· Web viewGlobalization has two aspects that are good for us and not so good for us. In this...

Young Japanese People’s Attitude Towards Globalization

and the Best Way to Retain Our Culture

Graduation Thesis

Presented to

the Faculty of the Department of

English Language and Literature

Notre Dame Seishin University

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirement for the Degree

Bachelor of Arts

By

Emiko Sasai

2013

Contents

Abstract 1

Chapter One: Definitions of Globalization and Culture

1.1 Introduction 2

1.2 Globalization 2

1.2.1Globalized Companies in Japan

1.3 Culture 4

1.3.1. The Definition of Culture

1.3.2 The Iceberg Analogy

1.3.3 Losing Culture

1.3.4 Japanese people’s attitude to Culture

1.4 Research Questions 8

1.5 Summary 9

Chapter Two: The Experiments

2.1 Introduction 10

2.2 The Experiment 10

2.2.1 Introduction of the Experiment

2.2.2 Methods

2.3 Results of the experiment 11

2.3.1 Section One: about globalization

2.3.2 Summary of Section One

2.3.3 Section Two: what they think about Japan

2.3.4 Summary of Section Two

2.3.5 Section Three: how to retain our culture

2.3.6 Summary of Section Three

2.4 Summary 29

Chapter Three: The Discussion

3.1 Introduction 30

3.2 General Results 30

3.3 Discuss of the results 30

3.3.1 The Results of Section One

3.3.2 The Results of Section Two

3.3.3 The Results of Section Three

3.3.4 Summary

3.4 Implications 34

3.5 Limitations of the questionnaire 34

3.6 Further research 35

3.7 Conclusion 35

References 36

Appendices 38

Abstract

The main point of this thesis is people’s attitude and feelings about globalization and

their own culture. As globalization is getting popular, people’s attitudes and feelings towards

globalization and culture are changing. We examine both positive and negative aspects and

the possibility that would happens in the future. Through this thesis, we think about these

issues and the way to retain our culture.

In Chapter One, we will think about the definition of globalization and culture and

will look at some quotes about the tendency for Japanese companies to go global. Then we

examine the real definition of culture divided into levels. At the end of this chapter, we set

three research questions; 1) what do young Japanese think about globalization? 2) what do

they think about Japan? 3) what can we do to retain our culture?

In Chapter Two, we look the results of the questionnaire which was given to 31

students in Notre Dame Seishin University. We researched about three parts; their feelings

about globalization, about Japan, and about how to retain their culture. We analyze the data

and think about the tendency that the subjects have.

In Chapter Three, we discussed the results of the questionnaire in detail. We find out

that there an irony. They think globalization gives them opportunities to show their culture,

but they do not know well about Japan. We find out that globalization would lead losing

culture. Through thinking about language learning, we think the best way to retain our culture.

Chapter One: The definition of globalization and culture

1.1 Introduction

There are various nationalities and cultures in Japan nowadays. We use the Internet to get

information that happened everywhere in the world. We listen to foreign music and watch

foreign movies. We eat foreign foods and mix them into Japanese foods. We can feel our

world is all connected and we are not like in Japanese culture. The company Recruit Singaku

Souken found out that more than 70% of high school students in Japan think that they have

something to do with globalization.

However, at the same time, it means that we are losing our traditional culture. Kajitani

(unknown date) warns that to be 100% positive to accept globalization can lead people to

forget our own tradition and culture. This will be a serious problem not only in Japan but also

in the other countries as well. Globalization has two aspects that are good for us and not so

good for us. In this thesis, we are going to look for some merits and demerits about

globalization, how Japanese feel about Japan, and what we can do to retain our culture and

tradition.

1.2 Globalization1.2.1 The definition of globalization

There are several definitions of globalization.

Globalization is known as the flow of business, money, goods, people, and the other things

belonging to them.

“Globalization is not only the situation that each country becomes having deep

relationships and competitiveness through commerce, investment, finance, information,

and people exchange. There is a geological and industrial center at each era’s world

economy; and globalization is the process with a clear direction and stratified order that

spreads into other areas with compulsion of center country’s value and system.” Kamo

(2007)

Here Kamo says globalization have a great effect to other countries.

“Globalization is composed by the flows of people, goods, and money” Masamura

(2009)

It was used initially only in terms of business use. However, along with the business,

6

many things are going together to other countries. Now globalization can be expressed in

many meanings today. Kamo (2007) said globalization has a lot of meanings like politics,

military, environment, culture, law, science, fashion, and language.

1.2.1 Globalization as Japanese companies

These days, many companies are trying to go overseas. Yanagawa (2011) researched

and integrated the data of Japanese companies going overseas which is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 shows the data of Japanese companies going overseas. The black column shows

the big companies, the gray column shows the middle-sized and small companies, and the line

shows the rate of the middle-sized companies and the small companies. As we can see in the

graph, not only the big companies but also a lot of the middle-sized and small companies are

going overseas. One of the reasons why they are developing their business is to expand their

business and get more profits. Because their business is almost saturated in domestic, they

need new customers in foreign countries.

Figure 1: the changing of Japanese companies going overseas.

7

1.3 Culture Culture itself has a lot of meanings; we can define it as having two stages - deep and

surface culture. But first let’s look at some definitions.

1.3.1 The definition of culture

“The term culture has different associations according to whether we have in mind the

development of an individual, of a group or class, or of a whole society. The culture of

the individual is dependent upon the culture of a group or a class, and that the culture

of a group or a class is dependent upon the culture of the whole society to which that

group or class belongs. ” Elliot (1949)

Here Elliot says that there are 3 steps in defining culture and each of them are related.

“There is no meaning in speaking of the culture of an individual, or of a group or

class. We only mean that the culture of the individual cannot be isolated from that of

the group, and that the culture of the group cannot be abstracted from that of the

whole society; and that our notion of “perfection” must take all three senses of

“culture” into account at once.” Elliot (1949)

T.S. Elliot mentioned culture in three aspects in his book and all of them are related.

Culture itself cannot exist by a person but by the mass of people.

“Communication administers the generation and changing of culture. People make

information, communicate, expand it, popularize it, and then the information would be taken

root among mass, shared it, and inherited over generation as culture. Generally this process

is said learning in psychology and cultural anthropology, however, in terms of thinking of

culture, learning, sharing, and inheriting is the keyword. Communication is the expanded

concept of this learning process. ” Toyama, Nakamura, Sato (2009)

In their book, Endo, Nakamura, and Sato stated that communication itself can be the

creator of culture.

1.3.2 The Iceberg Analogy

The Iceberg Analogy shows the structure of human minds. There are mainly two parts

that are conscious part and unconscious part.

8

Ogawa (2009) says that “The surface-level culture, or popular culture, is the part of a

culture which is easily identifiable and distinguishes it from other cultures. Below this is

intermediate-level culture which consists of symbols, meanings, and norms. The next level is

deep-level culture which is made up of traditions, beliefs, and values. The deepest layer of the

iceberg contains universal human needs which are shared by all human beings.”

Figure 2: the Iceberg Analogy

Here are the examples; Sushi, kimono and manga can be the surface-level culture, cherry

blossoms can be the intermediate-level culture, our characteristics including politeness and

hospitality can be deep-level culture, and appetites can be the universal human needs.

It’s easy for us to identify where people are from by surface-level culture but it’s

quite difficult to know their deep-level culture such as religion or the way of thinking. This is

what the iceberg ideology means.

1.3.3 Losing culture

Not everything can be going well. Masamura (2009) said in his book that

“Globalization appears as world’s unequal development that certain society and culture can

cause other societies and cultures’ decline or collapse.”

This means that because globalization has a great effect, it can be a threatening to a peculiar

culture and can ruin them.

9

“The effect of globalization is composition and fragmentation.” Giddens: Miyanaga, (2000

)

Here we can have warning that our culture can be lost because of equalization.

Culture occupies a large part of one’s identity. If we lose culture because of globalization, it

means that we lose our partial identity.

“London looks like Paris which looks like Madrid; Restaurants serving this or

that country’s traditional food are drowned out by the huge fast food chains,

beautiful traditional clothing is lost between the new bulk-made looks created

by the big brands, people look alike, eat alike and dress alike whether they’re

in New York, New Delhi or Cairo.” Unknown (2007)

Here is an example that people feel their tradition is in danger and even the scenery

can be unified because of the effect of globalization.

1.3.4 Japanese people’s attitude to culture

“Japanese tend not to make a clear distinction between exotic and indigenous. It can

be said that there is compatibility under the Japanese culture.” Toyama, Nakamura, Sato

(2009)

These sentences suggest Japanese indecisive attitude towards culture. Sato says that the

Japanese tend to use compatibility communication (one that accepts both A and B). On the

other hand, in Western societies, especially in the U.S., both adults and children use

incompatible communication. Toyama (2009) mentions that Japanese compatibility have

relations to their weakness of identity. Also NHK did a survey in 2008.

Figure 3: The percentage of people who have confidence in Japan in general

10

1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2003 20080

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Legend: Blue= the Elderly (over 60 years old), Red= middle-aged people (30-59 years

old), Green= the Youth (16-29 years old)

This figure shows the change over time in the Japanese people’s confidence in Japan.

The blue line is the elderly (over 60 years old), the red line is the middle-aged (30-59 years

old), and the green line is the youth (16-29 years old). NHK found that the youth (16-29 years

old) have very low confidence in their native country. In each period, the elderly has the

highest ratings in this survey. This survey shows us the lowness identities Japanese young

generations have.　

1.4 Research QuestionsNowadays many Japanese companies are expanding their business to the world and

foreign companies are coming to Japan. We can touch foreign things easily. However,

Kobayashi (2011) says that the percentage of Japanese young generation who study abroad is

dwindling. Although people are interested in foreign countries, our eagerness to study abroad

is decreasing. So, in this thesis, we will focus on about people’s attitude towards globalization

and their attitude towards Japan.

There are three Research Questions for this thesis.

1) What do young Japanese think about globalization?

2) What do they think about their own culture?

3) What can we do to retain our own culture?

11

In Chapter Two, we will answer these three questions and in Chapter Three we will discuss

them.

1.5 SummaryWhen we think about our society, we come up with many foreign things for example,

foods, music, events, religions, and entertainments. One of the reasons why there are many

imported things is because of communication and technological developments. However,

even though communication technique has improved, if people are not flexible, there would

not succeed of globalization. Ohhashi (2007) says that the Internet greatly contributed to

globalization. In the next chapter, we will find out how Japanese feel about globalization, how

do Japanese know about Japan, how to retain our own culture.

12

Chapter Two: The Experiment

2.1 Introduction

Chapter One introduced the meaning of “globalization” and how it affects Japanese

society. Today we can feel that we are in a global world of goods, foods, custom, and so on.

Many people think being globalized is important for their business. Thus globalization could

be developed all over the world. Not only in business, but we can feel globalization in our

society. Our daily life is filled with all kinds of foreign cultures and words. In this chapter, we

will introduce a questionnaire to investigate how people feel about the world now, their

positive and negative motivations to it, and what try to find out what is the most effective

thing to retain our culture.

2.2 The Questionnaire

2.2.1 Introduction

In this section, we will examine how people feel about globalization, their positive

attitude and negative attitudes to globalization, and their opinion that how to retain our

tradition. From these, we can know what the young people think about bring in a global

society and whether it’s good or not to be. To discover these, we made a questionnaire to

ascertain their attitudes towards globalization. It has 29 questions in total; some they had to

mark, and other they had to write their experiences and opinions.

2.2.2 Methods

1) Subjects

The subjects were 31 students in Notre Dame Seishin University. 27 of them were in

the English department and the others were in the Human Living Science department. 27 have

13

some experiences of going abroad. 14 have been to foreign countries over one month and 6

have been out of Japan for over 10 weeks.

2) The design of the experiment

All the questions were original but related to people’s attitude towards globalization

and their own culture. Some questions were marked 1 to 5 and they had to write in some

sentences regarding globalization and their attitude. The experiment was divided into three

sections. The first section was about globalization and it had 10 questions, the second section

was about what they think of Japan and it had 8 questions, and the third section was about

how to retain Japanese tradition and it had 11 questions. There were also some spaces to write

about their feelings freely. The questionnaire can be found in the Appendices.

3) Procedure

To do the questionnaire, we made 26 marked questions and 3 free-writing questions.

We printed it out and handed out to these students. After they finished the questionnaire, we

collected them. To analyze some of these answers, we used pie graphs for the marked

answers. Also we calculated the percentages. For the others we made a list and a bar graph of

that because these were free-writing.

2.3 Results of the experiment

2.3.1 Section One: about globalization

We interviewed subjects about their attitudes towards globalization. There were some

questions related to their daily recognition. Also, there were some questions which were free-

writing.

14

Figure 1: The data for “ Loan words are increasing in Japanese society.”

52%35%

6%6%

strongly agreeagreeneutraldisagreestrongly disagree

27 of 31 people said yes. On the other hand, 6 people thought it’s not true that the

number of loanwords was increasing.

Figure 2:The data for “ I often buy imported goods.”

26%

32%

26%

6%10%


Half of them often buy some goods from all over the world. 16% of them don’t buy

them often.

15

Figure 3: The data for “I often listen to foreign music.”

42%

29%

16%

10%

3%


71% of them often listen to foreign music. On the other hand, 13% of them don’t

listen to foreign music.

Figure 4: The data for “I often watch foreign movies or TV programs.”

45%

26%

16%

6%6%


16

71% of them often watch foreign movies and/or TV programs. 13% of them don’t

watch them frequently.

Figure 5: The data for “I think Japan is a global society.”

10%

61%

16%

6%6%


71% of them think that Japan is a global society. 6% of them don’t think so at all.

Figure 6: The data for “I think culture becoming globalized is good and acceptable”

35%

55%

3%3%3%


11 people strongly agreed, 17 people agreed, one disagreed, and one strongly

17

disagreed. As we can see, over 90% of them think it’s good to be globalized.

Figure 7: The data for “I cannot accept Japanese culture to be globalized.”

16%

13%

52%

19%


No one strongly agreed with this question.16% of them agreed. 52% of them

disagreed and 19% of them strongly disagreed.

Figure 8: The data for “I think there are some bad influences to Japan to be globalized”.

6%

13%

61%

10%

10%


19% of them thought there are some bad influences. Over half of them couldn’t

18

decide. 20% of them thought there aren’t any bad influences from globalization.

Question 12: write down below some merits and demerits of globalization.

This question was free writing.

Figure 9:The data for “The merits of globalization”

1712

9 84

8

Merits of globalization

We can categorize their opinions into 6 themes; expansion of our view, cultures,

economy effects, international relationships, showing our culture, and expansion of our

choices. The most common opinion is about broadening our horizons. Next is about knowing

cultures. 9 people mentioned the effects of the economy. 8 people think we can have better

international relationships. At the same time, 8 people think it expands our daily choices.

Some people say we can show our culture and tradition to the world due to globalization.

19

Figure 10: The data for “The demerits of globalization”

24

5 4 4 1

Demerits of globalization

The most common opinion is about the lack of interests in Japanese culture. 24

people out of 31 regard this. Five people mention about economy gaps. Four people think

globalization brings unacceptable ideas and uniformity of our culture. One person think

crimes will increase because of globalization.

2.3.2 Summary of Section One

In Section One, we looked at the subjects’ feelings and attitudes towards

globalization. Most of the subjects thought that they were in a globalized society, and many of

them thought that was good for them. From these data, we could say that people had positive

attitudes to globalization. However, as we saw Figure 8, there were some people who had

negative attitude to globalization.

20

2.3.3 Section Two: What they think about Japan

In this section, we had questions about their attitude to their own country. There were

questions that asked them to answer whether they think they have general knowledge of

Japan. For example, subjects were asked whether they know well about Japanese imperial

system or not.

Figure 11: The data for “what you think Japanese culture is "

Tradit

ional

cuisin

e

Kimon

o

Polite

ness

Sado,

Kado, S

hodo, B

udo

Archit

ecture

Tradit

ional

events

Noh(能楽

)

Hospita

lity

Sumo w

restle

r

Japane

se clo

gs

Japane

se an

imati

on an

d com

ics

Langu

age

26 2420 18

9 86 5 3 3 2 2

What is Japanese culture?

This question was also free-writing style. Many people mentioned about Miso soup

or sushi so we categorized these into cuisine. Also, many people wrote Kimono, Yukata,

Furisode so we categorized them into Kimono. Most of the students mentioned about cuisine

and Kimono. Politeness was widely known as one characteristic of Japanese people. Also,

Sado(茶道), Kado(華道), Shodo(書道), Budo(武道) was regarded as Japanese culture. 9

people mentioned traditional architecture, 8 people mentioned traditional events like New

Year’s Day or the Bon festival. 6 people say Noh(能楽) was one Japanese tradition.

Hospitality was also mentioned by 5 people because of our characteristics. Others were Sumo

21

wrestling, Japanese clogs, animation and comics, and language.

Figure 12: The data for “I know well about Japanese politics.”

3%

19%

42%

35%


Only 3% of them (1 person) agree with this question. 78% of them think they don’t

know well about it. 36% of them strongly disagreed and it means they just know the small

part of it.

Figure 13: The data for “I know well about the Japanese Imperial system.”

3%

6%

52%

39% strongly agreeagreeneutraldisagreestrognly disagree

No one thinks they know well about it. Only 3% of them answered “Yes”. Over 90%

of them think they don’t know well about it.

22

Figure 14: The data for “I can play Japanese music instruments.”

6%3%

6%

23%61%


The question is whether they can play Japanese music instruments or not. 10% of

them say ‘Yes’. On the other hand, there are 26 people (more than 80 percent) who can’t play

them.

Figure 15: The data for “I can play some Japanese sports.”

3%

6%

10%

81%


9% of them including agree and strongly agree can play Japanese sports. 91 %

23

including disagree and strongly disagree (28 people) can’t play any Japanese sports.

Figure 16: The data for “I know many recipes of Japanese cuisine. / I can cook them.”

3%

26%

26%

32%

13%


About 30% of them know many of them and cook them. 45% of them don’t think

they know many recipes or they can cook them.

Figure 17: The data for “I know well about Japanese tradition and history.”

3%

10%

23%

58%

6%


Only 1 person strongly agreed with this. 3 people agree. 18 people think they don’t

24

know well about Japanese tradition and history. 6 people strongly disagree with this sentence.

Figure 18: The data for “I can explain well about Japanese culture to foreigners.”

13%

26%

39%

23%


No one strongly agrees with this. 13% agree with it. On the other hand, more than

60% of the students think they can’t explain our culture to foreigners well.

2.3.4 Summary of Section Two

For most questions we had about Japan, many subjects answered negatively. In

Figure 17, over 60% of them answered that they don’t know well about their own country.

Figure 11 showed their “typical Japan”, which the subjects assumed that foreigners would

think when they think about Japan. The top two were cuisine and clothes. Both of them were

famous representatives around the world. We could say that people had low interest in their

own country and they just thought about the surface of Japan when they did.

2.3.5 Section Three: how to retain our culture

In this section, we tried to find the solution the loss of culture. Therefore, we asked

25

them what level of iceberg analogy was appropriate for them to practice.

Figure 19: The data for “I believe that having my wedding at a shrine is better than at a

western wedding hall.”

3%3%

39%

29%

26%


2 students answered ‘Yes’. However, 55% of them thought they believe having it at a

western wedding hall.

Figure 20: The data for “I would learn Sado(茶道), Kado(華道), Budo(武道), Shodo(書道) to

retain our culture and tradition.”

32%

26%10%

19%

13%


32% of them strongly agreed, and 26% of them agreed with this. 32% of them didn’t

26

think they would learn them.

Figure 21: The data for “I would learn how to cook traditional cuisine.”

35%

39%

13%

13%


36% of them strongly agreed, 39% of them agreed, but 13% of them disagreed with

this.

Figure 22: The data for “I would see traditional Noh(能) or Kabuki(歌舞伎).”

10%

26%

32%

32%


36% answered they would learn it. On the other hand, 64% of them said they would

not learn it.

27

Figure 23: The data for “I would buy Japanese goods rather than imported goods.”

21%

29%21%

29%

strognly agreeagreeneutraldisagreestrongly disagree

21% of them agreed with this. However, 21% of them disagreed and 29% of them

strongly disagreed with this.

Figure 24: The data for “I would choose Japanese history rather than world history to study in

school.”

13%

32%

13%

23%

19%

strongly agreeagreeneutraldisagree

13% of the students strongly agreed with choosing Japanese history rather than world

history to learn. 32% agreed with that. On the other hand, 23% disagreed with choosing

28

Japanese culture, and 19% strongly disagreed with that.

Figure 25: The data for “I would prefer to eat Japanese foods for all meals to eating foreign

foods.”

16%

10%

10%

42%

23%


26% of them said ‘Yes’ to this. 10% of them couldn’t decide. 42% disagreed with this

and 22% strongly disagreed with this.

Figure 26: The data for “I would go to museum to learn the culture and history.”

16%

32%

10%

32%

10%


About half of the students thought that would go to the museum to learn our culture

29

and history. 32% of them disagreed with this. 10% strongly disagreed with this which means

they would not go to the museum.

Figure 27: The data for “I would make Tanka (短歌) poetry. / I would understand them by

myself.”

3%

6%

10%

26%55% strongly agree

agreeneutraldisagreestrongly disagree

Only few people (9%) of the students thought that they would make ‘tanka’ (短歌)

poetry or understand them by themselves. Over 80% of the students thought they would not

do them to retain or culture.

Figure 28: The data for “I would study classical literature by myself.”

30

6%3%

26%

65%strongly agreeagreeneutraldisagreestrongly disagree

Only 6% of the students thought that they would study it by themselves to retain our

culture. Including strongly disagree, 91% of them disagreed with this.

Figure 29: The data for “What else can we do to retain our culture?”

56

2 2

What else we can do to retain our culture.

As the last question, we asked them if they had some other ideas to retain our culture.

It was a free writing question. Some students mentioned about wearing yukata and kimono at

a special occasion such as summer festival, coming of age ceremony, and New Year’s Day. As

31

other opinions, they mentioned about learning our tradition and culture from elderly people

and telling it to our next generations. Also, some people said using Japanese correctly is one

of the clues to retain our culture. 2 people thought accepting foreigners to their house can help

retain it.

2.5.2 Summary of Section Three

We looked at some ways to retain our culture. Although people have a sense of

danger, the things that they would do were very few and most of them were something related

to our daily life. From this data, we could say that many subjects did not want to do

something special, to add to their ordinary life.

2.6 Summary

In this chapter, we examined the students’ opinion. Most of them think that Japan is

in a global society and they feel it’s natural for them to use imports in their daily life. From

these data above, we can see that many people are open-minded to globalization. However,

they also have a sense of danger to it. That is because they think our culture and the way of

thinking would be lost. At the same time, they think they don’t know well about Japan and

they don’t have confidence to explain Japan. They would like to do something in their future

and their daily life, however, they answered that they would not do something unrelated to

their life such as making poetry or understanding classical literature. In the next chapter, we

will discuss these data more.

32

Chapter Three :The Discussion

3.1 Introduction

As we saw in Chapter One, people feel they have something to do with globalization.

Truly, our daily life cannot be retained without imports; 85% of wheat consumed in Japan in

2008 was imported from other countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia. From this

data, we can easily imagine that our life nowadays is strongly related to foreign countries. On

the other hand, as we saw in Chapter Two, some people think that we can lose our traditions.

In this chapter, we will discuss the results of the questionnaire more deeply, and make some

implications for people who have a sense of danger for globalization. Then we will see

limitation of the questionnaire, and think about further questions.

3.2 General Results

33

In Chapter Two, we looked through the questionnaire that had three themes; what do

people feel about globalization, what do they feel about their own country, and what can they

do to retain their own tradition and culture. For the questions for globalization, we had many

positive attitudes. However, when it came to their own country, their attitude was changed

dramatically. They felt that they did not know well about their own country.

3.3 Discussion of Results

3.3.1 The Results of Section One

1) Section One: What do young Japanese think about globalization?

About 70% of the subjects think that they are in a global society, and they answered

that they have something to do with it in their daily lives. For example, over half of the

subjects often buy goods that are from overseas, and about 70% of them often listen to foreign

music and watch foreign TV programs. This means our life is somehow connected to foreign

countries. Over 90% of the subjects think it’s good to be globalized. As the reasons, they

mentioned about the expansion of their view and the national effects. Many of them think

they would be able to expand their view and gain new ways of thinking. Some people

mentioned included the better international relationships and the promoting our tradition to

foreign countries. They say that there must be some good effects internationally. Truly we

could have expanded our business due to globalization and now we can choose from so many

choices even when we buy beverages. However, on the other hand, some subjects think there

would be some negative effects on our life because of globalization. As the first reason that

they think, they mentioned the lack of interests to their own culture and traditions. They also

warn that our culture would be unified by globalization. Nomura (unknown) thinks

globalization would confuse the concept of culture. Culture is one of the most parts that build

our identity.

34

3.3.2 The Results of Section Two

2) Section Two: What do they think about their own culture?

In Section Two, we asked what they think of Japan. The first question of this section

was “what is Japan for you?” and so many of them answered something that we can see such

as cuisine, Kimono, architecture, and animation. As we saw in Chapter One, something what

we can easily recognize is just the surface of the culture. On the other hand, some of the

subjects mentioned the deep culture such as hospitality, politeness, and traditional sports. So

some people can think the deep aspects of culture. However, many subjects had negative

answers in this section. None of them think they know well about Japanese politics and the

Imperial system in Japan. Very few people can play Japanese traditional music instruments

such as koto, shamisen, and tatebue. About quarter of them think they can cook Japanese

cuisine. It is because they need in their daily life, yet the things which are regarded as not

important are treated roughly. Over half of the subjects do not think that they know well about

Japanese history, and more than 60% of them think they cannot explain well about Japan to

foreigners. We can say that the lack of interests to Japan is happening right now. In addition, if

we cannot explain about us well, it means that we ruin the chances to show our culture to

foreigners. This is just wasting an opportunity.

3.3.3 The Results of Section Three

3) Section Three: What can we retain our own culture?

In the last section about how to retain our culture, we had some questions that were

Yes/No question. The reason why we had that type of question, not free-writing, was because

we could easily estimate almost the same answers as subjects would do before doing the

35

questionnaire. Some questions related to the iceberg analogy; some of the questions are

Surface-Level Culture and others are Deep-Level or Intermediate-Level Culture. In addition,

we would classify these questions to have something to do with our daily life or not, and we

can do easily or not. For the question that asked subjects whether they would learn how to

cook traditional cuisine, about three quarter of the subjects answered “Yes”. This is because

cooking is strongly related to their life and cooking not only Japanese cuisine but also other

cuisine is seemed useful. Likewise, many subjects agreed with the question whether they

would go to museum to know the history and culture. This is one of the easiest ways to try in

this section in the questionnaire. What they need to do is just go to museum and watch

exhibits. We can do it quickly if we want and these exhibits can give us some knowledge. On

the other hand, some questions that are according to Deep-Level Culture had negative

answers. 55% of the students answered “No” to the question whether they believe that having

my wedding at a shrine is better than at a western wedding hall. Nowadays, a Japanese

wedding company Zexy(ゼクシィ) found out that the 12.4% of Japanese couples had

wedding at shrine in 2007. Moreover, 64% of the subjects disagreed with the question

whether they would see Noh (能) or Kabuki(歌舞伎) which are originally made in Japan as

traditional classical theatre.

From these data above, we can think that Japanese tradition is not seen to be

important. This is an irony that they feel the opportunities to show our culture is increasing

due to globalization but they don’t really experience their own traditions. For the last part of

this section, we had free-writing question that is asked what else they can do to retain their

culture. Some of them answered that they would Kimonos to special occasions such as

summer festivals and coming-of-age ceremony. This is the Surface-Level Culture.

3.3.4 Summary

36

As we looked through the result of the questionnaire, we can see that being in a

global society makes people both good and bad effects. Some subjects come up with the lack

of interests in their own culture as demerits, and it is actually happening to them. They

answered that they don’t know well about their culture and traditions, and they cannot explain

well about these things if they are asked by foreigners. We can think that they don’t know

well about these because they don’t have as much interest as they have in foreign culture and

traditions. This is a real threatening that globalization causes. As we saw in Chapter One,

young Japanese tend to be positive to newcomer. However, they do not so much care about

their own culture. They had better to take this result seriously, or they might lose it.

3.4 Implications

As Kamo (2008) says, globalization is connected to language. More interests and

needs to globalization people have, more efforts people would do to learn English. However,

we have to be mind that although we are in a globalized society, each country has each culture

and traditions. The young generation in Japan tends to think foreign culture is cooler than we

have in Japan. This can be one of the reasons why young people in Japan had low general

confidence to Japan. This situation can be the factor for losing culture. Now we should be

serious with this problem. We should remind that we have our own identity. Thanks for the

internationalized society, we have many chances to learn languages. It is one of the tools that

we can show our identity.

The most important thing not to lose our culture is to treat all cultures importantly.

We have to respect each culture; there are not any cultures and identities which can be looked

37

down. From learning languages, we can learn a lot of things including their culture and

custom. We have to mind that we learn not only language, but also their culture.

3.5 Limitations of the Experiments

This experiment examined just the young generation (20-22 years old university

students) and all of them were women. Moreover, 27 out of 31 subjects belong to the English

department. About half of them had been abroad so many of them have good images to

foreign countries. We could have much more various answers if there were more people with

wider generation.

As the limitation for the questionnaire, because they had the choice of neutral, many

subjects tended to choose “neutral”. For the question 8 in the questionnaire, over 60% of them

answered neutral. We cannot know what they feel with the answer of neutral. We should not

have the choice of neutral for the feeling questions.

3.6 Further research

In this research, we focused on people’s current feeling to globalization. Our feelings

are changeable by virtue of the era and the things that we regard as items of globalization. We

would search about the reason why people disagreed with globalization at that time and what

made people change their mind.

In addition, when we look at the past and present, we can anticipate the future. We

would have asked to subjects whether they want to work domestically or internationally and

questions that are related to their future.

3.7 Conclusion

We see foreign languages in town, eat foreign foods, listen to foreign music, watch

38

foreign broadcast, and get foreign information. Our life cannot be much without relationships

with foreign countries. Globalization has made a very convenient society. However, people

should know that there are not only positive aspects but also negative aspects. Many young

people have less confidence in Japan than elderly people and this fact appears in the survey.

Many people tend to treat globalization better and make light of their inherit culture. Thus

they would lose interests to their culture. We have to realize the real situation that we would

lose our culture because of globalization and our ignorance. As same as we treat foreign

cultures importantly, we have to treat our culture importantly.

Studying language is very important for our future wealth, but that’s not all. As we

mentioned before, language is one of the tools that can tell ourselves. Respecting each culture

and telling it to foreigners using other languages is the real globalization.

39

References

Elliot T (1949) Notes towards the Definition of Culture Harcourt.

Kamo N (2010) 現代社会の家族と社会保障　京都：世界思想社

Masamura T (2009) Globalization 東京：有斐閣

Miyanaga K (2000)Globalization and Identity 京都：世界思想社

Ogawa E A Model for Multicultural Identities Within an Individual. Retrieved October 16,

2012 from http://www.toyo.ac.jp/fba/keieironshu/pdf74/02_ogawa.pdf

Toyama J, Nakamura I, Sato H (2009) Japanese Culture Study 東京：有斐閣

All About 2007 年の結婚トレンド勝手にランキング　Retrieved October 31, 2012 from

http://allabout.co.jp/gm/gc/225535/2/

NHK　河野　啓　高橋　幸市　原　美和子　日本人の意識変化の 35 年の軌跡 ~ 第 8

回「日本人の意識・ 2008 」調査から ~ Retrieved October 21, 2012 from

http://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/research/report/2009_05/090501.pdf

SUBS/ZERO BLUE゜, Globalization vs. Culture: The Loss of Identity. Retrieved October

26, 2012 from

http://www.subzeroblue.com/archives/2007/01/globalization_vs_cul.html

大橋　郁夫　インターネットの発展と岐路に立つグローバルな情報社会 Retrieved

October 31, 2012 from

http://www.nri.co.jp/opinion/chitekishisan/2007/pdf/cs20070907.pdf

梶谷　真司　文化的アイデンティティとグローバリゼーション‐社会減少額的考察

Retrieved October 30, 2012 from

https://appsv.main.teikyo-u.ac.jp/tosho/skajitani17.pdf

小林　明　日本人学生の海外留学阻害要因と今後の対策 Retrieved October 25, 2012

from www.jasso.go.jp/about/documents/akirakobayashi.pdf

40

柳川　太一日本企業のグローバル化再考 1 ）グローバル化への４つのハードル

Retrieved October 13, 2012 from

http://www.mof.go.jp/pri/research/special_report/f01_2011_05.pdf

リクルート進学総研　進路選択とグローバル化　「高校生意識調査　 2012 よ

り」Retrieved October 31, 2012 from

http://souken.shingakunet.com/research/2012_kati.pdf

Appendices

41

Appendix 1

This questionnaire will ask you about how globalization affects our traditional culture; the

merit and demerit.

1. If you’ve been overseas, write down which country you’ve been to, for how long, and

your purpose.

Where? How long? What purpose?

Mark the number that you think you are.

1: totally disagree 2: disagree 3: neutral 4: agree 5: totally agree

2 Loan words are increasing in Japanese

society.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

3 I often buy imported goods. |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

4 I often listen to foreign music. |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

42

5 I often watch foreign TV programs and

movies.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

6 I think Japan is global society. |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

7 I think culture becoming globalized is good

and acceptable.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

8 I can’t accept Japanese culture to be

globalized.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

9 I think there are some bad influences to

Japan to be globalized.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

10 Write down some merits and demerits of globalization.

Merits Demerits

11 Write down as much as possible what you think Japanese culture is.

43

Mark the number that you agree with.


12 I know well about Japanese politic

system.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

13 I know well about Japanese Imperial

system.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

14 I can play some Japanese music

instruments.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

15 I can play Japanese sports such as Judo,

Kendo, or Karate.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

16 I can cook traditional Japanese cuisines. |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

17 I know well about Japanese culture and

history.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

18 I can tell our culture if I am asked by

foreigners.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

Mark the number that you agree with.


19 I believe that having my wedding at a

shrine is better than at a western wedding

hall.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

20 I would learn Sado(茶道), Kado(華道),

Budo(武道), Shodo(書道) to retain our

culture and tradition.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

21 I would learn how to cook traditional |------------|------------|------------|------------|

44

cuisine. 1 2 3 4 5

22 I would see traditional Noh(能) or

Kabuki(歌舞伎).

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

23 I would buy Japanese goods rather than

imported goods.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

24 I would choose Japanese history rather

than world history to study in school.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

25 I would prefer to eat Japanese foods for all

meals to eating foreign foods.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

26 I would go to museum to learn the culture

and history.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

27 I would make Tanka (短歌) poetry. / I

would understand them by myself.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

28 I would study classical literature by

myself.

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

29 If you have any other things coming up with to retain our culture, write them down below.

Thank you very much.

Emiko Sasai

Appendix 2

卒業論文に関するアンケート

英語英文科 4 年　笹井恵美子

私は卒業論文でグローバル化と日本人の意識の変化について調べています。以下の質問（3 枚）にご

協力ください。なお、アンケートの結果は卒業論文のデータ処理時のみに使用させていただきます。

45

学籍番号＿＿＿＿＿＿氏名＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿　　

1 外国へ行ったことのある方は、行った国、滞在期間、行った目的を書いてください。（複数

国の場合、その国ごとに書いてください。）

国滞在期間行った目的（観光、語学

留学など）

以降の質問に 5 段階で答えてください。

1: 同意しない　2：あまり同意しない　3：どちらとも言えない　4：少し同意する　5：とても

同意する

2 外来語が増えてきていると感じる |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

3 外国からの製品をよく買う |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

4 外国の音楽をよく聞く |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

5 外国の映画やテレビドラマをよく見る |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

6 日本はグローバル化社会だと思う |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

7 グローバル化していくのはいいことだと |------------|------------|------------|------------|

46

思う 1 2 3 4 5

8 グローバル化社会に対して抵抗がある |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

9 グローバル化することで日本の文化に悪

い影響がある

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

10 あなたが思う、グローバル化の利点、欠点を思いつくだけ教えてください。

利点　　欠点

11 あなたが思う日本文化とは何か、できるだけたくさん書いてください。（例：食べ物、衣服、

習慣など）

以降の質問に 5 段階で答えてください。

1: 同意しない　2：あまり同意しない　3：どちらとも言えない　4：少し同意する　5：とても

同意する

47

12 日本の政治についてよく知っている |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

13 日本の皇室制度についてよく知っている |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

14 日本の伝統芸能や楽器を演奏できる |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

15柔道、剣道、空手などの日本のスポーツ

ができる

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

16 日本食の作り方をたくさん知っている、

作ることができる

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

17 日本文化や歴史についてよく知っている |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

18 外国人に聞かれたときに日本について

ちゃんと説明できる

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

日本の文化を守るために自分がしたいこと

19自分の結婚式は西洋式（チャペル）より

も神前式でする

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

20剣道、書道、華道、茶道などを習って習

得する

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

21 日本の伝統料理を習う、習得する |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

22 日本の伝統芸能（芸、歌舞伎）を鑑賞す

る

|------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

23西洋の輸入品よりも日本の伝統工芸を買 |------------|------------|------------|------------|

48

う 1 2 3 4 5

24 世界史よりも日本の歴史をより勉強する |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

25三食とも日本食を食べる |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

26 美術館に行って鑑賞する |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

27 和歌を詠む、自分なりに解釈する |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

28古典を自分で読む |------------|------------|------------|------------|

1 2 3 4 5

29 それ以外に日本の文化を守るために、したいと思うことがあったら書いてください。

質問は以上です。

ご協力ありがとうございました。

笹井恵美子　　　　

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