Japan's Steady Economy

I have been trying to get a trip for students to go to China but every time I bring it up, all the students say they want to go to Japan instead. I am fascinated with China because of their communist yet capitalist history, but all of my students are more familiar with Japanese culture and history and would rather travel there. Even if Japan has a slow-rising economy, clearly the younger generation is highly influenced by anime, sushi, and toshiba!

In an earlier posting it was noted that, "that Japan is a relatively homogeneous country with minimal immigration, suggesting that this common historical identity may be the key to a national unity that perhaps the US does not share." The contributor goes on to observe, "However, even more interesting is the fact that there is a smaller disparity between the highest paid and the least paid worker in Japan. We in the US have seen that gap expand exponentially over the past 40 years, thus reducing the standard of living for the middle-class and the lower class. It is additionally stated in the the article, "that perhaps the Japanese are less 'consumeristic' than we are in the U.S. Could these factors be a key to discovering an antidote for our feeble economy?"

I disagree. First of all, being Asian myself, and having been raised in China, I think that I can safely make certain observations about the larger "Asian Culture". The Japanese are really not less oriented towards a consumerism mentality. In fact, if anything, they may be more inclined to excessive consumerism. Most Americans would never pay $500 for a pair of Levis jeans, but doing this is not uncommon in Japan. The class distinctions in Japan may be just as severe as they are in America, and in China, this is a certainty. In making these observations, I am not suggesting that the gap that exists between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor in America is not far more excessive that it may be in China or Japan, but relatively speaking, it is actually and probably far less in America. One must remember that the vast majority of inhabitants in China still are made up of the rural poor, but the lot of Chinese that have migrated to the 100 urban centers that each have a population of 1,000,000 to 30,000,000 inhabitants do not enjoy "the good life" yet they are definitely just as addicted to consumerism as the typical American or the typical Japanese.

The article was a good read, but the only thing I do not agree with is the level of consumerism. After meeting a lot of Japane people in college, as well in different music scenes, the one thing that strikes me about all of them is their willingness to spend money. Granted I am only getting a small picture of actual Japanese culture of these indivuduals, they all have told me the same thing, they always want the best, and most Japanese are willing to pay for it.