Cultural life

Influences

It is common for Western observers of contemporary Japan to emphasize its great economic achievement without equal regard to cultural attributes. Yet Japanese cultural distinctiveness and the manner in which it developed are instructive in understanding how it is that Japan came to be the first non-Western country to attain great-power status.

The Japanese long have been intensely aware of and have responded with great curiosity to powerful outside influences, first from the Asian mainland (notably China) and more recently from the Western world. Japan has followed a cycle of selectively absorbing foreign cultural values and institutions and then adapting these to existing indigenous patterns, this latter process often occurring during periods of relative political isolation. Thus, outside influences were assimilated, but the basic sense of Japaneseness was unaffected; for example, Buddhist deities were adopted into the Shintō pantheon. Japan’s effort to modernize quickly in the late 19th and 20th centuries—albeit undertaken at great national and personal sacrifice—was really an extension of the same processes at work in the country for centuries.

Prehistoric Japanese culture was exposed to ancient Chinese cultural influences beginning some two millennia ago. One consequence of these influences was the imposition of the gridiron system of land division, which long endured; it is still possible to trace the ancient place-names and field division lines of this system. Chinese writing and many other Chinese developments were introduced in the early centuries ce; the writing system underwent many modifications over the centuries, since it did not fit the Japanese language. Buddhism—which originated in India and underwent modification in Central Asia, China, and Korea before reaching Japan about the 6th century—also exerted a profound influence on Japanese cultural life, although over the course of time it was modified profoundly from its antecedent forms. Similarly, Chinese urban design was introduced in the layouts of the ancient capital cities of Nara and Kyōto but did not proliferate in the archipelago.

The Japanization of introduced cultural elements was greatly accelerated during the 250-year period of near-isolation that ended in the mid-19th century. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), Japan began to modernize and to industrialize on the European and American pattern. Western cultural traits were introduced on a large scale through the schools and the mass communication media. Western scientific and technical terms have been widely diffused in translation and have even been reexported to China and Korea. American and European influences on Japanese culture are in evidence in literature, the visual arts, music, education, science, recreation, and ideology.

Modernization was accompanied by cultural changes. Rationalism and socialism based on Christianity, as well as Marxism, became inseparably related to everyday Japanese life. Western or Westernized music generally is more common than traditional Japanese music in many social settings. Although Japanese Christians form a tiny percentage of the population, Christmas (or the outer trappings of it) is widely observed, almost as a folk event. The use of Western dress among the Japanese, in place of the traditional kimono, long ago became commonplace, although women may wear formal kimonos at certain celebrations, and both men and women may use casual styles for home wear. House construction also was changed considerably by the introduction of Western architectural forms and functions. In shape, in color, and in building materials, many contemporary Japanese houses are significantly different from the traditional ones; they now have more modernistic shapes, use more colors, and are more often made of concrete and stucco.

Aesthetics

The dual influences of East and West have helped construct a modern Japanese culture that offers familiar elements to the Westerner but that also contains a powerful and distinctive traditional cultural aesthetic. This can be seen, for example, in the intricate detail, miniaturization, and concepts of subtlety that have transformed imported visual art forms. This aesthetic is best captured in the Japanese concept of shibui (literally, “astringent”), or refined understatement in all manner of artistic representation. Closely related are the twin ideals of cultivated simplicity and poverty (wabi) and of the celebration of that which is old and faded (sabi). Underlying all three is the notion of life’s transitory and evanescent nature, which is linked to Buddhist thought (particularly Zen) but can be traced to the earliest examples of Japanese literature. Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo, whose best-selling books and English-language TV programs have made her a celebrity in the West, incorporates many of these ideals in her "KonMari Method" of simplifying and uncluttering our lives and living spaces by discarding belongings and relationships that no longer bring joy, calm, and beauty to our fleeting lives.