Saying hello in Japan is easier now

The country is more open to foreigners than it was earlier

August 29, 2014 12:32 am | Updated 12:32 am IST

Has Japan changed? If yes, has it changed by choice or by compulsion? Is the gaijin (foreigner in Japanese) finally an acceptable part of the Japanese landscape? These questions came to my mind when I visited the country for a three-week break, after a gap of 18 years. Japan today is embedded in tradition, yet embellished with technological excellence. Even in the sacred arena of Sumo wrestling, steeped in rituals harking back to more than three centuries, wrestlers of Mongolian origin have now been ruling the roost for more than eight years. No Japanese wrestler has won a Sumo championship since 2006 and the last Japanese Yokozuna (the Grand Champion) was Kôji Takanohana who retired from the arena in 2003 after winning 22 tournament titles. The recent tournament held in Nagoya in July 2014 could well have broken the trend, but Hakuho from Mongolia emerged as the tournament champion, winning his 30th tournament title since 2007. Would the core of Japanese tradition yield and allow foreigners to create history in the coming year?

Foreigners in Greater Tokyo Today, one visible change is the sheer number of foreigners one comes across in Greater Tokyo. So, have the Japanese accepted “foreign presence” in the public arena? It would appear to be so, if the public transportation system in and around Tokyo is taken as an example. The legendary Japanese punctuality apart, announcements in English and display signboards include Korean too; a friendly Japanese hand has certainly been extended further. Chinese characters have always been around, right from the beginning, on signboards. These days, tour operators arrange buses exclusively for Chinese tourists. Large commercial establishments like department stores employ a significant number of Chinese-speaking employees while the Chinese bravely battle the Japanese language to communicate.

Expectedly, Chinese-made goods jostle for space with those made in Japan. While China-made umbrellas sell for $5, those of local origin sell for $15, with the quality clearly favouring the latter. This subject of price differential has a facet that is uniquely Japanese. An interesting addition to an upmarket neighbourhood in the heart of Tokyo is a 100 Yen shop — the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. $1 store. It was interesting to see the well-heeled frequenting these shops and then driving off in a Mercedes. The innate trait of savings among the Japanese is alive and well.

“The economic slowdown has altered the job market significantly and lifetime employment now belongs to history books”

What was an infrequent scene in Tokyo in the early 1990s — the sighting of a foreign made upmarket car — has become commonplace now. Foreign-made luxury cars including Mercedes’ and BMWs compete for space and speed alongside modern-day Japanese hybrids in a sea of vehicles marked by an almost ubiquitous presence of box cars (akin to a ‘Wagon R’ in the Indian context). Spending the right amount at the right place obviously helps in saving and acquiring things for moving about in style.

Japan’s affinity for economic planning was reflected in the Economic Planning Agency during the boom years. This was absorbed into the newly created Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2001. Now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently announced doing away with the Planning Commission, India can perhaps study how this absorption took place. It is time for India too to create an agency for removing the hurdles which delay the development of our infrastructure.

In the last decade and more, the Japanese have not only upgraded the public transportation network across Tokyo, but have also built new subway lines cutting right across the world’s densest city, and connecting its suburbs even more efficiently. Today, Tokyo can boast of new transportation infrastructure with enough capacity for expansion. With nearly a tenth of the nation’s population living and working in the area of Greater Tokyo, such investment is a “Keynesian kick” — to borrow a phrase from The Economist — making infrastructure-building and renewal as the stimulus to keep the economy ticking. The service delivery is, expectedly, impeccable across all modes of transportation.

Japan’s preference for change remains as grounded as ever, and this is witnessed in the sure and steady Tokyo Metropolitan Bus Service. The courtesy of the drivers who were in their 40s and 50s in the 1980s and 1990s has now been replicated by the next generation. Such is the strength of the training techniques in Japan. Notwithstanding the innate discipline of the Japanese on the road, when driving or being driven, Mr. Modi may well consider sending a group of public transport bus drivers to Tokyo just to observe how their counterparts are trained and how they offer services. More might be gained in this manner than by sending a delegation of MPs or MLAs. In sum: the old outer form has been retained but with much stronger innards. Japan has probably proved that change for its own sake is not worth it.

Talking of change in another context — whether one gives a 10,000 Yen note to a taxi driver or a counter clerk in a shop, the due remainder is handed over with no accompanying fuss. The size and composition of Japanese coins in all denominations has remained the same over the decades, barring the 500 Yen coin which was introduced in the 1990s. In India, we have solved the problem differently. In many shops, chocolates substitute for small change. Ours is probably the only country where larger denomination coins are smaller in size than lower denomination coins. The one and two rupee coins issued over the last few years are laughable. Perhaps Mr. Modi will become aware at some stage about how such small things can make a favourable impact on people’s morale and outlook. What is the point of having “world class” IITs and engineering colleges when a simple thing like coinage cannot be standardised?

Facing hardship It is not difficult to spot, even in central Tokyo, the odd homeless person with a bent head and a board, seeking help. Today, Japan has a workforce of about 50 million that includes about 35 per cent who work part-time. The economic slowdown has altered the job market significantly and lifetime employment now belongs to history books. It was disheartening to see hundreds of homeless in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo in the mid-1990s; today, their counterparts form a queue in the same area for food served by charity organisations. The generation that had contributed significantly to the boom years in Japan in the last century is now facing high levels of hardship.

The other side of the coin is the flurry of advertisements on TV and elsewhere that target obesity across sexes and ages. This was somewhat puzzling in a society where walking is a way of life. Obviously, lifestyles have altered. It is likely that these changes will also find an answer to the problem of ageing in a uniquely Japanese way. Yes, Japan has changed and is now more open to foreigners than it was in the earlier decades. The final barrier of aloofness is a thing of the past.

(Ravi Neelakantan is a senior fellow at the Centre for Public Policy, and adjunct faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.)

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