Young Japanese People’s Attitude Towards Globalization
and the Best Way to Retain Our Culture
Graduation Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of the Department of
English Language and Literature
Notre Dame Seishin University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement for the Degree
Bachelor of Arts
By
Emiko Sasai
2013
Contents
Abstract1
Chapter One: Definitions of Globalization and Culture
1.1Introduction2
1.2Globalization2
1.2.1Globalized Companies in Japan
1.3 Culture4
1.3.1. The Definition of Culture
1.3.2 The Iceberg Analogy
1.3.3 Losing Culture
1.3.4 Japanese people’s attitude to Culture
1.4 Research Questions8
1.5 Summary9
Chapter Two: The Experiments
2.1 Introduction10
2.2 The Experiment10
2.2.1 Introduction of the Experiment
2.2.2 Methods
2.3 Results of the experiment11
2.3.1 Section One: about globalization
2.3.2 Summary of Section One
2.3.3 Section Two: what they think about Japan
2.3.4 Summary of Section Two
2.3.5 Section Three: how to retain our culture
2.3.6 Summary of Section Three
2.4 Summary29
Chapter Three: The Discussion
3.1 Introduction30
3.2 General Results30
3.3 Discuss of the results30
3.3.1 The Results of Section One
3.3.2 The Results of Section Two
3.3.3 The Results of Section Three
3.3.4 Summary
3.4 Implications34
3.5 Limitations of the questionnaire34
3.6 Further research35
3.7 Conclusion35
References36
Appendices38
Abstract
The main point of this thesis is people’s attitude and feelings about globalization and their own culture. As globalization is getting popular, people’s attitudes and feelings towards globalization and culture are changing.We examine both positive and negative aspects and the possibility that would happens in the future.Through this thesis, we think aboutthese issues and the way to retain our culture.
In Chapter One, we will think about the definition of globalization and culture and will look at some quotes about the tendency for Japanese companies to go global. Then we examine the real definition of culture divided into levels. At the end of this chapter, we set three research questions; 1) what do young Japanese think about globalization? 2) what do they think about Japan? 3) what can we do to retain our culture?
In Chapter Two, we look the results of the questionnaire which was given to 31 students in Notre Dame Seishin University. We researched about three parts; their feelings about globalization, about Japan, and about how to retain their culture. We analyze the data and think about the tendency that the subjects have.
In Chapter Three, we discussed the results of the questionnaire in detail. We find out that there an irony. They think globalization gives them opportunities to show their culture, but they do not know well about Japan. We find out that globalization would lead losing culture.Through thinking about language learning, we think the best way to retain our culture.
Chapter One: The definition of globalization and culture
1.1Introduction
There are various nationalities and cultures in Japan nowadays. We use the Internet to get information that happened everywhere in the world. We listen to foreign music and watch foreign movies. We eat foreign foods and mix them into Japanese foods. We can feel our world is all connected and we are not like in Japanese culture. The company Recruit Singaku Souken found out that more than 70% of high school students in Japan think that they have something to do with globalization.
However, at the same time, it means that we are losing our traditional culture. Kajitani (unknown date) warns that to be 100% positive to accept globalization can lead people to forget our own tradition and culture. This will be a serious problem not only in Japan but also in the other countries as well. Globalization has two aspects that are good for us and not so good for us. In this thesis, we are going to look for some merits and demerits about globalization, how Japanese feel about Japan, and what we can do to retain our culture and tradition.
1.2Globalization
1.2.1 The definition of globalization
There are several definitions of globalization.
Globalization is known as the flow of business, money, goods, people, and the other things belonging to them.
“Globalization is not only the situation that each country becomes having deep relationships and competitiveness through commerce, investment, finance, information, and people exchange. There is a geological and industrial center at each era’s world economy; and globalization is the process with a clear direction and stratified order that spreads into other areas with compulsion of center country’s value and system.” Kamo (2007)
Here Kamo says globalization have a great effect to other countries.
“Globalization is composed by the flows of people, goods, and money” Masamura (2009)
It was used initially only in terms of business use. However, along with the business, many things are going together to other countries. Now globalization can be expressed in many meanings today. Kamo (2007) said globalization has a lot of meanings like politics, military, environment, culture, law, science, fashion, and language.
1.2.1Globalization as Japanese companies
These days, many companies are trying to go overseas. Yanagawa (2011) researched and integrated the data of Japanese companies going overseas which is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 shows the data of Japanese companies going overseas. The black column shows the big companies, the gray column shows the middle-sized and small companies, and the line shows the rate of the middle-sized companies and the small companies. As we can see in the graph, not only the big companies but also a lot of the middle-sized and small companies are going overseas. One of the reasons why they are developing their business is to expand their business and get more profits. Because their business is almost saturated in domestic, they need new customers in foreign countries.
Figure 1: the changing of Japanese companies going overseas.
1.3Culture
Culture itself has a lot of meanings; we can define it as having two stages - deep and surface culture. But first let’s look at some definitions.
1.3.1The definition of culture
“The term culture has different associations according to whether we have in mind the development of an individual, of a group or class, or of a whole society. The culture of the individual is dependent upon the culture of a group or a class, and that the culture of a group or a class is dependent upon the culture of the whole society to which that group or class belongs. ” Elliot (1949)
Here Elliot says that there are 3 steps in defining culture and each of them are related.
“There is no meaning in speaking of the culture of an individual, or of a group or class. We only mean that the culture of the individual cannot be isolated from that of the group, and that the culture of the group cannot be abstracted from that of the whole society; and that our notion of “perfection” must take all three senses of “culture” into account at once.” Elliot (1949)
T.S. Elliot mentioned culture in three aspects in his book and all of them are related. Culture itself cannot exist by a person but by the mass of people.
“Communication administers the generation and changing of culture. People make information, communicate, expand it, popularize it, and then the information would be taken root among mass, shared it, and inherited over generation as culture. Generally this process is said learning in psychology and cultural anthropology, however, in terms of thinking of culture, learning, sharing, and inheriting is the keyword. Communication is the expanded concept of this learning process. ” Toyama, Nakamura, Sato (2009)
In their book, Endo, Nakamura, and Sato stated that communication itself can be the creator of culture.
1.3.2The Iceberg Analogy
The Iceberg Analogy shows the structure of human minds. There are mainly two parts that are conscious part and unconscious part.
Ogawa (2009) says that “The surface-level culture, or popular culture, is the part of a culture which is easily identifiable and distinguishes it from other cultures. Below this is intermediate-level culture which consists of symbols, meanings, and norms. The next level is deep-level culture which is made up of traditions, beliefs, and values. The deepest layer of the iceberg contains universal human needs which are shared by all human beings.”
Figure 2: the Iceberg Analogy
Here are the examples; Sushi, kimono and manga can be the surface-level culture, cherry blossoms can be the intermediate-level culture, our characteristics including politeness and hospitality can be deep-level culture, and appetites can be the universal human needs.
It’s easy for us to identify where people are from by surface-level culture but it’s quite difficult to know their deep-level culture such as religion or the way of thinking. This is what the iceberg ideology means.
1.3.3Losing culture
Not everything can be going well. Masamura (2009) said in his book that “Globalization appears as world’s unequal development that certain society and culture can cause other societies and cultures’ decline or collapse.”
This means that because globalization has a great effect, it can be a threatening to a peculiar culture and can ruin them.
“The effect of globalization is composition and fragmentation.” Giddens: Miyanaga, (2000
)
Here we can have warning that our culture can be lost because of equalization.Culture occupies a large part of one’s identity. If we lose culture because of globalization, it means that we lose our partial identity.
“London looks like Paris which looks like Madrid; Restaurants serving this or that country’s traditional food are drowned out by the huge fast food chains, beautiful traditional clothing is lost between the new bulk-made looks created by the big brands, people look alike, eat alike and dress alike whether they’re in New York, New Delhi or Cairo.” Unknown (2007)
Here is an example that people feel theirtradition is in danger and even the scenery can be unified because of the effect of globalization.
1.3.4Japanese people’s attitude to culture
“Japanese tend not tomake a clear distinction between exotic and indigenous. It can be said that there is compatibility under the Japanese culture.” Toyama, Nakamura, Sato (2009)
These sentences suggest Japanese indecisive attitude towards culture. Sato says that the Japanese tend to use compatibility communication (one that accepts both A and B). On the other hand, in Western societies, especially in the U.S., both adults and children use incompatible communication. Toyama (2009) mentions that Japanese compatibilityhave relations to their weakness of identity. Also NHK did a survey in 2008.
Figure 3: The percentage of people who have confidence in Japan in general
Legend: Blue= the Elderly (over 60 years old), Red= middle-aged people (30-59 years old), Green= the Youth (16-29 years old)
This figure shows the change over time in the Japanese people’s confidence in Japan. The blue line is the elderly (over 60 years old), the red line is the middle-aged (30-59 years old), and the green line is the youth (16-29 years old). NHK found that the youth (16-29 years old) have very low confidence in their native country. In each period, the elderly has the highest ratings in this survey. This survey shows us the lowness identities Japanese young generations have.
1.4Research Questions
Nowadays many Japanese companies are expanding their business to the world and foreign companies are coming to Japan. We can touch foreign things easily. However, Kobayashi (2011) says that the percentage of Japanese young generation who study abroad is dwindling. Although people are interested in foreign countries, our eagerness to study abroad is decreasing. So, in this thesis, we will focus on about people’s attitude towards globalization and their attitude towards Japan.
There are three Research Questions for this thesis.
1)What do young Japanese think about globalization?
2)What do they think about their own culture?
3)What can we do to retain our own culture?
In Chapter Two,we will answer these three questions and in Chapter Three we will discuss them.
1.5Summary
When we think about our society, we come up with many foreign things for example, foods, music, events, religions, and entertainments. One of the reasons why there are many imported things is because of communication and technological developments. However, even though communication technique has improved, if people are not flexible, there would not succeed of globalization. Ohhashi(2007) says that the Internet greatly contributed to globalization. In the next chapter, we will find out how Japanese feel about globalization, how do Japanese know about Japan, how to retain our own culture.
1
Chapter Two: The Experiment
2.1 Introduction
Chapter One introduced the meaning of “globalization” and how it affects Japanese society. Today we can feel that we are in a global world of goods, foods, custom, and so on. Many people think being globalized is important for their business. Thus globalization could be developed all over the world. Not only in business, but we can feel globalization in our society. Our daily life is filled with all kinds of foreign cultures and words. In this chapter, we will introduce a questionnaire to investigate how people feel about the world now, their positive and negative motivations to it, and what try to find out what is the most effective thing to retain our culture.
2.2 The Questionnaire
2.2.1 Introduction
In this section, we will examine how people feel about globalization, their positive attitude and negative attitudes to globalization, and their opinion that how to retain our tradition. From these, we can know what the young people think about bring in a global society and whether it’s good or not to be. To discover these, we made a questionnaire to ascertain their attitudes towards globalization. It has 29 questions in total; some they had to mark, and other they had to write their experiences and opinions.
2.2.2 Methods
1) Subjects
The subjects were 31 students in Notre Dame Seishin University. 27 of them were in the English department and the others were in the Human Living Science department. 27 have some experiences of going abroad. 14 have been to foreign countries over one month and 6 have been out of Japan for over 10 weeks.
2) The design of the experiment
All the questions were original but related to people’s attitude towards globalization and their own culture. Some questions were marked 1 to 5 and they had to write in some sentences regarding globalization and their attitude. The experiment was divided into three sections. The first section was about globalization and it had10 questions, the second section was about what they think of Japan and it had 8 questions, and the third section was about how to retain Japanese tradition and it had 11 questions. There were also some spaces to write about their feelings freely. The questionnaire can be found in the Appendices.
3) Procedure
To do the questionnaire, we made 26 marked questions and 3 free-writing questions. We printed it out and handed out to these students. After they finished the questionnaire, we collected them. To analyze some of these answers, we used pie graphs for the marked answers. Also we calculated the percentages. For the others we made a list and a bar graph of that because these were free-writing.
2.3 Results of the experiment
2.3.1 Section One: about globalization
We interviewed subjects about their attitudes towards globalization. There were some questions related to their daily recognition. Also, there were some questions which were free-writing.
Figure 1: The data for “ Loan words are increasing in Japanese society.”
27 of 31 people said yes. On the other hand, 6 people thought it’s not true that the number of loanwords was increasing.
Figure 2:The data for “ I often buy imported goods.”
Half of them often buy some goods from all over the world. 16% of them don’t buy them often.
Figure 3:The data for “I often listen to foreign music.”
71% of them often listen to foreign music. On the other hand, 13% of them don’t listen to foreign music.
Figure 4: The data for “I often watch foreign movies or TV programs.”
71% of them often watch foreign movies and/or TV programs. 13% of them don’t watch them frequently.
Figure 5:The data for “I think Japan is a global society.”
71% of them think that Japan is a global society. 6% of them don’t think so at all.
Figure 6: The data for “I think culture becoming globalized is good and acceptable”
11 people strongly agreed, 17 people agreed, one disagreed, and one strongly disagreed. As we can see, over 90% of them think it’s good to be globalized.
Figure 7: The data for “I cannot accept Japanese culture to be globalized.”
No one strongly agreed with this question.16% of them agreed. 52% of them disagreed and 19% of them strongly disagreed.
Figure 8:The data for “I think there are some bad influences to Japan to be globalized”.
19% of them thought there are some bad influences. Over half of them couldn’t decide. 20% of them thought there aren’t any bad influences from globalization.
Question 12: write down below some merits and demerits of globalization.
This question was free writing.
Figure 9:The data for“The merits of globalization”
We can categorize their opinions into 6 themes; expansion of our view, cultures, economy effects, international relationships, showing our culture, and expansion of our choices. The most common opinion is about broadening our horizons. Next is about knowing cultures. 9 people mentioned the effects of the economy. 8 people think we can have better international relationships. At the same time, 8 people think it expands our daily choices. Some people say we can show our culture and tradition to the world due to globalization.