Japan Today

Paper Summary:

The paper refers to a variety of theoretical and other materials on Japan's industrial revolution and modernity. The paper discusses the resulting cultural lens through which the world is able to note a different Japanese view, via modern period novelists such as Tanizaki. The paper explains that tradition did not just dissolve in Japan; nativism is found in Kobayashi's essay on "Lost Homes" and a sense of Japanese difference is plain. The paper explores how other contrasts involve the survival of folk traditions and magical thinking well into the 1940s and also a very capitalist society that still retains interested in the supernatural.

From the Paper:

"Part of the fascination of Japan to non-Japanese scholars and observers is its cultural mix of influences that can be very old and indigenous factors to combine, over time, with much American and other Western influence. However much one sees the role of philosophy as a living, breathing force in the 19th and 20th centuries, the creation of Japanese modernity brought a society that is still overwhelmingly capitalist. Both capitalist modernization and ancient tradition contributed to the bizarre, even surreal quality that is like that of no other East Asian environment."

More papers on Japan Today:

• Analytical Essay # 135510 : "Economic Intelligence in Japan, 1945-2007"
• Essay # 41478 : "Prostitution in Japan"
• Essay # 63901 : "The Relationship between the United States and Japan"

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