Ask HN: Why is Japan so insular?
The country is very self-contained and seems uninterested mostly in integrating culturally with others, as if it's unnecessary. Famously they were isolated for hundreds of years by force. Sure they have regional differences within their nation, and sure folks from other cultures live, work, integrate and become part of Japan, sort of...but... homogenous monoculture comes to mind, too. I don't think this aspect of the Japanese psyche is in dispute...what I'm curious about is: why is Japan like that?
"We don't need anyone else, we are complete unto ourselves, we are better than others"-- is it ? "It's just how we do things? No one will understand us?" -- is it? Is this a unique thing or are other cultures very much the same in their insularity just less well known for it?
Strangely I don't think Japanese people will take offence at my question.
I've lived in East Asia (but mostly the Sinosphere) for 10 years, so I have a fair understanding of that culture, but pretty much zero in-depth about other East Asian cultures. I'm very curious
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 80.3 ms ] thread1) the mutual ethnic cleansing by Turkey and Greece of of Anatolian Greeks and Greek Turks
2) the Armenian Genocide
3) heavy discrimination against Turkish Kurds
For one, monoculture can develop when a culture looks backward in a convergent way, developing "the" story of itself, and deriving lessons and forward-facing stances therefrom. This itself was a strong tradition in Japanese culture for what, over a thousand years? It's still very obviously a valued practice in Japan.
Even the cultural trauma narratives have legend-style stories to them, which is interesting in lots of ways but by definition very closed off in others.
The same traits can be observed in organizational culture in general, for example in high-demand (of their membership) religions and certain businesses.
If you combine this with things like geographic isolation (the island excuse gets thrown around a lot), specific cultural movements, a couple of well-timed typhoons, etc., the additional isolation effect has throughout time been able to seal out new perspectives and recirculate more of the previous ones.
A lot of specific and very beautiful refinements can thrive in these kind of circumstances though, so it's not all bad news.
Just some thoughts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_shogunate
as this behavior at its peak. There is still a lot of nostaglia for this period in Japan, for instance the (excellent I think) anime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Tama
is set in a fictionalized version of the subsequent Meiji Period and communicates how people at that time felt they'd lost control of their culture. Historians are not really kind to the Tokugawa period which if I had to characterize in a sentence it would be "Samurai were big shots but they'd forgotten how to cut your head off with a katana", the book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Narcissism
is frequently seen as a critique of "postmodern times" in the US but it's commonly seen in Japan as relevant to that period.
Consider how national policies and attitudes around the world have changed over the centuries beyond the scope of your own lifespan. Look at how trends change over large timescales. Consider eating utensils, currencies, attitudes to sexuality, etc.
Perhaps let's examine the question. Many countries 'opened up'. Japan did also, and readily adopted foreign processes and technologies in the 20th century. If we're referring to immigration, then, sure, they're not keen on it. On that point, they're not actually alone. Countries like Poland are very insular and don't welcome non-whites. Saudi Arabia does not allow casual tourist visa visits and people are typically required to have letters of invitation to enter (https://lifeinsaudiarabia.net/importance-of-invitation-lette...)
I wouldn't refer to their attitude as unique, then.
It's essentially kind of similar to how the southern Chinese ("world best migrants"are) are very migratory and they kind of migrate anywhere in the world with the difference being that the Chinese will often set up a sort of like a local monoculture so that Chinatown kind of place and still kind of maintain a strong culture where as in the west we have sort of a looser idea or own culture and I think we're more flexible.
But I don't see the Japanese having a correlate in either of these activities: they don't really seem so migratory and when they do migrate they don't really seem to do the same sort of integration or mercantile sort of transaction that the westerners or the Chinese do.
Also we can take a look at their country--JP--and while Western Nations commonly include (not all) but commonly include folks from all over the world (and there's certainly still plenty of racism from the dominant anglo cultures but there's still inclusion of folks from all over the world) and immigration policies that are more open. whereas in Japan I think there's obviously stricter and more xenophobic immigration policies but also there's less of this sense of groups from all over the world to the same extent coming in and forming sort of a community there.
It's much more of an exotic thing I think for non Japanese people to move to Japan (while it certainly existent and occurs to some extent), the degree is much less I think than the type of air quotes multiculturalism you'll see in you know a western nation.
And other nations as well it's not exclusively Western but I think Japan stands out for having a sort of xenophobic monoculture that's quite insular and so that's sort of what I'm talking to.
But this is just a first draft kind of elaboration I could probably say a lot more so I'll see you know where that sticks with you and lands on anything and where you take that.
There's lots of islands in the world, smaller islands than Japan too, that are coherent cultures...but Japan seems to stand out for its insularity...You think not?
Japan not having a large presence in American social networks makes it especially vulnerable to exoticization, speculation, and exaggeration of issues in the country. Especially when the discussion is largely (not always) the result of a long game of telephone.
I'm sure the commenters mean well, just take everything with a grain of salt and do some of your own research into the ideas presented here.
So....But actually, I aimed to elicit the response from Japanese people about their own culture. I think there's an unintentional trend to view this as negative...I want to encourage Japanese people to tell the story of their insular culture in a positive way...I really just want to understand it. I thought that could kind of happen here, but maybe not today as it looks like this question has been flagged--for some reason? Oh well...HN can't be the forum for everything. I guess I'll have to rely on 1st hand experience again. It's not bad, 1st hand experience is probably better than something you can hear on a forum anyway. I would just love to hear some views from some Japanese people...I know they are here
This is overly optimistic in my opinion. When I wrote my original comment I didn't see any indication that any of the other commenters had any connection to or expertise regarding Japan, they were speculating based on their own cultures and their own knowledge. In my experience expert opinions are very likely to get buried in a forum like this unless they agree with the mainstream, non-expert view.
> I think this is overcautious--and actually too dismissive of the views of non-japanese people
I never said you should ignore or dismiss people's views completely, just that you should be cautious. There's a lot of speculation going on that you should avoid putting too much faith into.
> so the opinions of other cultures and their experiences of Japan is vitally important
I'll concede that I hadn't considered that point. But on the other hand, do you really trust people getting little information from a insular country to make well-informed opinions. It's part of the story, but stay skeptical of anything you hear.
I brought things up because of my own frustrations with social networks, particularly Reddit (see my username). Lots of Redditors repeating stuff they saw on Reddit with little critical thinking was part of the reason I strayed away and moved here (also the more technical focus here) Any time Redditors discuss topics or cultures that I'm familiar with, I can tell a lot of people are talking out of their ass.
> question has been flagged--for some reason?
This is unfortunate. I do think there is some interesting discussion to be had. As long as you do your due diligence on any discussions here.
I saw a line printed pin up of Lum from Urusei Yatsura when I was in college, went to the anime club, and developed an obsession with Japan that continues today.
It is well compartmentalized (I rarely talk about it on HN) so I rarely come across as a North America weeaboo but if you open my backpack you might find a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendama
and a Nintendo 3DS and a Sony Minidisc player and a box of 4x6 prints I made some of which are anime art and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e
and also a book or a copy of the Pillow Book. (This is not all I am into you will find some Italian and Russian futurist painting reproductions, maybe a book about Fuzzy Logic or Margaret Thatcher too. Probably the strangest thing about my backpack is that it is overpacked, something appropriate for a long trek into an intellectual desert.)
Until Japan every non-western culture posed no effective resistance to imperalism. The Japanese felt they had choice but to beat the white man at their own game and they've come very close to doing so, setting a precedent for other cultures.
If there was one thing unique about Japan I'd say it is highly resistant to Christianity. In the past they banned Christianity and oppressed them just as violently as Christians oppressed Christians in Europe. Today there is little direct hostility to Christianity but there is almost no market penetration for it. Contrast that to Korea, where people will discover it, think it is the best news they ever heard, get more people to show up at church and next week have them bursting out the doors and ready to start a new church across town.
Japanese society is quite different from Chinese society -- whether from China, Taiwan, or elsewhere. From any other, really.
I don't blame them though. Every time I visit the West it just feels like going to hell. ( In Japan for three decades, married to Japanese with Japanese children, who are called, of course, "half". And yet they have a better life in Japan than they could anywhere else. We've been hearing about the decline of Japan since the 90s. Still waiting for it to be the horrible place everyone keeps warning it's becoming. )
The geography might inform the culture.
Korea gave me a very off-putting vibe when I visited. It felt like a massive, heartless tribute to capitalism. I got the sense of a certain perversion of western culture, where a glorification of American culture but no real understanding of it resulted in a strange and confused interpretation that struggles to mix with traditional Korean culture.
Japan on the other hand came across as actually a socialist nation. Wealth tax is heavy and the top bracket of earners don't make much more than the average. There wasn't this glorification of wealth that's so prevalent in western societies. Moreover, in contrast to western nations that prioritize self-interest, they are so organized and respectful of top-down policymaking that it can be seen as a fault in many cases. It made me think if there was one country that could handle climate change, it would be Japan.
Preservation of these different perspectives makes the world interesting, and allows us to learn from each other. Being "insular" is a great thing, in my opinion.