Japan’s cultural soft power in a changing world with Miyabi Yamamoto

Welcome to Insight Connect, an initiative where we welcome a range of experts internationally and locally to come and share their views, experience, and insights on cultural intelligence and why it matters. Today, I'm delighted to be welcoming Miyabi Yamamoto. She is a Japanese and American strategist and consultant who works for mission-driven organisations, and she is also a keynote speaker.

Together, we'll be exploring how Japan has demonstrated its resilience throughout the last few years, having gone through really big shifts that no other country has experienced yet, from demographic to economic, social, and cultural.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5FEysHRYL0

TRANSCRIPT

MC: Welcome, Miyabi. It's a pleasure to have you with us here today. 

MY: Thank you, Melanie. Great to be here. 

MC: Amazing. So perhaps to get us started, would you like to tell us a bit more about yourself and your background and how and when you landed in the cultural intelligence space? 

MY: Sure. So, I'm from Japan. I grew up in a binational family, with a Japanese father and American mother. I was primarily educated in Japan until I was 17 and then shifted to an English-based education for the last years of high school and then all the way up to my doctorate.

However, my mother is actually an academic, and a translator of Japanese literature and culture, so I grew up with my parents discussing the issues of linguistic and cultural translation at the dinner table almost every night. And so that was something that was in my figurative blood from a very early age.

I spent a total of about fourteen years in academia between graduate school and being a faculty member, and after that, I transitioned into the translation space, which very naturally brought me into the cultural intelligence space as well. My training in academia of research analysis and instruction translated very well into the cultural intelligence space.

And so that's how I am here today. 

MC: Brilliant. I wish I could have dinner with you and your parents sometime. I'm sure it would make a really interesting conversation. So I mentioned early on, Japan is one of the first countries to have experienced the consequences of an ageing and declining population.

Could you tell us more perhaps, of the impact this is having both on society and the economy? 

MY: Yeah. So, a big part of this is definitely having an effect on its economy, broadly speaking, like the economy supported by the business, but also the government, the fiscal aspect of the government. And one of the big issues is Social Security, because the Social Security system in Japan is designed so that the current working force and its tax base is what supports the current retired population.

And so there's a presumption that those numbers will be balancing out if the working force is not larger even than the retired population. But with a birth rate of down to 1.15, that's not quite working out. So if you're just looking at the Japanese population, which is the one that is included in this birth rate, and the birth rate has been consistently declining from about 2 per woman to 1.15 since the 1970s.

So it's been going on for a long time. The workforce population is just not large enough to support the retired population. So, Social Security benefits and generally for the larger population, because Social Security is not just obviously for the retired population, but for everyone from supporting childcare and things like that.

So one of the ways that that translates is that Japan's GDP hasn't been really growing so much at all. In fact, it declined. It dipped for a little bit looking at from the 1990s. And one of the ways that shows up is that the taxes that people are paying for Social Security have increased 1.4 times, while people's salaries has effectively stayed flat for the past 25 years.

 So, people are really feeling the squeeze. And that's where there's a lot of issues around the economy. And so this is really leading to needing more people to increase the tax base, to increase people who are paying into tax systems.

And so, that's one of the huge ways in which the aging declining population, the declining Japanese population is having an effect on the economy. 

MC: It's really interesting because to your point, it's been over 50 years, which is a few generations in the making, and I'm sure other countries are closely watching what is happening in Japan because this is coming for them as well. It'll be really interesting to see what this looks like in the next decade. So what do you think that looks like for brand in the world of brand and marketing?

How has that shown and how has marketing developed around the aging population? 

MY: Yeah, so the branding marketing shift has been going on for a while, and I think it's very interesting because branding and marketing - I tend to think of marketing as a very youthful sort of field - and I think that that has to do with the industry itself, but also the images that it projects.

It does tend to get driven by the larger population, which I think in a lot of countries is more the younger population. Because in Japan, the driving force behind marketing is the older generation. So a lot of the images and the models that they use, they definitely have shifted to people who look older.

 And there's an obvious effort to try to make the older population feel included in this marketing. So that's one thing is the shift in the models and, an obvious reflection of the population that's really being marketed to. And also there's an increase, I think in (and this might be both the target population and also the general economy) the sense of stuckness that Japan has been feeling for a couple of decades now. There's also more of an emphasis on the sense of safety and security called Anshin (安心). And so there's not, I remember like in the '80s and the '90s, there were a lot of ads that really drove towards trying to more adventurous in terms of seeking the unknown.

And there were ads that really were quite experimental in terms of that, and they were sometimes kind of strange reflecting a sense of we wanna go adventure outside of what is comfortable for us. And that has definitely decreased in the last couple of decades.

And I think that's both trying to cater to the older population that really have enough health issues often, and so there are a lot of uncertainties already in their own bodies and also they need more security in general. So I think it's both that and also reflective of the general stuckness that people are feeling of all ages in the Japanese economy.

MC: It's really interesting, and I guess it'll be interesting to see whether other countries with ageing populations follow this pattern, because currently when you look at different trends, everything is very much centred around Gen Z and how there are huge differences obviously between younger and older generations, but still always with a focus more on the younger generations.

So it'll be really interesting to see whether this follows the pattern as it has just happened in Japan, where you're combining both effectively. We'll talk about this a bit more in a minute when we talk about corporate culture, because I think that divide between the two different age groups is quite noticeable there.

But first, and that I guess relates to younger segments more specifically: as the region has developed, Japan has been facing quite fierce competition on some segments where it was historically a leader. I'm thinking of mass culture, entertainment.

It's seen South Korea emerge with taking a significant share of the market with everything that is related to its K cultural exports, from K-pop to K-beauty, K-drama. Can you tell us a bit more about this and the shifts in the region? 

MY: Yeah. So definitely the relationship between Korea and Japan can be complicated, and complicated for historical reasons in that Japan had colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945, which led to the Korean War and the split between North and South Korea.

And so there are a lot of feelings around that in Korea, as you might imagine. And so, both South and North Korea have on a policy level tried to expunge the colonial legacy of Japan, and that led in South Korea's case to really restricting Japanese popular culture from coming in for a long time, for decades.

But then that loosened up and no matter what you try to do, there's a limit to what people gain access to anyway. And they were restricted, but still, the human flow between Japan and South Korea for decades, and people carried culture and cultural artifacts with themselves.

So there was an exchange going on. But then, the diplomatic relations have been normalizing and I would say even becoming friendlier from the '90s onwards. And I think that's the cultural exchanges that have gone on in the form of J-pop and K-pop, manhwa, manga, all those things have contributed to a more friendly relation between the two.

Like K-drama really had a huge influence on Japanese culture and there's a lot of, how should I say this, there's a certain population that's into it that gets disparaged, but nevertheless, still had a very real effect on the Japanese popular culture and its market, and that has positively influenced the Japanese and Korean relationship.

I think like broadly looking from outside of Asia, it looks like competition. I'm not sure that it's really seen that way on a local level. Because in Japan, popular Japanese culture is just the assumption and that's always there. So it looks like there's another foreign form, so there's like more internationalization.

You don't just have Western pop and Western music, but you have K-pop and you have other forms of different kind of Asian things coming in. So I think it's an added variety. And also the fact that because Koreans look like Japanese people to a certain extent, like more so than a lot of Western cultural artifacts, I think that drives a sense of: they're people like us who are doing things differently.

And so I think that also adds to a diversity of mass culture. And, I don't think it feels a lot like competition within Japan, and it's the people who are out, the business people who are out in the international sphere who might feel a bit of a competition there, but also more collaboration than competition.

I see a lot of collaboration between Japanese and Korean companies on an international scale, and I like that. 

MC: That's brilliant. It's really positive and I like the idea of being able to collaborate when you compete, effectively. And to your point, in a relationship where historically there was real competition, it actually has brought them together. The positive power of culture. It's great. Going back to your own experience, so you were mentioning you grew up in a bicultural, environment and you have a bicultural identity, your heritage is anchored into two cultures that have fairly different values, norms, and etiquette. How has this influenced the way you work and manage teams, is my first question?

And the second one is a little broader in terms of understanding what shifts in management and business etiquette you're seeing happening in both countries, now? 

MY: Yeah. So the way I was taught to be bilingual was by strictly segmenting my different languages so that I don't slip into using the word that was easier to find in my brain space.

And so what this did was that it trained me to be in one phase, one language and culture entirely, including my behavior, and that is good in that it creates more of a normative experience in either of the cultures. But at the same time, it creates a bit of a split behavior, split personality, especially with two languages and cultures that are so different.

And so integrating that has been part of my adult journey of how do I integrate my different parts. But one way in which that has shown up for me is that I am so aware of how different assumptions get made, right? So, in different cultures, in different languages, things are just coded differently, and there are different implications for everything.

And oftentimes people don't realize just how different the assumptions can be. When people talk about universal language and certain things as universal, I really feel like they often miss how different cultures really can be. And, universality is something that's achieved through agreement. It's actually not natural at all. That's been my lived experience. One of the things that I've worked hard at is making everything explicit and making sure low context communication in terms of just being super specific about what is it that I'm thinking, where the assumptions are, and not expecting people to read beyond the words that I am saying.

I'm very loyal to language, right? I'm very loyal to explicitly stated language, and so that can be difficult for people who primarily work in a monolingual, monocultural context, and they feel like certain things don't have to be said or shouldn't be said because it's vulgar.

But as the more people come from diverse societies and internationalized societies, whether it's diverse locally, like on a national level or internationalized, they translate in similar ways. And I see younger people in general as a generation, both in the US and Japan, just becoming much more internationalized, craving that diversity in their communication with people, and to achieve that being much more explicit about things but in a kind way. It's not like they're saying everything in a harsh way. There are ways to soften a direct message and but there's care in that way of being clear because they understand that people come from all kinds of things. They want this diversity, and that means they have to be also clear about what it is that they're looking for and what it is that they're expecting.

And I see that in Japan a lot actually too. In the US, especially urban areas are already pretty diverse, and so there's just a different way of communication that has developed that distinguishes itself from more rural areas in the US. And I think the rural areas are having a hard time adjusting to that. But in Japan also, I see that ethos spreading in the younger generation and just being very supportive of people who are different than what the norm dictates, but wanting to support that.

MC: Brilliant. And do you find that is happening more and more in the corporate space in general? Or do you still see this gap between the different age groups? Because you very clearly specified that this was related to younger generations. Do you think those shifts apply to older generations as well?

MY: So I think the older generation, the leadership is very into internationalization, and I think that's always been true. But I think what's interesting in the Japanese context is that lately there's been a lot of focus on the issue of harassment. And the term harassment in Japan is really applied to a lot of things. In English, when you say harassment, people often just assume sexual harassment. But in Japanese, harassment can be maternity harassment, it can be academic harassment. There are so many applications to it. It really just means badgering someone in a way that's unkind that can get you into trouble, right?

And so I feel that calling out people and calling out the older generation for being too harsh or unkind, it has been being used to make them aware that things that you thought used to be okay is not okay. It's kind of harsh, and I'm not sure that that's really the right way to bring about change. But it is bringing about change: the older generation's being made aware of what is expected in terms of kindness, what is expected in terms of mentorship, how you do mentor people, and that's one of the ways in which the conversation is being driven. And it's the corporate space where this is mostly happening, and I feel like the corporate space really reflects and works with the popular sentiments a lot, because they're held accountable in terms of how people behave in the workplace, much more so than in the government. The government has a lot more protections, and so those things don't come out as much. The corporate culture really drives that, and I think it's very helpful that the corporations in Japan are the ones that are internationalizing. 

MC: Work in progress and best practice hoping, as I said, other countries are watching to learn from that and see the positive impact it has in Japan specifically. Great. Thank you so much for your time today, Miyabi. It was a pleasure to have you, and it's really interesting.

It's a country that is changing and, as I said, the resilience I find very interesting to witness as it's happening. For everyone watching, this was Insight Connect, where cultural intelligence lands. Thank you very much, Miyabi.