Notes on HIS400 Reading Assignemnt

Notes on HIS400 Reading Assignemnt

Presenter: Matthew Smith

Presented on: October 9, 2008

Citation: Tamotsu Aoki "Aspects of Globalization in Contemporary Japan" in Peter L. Berger and Samuel P. Huntington, Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 48-67.

Main question of authors: What do the intellectuals of Japan, overseas expansion of Japanese business, and the transformation of lifestyles show about the particular form globalization has taken in Japan?

Authors' Methods: The article is composed by a team of Asian researchers looking at aspects such as overseas business, intellectual influence, the shifts in society (middle class established), and the corporate structure in Japan.

Conclusion: Japan is clearly a major player in the Asian Market as well as the world market. It's culture has adapted to the westernized "fast-foodization" lifestyle and has accepted businesses such as KFC and McDonald's while also integrating other cultures into the fast food world such as ramen noodles of china, and sushi of their own culture. While they have accepted many of the western ideas they have developed their own successful style such as starting businesses aimed at the upper middle classes, which developed at a quicker rate, and their process of employment for life, and advancement based on seniority, and even these are starting to be influenced by westernized ideas of business.

[Relevance to] Globalization: Globalization is not a process in which some existing standard spreads and covers the whole. Globalization is not a one way approach resulting in homogenization but is rather a fusion of different cultures that give rise to diversity and multipolarity.

Questions to Consider:
* Does the author display a strong bias in terms of his report on Japanese culture and development?
* Based on the reading and events in society today would you agree that globalizations greatest influence is in economics?
* On page 86 it says many of the advocates of globalization on the American economic model were once business school students in the United States. Based on this reading and the reading on Chile would you say that education is playing one of the larger roles in globalization?

Additional questions to consider (from Jim Jones):
* What does the "fast-foodization" of Japanese daily life mean?
* What elements of Japanese culture made them predisposed to accept globalization?

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