UCLA
Center for East Asian Studies
Japanese Youth and Popular Culture
April 3, 2000
Nikkei Weekly || Japanese Youth Culture || News File Index
For youth, Japan is where it's at:
Young shoppers burn out on imports, foreign travel, turn to domestic scene
By Izumi Oshima,Staff writerThe cultural pendulum is slowly swinging as Japanese youths' interest in all things foreign ebbs, making room for an emerging insularity and preference for all things domestic. From fashion to travel to education, Japan is increasingly in and formerly popular countries such as the U.S. and Europe are out.
In fashion, for example, today's trends are led by Japanese designers rather than imported themes such as the Paris Collection and British punk. "Today's young people don't care what's in London and Paris," says Kenichi Aono of Beams, an apparel retailer. The No. 1 shop for fashion is SOPH., in Tokyo's Harajuku district, according to a survey of clothing sales personnel by the youth-oriented asAyan magazine, and all top spots on the favorite-brand chart went to Japanese brands, including A Bathing Ape and Number (N)ine.
"Japanese fashion brands are popular among young people because of unique qualities derived from something personal that no one else can copy," says Aono.
Growing disinterest
The growing disinterest in countries outside Japan is especially evident in the travel industry. Overseas trips have been unpopular among people in their 20s since around 1997, according to Japan Travel Bureau Inc., and the trend is accelerating. JTB's sales of such packages in the April-September period to people in their 20s fell 7% for males and 11% for females compared with the same period the year before. That is in stark contrast to the more than 10% gain in overseas packages for travelers in their 50s.
"I've had enough of going abroad," says a 20-year-old college student who visited the U.S. and Canada on a high-school trip. "I felt a very different atmosphere, and that alone tired me out," he says. "I saw the Grand Canyon, but I was too tired to be impressed. I'd rather go to a hot spring that's easily accessible by train."
Interest in volunteer activities abroad is stagnant among Japanese youth. The number of applicants in their 20s for missions organized by the Japan International Cooperative Agency slid 0.01% last year compared with the previous year, while the number of those in their late 30s jumped 17.6%.
The movement is also reflected in education, with fewer university applicants seeking a major in foreign languages and international studies. In a survey of private universities in eastern Japan, 15 departments of international studies reported big drops in the number of such applicants in 1999 compared with 1995 - some by as much as half - while only two saw the number grow.
What accounts for the shift? College applicants are pursuing majors that will lead to specific jobs or certificates, such as in social welfare, nursing and environment studies. "Today's youth are materialistic, or I should say realistic," says Yasushi Inagaki of Kawaijuku preparatory school. "It's not their thing to study foreign languages and international relations, dreaming about foreign lands. They want concrete and easy-to-grasp results."
Closer to home
Some observers site globalization as a contributing factor. "Due to the greatly increased access to information, the perceived distance between Japan and the rest of the world has narrowed," says Kenichi Fujimoto, associate professor at Mukogawa Women's University. "Consequently, the young generation has less yearning for things foreign, less of an inferiority complex and other strong feelings about Europe and the U.S."
He adds: "Today's young people go for whatever interests them at home or abroad. It's not that they are less interested in things foreign but that they've come to face their internal interests without pretense."
Says SOPH. designer Hirofumi Ki-yonaga: "Today's 20-pluses are the first generation that doesn't have an international inferiority complex. I feel this even more strongly when I see Japanese athletes, such as Hidetoshi Nakata and Shoji Jo, playing on equal terms in professional soccer clubs abroad."
One Harajuku shop seems to especially reflect the changing times, however unintentionally - Sports Shop Nihonjin, meaning Japanese person. "I wanted to give this store a name nobody else would think of," says General Manager Hiroyuki Hoshino. "There's absolutely no other store with Nihonjin in its name. That makes us cool, doesn't it?"
Although he adds that the store is not making a special statement with the name, T-shirts and other clothes featuring the "Japanese" graphic are hot sellers.
Copyright 2000 Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc.
