Japanese Customs Research Articles

When Japanese ‘omotenashi’ care fails in intercultural situations: an autoethnographic account of dynamics of thorny disharmony

Purpose“Omotenashi” has become a buzzword denoting the Japanese ethic for excellence in customer care. However, while there is an emerging body of research on the spirit of the provider side, nevertheless, the customer care experiences from the beneficiary perspective – especially the dynamics that manifest when such care fails – remain undercommented. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify critical dynamics of how unexpected thorny disharmony might manifest in instances of customer care failure, with a focus on customer service and intercultural lived experiences. In doing so it challenges a prevailing and dominant view of flawless Japanese customer care – Omotenashi.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on a multi-disciplinary approach the current research proposes a conceptual model and uses autoethnography to offer insights at the individual level unit of analysis.FindingsThe findings break ground towards innovative understanding of customer care failure dynamics, by considering intercultural situations.Research limitations/implicationsBy express design and paradigm, the research is limited to subjective interpretivism. The paper offers important implications for understanding customer beneficiary experience, especially to nuance and challenge the current hegemonic view of the positive nature of Japanese “Omotenashi” customer care in extant literature.Practical implicationsThe findings have important practical implications for customer care managers. The paper aims to prompt a pause for thought, a warning of a drift towards organizational self-satisfaction and back slapping in relation to customer care and makes a call for a return to consider the holistic customer experience in the Japanese and inter-cultural contexts.Social implicationsIt can be argued that there appears to be a tendency in some quarters to massage and manipulate broader society by pointing to the positive. However, marketing scholars are aware that raising customer expectations in this way can magnify backlash when disconfirmation occurs. This study lends support to the notion that there may be a need to temper expectations and hype in customer relation contexts. This is predicated on the observation that individual – and, therefore, beneficiary – experience is unique, that uniqueness may be accentuated in intercultural situations.Originality/valueThe paper nuances the general positively portrayed aspects of Omotenashi by curating insights into when care fails. It addresses the paucity of lived experience accounts of the beneficiary experience of Japanese Omotenashi care in intercultural situations.

Public perspectives on COVID-19 public health and social measures in Japan and the United Kingdom: a qualitative study

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, was one of the greatest modern public health crises that the world has faced. Countries undertook sweeping public health and social measures (PHSM); including environmental actions such as disinfection and ventilation; surveillance and response, such as contact tracing and quarantine; physical, such as crowd control; and restrictions on travel. This study focuses on the public perceptions of PHSM in two countries, Japan and the United Kingdom (UK) as examples of high-income countries that adopted different measures over the course of the pandemic.MethodsThis study was conducted between November 2021 and February 2022, a period in which the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 was predominant. Fourteen online focus group discussions were conducted in each country. Overall, 106 total participants (50 from the UK and 56 from Japan) participated in 23 focus groups (11 in the UK and 12 in Japan) with an average of three to six participants per group. Both countries were compared using a thematic analysis method.ResultsBoth countries’ participants agreed that vaccination was an effective measure. However, they did not favor mandatory vaccination policies. Working from home was well accepted by both sides, but they reported that schools should have continued to be opened as before COVID-19. Both sides of participants expressed that temperature testing alone in indoor facilities was ineffective as a COVID-19 control measure. There were contrasting views on face covering rules in public spaces, international and domestic movement restrictions. High acceptance of mask-wearing was reflective of Japanese customs, while it was accepted as a strong recommendation for participants in the UK. Japanese participants favored quarantine for international travel, while the UK participants supported banning non-essential travel.ConclusionSimilar and contrasting views on PHSM against COVID-19 between Japan and the UK demonstrated how policies in controlling an epidemic should be tailored by country with respect to its norms, cultures, economic and disease burden. Our findings may guide how policy makers can engage with the public through effective health communication and consider regulations that are aligned with the public’s views and capacities in changing their behavior for future pandemic preparedness.

Tsuneko Marija Skušek kot posrednica japonske kulture na Slovenskem

After moving to Ljubljana in 1920, Tsuneko Kondō Kawase, later officially Marija Skušek, was the first promoter of Japanese culture in Slovenia, and many knew her as the “Ljubljana’s Japanese woman”. She learned Slovenian and lectured on Japan, Japanese women, and Japanese customs in many cities in the 1930s. Cultural institutions representing the Far East would ask her for help. She would lend objects from the collection she and her husband owned for exhibitions and explain the particular features of the exhibits on display. She advised the producers during the preparations for the performance of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly in Ljubljana. When representatives from Japan visited Slovenia, Marija Tsuneko Skušek was usually invited as a translator. During the last years of her life, she worked on her domestic collection of mostly Chinese and Japanese artefacts and participated in the preparation of exhibitions in the central Slovenian museums, which opened shortly after her death.

Challenges of commuter carpooling with adapting to Japanese customs and regulations: A pilot study

Commuter carpooling is a practical transportation demand management that promotes employees picking up and dropping off co-workers during their daily work commute. The benefits include reducing carbon footprint, traffic congestion, parking needs, and transportation-related costs in urban and suburban areas since lessening the number of cars and kilometers traveled. Numerous conventional studies have highlighted the social importance and efficacy of carpooling across different countries. Nevertheless, carpooling with co-workers still requires to be developed in Japan. This paper reports on proof of concept (PoC) to verify a carpooling model’s feasibility and highlight challenges to successfully adapting carpooling to Japanese customs and regulations in practical implementation. Under two companies’ cooperation in Hiroshima, Japan, twenty employees commuted via carpooling for two weeks using a developed mobile application. We validated the need and identified five realistic challenges by analyzing the questionnaire survey and the driver’s plan-actual route reproduced from the GPS data. These challenges are to reduce waiting times, provide incentives for the driver, provide navigation with easy-to-drive route guidance and traffic avoidance, operate flexibly, and drop in on the way.

Fantasies of Europe, fantasies of Japan: Isekai and the narrative logic of Japanese Occidentalism

This article uses the framework of literary Occidentalism to study how an unequal power relationship is staged between Japan and Europe within isekai, a popular genre of contemporary Japanese fiction. Within the standard isekai plot, a teenage Japanese boy is suddenly transferred into a fantasy version of medieval Europe. There, the protagonist is bestowed superpowers that let him exert great agency over this second world, where he embarks on an exciting adventure and generally acts as he pleases. This superpower mediates and assures the protagonist’s introduction of western modernity, under the mantle of Japanese custom, back to the West. By negating medieval Europe, ‘Japan’ thereby becomes its own fantasy, a site at once more modern than the West and yet identifiably Japanese. Engaging in close readings of two key isekai light novels, Yamaguchi Noboru’s The Familiar of Zero and Nagatsuki Tappei’s Re:Zero: Starting Life in Another World, this article specifies and identifies common narrative tropes within isekai such as an identification with Japan, a dismissal of Europe as irrational and misguided, a moralized rescue of Europeans with the protagonist’s superpower, and a dismissal of potential counterarguments to the protagonist’s moral presumptions.

THE INFLUENCE OF ANIME ON JAPANESE LITERATURE STUDENTS AT BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY

This research aims to determine the influence of anime on the cultural knowledge and language proficiency of Japanese Literature students at Bung Hatta University. The research method used is descriptive qualitative with data collection techniques in the form of questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study indicate that watching anime can have a positive influence on students, especially in terms of knowledge and understanding of Japanese customs, traditions, religion, values, and norms that are part of Japanese culture, as well as improving Japanese language proficiency such as vocabulary, conversation, and listening skills.

Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora, by Suma Ikeuchi

How do returning migrants relate do their ancestral culture? What are the cross-cultural and interreligious negotiations that occur? How do they make meaning of their in-between state in a new land? What happens when global Pentecostalism encounters a predominantly Buddhist and Shinto society? What role does religion, or more specifically Christianity, play in meaning-making and generating purpose in the lives of these returnees in a seemingly “foreign” and hostile land?In her seminal work, Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora, Suma Ikeuchi (University of California, Santa Barbara) attempts to answer similar questions by looking at the day-to-day experience of a Brazilian Pentecostal community in Japan. This work is an ethnographic tour de force but also comprises a beautiful narrative of Nikkei (second-generation) Pentecostal resilience, hope, and integration in a familiar yet strange land.As a result of her personal encounter with world Pentecostalism, Ikeuchi takes us along her own journey of self-discovery, introducing readers to her experience living among Nikkei Brazilian immigrants navigating the two Js—Jesus and Japan—in the Brazilian Pentecostal Church of Missão Apoio Toyota (182). Her ethnographic and phenomenological study investigates their daily lives through such experiences as coffees, dinners, baby showers, birthday parties, soccer viewing gatherings, and funerals (28).The results are quietly impressive. Her overarching thesis is that Pentecostalism’s language of spiritual conversion embodied in the “born again” experience gives believers a sense of “transnational transcendence” in which they are now “members of ‘the culture of love’ which ostensibly overcomes narrow ethnonational affiliations” (183).In the first part, Ikeuchi describes the experience of Brazilian return migrants suspending their erstwhile Japanese identity. Returning to their ancestral homeland of Japan on the Nikkei-jin visa, these return migrants, or Nikkei, experience the phenomenon of “afastamento,” a “distancing” or feeling of disenchantment with the “ethnic aura” or “great pride of the Japanese race” (38). Ikeuchi masterfully shows how this plays out in the Nikkei encounter with typical Japanese customs such as Obentō and Shūdan Tōkō, and even the menial task of garbage disposal (66, 73).The second part shows how the church functions as a means of renewal for the Nikkei sense of meaning and identity in a foreign land. Ikeuchi shows how prayer, sermons, testimonies, and Bible studies allow believers to experience a “break” from the “temporal suffocation” of Japanese work life (91). This helps them produce a “culture of love” and “create a new sense of citizenship” in a land that formerly appeared hostile but now has more potential to be Christian “than their former land (Brazil)” (108). Ikeuchi introduces the valuable category of love, which goes beyond simplistic reductionist attempts to reduce conversion experience to mere causal materialist processes.The third section explores how this renewed sense of identity in Christ offered by Pentecostalism affects the intercultural exchanges between Nikkei and Pentecostal identities. Ikeuchi argues that even though Nikkeis occupy a contested space in Japanese society, their view of Christian “kinship” enables them to overcome the sense of inferiority and distancing they experience in a society grounded on notions of “Japanese blood” (122).In her conclusion, Ikeuchi notes that this renewed sense of identity allows Nikkeis to reconceptualize the meaning of return migration. Nikkei Pentecostals see themselves as pilgrims hoping for their true “spiritual” homeland. Nostalgia for Brazil is replaced with spiritual vocation for Japan. The tensions of transnational mobility and contested citizenship give way to the hope that they have a special calling. After all, “Jesus ama o Japão” (186).In sum, Jesus Loves Japan is a heartwarming but nevertheless rigorous scientific study that captures the struggles, pains, faith, hopes, desires, and love of Nikkei Pentecostals. It also serves as an excellent companion to others like Christina Moreira da Rocha’s Zen Buddhism in Brazil: Japanese or Brazilian? It contributes to Pentecostal studies by showing the diffusion of Pentecostalism in a predominantly Buddhist and Shinto culture. For East Asian studies, it sheds light on minority and unrepresented voices. Suma Ikeuchi introduces readers to a world where faith, hope, and love help migrant community members reimagine their identities in order to survive in a difficult environment.

Um estudo preliminar sobre o espelho do Japão (Ribenyijian).

Abstract: After the reign of Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty, as the Japanese pirates’ problem became more and more serious, books devoted to the study of Japan began to be published. Among them, the most important ones are A Brief Survey of Japan (Ri Ben Kao Lue), A Compilation of Japanese Maps (Ri Ben Tu Zuan), A Mirror of Japan (Ri Ben Yi Jian), A Survey of Japan (Ri Ben Kao), A Record of Japanese Customs (Ri Ben Fen Tu Ji), and A Biography of Japanese Pirates in Qiantai (Qian Tai Wo Zhuan). Out of these, A Mirror of Japan is a special one. In addition, there are also special books that depict the general ambiance of Japan, such as A Collection of Coastal Military Maps (Chou Hai Tu Bian), Resistance to Japanese Pirates in Ming Dynasty (Huang Ming Yu Wo Lu), the Compilation of Coastal Defense (Hai Fang Zuan Yao) and the Continuation of Coastal Defense Category in Zhedong and Zhexi Regions (Liang Zhe Hai Fang Lei Kao Xu Bian). Zheng Shungong, the author of the book A Mirror of Japan, visited Japan twice, so many contents in the book are based on his own experience and knowledge. Therefore, the breadth and scope of his research on Japan had gone beyond the similar literature of the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the Japanese pirates’ record and analysis in the book are of great research value. Before the publication of Huang Zunxian’s Annals of Japan (Ri Ben Tu Zhi), A Mirror of Japan was one of the highest levels of monographs on Japan in ancient China.

New Customer Satisfaction Index for the Japanese Market: From Net Promoter Score to Promoter Score Japan

Objective - This paper aims to examine the applicability of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to Japanese consumers. The NPS measures the relationship between customer loyalty and corporate growth as an alternative to the conventional customer satisfaction index because of its simplicity and ease of understanding for managers. However, because of its simplicity, the NPS has been criticized for not considering the culture and consumer characteristics of the various countries in which it is used. In this study, we review Japanese consumers' response styles and examine a more adaptable measurement scale to the Japanese market. Methodology/Technique - The sales data and customer NPS ratings of four companies in four industries—a cosmetics brand, a fashion e-commerce company, a daily necessities manufacturer, and a credit card company—were collected, and the relationship between them was analyzed to examine the validity of NPS classifications for the Japanese market. Findings –The study yielded the following results. (1) Customers who give the highest ratings tend to exert a more positive impact on corporate earnings through sales (spending amount). (2) Median spending amount intersects with the recommendation score at around 6. (3) On an ordinal scale from 0 to 10, the recommendation frequency significantly increases at 5. Moreover, this study reveals that the NPS classification of consumers is inconsistent with Japanese customers' actual situation. Novelty - As an alternative to the Net Promoter Score (NPS), the Promoter Score Japan (PSJ) is proposed to measure customer satisfaction and produce more accurate recommendations in the Japanese market. Type of Paper: Empirical JEL Classification: M31, M39. Keywords: Net Promoter Score; customer satisfaction; customer recommendation; response bias; net promoter ratio; extreme response style; midpoint response style Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kimura, T. (2022). New Customer Satisfaction Index for the Japanese Market: From Net Promoter Score to Promoter Score Japan, J. Mgt. Mkt. Review, 7(3), 129 – 137. https://doi.org/10.35609/jmmr.2022.7.3(5)

Promoter Score Japan as a New Framework to Measure Loyalty of Japanese Customers

We examine the applicability of the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which several companies and organizations use as an indicator of customer recommendation, to Japanese consumers. The NPS, proposed by Reichheld et al. (2003) is used to measure the relationship between customer loyalty and corporate growth as an alternative to the conventional customer satisfaction index because of its simplicity and ease of understanding for managers. In recent years, it has been used not only by companies but also by local governments and non-profit organizations (NPOs) in Japan to survey the effectiveness of their services. However, due to its simplicity, the NPS has been criticized for not taking into account the culture and consumer characteristics of the country in which it is used. In general, response biases are often observed in surveys, whereby survey participants' responses are influenced by factors conflicting with the researcher's interests, one of which is the response style. In this study, we review the response styles of Japanese consumers and examine a measurement scale that is more adaptable to the Japanese market, based on an analysis of the relationship between sales data and customer NPS data for multiple companies. Keywords: Customer loyalty, Net Promoter Score, Response biases, Response style

Fake & original: the case of Japanese food in Southeast Asian countries

This paper seeks to answer two main questions: whether restaurants using a national brand to capture customers in fact use original national ingredients for producing food and, in cases where original ingredients are not used, what is the economic rationale behind this choice? Specifically, the study focuses on Japanese restaurants in three Southeast Asian countries, using a theoretical model and an empirical investigation based on interviews and survey data collected through field research. Considering restaurants, their suppliers, and their customers, we show how a dual asymmetric-information problem exists, between suppliers and restaurants and between restaurants and their customers. The results indicate that a first reason for buying non-original ingredients—important especially for cheaper restaurants—is a desire to reduce costs. That said, the use of non-original ingredients occurs among all types of Japanese restaurants in the three studied countries. It does not depend on the presence of a Japanese chef or owner, nor on the share of Japanese customers. By contrast it does significantly depend on the reliability of the wholesale channel, and the resultant difficulties that restaurants encounter when buying original ingredients.

The Emergence and Development of Hygienic Masks in Colonial Korea.

This paper examines the social life of masks in colonial Korea with a focus on their use in hygienic practices. It argues that masks first appeared in the disease control scene in late 1919 when the Governor-General of Korea belatedly introduced preventative measures against the Spanish Influenza pandemic. Since then, the central and regional hygiene authorities had begun to encourage colonial Koreans to wear masks whenever respiratory disease epidemics transpired. Simultaneously, Korean doctors and news reporters framed mask-wearing as something needed for family hygiene, particularly for trans-seasonal child health care, and advised colonial Korean women to manage and wear masks. This paper also reveals that the primary type of masks used in colonial society was black-colored Japanese respirators. Its design was the main point of contention in the debates on the effectiveness of masks against disease infection. Finally, it also highlights that the wide support of using masks by medical doctors and authorities was not based on scientific evidence but on empirical rules they developed through the pandemic and epidemics. The mask-usage practice would be challenged only when South Korean doctors reframed it as a "Japanese custom not grounded on science" at the height of postcolonial nationalism and the raised concern about the artifact's usefulness during the Hong Kong Influenza pandemic of 1968.

A Common Theme in the Works of the Justice Squadron and the Jadid Poets

The first half of the twentieth century was a time of great trials for all Eastern countries, especially for the Korean Peninsula, which stood on the verge of a “new world”, following the news of a new era, the creation of new schools. By this time, Westernization reforms under the influence of neighboring Japan, which attracted the attention of powerful states, were gaining momentum. As a result of Japan’s efforts to westernize and reform the “Year of the Kabo”, a new culture, politics, literature, Japanese customs and traditions have entered the country. It is known from history that during the colonization of any state, first of all, a serious blow is inflicted on its culture, language, beliefs, national pride. Using such an effective method, the Japanese government pursued a colonial policy aimed at destroying the national spirit and culture of the Korean people.

More than Half: Multiracial Families in the World War II Japanese American Incarceration Camps.

In this first-person commentary, the author, an art historian, recounts family explorations of multiraciality and discrimination through her family’s literal journey to 10 camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during a period of xenophobia following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. In addition to Japanese immigrants (Issei) who were banned from becoming U.S. citizens and their American-born children (Nisei), multiracial spouses and children with partial Japanese ancestry were also imprisoned. The War Relocation Authority (WRA) created a series of rules that applied to interracial married couples and multiracial children. Children with Japanese fathers were considered “more than half” Japanese with the belief that the male head of the household would establish and observe the family’s cultural values and practices. Multiracial children with White fathers were treated more sympathetically stemming from a desire to protect them from absorbing Japanese customs and ideas. Within the camps, multiracial families were subject to ostracization by families of Japanese descent as well as military personnel. The author’s children, upon entering public school, endured inquiries, taunts, and microagressions from peers. As parents, the author and her spouse, a fine art photographer, visited the camp locations to understand this dark period of U.S. to explore and document the places, talk with their children about their multiracial identities, and enable growth through experience and knowledge. All of the camps are in desolate locations and most are in ruins, but lingering discrimination from this egregious historical period exist and they affected the author’s children.

Welfare gains through globalization: Evidence from Japan's manufacturing sector

Welfare gains achieved through international trade are a cornerstone of the literature on international economics. However, the data and research methods needed to empirically assess these welfare gains have only recently become available. Building on recently developed methodologies for estimating the elasticity of substitution and computing welfare gains from trade, we estimate Japan's welfare gains from liberalizing trade in the manufacturing sector. To do so, we estimate the elasticities of substitution using Japanese customs data at Harmonized System (HS) 9-digit product codes. The analysis shows that Japan's welfare gains from trade liberalization occurred especially from the end of the 1990s onward, and reached 16 percent vis-à-vis the autarky situation.

The revitalization of "Osekkai": How the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the importance of Japanese voluntary social work.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused worldwide panic, and rural areas are no exception. In Japanese rural areas, many older people live alone and lack access to reliable sources of information. During the pandemic, older adults were initially isolated from their communities because of the recommended social isolation measures, even when there were no cases in rural communities. However, various formal and informal caregivers went beyond their usual roles and tried to reconnect the older rural population with their communities and nurtured their social connections; Japanese community workers mitigated the stress and fear experienced by the rural elderly in the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this pandemic encouraged rural Japanese customs. One such custom is “Osekkai.” The Japanese word Osekkai describes actions that someone considers useful and meaningful to perform for others. Osekkai involves both formal and informal care, and as social gatherings began to disappear, Osekkai allowed individuals to deal with the various social problems created by the pandemic. Conferences based on Osekkai can strengthen rural people’s connections and improve their social capital. Activities of rural people that are constructed through Osekkai conferences are not only evidence-based but also based on reliance. This unprecedented pandemic has taught us not only the importance of usual healthcare and precautions against infection but also that nurturing social connection in communities is crucial in the face of social turbulence.

Japanese Ceramics and the Complexities of Consumption in “this Knife-Fork Land”

Japanese Gulch Village was home to a community of Japanese millworkers and their families between 1903 and 1930. During this time, village residents pursued a wide range of options for acquiring goods. This article uses a consumption framework and archaeological Japanese ceramics to explore the ways that village residents negotiated among purchasing options to increase communal wellbeing and express individual agency. As a case study, Japanese Gulch Village highlights the complexities of consumption in transpacific contexts and the importance of drawing connections between the Japanese ceramics industry and its Japanese diaspora customers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Paid Companions: Human-Nonhuman Animal Relations in Japanese Animal Cafés

Abstract Animal cafés, a type of business where customers pay by the hour to spend time relaxing with nonhuman animals and other animal lovers, became popular in Japan during the late 2000s as part of the iyashi, or healing, boom. Young Japanese customers in need of positive affective experiences to address feelings, economic and social precarity turn to businesses like these to meet their emotional needs, engaging socially with animals in a commodified space. This article explores the kinds of intimate bonds that are created between the human customer and animal “staff” in these contexts, where customers engage with animals on their own terms, enjoying their companionship without any long-term responsibility for their care, and the effect this has on the lives of the café animals.

Борьба японской таможни с контрабандой наркотиков

Борьба японской таможни с контрабандой наркотиков

Роль японской таможни в пресечении контрабанды оружия в страну

Роль японской таможни в пресечении контрабанды оружия в страну