Romanticisation - The effects of globalisation on Japan (Student takeover)

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let's have a listen to this episode then. This is from Olive Smith, who attends Westcliffe High School for Girls in Essex, and the title of this episode is Romanticization the effects of Globalization on Japan. Enjoy As already likes.

around us. For those who don't know what globalization is, it is a sociological term for how the boundaries of social, political, and economic means have been broken down across the world, so you're able to access information from everywhere at any point through the Internet, and Giddins, who's a sociologist, described it as a runaway world that it's moving so quickly and we can't stop it, and it was actually dubbed the space of flows by Manuel Castele and other sociologists

because information is constantly moving and there's no way to stop it. So particularly I wanted to focus on Japan and how globalization has impacted not only its culture at home, but more so how we in the West have adopted its culture and not necessarily twisted it, but how we've taken it and changed it from what it necessarily was

in Japan. So Japan has actually been trading with the West since fifteen forty three when a Portuguese ship wrecked in Tanegeshima, and particularly in the eighteen hundreds, we saw this rise of Japanese art and culture spreading across Europe, which was described as Philip Bertie in eighteen seventy two as Japanism. And in the modern day, I think we can all see how ideas and parts of Japanese culture

have really established well in the West. But I particularly wanted to focus on four elements media, fashion, image, and food. So when I say media, I'm really mostly going to be focusing on the Japanese art form of anime. It is a huge thing here in the West. I myself, I'm not a particular fan. I wouldn't say that I'm a die hard anime watcher, but I have watched the media now and then, and actually in the West, until

about nineteen eighty eight, it was just called japanimation. We didn't actually adopt the term from japan anime, but that was until the film Akira came out in nineteen eighty eight, and it's sort of been attributed to the birth of anime as a real big thing in the media in the West, which was followed by Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z in the late nineties. And even though I was born in two thousand and seven, I remember that those

were shows that were frequently on TV growing up, especially Pokemon. Now, what a good thing is about things like anime spreading across the world like this is that it keeps an

art style alive. Not necessarily saying that anime was a dying art form, I don't think it is by any means, but it really helped to sort of inspire people across the world and allow them to explore this art style that maybe they weren't aware of before, and they really like it, and they're able to really delve deep into other artists that maybe aren't from their country or aren't as well known just because they aren't doing these really

famous modern or traditionalist art pieces. But it also breaks some boundaries. So obviously, because this is an art form coming from Japan, a different culture, some people might have preconceived notions about Asia, particularly East Asia, and because of this art form, they are able to be immersed somewhat in the culture of that country just from the media

that they are being shown. And I think that could be quite a powerful thing, being able to look at just a piece of media and whilst it might not accurately portray one hundred percent what that culture is about, you're able to see elements of it and possibly be interested and research further. However, like everything, there are always negatives to this, and I think particularly this has come in live actions of traditional anime and manga pieces done

in Japan. Two very prominent ones off the top of my head, was the Ghost in the Shell movie with Scarlett Johansson. Now she's a white woman who was cast to play an Asian woman. And I haven't really seen a lot of back classroomers. Obviously there has been, but definitely at the time at least I didn't see a lot of people being like, isn't it a bit weird

to just completely erase a characters of original ethnicity. And the other one was the Death Note remake in twenty seventeen from Netflix that actually has a well known actor in it. It's got Willem Dafoonet playing Reuke, the shinagami who's one of the main characters, but it's they decided to take it from Japan and not only said it in America, but changed the characters to be American. So rather than have Misa, I believe one of the character's

name is, it was Mia. And it just feels like, how could we not have changed the story or at least adapted it if we wanted it to be in America? Could we have not adapted it? So that is based off of Death Note, but it is not completely one to one, but instead we've just inherently whitewashed it. I guess you could say to make it more appealing to a Western audience, and the main problem with that is

is that that just removes opportunities from Asian actors. I'm not claiming to know everything about the struggles it means to be an Asian actor in Hollywood. I am not Asian nor an actor, but I know from things I've seen in the media, from things that Asian actors have said, that they really struggle to get out of those stereotypical

roles that Hollywood has placed on them. And so by taking characters that arguably should go to these East Asian actors, these Japanese actors, and giving them to any famous white actor or actress, it just really creates stigma in this whitewashing and it normalizes it, which is such an issue and widespread issue which I really feels like needs to be addressed more often. So I'm gonna talk about fashion. So fashion is actually one of the main reasons I

decided to focus on Japan. I myself am interested in a particular j fashion style that's a subcultural style of harajuku called Lalita, not the book as some people think, but rather it is a style that takes inspiration from Rococo and Victorian England silhouettes, and it's all about big, proofy dresses in fun prints, and there are a lot of different styles within that. It's really a subculture within

a subculture. But there are many other styles. We've got yaru vk og Decora, just to name a few that I particularly look at myself, and as someone who's interested in fashion, I find it quite interesting how you can see how other cultures have responded to like sociological movements.

So Lalita is a a response to a feminism movement, and it is all about empowering women by giving them the ability to dress however they want, dress as like pretty as they want, as feminine as they want, without feeling judged, without making them feel like they're going to be sexualized for it. And I think it's so important to not only with globalization see that happening, but be able to take inspiration from it.

They have specific things that the people who indulge in them focus on, and because of social media and globalization, this has been watered down. The other element of fashion, though it is obviously traditional Japanese dress, The one I'm focusing on is the kimono, which is obviously probably the

most well known one. There was actually a huge scare in probably like the two thousand's early twenty ten of people worrying that the traditional garments of Japan were going to die out because the young people were only wearing them for special occasions and they weren't feeling connected to them. And I guess a real positive of globalization is that people look at those styles from other countries and they're like, Oh, I really like that, Let me incorporate that into my

fashion designs. And so, for example, we have Tom Brown in his spring summer show in twenty sixteen using the kimono's inspiration and allowing for it to be preserved in a way. There's also been a resurgence of the komono in Japan's recently, though, with the sort of pushing that kimono is a personal thing and allowing the youth to creative freedom with the way they wear it so they feel more connected to it because it's more personalized with

the other cultures. However, looking at that and taking inspiration, there is obviously the room for the debate of whether

it's cultural appropriation or appreciation. And while you may not be able to discern yourself whether the actions you were taking or for the right and wrong reasons, it is something we need to keep in mind when we're looking at other cultures, particularly in dress, how we're adapting these things to fit our own culture, our own style, and make sure that we're not just cherry picking the things that are appropriate to us, or inherently changing them and

ignoring their history. A big thing about fashion is its history and how it's evolved. And if you ignore the cultural history behind how these fashions have come about, you've really watered down their meaning, which could be seen as cultural appropriation. Now, with image and food, I'm going to try and keep it as brief as possible because there

isn't a lot to say. But with image in particular, I find that when we google Japan, when we look at Japan and Japan appears in the media to us in the West, it always looks very pristine, very pretty. It focuses a lot on the culture of Japan that is deeply rooted into the country. But with this we tend to ignore some of the darker side of Japan. So in terms of crime statistics, certain sexual crimes have

very high rates in the country. Particularly mobile phones over there have to have the ringers on because of the amount of like reports of people taking photos of women on the train without their consent. But mainly I've seen this erasure of the colonial past of Japan in World

War Two. Now it is really really heavy. So I'm not going to elaborate on everything that they did, but countries like Korea have felt that the atrocities that happened as a result of Japan's sort of imperialist colonial past that they tried to cover up, they haven't really fully been addressed. And I know that this has been something that obviously every country doesn't want they're horrible past to

come up. But I think because of this particular rise in acknowledging the imperialist past of England, of America, the backlash of America trying to cover up certain topics to do with the racism in their past, I feel like this should be a cut si extended to the whole of the world. And whilst I'm not I don't want it to come across as I'm just targeting Japan on this, I think there are many countries that do this that

needs to be addressed. I think because I'm talking about Japan, I should make it known that we have a very romanticized view of Japan that doesn't necessarily reflect the history of the country all the way through. Now with food, it's a lot lighter. There's not really a lot of negatives to say about food. One of the particular things I've seen is food like sushi raman. It is like

everywhere you can get in supermarket. There are really popular fast food chains such as Wagon, Mammas and Yosushi that's just a couple of them, obviously loads and also small independent businesses as well. It has really become a big thing over here for people to enjoy food from other cultures, and Japan I think has really benefited from this, Like you can literally get Japanese food in most supermarkets, in most places on the high street they will have something.

People take inspirations from the spices, from the dishes. I think with food it is so positive how it ignores somewhat like how society may view a culture, and it purely focuses on taking inspiration and bringing a positive light to food in different countries. I love learning about food

in different countries. I love eating it. Whilst I may not necessarily like something, it's always good to experience what other cultures eat, what other countries eat, And with cooking practices especially, they can be adapted in so many ways. So there is actually a cooking technique called yoshoku now that is a Japanese cooking technique where they take traditional Western dishes such as fried chicken, and they make it using traditional Japanese cooking methods. So think chicken katsu that

is fried chicken made with traditional Japanese methods. And again that is such with all their hate that I think can come in this world. Food spreading like this can, honestly, for some people, be a way to learn about other cultures.

It is such an easy way to learn about another culture just going into shop seeing food you don't necessarily know and being like, Oh, that looks nice, I'll try it, or oh, I've never heard of that before, let me look more into it, or oh I really like that, I want to learn more about it and try other dishes. Food is a really positive way to bring people together because we all need food. So it's unsurprising really that Japanese food has really taken a hold of the Western

food market. So to conclude, I really wanted to focus on the question why do we idolize Japan. There are so many countries across the world. Why is Japan in particular one of the ones that we idolized the most in the West. And I've come up with three reasons why I think that Japan has become sort of this token child in Asia for the West to look at. The first one is pop culture, and the West is

so greenland to pop culture. Nowadays, you not necessarily anime like I've focused on in my paragraph, but just you might see a name, or you might see movies taking place in Japan. You might have characters from Japan that wear traditional garments, perform traditional tasks, traditional cultural practices, and that just really helps to cement in people's mind like an idea of the country. And obviously that has positives

and negatives. You can learn more about the country just f on this basic overview, but some people may take that face value and really see Japan as this beacon of light in the world, so to speak. That it may not necessarily be. It has a very rich culture. That is probably a great example of how even with globalization, even with detraditionalization, which is a phrase Giddens users, it has really held its roots and its culture. I feel like it's still something that spreads quite a lot throughout

its society. And in America and England we may not feel that we have this deep rooted culture like Japan, and some people might see that and be like, wow, that's not necessarily inspirational, but that sort of feeling like heartwarming, I guess you could say. And they really idolize the ability of a country to be innovative and yet still hold its roots, and that takes us to the final point I came up with. They are a very stereotypical view in the West of how East Asia can be innovative.

Their economic model is actually nicknamed the East Asian model in the West. It is very highly revered over here, and I think because of this, we've come to with this stereotypical idea that they are leaders, they are in a and whilst that's you can't say that maybe that's not necessarily the case. They are definitely they definitely have a very strong economy because they have a lot of

positives about them. They're innovators, they have a rich culture that they've held onto, and they are ingrained into our pop culture. It's very easy to look past maybe some of the negatives and look past our own romanticized view of the country. This has been my very brief overview of how globalization has affected Japan, and I hope you enjoyed and thank you so much for listening.