The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 32 | Number 1 | Article ID 3584 | Aug 01, 2011

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Sushi and Samurai: Western Stereotypes and the(Mis)Understanding of Post-Tsunami Japan　　スシとサムライ−−西側の固定観念と津波後日本(誤)理解

Heinrich Reinfried

Sushi and Samurai : WesternS t e r e o t y p e s a n d t h e(Mis)Understanding of Post-TsunamiJapan

Heinrich Reinfried

Interviewed by Finn Canonica and BirgitSchmid of the Swiss weekly Das Magazin

Werner Bischof created images that shapeour perception of Japan even now. Meiji-Shrine (1951)

Das Magazin: Dr. Reinfried, as has beendemonstrated to us once again during the lastthree weeks, there is probably no other culturewith which we are so unfamiliar as we are withJapan. Accordingly, many unrealistic images

are projected by the media. For years, a poeticimage of Japan as in the movie Lost inTranslation has prevailed, but now martialimages are being revived. Some writers haveeven referred to the deployment of fire-fightersin Fukushima as kamikaze missions.

Heinrich Reinfried: That’s absurd. InGermany, too, nuclear plants employ contractworkers on a regular basis. This is standardpractice in the industry. Being Japanese iscertainly not a prerequisite to taking on such adangerous job.

DM: In this time of disaster, commentatorshave recourse to shop-worn concepts—“Japanese think collectively,“ “the individual issubservient to the group,“ “they are sadistictorturers of dolphins,“ “submissive toauthority,“ “devoid of feelings“— and martialimages such as kamikaze are revived again.How do you explain the abundance ofstereotypes in the discussion of Japan?

Reinfried: It’s due to Völkerpsychologie, abranch of psychology founded by the Germanethnologist Wilhelm Wundt around 1900, whichattributed national characteristics to eachnation. Even today many of our schooltextbooks misrepresent the Japanese as a“homogenous unity acting collectively“ becausedoing so accentuates the “individualism“idealized in our own culture. In order to defineour own identity, we need a counter-example.In this case, we use Japan as a negative rolemodel incorporating the opposite of thepositive qualities we attribute to ourselves.

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DM: Besides your professional activity aslecturer you advise Swiss companies who wantto expand into the Japanese market. What isyour experience in that role?

Reinfried: One Swiss company was planning toname one of its machines Tsunami. Of course, Iadvised strongly against it, which resulted inmy being replaced by another consultant. LaterI learned they had to change the name of themachine, since Japanese quite understandablydid not have positive associations with thisword. This kind of ignorance is quite typical.Tsunami is a Japanese term. Japanese haveknown this kind of large wave produced byearthquakes for centuries, tsu being a poeticterm for harbor and nami simply denotingwave.

DM: How would you describe our attitudetowards Japan?

Reinfried: In my opinion, for the most part, theAnglo-Saxon world has a far more pragmaticattitude toward the Far East, particularlytoward Japan, marked less by culturalstereotypes than by sober business interests. Inthe reception rooms of our banks, however, wefind images of Zen monasteries. The proverbialJapanophile collects Japanese art or manga andpractices the tea-ceremony. These pastimes arenot problematic as such; I simply want to pointout that they stand for an aestheticizing way oflooking at the Orient, a perspective which hasits origins in the 18th and 19th centuries. Whatwe know today as Orientalism was initially areaction against the European enlightenment.At a time when European lives were becomingever more determined by rationalism, weconstrued a counterworld f i l led withspirituality. Let me give you an illustration.Perhaps you remember the book Tuiavii'sWay, which purports to be a description of thedegenerate Western way of life as seen throughthe eyes of a Samoan tribal chief. It’s actuallyentirely fictional.

DM: The Western world is materialistic; the

East is somehow more spiritual. Nowadays, thelobbies of exclusive spas feature statues of theBuddha, and Bali is a favorite destination forstressed housewives.

Reinfried: All of this accounts for our one-dimensional image of Japan. Anothermisrepresentation was spread by the Nazis, forwhom Japanese studies was a top priority. Inthe 1930s it was impossible to hold a chair inJapanese studies at a German universitywithout being an active member of the NaziParty. Nazi Germany made use of the samuraiideal of one who obeys orders unconditionally,who sacrifices himself on orders from above,who although not a Christian has a noble soul.This is the ideological basis of Zen in the Art ofArchery by the Nazi Eugen Herrigel, a bookwhich has exerted a powerful influence overthe years. Some Swiss still today regard thisbook as the open sesame to Japan. It is amusingto hear of Europeans with an anti-authoritarianupbringing who go to Japan to let a Zen masterhit them should they doze of f duringmeditation.

DM: Do you mean by this that Japanese studieswas instrumentalized for political purposes?

Reinfried: Yes. Especially during the ColdWar. Before then, i.e., during the Second WorldWar, Japanese were demonized in Westernpropaganda. The world had been told of themassacres committed by the Japanese army inNanjing. After World War II, communismemerged as the new enemy, which promptedthe US to invest large sums in Japanesestudies. As part of the anti-communist struggle,Japan was instrumentalized to project the USworldview in Asia. Having lost mainland Chinato communism, the US shifted its focustemporarily from China to Japan. Under theauspices of Henry R. Luce, publisherof Time and Life, a new image of Japan focusingmainly on cultural values was created. Spiritualaspects were overemphasized to resonate withthe broad middleclass. Geisha bowling, priests

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playing the bamboo-flute, rock gardens.

Photo of bowling maiko (Life Magazinecover, 1960s)

DM: How was this achieved?

Reinfried: Japanese literary works weretranslated for the first time in large numbers,and Western authors and photographers,among them the Swiss Werner Bischof, weregiven the opportunity to position Japan afreshin the family of nations through their personalimpressions, this time as a country with a souland religion and no longer—as was the case inthe previous decade—a country demonized asthe Yellow Peril. Japan was presented as ashowcase anchored off the communist world inEast Asia to demonstrate that capitalism waspossible without class struggle. One must not

underestimate the significance of the strugglein the 1950s for ideological hegemony. Japanmutated in no time at all from most hatedenemy to closest ally under the nuclearumbrella of the USA.

DM: And Japan acquiesced to this?

Reinfried: Yes, it did indeed. Following theatomic bombs and Japan’s surrender, the USpresented a positive example of a foreignoccupation. The Americans had read up on thecountry’s history and society in the run-up tothe occupation. Japanese as a result generallyaccepted US leadership willingly and evengratefully.

DM: Why do we generally feel that theJapanese like to live up to the expectations ofothers?

Reinfried: Japanese are quick to realize whatothers see in them. They are eager toincorporate foreign images into their self-image, above all, of course, those which areself-aggrandizing. This is what happenedduring the Cold War when Japanese adaptedand subsequently internalized the positiveimage that the Western world had propagatedin order to mark Japan off from communistChina. This self-perception enabled the countryto reach the goal it had envisaged since theMeiji-Period, namely to “catch up to and gobeyond“ the West. It made Japan unique butalso nurtured its own brand of nationalism.

DM: There are those who maintain thatJapanese just love playing the exotic roleassigned to them by foreigners.

Reinfried: To some extent every country putson a show for others. That is part of the successstory of many nations. We Swiss, too, like topretend that we are cowherds addicted tocheese. It is only when disaster occurs that wetake note of the fact that we all live in one andthe same world. Exceptionalist claimsregarding culture then immediately fade into

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irrelevance.

DM: What do you mean by that?

Reinfried: It’s not only Japan that has aproblem now, but rather the nuclear industryas a whole. This industry is globally interlinked.When I accompanied my wife, an earthscientist, on a visit to the Swiss Nagra Grimseltest site, the only workers I saw there were twoJapanese technicians who were studying thepossibility of disposing of nuclear waste inSwiss granite. So at least the Swiss nuclearindustry wouldn’t dream of putting Japan in anexotic corner. Both Japan and Switzerland havethe same reactors by the very same US maker,and both use the same manuals and consult thesame checklists.

DM: But wouldn’t you agree that certainnational stereotypes do exist and cannot beexplained away—“Italians are unable to getthings organized,“ “Germans are subservient toauthority,“ “Israelis are invariably boisterous.“

Reinfried: They are invariably wide of themark. We put what little we know about othernations under a microscope, observe it inmagnified form and then attribute it to a wholenation. Until 1945, all Japanese were regardedas descendants of samurai, although these hadnever constituted more than 10% of thepopulation. The overwhelming majority ofpeasants, whose ethics were completelydifferent from those of the samurai elite, wentunheeded. In the 1960s international interestthen focused on the fast growing urban socialstratum of the middle class, who werepresented to the world as anonymous lemmingsemerging each morning from the train-stationsby the thousands on their way to work. TheJapanese population has always been aconglomerate of millions of people in which amultitude of elements exist side by side.

DM: What has been your impression of thenews coverage in Western media in the pastthree weeks?

Reinfried: I watch Japanese televisionprograms by satellite and read Japanesenewspapers and blogs on the internet on aregular basis. This is probably the best way toget precise information. There is no need to bein Japan to understand what is going on. Attimes like these, the presence of foreigncorrespondents is hardly needed. I pity thejournalists who have to report from astreetcorner at three in the morning, and allthey can tell the TV audience is that there is nomore mineral water to buy in the supermarkets.Television viewers are bound to conclude fromsuch reports that supermarket shelveseverywhere in Japan must be empty. Wherevercorrespondents in Tokyo may be, they arenever where the action is. A megalopolis with36 million inhabitants is very difficult to putinto words.

DM: Would you say that our impression thatthe Japanese maintained relative calm evenduring the disaster is mistaken?

Reinfried: No. In Japan, even a disaster ishandled in an organized manner. Japan isgenerally characterized by a very high degreeof organization. This also applies to disastermanagement. Japanese rely heavily onorganization, simply because they do not seeany real alternative to getting themselvesorganized.

DM: How do you account for this?

Reinfried: People in the Western worldbasically believe in their capability to live ontheir own, whereas Japanese tend to seethemselves as part of a system. They do not seethemselves as being capable of existing withoutan external system such as the state. There arehardly any visionaries of a self-sufficient lifewithout a state. Thoreau’s Walden was notwritten by a Japanese.

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System and order have top priority inJapan

DM: What exactly does Nature mean toJapanese?

Reinfried: In Japan, man and nature are not incontradiction, since in their view man was notblessed by God with a mind and then placed inNature. In Japan, man and what we call Naturetogether form a unity. This realm can be eitherorderly or chaotic, bestowing blessings attimes, at other times demonstrating that itsmight cannot be controlled, such as when itproduces huge tsunami or rattles the earth. Atthe same time, the conviction that man cankeep the dangers of Nature at bay with thehelp of technology is being nurtured. Scientistsrefer to a disaster as an “occurrence.“ Adisaster is the result of the fact that mansettled in places he is not intended to settle.Only in the 17th century , when land

reclamation and dam building became morewidespread, did Japanese begin to settle inlarge numbers on the outer edge of the alluvialplains close to the sea.

Tamed nature: The Kenrokuen garden inKanazawa

DM: Do Japanese have a religion at all?

Reinfried: Such a question would placeJapanese in a quandary. Since 1945, religionand state have been rigorously separated.Religious beliefs are a strictly private concern.There is, however, a strong link with one’sancestors, to whom Japanese feel very close.Religious feelings do exist in the form ofgratefulness towards them as well as towardsfellow human beings in general. The notion iswidely accepted that in a society based ondivision of labor, one’s existence depends

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precariously on one’s fellow citizens doing theirjobs properly. This, in essence, is the leastcommon denominator in Japanese religion.

DM: Would it then be totally wrong to seesomething archetypically Japanese in theirsocial behaviour following the disaster?

Reinfried: On the one hand, man has a socialnature that does not depend on nationality. Onthe other hand, even in Japan there are thosewho take advantage of turmoil to do mischief.In Japan there is the view that man is neithergood nor bad, but malleable: Just as waterassumes the form of the vessel it is containedin, man must always be embedded in a vessel,be it family, community or company.

DM: Now that this terrible disaster has struck,do Japanese talk publicly about their feelings?About how terrible everything is?

Reinfried: Television reports regularly showbroken-hearted people who have losteverything, while anchors make no secret ofhow deeply they are moved by the events. Butinterviewers, when trying to express theirsympathy, regularly get the reply from theinterviewee that they are strugglinghard (ganbari masu) and that they will do theirbest to get themselves out of their predicamentby their own efforts. They even reassure theinterviewer by begging him not to worry. It iscommon to affirm repeatedly that one does notwant to burden others with one’s ownproblems. In Japan there is no tradition of aconcept of an innate right to existence or anentitlement to well-being. If one must name atradition in this field, then it would be moreappropriate to speak of a tradition of innateduties rather than entitlements.

DM: What are the main differences betweenthe Japanese and Swiss media in the coverageof the disaster?

Reinfried: In our media, a commentator whopigeonholes events and passes judgment on

them seems indispensable. In Japan, newsprograms from abroad are also available in theoriginal, simply dubbed in Japanese withoutfurther commentary. Here in Switzerland, weapparently are not supposed to watch newswithout a judgmental commentary thatsometimes even casts wholesale doubt on thepublic statements by the Japanese government.

DM: Would you maintain then that theJapanese public was kept well-informed by itsgovernment?

Reinfried: In a comprehensive way, yes. InJapan, public discourse constitutes mainly anexchange of factual information, not ofworldviews or personal convictions. Here inSwitzerland, television audiences as well ashigh-school students tend to engage in heateddebates even before they have gained athorough grasp of the facts. Japanese publicdebates on TV generally run in orderly fashion.In Japan, differences of opinion are attributedto differences in the level of information andnot to ideological differences. We have behindus a long tradition of disputes betweenbelievers and non-believers. In Japan, there areonly those who know and those who do not. Incase of disagreement, people do not raise theirvoices to outshout each other but go home torecheck the vital facts. Saying this, I don’t inany way want to suggest that Japanese areunable to raise their voices in a quarrel if theyfeel the need.

DM: There is even now talk of a possibleeconomic rebound. Will the Japanese, as wellorganized as they are, recover fast from thiscrisis?

Reinfried: When I asked my first teacher ofJapanese back in 1963 why Japan hadrecovered within a relatively short time afterthe Pacific War, he named Japan’s highorganisational level as the main reason.Progress was to all intents and purposesunstoppable once the initial snags had beeneliminated.

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DM: And what about the much-touted“Samurai-Tradition“? There are countlesstomes for Western business persons with titleslike “The Way of the Samurai for Business.“

Reinfried: Utter nonsense. Japanese are notsuccessful because they are ready to die fortheir company. Japanese are successfulbecause they think in terms of systems. Theindividual is of little importance in thisdimension of strategic thinking, so thesehandbooks are misleading. In Japan, everythingis conceived as a system. Individuals and theirachievements are of secondary importance.

DM: In the last decade, Japan lost its positionas the second strongest economy. How did thiscome about?

Reinfried: Japan was demobilized, if I may usethat term, only in 1990, after the end of theCold War. For the first time in many yearsfathers returned home early in the eveningsand realized they had a family. There was nomore overtime, and many even lost their jobs orwere employed only part-time. For many non-Japanese, these two decades have hardly leftany trace in their image of Japan. Many of mystudents still want to write papers on lifetimeemployment in Japan.

DM: Has the economic downturn precipitated amental crisis in Japan?

Reinfried: The Japanese say that the meaningof life must be decided on by each individual.So children are taught at an early age to set agoal for themselves. This was far easier somedecades ago, when a company career couldreasonably be expected to be rewarded at sixtywith a house of one’s own plus a Toyota Crown,with one’s children married off. Nowadays noneof this comes automatically. Life therefore canno longer be planned in the same way as in thelast generation. That is why many people preferto enjoy the mundane pleasures of everydaylife, as long as circumstances permit them to doso.

DM: This time, a natural disaster has hit asociety that is in many ways more advancedthan our own. Usually, the poorest people arethe victims: The tsunami in 2004 in Thailand,the earthquake in Haiti last year. What is thesignificance of the disaster for us?

Reinfried: That’s a very important point. In thecase of Japan, a society whose organization ismore advanced in many aspects than ours wasaffected. And as far as Fukushima is concerned,let me repeat: This problem is not Japan-specific, but industry-specific. Otherwise I amconvinced that Japan could be a model for us inmany aspects. Very soon, the whole of theGermanic part of Switzerland will merge into asingle megalopolis, very similar to the Kantôarea around Tokyo. Ever more people live here;the process of continuing urbanisation cannotbe stopped. People already today commute towork in Zurich from their apartments on theLake of Constance. With so many people livingand working together, more clear-cut rules andmore organisational efforts are needed. Onewould for instance have to start thinking abouthow to channel large numbers of commuters inand out of the railway stations. When I changetrains in the main station in Zurich, I have towalk zigzag in order to avoid colliding withother travellers. In Japan, the railway stationsare designed in such a way that travellers canproceed smoothly without bumping into eachother.

DM: Is it correct to say then, that we would bebetter off focusing our interest in Japanpragmatically on how Japan is tacklingproblems which await us in the future, too?

Reinfried: Exactly, and we should start doingthis in school. In our history lessons, Japanappears for the first time with Pearl Harbor,only to be catapulted out of history withHiroshima and Nagasaki. But how, for instance,are the Japanese dealing with the problemsconnected with an ageing population? We, too,will be confronted sooner or later with this

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problem.We should learn from Japan’s handlingof modern life, not from their handling oftradition and culture. Urbanized life in themegalopolis is the fate of us all. What are thesolutions? There aren’t that many nations likeJapan that have a comparably high level ofknowledge. And we need partners to discussproblems.

DM: Again, is it correct to say that our imageof Japan is basically a construction originatingin the Cold War.

Reinfried: Exactly. Japanese are not the waythey are because they shoot with bow andarrow or because they rake the gravel in a rockgarden in a particular pattern. Recognize thatfact, and individuals can still engage in one ofthe traditional arts and crafts. What would besweeter? People say I sound somewhat grumpy,but that is not the point. If students want towrite with a writing brush, I encourage them togo ahead and do so. But they should notcherish the illusion that Japanese todaygenerally write with brushes. In fact, manyJapanese use brushes only at weddingreceptions to write their name in theguestbook. For this reason, not even the highlydeveloped art of calligraphy can be regarded asa key to the much-touted “essence of Japan.“

DM: In today’s discussion you have destroyedmany of our images of a beautiful and pureJapan. The sushi version of the Japan image, so

to speak.

Reinfried: It’s quite all right to preserve one’spersonal images of Japan. I , too, l ikeeating sushi. But sushi should not be used toexplain Japan. Japan is much, much more.

Heinrich Reinfried is senior lecturer in EastAsian Studies at the University St. Gallen,Switzerland.

This is an abbreviated version of an articlepublished in German in Das Magazin(http://dasmagazin.ch/dasMagazin/index.html) (Engl ish: "The magazine") . DasMagazin is a Saturday supplement of theZurich newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, the BaslerZeitung and the Berner Zeitung, featuringcomments and reports on politics and culture.It reaches 800,000 readers each weekend(approximately ten percent of the Swisspopulation). Photographs © Werner Bischoffand Andri Pol.

F I N N C A N O N I C A(redaktion@dasmagazin.ch) is editor-in-chiefand BIRGIT SCHMID is editor of Das Magazin.

Recommended citation: Heinrich Reinfried,"Sushi and Samurai: Western Stereotypes andthe (Mis)Understanding of Post-TsunamiJapan," The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 32No 1, August 8, 2011.