Session 6 - 10/26 (morning), Saori Katada

[Angela Chong]

There wasn't any discussion at all of divorce in the sessions and I wonder if it's not very common? Since husbands tend to work a lot and the wife tends to the home and the children, perhaps they simply coexist and don't find it to be necessary? I'm sure it depends on how much support a woman would receive if she divorces her husband? You're right that divorce is somewhat of a privilege that we in the United States are used to, but it's not the case everywhere. I would think if it does happen that women retain custody of the children, simply becuase they are the primary caregivers. 

[Angela Chong]

Near the end of Saori Katada's session I found it interesting how Japan deals with immigrants. Due to declining population I would think that at some point they will become more open to immigration. Katada mentioned that ELD programs like we have and supports for non English speaking school aged children doesn't exist like we have here in the United States. She mentioned that children of immigrants who are born in Japan have an easier time, but since Japanese is very difficult for people to learn it's difficult for children who come later. The discussion of trash and that Japanese people don't think foreigners can learn the system, and don't do very well when they try. While Japan has done very well since WWII, it seems that they are needing to make another change and shift which may very well mean being more open to immigration. This would mean several things need to adjust though. Not only the education system but attitudes of the Japanese people towards people coming and making Japan their home. 

[Angela Chong]

I was also surprised that they rely on imports for their oil supply and it made more sense that so many Japanese vehilces have hybrid models sooner than our domestic vehicles. It made me wonder what percentage of the vehicles in Japan use alternative fuel or hybrid type models? It also makes sense why so many rely on mass transit, because fuel costs must be very high in Japan. Along with the fact that there are so many people, I'm sure traffic would be a nightmare. 

[Angela Chong]

I enjoyed reading your post and related to several of the things you mentioned. I got in on the Pokemon Go craze 3 summers ago when I was teaching summer schoo. We had masses of people out at the park near us on their phones and my neighbor, her son, and I even drove around to various places where we live to participate in the game. We have a raman place near our house and both of the owners spent time in the ramen/broth industry and studied in Japan before opening their own resturants here in the LA area. Last night my family and a friend and her son all went to Daiso Japan, a retail store and we spent an hour going down all the aisles. Many unique items, some useful, and others for decoration, including the sushi magnet and lucky cat magnet now on my fridge. 

[Andrew Frank]

Angela, I love how insightfully you recapped all that was discussed in the "immigrant" portion of the lecture. I totally agree - stastically, the changes in population seem staggering (only "1.3 kids" born per couple? 40% of the population over 65-years-old by 2050?). I think it's significant to remember that, as Professor Katada mentioned, Japan is not a country of immigrants as America is...If even the United States has debates about the amount of immigrants & refugees let into the country, I cannot fathom how controversial the idea of immigration in Japan must be! What I am curious about is where the myth about foreigneors "not being good workers" began - was it all the way back when Americans (i.e. Commodore Perry) appeared on the Edo bay in 1853? It is also fascinating that so many Japanese have immigrated themselves to other countries in Latin America (1.5 million or so?), while those on the homeland still foster a sense of mistrust of foreign nations outside of Asia...

[Andrew Frank]

Marcos, I am pleased you brought up the "competition of infrastructure" between China and Japan, in terms of building up Southeast Asian & African countries! I think it's fascinating that Professor Katada mentioned that China itself was once a recipient of Japanese aid, but has now found success worldwide in offering cheap, quick development projects. I am curious about how much developing nations have been dismissive of the idea of China's aid since the Indonesian high-speed rail fiasco in 2016. Only 100 yards built in 3 years seems to be a bit of a disaster in terms of development, especially if China's aids are only pretty much "loans." Why would any developing risk entering a situation like Sri Lanka, where their country may be basically occupied by China because they are unable to pay back development loans? This all seems to illustrate how desperate developing countries must be to gain power in the global economy, especially to receive help from the second-largest world economy like China...

[Andrew Frank]

The segment of Professor Katada's presentation that was perhaps most fascinating to me was the section on how contemporary Japan is functioning economically as a power in the global economy. I had absolutely no idea how Trump's "hostility" toward China (and leaving the TPPwith Japan), has helped develop a closer relationship between two Asian rivals: China and Japan. I also had no idea that the agricultural economy in Japan was so powerful that it almost dissuaded the entire country from joining the TPP...I can understand how an economy that is competitive within itself (between cars & agric.) can be beneficial to growing wealth, but how do other industries react when hearing about governmental favoritism to the agriculture industry? Are other segments of the Japanese economy frustrated by govermental protections, like the 1700% tariff on Devil's Tongue or 780% tariff on rice? I truthfully am very ignorant about all the details of how the U.S. economy functions and am now very curious about the industries that U.S. government protects as well...

[Dennis O'Connell]

Two of our readings focused on Japan's economy.  I am reading through my notes, trying to synthesize the two articles, and relating it all to what we heard during the session.  What follows may not be as coherent as I want, but it will at least help me organize my thoughts a bit.  

The reading subtitled "Japan's Economic Policy in Historical Perspective" mentions that many economic problems that existed before the war persisted even after the war.  Urban land prices is one of the cited examples.  The high prices kept the middle class from owning land and made billionaires for the landowners who leased it out.  During the war, Japan focused on high industry rather than textiles.  After the war, Japanese thinkers continued their belief that science could solve most problems, even social and political ones.  After the war, coal as an industry failed miserably, while the reconstruction of the iron/steel industry was a success.  Both the article and our speaker mentioned the impact of W. Edwards Deming.  He preached quality controls so that products would be improved and be viewed favorable by foreign markets.  

The other economic article, "Japan's Economy, at War with Itself" makes mention of some of the problems facing the economy.  Firstly, individual consumption had been minimized throughout the war.  Savings were channeled to the government and favored industries.  Bureaucrats had financial and political power but no accountability.  Additionally, it was very difficult for workers to leave big companies.  The article bemoans the fact that the Japanese took a long time (in comparison to the Koreans) to recognize their troubles and do anything about them.

[Haena Shin]

The Japanese economy was tied very closely to its relationship with the US, and how American patronage has been crucial to Japanese economic development. While there was some protest against the partnership wit the US, there was a faith in capitalist reconstruction to solve not only economic problems but also political ones, the belief that science and technology held the answer to social inequities in Japan.

I wonder how Japan's power would have continued to progress if it did not have as much of a beneficial partnership with the US. Although we discussed unions during lecture, the article points out that "social welfare provisions were added to the policy after labor unions teased out a new economic justification for reincorporating social welfare and redistribution of wealth into discussions of the economy.... All parties understood that this was not simply a debate between management and labor but intimately concerned government policy toward "sunset" industries. Labor's main accomplishment in that clash was to reintroduce debate on the relationship between economic justice and economic growth.32 Recognizing that declining industries were part of the industrial life cycle eventually led to the development of a "soft landing" policy for workers in those areas." It sounds as though there was a continuous struggle for unions to have their needs met through these policies. 

[Matthew Hurwitz]

I was also struck by the amount of government involvement in the economy during and after World War II, and the degree to which the economy was successful because of it. Do you wait for the market to shift resources where they need to go, even if that takes years, letting people suffer in the meantime? Or do you have the government take control and direct resources where they are needed, which runs the risk of creating opportunities for corruption and inefficiencies? In many ways, it seems like Japan is an example of the best and worst of both approaches. As Japan faces increasing economic pressure from other countries and their increasing welfare costs, it'll be interesting to see which approach they take going forward over the next 50 years or so.

[Matthew Hurwitz]

I was interested in this too, and it made me think about the idea of economic growth vs. economic success that was discussed in class. It seems to me that although the economic growth over the last 60 years has left Japanese people with an incredibly high standard of living on paper, that many people can't necessarily enjoy it. The overworking of many workers, and the inability to work for others who want to was interesting to explore in an economy, which by most economic metrics, is one of the most successful in the world. It made me think about what economic/societal solutions could be introduced which would make people feel less economically frustrated while still achieving the economic and demographic goals of the country.

[Matthew Hurwitz]

I agree on finding the discusssion on the transition to some extent from economic power to cultural power to be an interesting one. Just as you did, after the lecture I went back through my mind to think about all the Japanese cultural influences on my life that I haven't really thought about. I didn't get into Pokemon Go!, but I distinctly remember being in elementary school when the original Pokemon gameboy game came out, and how obsessed everyone was with it, and how the fervor only died down when it was replaced by another anime game...Yu-Gi-Oh. These, along with the Tamagotchi (remember those?) form some key memories from growing up. It made me think about ways of tying together the current "fads" that students are into, analyzing what they say about our society right now, and comparing those to fads from history and what they tell us about the way that kids and adults saw certain events/movements/stories at the time as a way of connecting the past and the present in a way that elicits student buy in.

[Matthew Hurwitz]

One thing that I noticed during the lecture was the effectiveness of charts and data in presenting stories. Reading and listening to the story of Japanese economic growth and current economic challenges is one thing, but seeing it displayed as graphs over time was both easy to read and allowed us to see change over time. I realized that although I present students with a lot of data and facts, very little of it is presented in any kind of graph or chart form. The format of the lecture made me think about how I can alter or tweak my own presentation of data when I go over either economic information, or try to show students information about something over a long period of time.

As someone learning more about Japanese history, I was struck in particular by a lot of the data about the modern day Japanese family, and the ways in which gender expectations, family expectations, job expectations, and social expectations all combine to create an economy that has a lot of strengths, but also faces a lot of challenges moving forward. I was left somewhat curious as the which aspect of this system will change the most in the near future, and how changing one aspect will, or will not, change the other economic/social/familial aspects that go hand in hand with it.

[Sara Newman]

Last week I was reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with my 9th grade honors students, and because the document was written in 1948, we took some time to talk about how World War II and other preceding circumstances inspired the creation of the United Nations and this specific document. When we were talking about World War II, my students seemed to have a decent understanding of the European side, but mentioned nothing about the war in other parts of the world. I shared some of the thins I'd learned about the war from our class, and assigned each student to go home and learn more about the war and be ready to share out their finidngs the next day. Because that class contains many Latino students as well as some Korean and Thai students, I encouraged them to look up how South America, Korea, Japan, and other places also played a role in World War II. The next day, however, (despite my explicit urging), every one of my 28 students shared out about World War II in Europe. They mostly focused on Nazis (as Hollywood tends to do) perhaps because they're the easiest villian to hate, but I was disappointed not to see a greater variety of information found and shared. 

[Haena Shin]

I was aware that women were expected to fulfill more roles and expectations of child rearing and domestic duties but bothered to hear than even college educated women leave the work force after having children. Knowing that Japan has a conservative culture, I wonder what the dynamic between spouses are in the family. Similar to Korean culture, a lot of working dads don't have the closest relationship with their children because they don't have the opportunity to spend very much time at home. Similarly, I wonder how children may view both their mother and father separately in regard to the roles they have. 

Especially for women who do choose to pursue their careers in the workforce, I'm curious as to how they are treated and viewed in comparison to their male colleagues and whether they receive equal pay and support. I think its important for there to be balance between spouses and equal responsibility in child rearing and support. 

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