Japanese are just as contentious as anybody else, they just work out their conflicts in a different way. Certainly their military and economic competitiveness suggests that they regard harmony in a utilitarian way rather than something good in itself, the way the Burmese, for example, behave.

Contrived or not, the harmonious efforts of the Japanese have created a goal-directed society that lets very little stand in its way.

This is not always a good thing: It wasn't when the goal was the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere." But in our more peaceful era the Japanese went from starvation to ease in 15 years, from ease to wealth in another 20.

The usual contradictions accompanied the change, which has been the fastest experienced by any large nation. Reischauer points out that although the Japanese are unusually aware of the beauties of nature, they often trample famous places in their enthusiasm to see them, and during their economic buildup they allowed some of the worst pollution anywhere.

Japanese wealth, too, like ruined perfect vistas, is in some ways more theoretical than real. Reischauer says that one-third of Tokyo apartments are only 11 by 11 feet and lack flush toilets.

"Japan has not been Westernized, as is commonly asserted," he writes. "Nothing is more central to traditional Western culture than Christianity, but less than 2 percent of the Japanese have embraced this religion. What the Japanese have taken over are the modern aspects of Western culture."

Also its problems. Japan faces three present crises and one potential one.

The potential crisis is war. Because of its lack of resources (it cannot feed itself and has no oil or ores), Japan's prosperity could collapse overnight in case of conflict.

Of the crises already requiring action, Reischauer pays attention to only one: housing. Because of the lack of space and jerry-building, "actual 'living standards' in Tokyo may be quite a bit lower than per capita GNP figures would suggest," he writes.

He barely mentions the status of women (very low) or the aging of the population.

But the Tokugawa era, when Japan shut out the world, is over. The Japanese can see that in the rest of the world, even parts that are not especially rich, the houses are comfortable and the women more or less control their own lives. Expectations are rising, but at the same time the nation must support a larger and larger group of retirees.

There may not be a social revolution, but the ingredients are there for an unhappy society. And as usually happens with very successful people, the Japanese tend to be blinded by their own myths.

Reischauer, too, sometimes. He repeats the line that the Japanese workers are diligent, motivated and cooperative, singing the company song each morning with genuine enthusiasm.

These singalongs begin to have the aspect of Potemkin villages, however.

Not many foreigners get on Japanese factory floors, except to hear the songs. Even fewer of them understand the language. Very few indeed have unrestricted access to Japanese plants, know the language and keep that knowledge to themselves.

These few learn interesting things. One of them told me that, when the boss and the visitors are not around, Japanese factory workers goof off at about the same rates as Americans.

Reischauer worries about what the rest of the world often describes as Japanese arrogance. He doesn't agree that that is the right word, but he says, "The isolation and resulting uniqueness Japan has experienced throughout its history turns out to be the main problem it must contend with today."

That is, the Japanese proved to be well adapted to solving the problems they faced in 1945, but they may not be as well equipped for the problems of the 1990s. Like an uncertain tightrope walker, they can keep upright as long as they rush forward, but if the slow down or stop the worry that they will fall.

Having attained wealth, power and prestige, they now much find equilibrium.

This book discusses all aspects of Japanese society very well. It is a great mix of the present and history and of the average person and the people in power.

This is one of the most superficial and ridiculous books on Japan that I came across. Though a Harvard scholar, Reischauer has such a flimsy grasp of modern Japan that it is simply and utterly appalling. It is like he wants the Japanese to love him and so writes only about the nicest things that he can find, while ignoring anything untoward - or even baselessly asserting that all problems like the Yakuza (!) will simply disappear as the country "matures". Well, if you've lived there and seen that there is much ugliness beneath the veneer of democracy and politness, this book will disgust you to no end.

Not recommended. It is a pathetic performance and deeply disappointing.