Exploring Japan

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Japan Is ... The Economic Miracle

For a demonstration of the Japanese approach to business, visit a gas station.  A team of attendants runs across the forecourt to meet the car.  One fills the tank, another cleans the headlights, windshield, and mirrors, a third empties the ashtrays and cleans the mats, and a fourth takes the money.  One of the team then stops the flow of traffic outside the garage, guides the car into the passing stream of vehicles, and finally waves goodbye.

Eagerness and enthusiasm for business are important factors in Japanese commercial success in world markets.  Another is the long-term view taken by businessmen.  Competition is fierce in Japan, but it is founded on long-term objectives rather than quick money schemes.  First and foremost, customers must be provided with what they want and with the best service possible.  Customer loyalty is carefully nurtured, and from this base the business and profits can grow.


Future Prospects

Despite their achievements, the Japanese are worried about the future, largely due to a recession in the early 1990s.  Widespread conformity to the norm, such an advantage in the past, has become an obstacle to the diversity and creativity needed to maintain economic success in the future. For example, there is growing concern that the very long hours worked by most men and the shortage of holidays are becoming counterproductive in terms of efficiency, and are posing a threat to the family life that underpins Japanese society.  Less economic success and a happier home life may be the aspirations of the future.  For the time being, overdue updating of banking and financial institutions is a Japanese priority.


Japan is ...Entertainment and Nightlife

The Japanese have a rich and varied cultural history, and classical performing arts such as noh and kabuki and the elegant pleasures of pastimes such as the tea ceremony continue to flourish. However, the principle source of Japanese entertainment and nightlife is the network of bars restaurants, coffee shops, tea houses, and cocktail lounges that are an integral part of even the smallest Japanese town.


Street Food and Striptease

Movie theaters, discotheques, and intimate clubs are to be found in downtown areas alongside "Soapland" districts, where striptease and massage parlors rub shoulders with street food stands and fast food restaurants.  Historically, sex and eroticism played an important role in the nightlife of male-dominated Japan.  Many of the clubs in Soapland areas are owned by the Yakuza (the Japanese mafia).

Prices in restaurants and bars vary widely, and are usually high in places that do not display a price list.  The cost of drinks in any bar is high; the cheapest are those frequented by young men and women, office workers, and college students.  Those that employ hostesses to fill your glass and to make idle chat can be prohibitively expensive.  Geisha bars, where expertly trained women entertain with witty conversation, traditional dancing, music and food (but not sex) are not generally open to foreigners -- unless you have a respected client's introduction.


Karaoke Bars

The Japanese invented and love karaoke.  Singing songs to the sound of prerecorded music, in front of other customers or with frends, is a favorite pastime.


Pleasures Simple and Refined

Japanese coffee shops (Kissaten) are one of the country's best discoveries.  They pride themselves on serving exquisite coffee and on providing a first-class sound system, playing jazz, classical, rock, or other music.  A cup of coffee is relatively expensive, but once you have ordered you can sit for as long as you wish reading, writing or looking at the magazines and comics always available.  (Kissaten frequently offer a good breakfast for the price of a coffee; ask for "morning service" in English.)


Noh theater, bunraku (puppet theater), and kabuki are available in major cities, and although alien in format to most Westerners, they are usually worth seeing both for the spectacle and the insight they give into Japanese culture.


Japan is ...Food

Traditional meals are cooked and presented with the intention of inspiring the spirit as well as the senses.  The ingredients and menu are chosen to take into account the season, location, and occasion.  Tableware is selected to harmonize with the texture and appearance of the food, which, according to the Japanese, must be tasted with the tongue, the heart, and the eye to be truly enjoyed.


The Buddhist Influence

Japanese cuisine developed in a state of isolation and its style is unique.  Buddhist beliefs, which forbade the eating of flesh, together with the nature of the landscape and climate, restricted the choice of food, and the main ingredients of the Japanese diet were rice, noodles, vegetables, pickles, seafood, soya-bean products, and fruit.  To some degree, this remains the case today, but, ironically, now that such ingredients are highly recommended by nutritionists, the Japanese are eating more and more meat and dairy products.


Japan is ...Bathing

Shinto, the ancient religion of Japan, lays great emphasis on purification and cleanliness. Partly because of this, bathing and the rituals surrounding it are very much a part of the Japanese culture.  No other country in the world possesses more natural hot springs, called onsen, and the popular custom of bathing in them for physical and spiritual regeneration dates back to the distant past.


Onsen

Tourist accommodations are available around most of Japan's onsen (hot springs).  At spas such as Beppu, massive commercial resorts have developed, where the emphasis for visitors is on group togetherness (a sacred concept in Japan).  At other, more isolated onsen, there may be only two or three thatched-roof cottages with a single rotemburo (outdoor bath).  Here you come to seek spiritual rather than material comfort.