Japan's "Nation Branding" as Noh Drama

Among the concepts basic to Japanese culture, two stand out: tatemae and honne.  If you don't understand these, you don't understand any Japanese person. Nor their culture.  Nor their politics.  These are the basics.

Tatemae is your social face, or more correctly "mask", what stands in front.  Japanese social interaction is Noh drama. 

Honne by contrast is you, yourself and you, the various selves of your inner being.  The Japanese have even invented an art form for it -- the "Watakushi shosetsu"-- literally the "Me Novel", in which writers write about themselves, detailing minutely and often abjecting their inner lives.  Foreigners, not used to this, take it as "exotic", looking for meaning where there is none.  Hence, the popularity of writers like Haruki Murakami.

This is one of the world's most conformist societies. It is  collectivist but hierarchical -- a subtly totalitarian society in which the "nail that stands out, get's beaten down".  So  tatemae makes sense in maintaining harmony and the acceptance of hidden contradictions of honne also make sense, a sort of don't ask, don't tell thing (except for novels, of course).

The Japanese, as Nakane Chie famously said have no principles. They look around them to see what others are doing and imitate them.  Values are situational. And logic and reason -- even facts,irrelevant.

The mawari-- literally those "around"-- accounts for the famous contradictions of Japanese character.  How the people who invented the subtle artistry of flower arrangement were also capable of rape and pillage in Nanking.  Flower arrangement is purely decorative and emphasizes harmony following distinct rule. It is a social art. Tatemae.  Nanking. Rage, frustration, anger.  An outburst of violent honne. 










The Japanese are consummately "other directed".  But, in ordinary life,  "other" does not mean really "other"--for those others must be defined in a meaningful hierarchy, equal, above or below.  Behavior adjust accordingly.

The Japanese  dislike of controversy-- even  of meaningful discussion, their penchant for uniforms-- the grey suits and white shirts of the salaryman culture, school uniforms, company uniforms; even their politeness all aim at social harmony. through conformity., standardized identities and status. Tatemae. 

Where do you see honne?  You see it in manga and anime and porn, of course. You also see it when the Japanese are drunk. Although that can be a problem when they sober up. "Oh, I was drunk--I don't remember".  

WYSIWYG?  In a way--just not in they way Americans see it.It is all about display.  All the good little bots move in the same direction according to rule. .  But even bots need to go offline now and again and reset.  Drunk again. 


It makes sense that the Japanese have both tatemae and honne at the national level.  In domestic politics,  few question the difference between the two--it's all tatemae.   The problem arises in international politics.  Foreigners don't quite get it. 

Tatemae   works as an in-group system, where everybody knows the rules and pretty much agrees with the values and the masks are standardized and the end of the story is known as in Noh. 

But the rest of the world isn't doing Noh, it's doing Broadway.  So the Japanese have to adjust.    

The Japanese  have always been insular, and regard the rest of the world as alien.  White?  Black?  Asian?  Nope: you gaijin are all green.

Gaijin

On the other hand, Japan lost the Pacific War, was occupied, and has been a vassal state of the US Empire ever since.  For people with a ingrained sense of hierarchy, that means that the US is superior and must be respected.

So Cool Japan and other forms of Japanese "nation branding" use memes and stereotypes forged in the US.    

Everything Japan does, including the Tokyo Olympics is defined in American terms.  

Japan's nation branding emphasizes cultural products popular in the West. Anime. Manga. Sushi. Girl bands. Japanese cultural traditions like "omotenashi" are reworked to be understandable to Americans.  No, "omotenashi" is not "hospitality" in the American sense, nor even really in the Japanese sense.  So, nation branding for Japan is tatemae,   a kind of national cosplay with the Americans choosing the costumes.

The pay off is that Americans and other foreigners are lulled into thinking the Japanese are something they are not.  

Omotenashi Bra

The other side--the honne can be ugly.   The detention of Carlos Ghosn, for example.  Here we can see the insularity, the lack of concern for justice or rights. If Ghosn were American, it could never happen.   The French never occupied Japan.    Japanese companies like TEPCO and Olympus and others kill people but their executives remain free and easy. Ghosn is in jail for a retirement package. He is a French / Lebanese,  after all. T 

Tokyo Detention Center Omotenashi

Which brings us to  Yasushi Watanabe's recent article in Gaiko is interesting.  Watanabe received a PhD in social anthropology at Harvard.  His thesis?   "Nurturing A Context: The Logic of Individualism and the Negotiation of the Familial Sphere in the United States".  OKKKKKK....

He is an Abe Fellow and has won lots of medals and prizes.  So, very much in the loop academically.     

Yet he writes somewhat sophomorically from my point of view about Japanese soft power as supporting the "liberal international order", a concept borrowed from Joseph Nye, who wrote he forward to his most recent book in English.  

Soft power, he says, is most effectively expressed in national policy.  I have argued that before.

But then he goes on to talk about  t the successes of Japan House and Cool Japan, neither of which are really "national policy" except in funding.  Hmmm...A disconnect? What does national policy have to do with Girl Bands?

Watanabe

This logic is typically Japanese, even though it should get a C minus in any American university. Just throw out trendy phrases and concepts connected with a lot of verbiage and no particular logic.     But then  logic is not important in Noh Drama -- only the dance and the masks.  This is the academic "show".

For Watanabe, as for many Japanese academics, apparently, ideas are for display only -- purely decorative.  

Then again it was Joe Nye who pioneered fake intellectualism in the pseudo-field of "public diplomacy", 

Now, the stereotypes purveyed by the entertainment industry and the media determine international interest in a nations' culture and people.   In the case of Japan, that's the salaryman, the geisha, the yakuza, and "lolicon" and "cosplay"-- as understood in Hollywood. Japan is exotic.  If Japan House and Japan Cool are popular abroad you can thank the American media --  not national policy or people like Watanabe. 

Watanabe more or less admits Japan is a vassal state-- and therefore suffers to the degree that the American Empire is hated for its bloody and lawless hegemony. Twenty million dead over 50 years. the Chinese, Russians and Koreans don't automatically see Japan as benign..

Watanabe thinks the Olympics are an opportunity for Japan to show its character.  The Olympics have already been politicized to serve American interests to the disadvantage of China and Russia and any other countries that don't bow a knee to the Orange Haired Emperor. And Japan supports those policies that alienate a huge chunk of the world's population. 

Japan's international policy does nothing to augment its international reputation. This is a sidekick nation.  And, the country's "soft power" (sic) is derivative. 

On the other hand, its national domestic policies, which include healthcare, fiber optic internet and high speed mass transport do have some relevance. 

One wonders what Yasushi Watanabe learned at Harvard.  

No, I am not impressed by Harvard.

One thing about Harvard.  It's hard to get in.  You need to be really, really good. Or you need to be a legacy.  Or you need to be a rich foreigner.  Hard to get in. Easy to get out.  Impossible to fail. It's the George Bush Syndrome.  GWB graduated from Yale still unable to spell or write.