Dominant cultural forces in Japan. Over the past twenty-five years there have been two sets of competing dominant cultural forces in operation in Japan (Xxxxx and Sugimoto, 1995). The first set of forces was dominant in the 1970s to 1980s. It was directly linked to Nihonjinron (Xxxxxxx, 1992; Xxxxxxxx, 2014) and Japan represented itself as racially and culturally pure (Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxx, 1995). The second, more recent set of forces is linked to the Japan of the 1990s to 2000s (Sugimoto, 2014), and Japan represented itself as multicultural (Graburn and Xxxx, 2008). However many analysts believe that although Japanese concepts such as tabunka (multiculturalism), ibunka (different cultures), kyosei (coexistence) exist (Xxxxxxx, 2004) and would seem to give the impression of a shift from the ideology of uni-raciality to an ideology of difference (Xxxx, 2008), these concepts would also seem to implicitly maintain and reinforce the notion of uni-raciality (Xxxxxxx, 2004). In addition, Xxxxxxxx (2012a, p. 30) believes that ‘[t]he ideas underlying multicultural coexistence are exclusionary’. With the decrease in the significance of national boundaries over the past twenty-five years, these two forces have also been felt in mainly urban areas of Britain in two waves. The first wave can be linked to the 1980s when professional elites and their families, a significant number of whom were temporarily relocated to Britain (White, 1993), transcended national boundaries. At the same time authentic Japanese goods and services, in terms of Japanese restaurants, food shops and video rental shops, aimed at these professional elites also transcended national boundaries (Xxxxxx, 1992). Japan represented itself as monocultural and exclusive in the Nihonjinron sense (Sugimoto, 2014). The second wave can be linked to the 1990s. After the bubble economy of the 1980s had burst and the number of professional elites was decreasing (Sugimoto, 2009), Japan developed itself as a ‘soft’ power nation in an attempt to reboot the economy (ibid.). A customised form of Japanese food, manga (comics) and anime (cartoons) aimed at the local British population soon became popular. Japan represented itself as being ‘cool’, ‘fun-loving’ and ‘multicultural’ (Xxxxxxxx, 2014, p. 292). However, Xxxxxxxx (2014, p. 23) tentatively suggests that lurking behind this ‘multicultural’ façade is what he terms as a type of ‘postmodern Nihonjinron’ (see chapter 7). This suggests that Nihonjinron has not remained static but it has been re-constru...
