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Japan Crash Course
Of Demographics, Religion and History

Embracing Defeat Japan in the Wake of WWII Embracing Defeat tells the story of the transformation of Japan under American occupation after World War II. When Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Forces in August 1945, it was exhausted; where America's Pacific combat lasted less than four years, Japan had been fighting for 15. Sixty percent of its urban area lay in ruins. The collapse of the authoritarian state enabled America's six-year occupation to set Japan in entirely new directions. [more...] Buy from Amazon.com

Japan is an island country located on the eastern edge of the Asian continent, off Korea. It is a country about 4% of the size of USA. Its population, however, at 125 million, is about half that of the states. Of this, 125 million, or about 6% live in Tokyo, making it one of the largest cities in the world.

To an average foreigner, Japanese would likely appear to be a homogenous people. However, most Japanese (especially Tokyoites and Osakans) would, if suitably drunk, boisterously classify themselves either as "Kansai (ie. Osaka region) people" or "Kanto (Tokyo and surroundings) people". This division stems largely from the temperament and character of the citizens of these 2 wildly different regions. As to how, why not come find out for yourself? It is most evident in the ferocious yet charming way Osaka housewives bargain when compared to their Tokyo counterparts!

As a result, there are accordingly 2 versions to the Japanese language. The Kanto Dialect and the Kanto dialect. Like housewives, the Kansai dialect is much more colourful when compared to the Kanto dialect, and is the language of choice for most stand up comics in Japan.

Religion wise, Japanese are not particularly picky people. Most Japanese comfortably mix Shinto (way of the gods, the indigenous Japanese religion derived from Taoism), and Buddhism, in their everyday lives, whichever serves the moment better. Most younger Japanese also throw in a good dose of Christianity (such as church weddings where no one in the church is a Christian) in their blind pursuit of western fashion. In fact, many young Japanese would say that they are atheist.

To really understand why religion became so irrelevant to Japanese, we have to dig in to the Japanese history. Unfortunately, the last time I heard, someone analyzed this question as his university thesis (not a joke), so I will not be able to go into details here. I will however try to cover some significant historical developments here.

It is believed that Japan's earliest settlers were migrants over the land bridges from Korea to the west and Siberia to the north. The sun-worshipping Yamato kingdom, which is really just another regional warlord family, had loosely unified the nation through conquest and alliance by 300 AD. Buddhism was introduced from China in the mid-6th century and soon became the state religion. Japanese religious identity crisis has its beginnings here, when Shinto deities as were presented as manifestations of Buddha.

Once the kingdom became relatively stable, Japan's emperors began to devote more time to leisure and scholarly pursuits and less time to government. The Fujiwara family made good use of this imperial oversight to secure important court posts. It is sometime during this period when the samurai or 'warrior class' surfaced and began to muscle in on the capital, Heian (modern day Kyoto). After much warring and intrigue, the leader of the Minamoto clan assumed the rank of shogun (military leader). Minamoto Yoritomo set up his HQ in Kamakura, while the emperor became what we would call today a puppet emperor in Kyoto. This was the beginning of a long period of feudal rule by successive samurai families which lingered until imperial power was restored in 1868.

Fast forwarding to the turn of the 19th century, when Japan found itself under the rule of the corrupt Tokugawa government. Foreign ships started to probe Japan's isolation with increasing insistence and famine and poverty weakened support for the government. In 1867 the ruling shogun, Keiki, resigned and Emperor Meiji resumed control of state affairs, seeing Japan through a crash course in westernisation and industrialisation.

In 1889, Japan created a western-style constitution, the tenets of which seeped into national consciousness along with a swing back to traditional values. Japan's growing confidence was demonstrated by the ease with which it trounced China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). Under Meiji's son, Yoshihito, Japan sided with the Allies in WWI. Rather than become heavily involved in conflict, however, Japan took the opportunity, through shipping and trade, to expand its economy at top speed. Emperor Hirohito ascended to the throne in 1926. A rising tide of nationalism was quickened by the world economic depression that began in 1930. Popular unrest led to a strong increase in the power of the militarists: Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and, in 1937, entered into full-scale hostilities against China.

Japan signed a tripartite pact with Germany and Italy in 1940 and, when diplomatic attempts to gain US neutrality failed, the Japanese launched themselves into WWII with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941. At first Japan scored rapid successes, pushing its battle fronts across to India, down to the fringes of Australia and out into the mid-Pacific. The Battle of Midway opened the US counterattack, puncturing Japanese naval superiority and turning the tide of war against Japan. By August 1945, with Japan driven back on all fronts, a declaration of war by the Soviet Union and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was all over. Emperor Hirohito announced unconditional surrender. Japan was occupied until 1952 by Allied forces who aimed to demilitarise the country and dismantle the power of the emperor. A recovery programme enabled the economy to expand rapidly and Japan became the world's most successful export economy, generating massive trade surpluses and dominating such fields as electronics, robotics, computing, car production and banking.

With the arrival of the 1990s, the old certainties seemed to vanish. Japan's legendary economic growth slowed to a virtual standstill and in 1993, after 38 years at the helm, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) succumbed to a spate of scandals and was swept out of power. (The LDP was ushered back within the year.) In January 1995 a massive earthquake struck Kobe: government reactions were slow and confused, shattering Japan's much vaunted earthquake preparedness. To top it all off, just a couple of months later a millennial cult with doomsday ambitions engineered a poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. Observers agree that Japan is changing: international market forces and a savvy electorate are impinging on the once cosy system of political kickbacks and backroom deals that characterised business and government. A stalled economy, huge losses by Japanese banks, sinking share prices and regional instability have all taken the shine off Japan Inc - in early 1998 Japan's banks were in such a bad state that they had to be bailed out by the US government. Voter backlash against the state of Japan's economy severely shook the ruling LDP in mid-1998, and Prime Minister Hashimoto stood down as a result. He was replaced by Keizo Obuchi, an LDP stalwart. Although most people in Japan would agree that Obuchi is not much of a leader, there is a general opinion that he is a master of consensus, injecting some form of cooperation in the national Diet and cajoling Japan into its first steps out of the long recession. Unfortunately for Japan, which usually has more than its fair share of bad news, Obuchi died in early 2000, with Mori Kichiro taking over the helm. Mori has turned out to be a worse leader than Obuchi, with his only claim to fame his blundering behaviours and controversial speeches. Japanese TV has shown the man no mercy when criticizing his latest blunder. Since then, Mori has somewhat realized the best way to keep out of trouble is to keep his gob shut and stay out of the limelight as far as possible. After Mori came Koizumi, who was highly regarded as a reformist but has so far little to show for the crackling campaign promises he made. A spat with his wildly popular (ex-)foreign minister Tanaka Makiko (daughter for former premier Tanaka Kakue) saw Koizumi's popularity ratings nosedive, albeit it is still higher than his 3 predecessors.