Secrets of Japan's Appeal to Westerners!

TOKYO – When the first Westerners of record stumbled onto Japan in the 1540s, the discovery of the islands by Europeans resulted in an influx of traders and Christian missionaries, both intent on expanding their empires in Asia.

Among the many things that astounded these first Western visitors to Japan was the incredible quality of its handicrafts and arts, and the ability of Japanese craftsmen to copy any Western product not only perfectly but to improve on it in the process.

Thereafter, Japanese arts and crafts as well as Western products made in Japan were shipped to Europe in large volume.

One of the extraordinary historical stories of this era: Japans now famous woodblock prints were so common and so cheap that they were used as wrapping paper on some of the goods shipped to Europe, where they became highly valued collectors items and had a fundamental influence on European artists of the period.

But the number of Europeans in Japan, and their influence, grew so rapidly that the Tokugawa Shogunate began to fear the country might be colonized by the Western powers. This fear resulted in a decision by the Shogunate in the 1630s to expel all foreigners from the country except for a small detachment of Dutch traders, who were kept confined on a small man-made islet in Nagasaki Bay, and to ban all travel from and to the country.

For the next 200-plus years this tiny Dutch trading post and occasional officially approved visits by Chinese and Korean ships were Japan's only contacts with the outside world.

Japan's isolation from the Western world did not end until the early 1850s, when the United States sent a fleet of warships into Tokyo Bay in 1853 and demanded that Japan open its doors to trade and diplomatic intercourse.

Powerless in the face of the American warships, and aiming to control the situation as much as possible, the Shogunate agreed to the American demand, and in March of 1854 signed a pact opening two ports to American ships and agreeing to accept a diplomatic representative. Soon thereafter similar pacts were signed with England, Russia and the Netherlands.

During the next decade, foreign traders and missionaries flocked to Japan, this time with Americans leading the charge. But the signing of the pacts by the Shogunate in Edo (Tokyo) outraged some of the outlying provincial lords in the southwest. They began agitating for the return of the Emperor (in Kyoto) to power.
This agitation led to a civil war in the mid-1860s, resulting in the downfall of the Shogunate in 1867 and the restoration of the Emperor who had not exercised real authority since 1185.

The Japanese were fascinated by Western products, and began to disparage their own arts and crafts. Western importers once again began taking advantage of the Japanese ability to copy products, and by 1900 products made in Japan were flooding Western markets, earning the Japanese the reputation of being nothing but copiers and makers of cheap goods.

It was not until the 1960s that Japan's manufacturers were able to get out from under the control of foreign buyers and bring their traditional standards of quality into the production of Western style products. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.

What was the source of Japan's traditional quality standards? How were the Japanese able to raise the quality standards of their handicrafts to that of a fine art? This too, relates to their skill in copying and improving upon things they copy, but in this case it goes back more than a thousand years.

Beginning around 300 A.D. Chinese ideas and products began trickling into Japan, mostly through Korea and via Korean immigrants to the islands. Over the next 500 years, virtually all of these imported products, now regarded as Japanese, became the foundation of the economy and the culture.

Along with these products came the ancient Chinese custom of the master-apprentice approach to the arts and crafts. But the Japanese didn't just imitate the Chinese and Koreans. They institutionalized and ritualized the master-apprentice training methods, adding to it the concept of kaizen (kigh-zen) or continuous improvement.

As the generations passed, these institutions and rituals were strengthened by the introduction of the Zen principles of dispensing with the superfluous, and harmonizing life and nature, resulting in masters who could actually achieve virtual perfection in the arts and crafts.

This was the Japan that Westerners first encountered in the 1500s and again in the 1800s, by which time, the Japanese were so conditioned in the principles and practices of quality that they didn't think about it, and achieving it was simply the Japanese way of doing things.

Another important factor that distinguishes traditional Japanese arts and crafts, as well as many of its modern products, is a look and a feel that is unique, that grows out of the psychic of the Japanese that precedes their contact with Korea and China.

The influence of this "Japanese thing" on Westerners varies from very weak to very strong, depending on their sensitivity and aesthetic development. But it influences everyone to some degree. To the sensitive person, it has a calming, soothing effect on the intellect and the spirit, and creates a harmonious repose with nature.

Westerners who visit Japan, even for a few days, are invariably touched by this unique facet of Japanese culture. [I introduced the Western world to the term and concept of kaizen in my first books on the Japanese way in the early 1960s.]

Copyright © 2007 by Boye Lafayette De Mente
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Boye Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Japan, Korea, China and Mexico since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on these countries, including the first books ever on the Japanese way of doing business: Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business, first published in 1959, and How to Do Business in Japan, published in 1961.

To see a complete list of his titles [each one linked to Amazon.com’s buy page], go to his personal website: http://www.phoenixbookspublishers.com/.