| By MYNIPPON Team with help from
Leo Fuchigami
How many times
has
Japan been accused of as being 'copycats'? Many American companies
have even accused Japanese companies of industrial
espionage. It is often
joked that Japan will simply take a western product, make it better,
improve manufacturing economics, and sell it outside Japan at considerable
profit. The overall image that the rest of the world has created
about Japan is one of being less creative. This may not entirely be
true.
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Leo Fuchigami thinks
otherwise. "The Japanese seem to have the greatest hatred
towards being like everyone else. This is what fuels their
economy and
drives them toward outside cultures. The Japanese want their own
uniqueness that no one else has." Japan is the world's second
largest economy and despite the
recession in Japan, its people are still
among the largest group of consumers. Japan consistently ranks among
the top countries in the world in number of new products introduced every
year. In fact, many of the products that are introduced and
regularly available in Japan are never even introduced in other countries
because the rate of change in the rest of the world is so slow that they
would never buy these products. To appreciate this one has to check
out the types of cell phones being used in the United States - the largest
economy and supposedly, one of the most high-tech country in the
world. It seems that cell phones in Japan are at least a century
ahead. |
 Fuchigami continues,
"Why do you think there are so many Japanese car companies? Because,
no one wants the same car as everybody else. They just have some sort of
deep hatred of being like everyone else. The Japanese chose the
American culture because it was nothing like their own and by becoming
more "American" they became less Japanese, less like everyone
else".
It may be interesting to
note that Japanese consumers buy foreign products when certain companies
have learned to market these in the right manner. For instance,
French and Italian fashion goods are the rule in Japan because they allows
Japanese people to express their individuality. No surprise then
that Tiffany's
and
Louis Vuitton count Japan as one of their top markets. Japanese will never
be seen buying products that are common in the rest of the world.
Thus, the Japanese media and fashion houses will constantly talk about the
latest trends that are emerging so that before they become common, the
Japanese can get a chance to try them. Thus, when it comes to
fashion, Asia looks to Japan for trends. Increasingly, even a lot of
young people in the west look to Japan for latest trends.
It is clear that Japan
will have to wait a long time before it can shed its image of being a
robotic society where everything is dull and boring. The Japanese
people can no longer be seen as human-machines working on the assembly
line mass-producing electronic goods and cars. Maybe the Japanese
were never really homogeneous - their egalitarian approach has simply been
misunderstood.
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