How Did Japan Comprove The Japanese Cultures Of Japan

A chapter “Iitiko-Dori” in this book says that the Japanese are willing to accept foreign cultures and Japan has developed it’s economy with using technologies and systems that are imported from foreign countries. However, the Japanese have also excluded foreigners or foreign cultures. In Edo era, Tokugawa government forbade trading with almost all the countries. In one sense, that helped Japan improve it’s unique culture, such as kabuki, ennichi, and so on. The Japanese can enjoy it’s specific culture now for not having interact with foreign cultures so much in Edo era. On the other hand, the government oppressed Christians at that time. One example of the oppression is Shimabara Rebellion. In this rebellion, many Japanese Christians were
Though it is still better than the Edo era, even now, the Japanese are not willing to interact with foreigners and sometimes they can’t accept cultures of foreigners. Since Meiji era, Japan have made an effort to overtake the West and pass it up. First, the Japanese government introduce technologies and systems from the Western in various ways. Then, they made the technologies and systems their own ones. For example, railways were imported from England and English technicians led the building of the first railway in Japan. Since then, Japanese railways have continued to expand. In consequence, Japan has one of the best railway systems in the world now. In this way, Japan succeeded in modernization. However, in this process, their ways of thinking were westernized and we came to think that eastern cultures are inferior to western ones unconsciously. As a result, they tend not to accept non-western cultures. They don’t know non-western cultures so much, and if they learn those, they may not think that they should introduce those cultures. Their westernized thought does not recognize those cultures to be as wonderful as western
That of the Japanese is too effective. Although due to that, the Japanese came to be closely united, and they achieved significant economical development, that made them cold to outsiders. Even now, such group consciousness is seen in various places. For example, family, school, company, and so on. The Japanese tend to keep their relationships. Therefore outsiders were excluded. The Japanese race is also a big group and they recognize foreigners as outsiders. Once they are labeled as outsiders, it is difficult for them to come to be accepted easily. I have read an episode about a British who visited Kyoto. For his first visit to Kyoto, he wanted to stay at not a hotel but a Japanese ryokan. Therefore he asked a staff of a tourist information center to reserve a ryokan. However, the staff rejected his order at first because he was a foreigner. Though the staff finally consented his order and called some ryokans, ryokans declined his reservation because of the same reason. At last, he could reserve a ryokan not saying that he was a foreigner. Then he visited the ryokan. However, seeing him, a staff of the ryokan was very surprised because she didn’t imagine that a foreigner would come there. As this was a happening of the past, I believe that such a severe situation will not occur now, yet I could see Japanese group consciousness in this episode. This