JAPAN'S IMPACT ON THE ASIAN IMAGE

t has long been seen as the fountainhead of consumer electronics technology. Its cars are consistently among the world's most admired. Its corporations own two major Hollywood studios. Its kiddie culture has all but killed off Mickey Mouse and Barbie. Its $4 trillion GDP is number two behind the U.S. and its workers earn 25% more per head than Americans.
     Bravo Castrati!
     That's how many Asian Americans see Japan. A nation that should command the stature of a powerhouse -- and elevate the image of all Asians in the process -- possesses the geopolitical profile of, say, Switzerland, a nation a thirtieth its size. Japan's leaders are seen as mere hand puppets in a sad half-century charade of democracy. Its homes are cramped. Its men function as soulless drones whose women fly into the arms of western males. Even its vaunted economy has been on the ropes for ten years and looks ready to go down for the count. What little testosterone it possessed seems to have left with Ichiro.
     A nation that should champion the Asian image has only reinforced every insulting stereotype. To many Asian Americans, Japan has done less than its smaller, poorer neightbors. Little Hong Kong exports asskicking action stars. South Corea exports people who take hooey from no one. Taiwan exports tech entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley. Impoverished China, Vietnam and even nutcase North Corea showed balls in standing up to the west. But mighty Japan? Spiritually it seems never to have recovered from its defeat in World War II.
     Is Japan carrying its weight or slacking in the Asian image department?

(Updated )

To Energytraderus,

Japan is still the most powerful Nation in Asia because of its long establishment of being an Asian military and economic juggernaut.

I am citing what you said in another forum regarding the Japanese and would agree with you wholeheartedly.

"An elitist intellectual like Nietzsche cited differences between the Jews and the Chinese, on the one hand, and the Japanese. He cited this difference repeatedly in "Genealogy of Morals", and he wrote that before the Japanese destroyed the Russians completely at Tsushima. The difference is brutally simple: the Jews and the Chinese...not to mention the blacks whom Nietzsche cited as an example of "prehistoric man" ... are slave peoples. The Japanese are not".

The Japanese are the only non-white people who were not oppressed and subjugated to European Colonialism or Slavery in their own land. In addition, throughout history, Japan suppressed many of its traitors or "sellouts" which allowed her to enjoy a more harmonious society when compared to the Chinese or the Ancient Jews. Moreover, Japan has threaten the Western European Nations with her military or economic prowess at least one point in time, while the Chinese and the Jews have never really disrupted a Western Nation. The paranoia that somehow China will become a world threat or that the Jews will one day dominate the world is only a fear or thought. The Japanese on the other hand, have threatened the world before, especially the West. Further, in terms of morality and the issue of prudence, the Japanese have surpassed both the Chinese and the Jews, the two groups of people who have the older civilizations, by reinforcing the importance of personal self sacrifice for the benefit of a larger society. The fact that the Chinese and the Jews are part of a larger Diaspora while the Japanese are not, is a testimony of why the Japanese have been an admirable group of people for being restraint and prudent.

Interestingly, the Japan, not China, is the real Confucian society. Japan absorbed much of the Ancient Chinese culture and kept it till this day while China, being disrupted by her own people and the Westerners, has contaminated her ancient glorious past.


Japan is still #1 in Asia
   Tuesday, November 06, 2001 at 09:43:46 (PST)

FOP,

Actually my argument doesn't fall short, rather it is Japan that is beating the odds. But my original arguemant also took into account that Japan achieved modernization at pace with most 1st world countries in the past century (the 30 year head start over China I spoke about). The combination of both population dynamics and a strong history of modernization were part of a combined theory. If Japan had 300 million people it would probably be in the gutter.....
Fragrent Chu
   Sunday, November 04, 2001 at 22:14:10 (PST)
I wonder if there is any relationship to the apparent superior EQ of Western Europeans and Japanese as related to cold brutality. Both regions of the world probably wrote the book on cruelty in war as well. Be it the Nazi Germans the French in Algeria, the English in several parts of Africa and Asia. The Japanese during WW2. The Colonials in America. I wonder if Mongolians should be included is having high EQ.
Fragrent Chu
   Sunday, November 04, 2001 at 07:18:55 (PST)
Japanese men are hard working and intelligent, but they do not know how to express themselves as Chinese and Korean guys do. They seem so insulated sometimes.
Japanese image
   Sunday, November 04, 2001 at 03:16:37 (PST)
The US has been dependent on Japanese capital since 1986 when, according to US commerce dept figures, Japan replaced the US as the world's largest creditor nation. Since then, Japan has continued to rack up huge trade surpluses with the US which have only nominally begun to decline as Japanese corps move assembly offshore to places like Thailand and, more recently, Mexico.
The nature of the relationship between the US and Japan is further defined by looking at the exports: Japan exports high value added products such as consumer electronics while the US exports low value added products such as crude oil, raw logs, and produce.
The fact that you cite Japan's low esteem among nations highlights the self control and prudence of the Japanese govt and businesses. Contrast the low profile of today's Japanese with the overbearingly arrogant and stupid behavior of Germans in , say, 1900. One can see why the rest of the of the world succeeded in isolating and, later, destroying the growing German industry in WWI.
A trade relationship charcterized by dependence of one country on the other for capital coupled with a clearly lopsided and asymmetrical trade balance is the mark of colonialism. The fact that the Japanese are not perceived as a threat is a monument to their admirable self restarint and prudence as a ruling people.

energytraderus
   Saturday, November 03, 2001 at 22:10:15 (PST)
Fragrent Chu,

Your argument still falls short. Japan is overpopulated itself. However, it has a high capital per head.
FOP
   Saturday, November 03, 2001 at 21:46:09 (PST)
to Jason
>>"how can anyone gauge the level of EQ even when IQ is heatly debated"

you're correct. It is impossible(or extremely very difficult) to accurately gauge something so abstract as EQ. But this whole thing on EQ is just my perception of things. Its like "attractiveness", its impossible to accurately quantify, but you can definitely have sense of it.

>>"I am sure you are not expert on ..."

you're correct again. I'm no expert. I've been to korea only in the summers in high school during visits with my relatives. I can barely speak korean. I've been to Japan with friends and stayed for only 2 weeks.

>>"If we could judge one's emotional quotient by merely observing one's behavior on traffic accident, life could be so much simpler."

Surely, I will agree with you that there are no "Hard and Fast" rules for accurately determining general characteristics based on simpler ones. But think of this, in the 1960s a psychologist by the name of walter michel did an experiment on impulse control on 4 yrs olds. It was a simple experiment. An examiner was to offer a marshmallow to each child. However, there was a catch. If the child waits and doesn't eat the marshmallow until after the examiner returns from doing an errand he/she(child) ends up with two marshmallows. The ones that were impulsive, ate the marshmallow immediately. The ones with control, waited and got two. The ones that waited and got 2 MMs, scored an average of 200 points higher on the SAT! I'm sure there were some who grabbed it immediately and still outscored their counterparts. But still, the marshmallow test is very predictive. a correlation was also shown between "wait time" and "SAT" score. So, the longer the child waited, the higher he/she scored.

Just think about this.


>>"As if to give reader impression, "I am very levelheaded too!" That was very naive of you."

okay. i was naive.

>>"Japan has clearly two and enough of young people(yes, still) to achieve substantial economic growth. And yet, they didn't for last decade"

I can barely comprehend this. (i'm not very intelligent)well...this is where we "simply" disagree. I think this(no population growth) is the limiting factor. You don't.


>>"Was it necessary to write so much when anyone who took simple Eco 101 understands it!?"

you're right. probably not.
korean guy
   Thursday, November 01, 2001 at 20:37:16 (PST)
FOP

But the U.S. is twice the population and 10 times the size of Japan. So the economics of population proportion are not neccesarily stacked againt the U.S. If the U.S were 1.2 billion then I doubt they would enjoy Japans per capita.
Fragrent Chu
   Thursday, November 01, 2001 at 10:45:22 (PST)

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