The structure of culture in Japan
*this post is a sort of sequel to a previous post on the national character of Japan and hits on similar themes – you may enjoy that post, too.
In the West, culture is often viewed as a spectrum: high culture at one end and low culture at the other.
However, in Japan, culture is a canvas: compartmentalised, atomised, and – for the consumer – free-flowing.
This compartmentalisation has significant implications for the way people consume and appreciate different forms of culture.
To illustrate this point, I recently had a cooking lesson with a chef who runs a high-end restaurant in old Kamakura. Kamakura, where I live, is an ancient town of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and was formerly the capital of Japan. The chef's assistant for the session was a lady who used to run a French restaurant in nearby Hayama (a wealthy resort town) and is a Tofu connoisseur. In other words, she is what we might call a highly cultured person.
When she found out that one of my fellow students was Brazilian, she sang Brazilian folk songs in Portuguese. But in her next breath, when she found out about my music taste, she mentioned that her favorite music was British rock, and her favorite band was Judas Priest. She adores Robert Plant, the lead singer for Led Zeppelin, and brazenly confessed that her first love was David Coverdale, of Whitesnake, when she was only five years old.
When I mentioned that I had listened to Yngwie Malmsteen on the drive over in the car, she said, "Oh, I don’t really get the younger musicians – too flashy," referring to an artist who debuted back in 1983.
This anecdote illustrates how diverse high- and low-culture interests are experienced by a single person and tells us a lot about the way culture is atomized and freely flowing in Japan. Rather than viewing culture as a continuum or dichotomy (ie culture is “high” or “low”), Japanese people tend to view culture as a canvas of spheres or compartments that can be entered and exited at will. This compartmentalisation allows people to explore different cultural spheres without a sense of betraying their cultural roots or identity.
If you attend metal (or punk) gigs in Japan, you will also see a free melding of cultures, where office workers who came straight from work in a full suit and tie are rocking out right next to pierced and shaved metalheads in leather, right next to chic young things who might not be expected to listen to a genre of music that (I’ve come to accept) has not been in vogue in much of the world since it was obsoleted by grunge thirty years ago.
It’s not just music. High and low culture intersect in other fascinating ways. For example, anime and manga, which are often seen as a "genre" of pop culture in the West, are merely an accepted "format" in Japan that contains multiple genres, some of which are artistic/educational, and others that are more vulgar.
Some manga are based on classical literary, historical, or artistic original works, such as the Chinese Three Kingdoms epic or the Pillow Book, while others are horror, action, or romantic. They are consumed by people of all ages and backgrounds. Similarly, pop music can be appreciated by people who also enjoy traditional Japanese music or classical music.
Different forms of culture complement and enrich each other, rather than competing or being in conflict.
It's hard to imagine a "mods vs rockers" scenario in Japan. The rockers would likely listen to a moddish record and comment, "Hey, this soul groove is deep," and the mods would say, "Wow, this guitar riff is super cool," and start banging their heads.
Or, if they had nothing nice to say, most likely, they'd just say nothing at all!
*this post is a sort of sequel to a previous post on the national character of Japan and hits on similar themes – you may enjoy that post, too.
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