Japan, it’s just like Italy!

First, I should point out that this title is based on a serious(ish) conclusion I have come to after much thought, rather than a case of me being fooled by the ‘La Cittadella’ shopping centre in Kawasaki or just an excuse to mention how lazy the Italians are (although that might just get a mention along the way). And here is why it is almost so:

1. Japanese and Italian Food
Both countries are full of delicious and healthy food, and that’s not something you could say about most places, e.g. France (delicious but leads to an obsession with the health of your liver), Britain (occasionally delicious but ditto with your heart), and Spain (neither).

The actual things they eat might not be the same in Japan and Italy, but in both there is a definite emphasis on fresh ingredients served simply. Therefore, perhaps, two of the longest lifespans of any people in the world. And even the food that is not so healthy or famous is kind of similar- Japanese octopus batter balls would fit in perfectly in the shop in Rome called ‘Cose Fritte’ (Fried Things) and most young Italians have the cooking ability of the Japanese pot noodle generation.

Most of all, though, it’s the obsession with food that stands out. Only in Italy and Japan does every TV programme have a connection to food, including car programmes (stopping at a restaurant while on a test drive), the news (seasonal and regional specialities, sometimes even including recipes), quiz shows etc. etc. And, although this is not exclusive to these two places, every single town of whatever size has a local speciality- even if it is only yet another shape of pasta or fried chicken with mayonnaise. Compare this to Holland, where waiters and shop assistants I asked couldn’t even come up with a single national speciality.

2. Getting personal in Japan and Italy
In both countries, personal connections are much more important than the rules. Unlike my assumptions before I got here, Japan is certainly not full of people who would fit in a British local council or German company. The trains run perfectly on time, but the conductor will still wait when they see someone rushing desperately towards the closing doors. When I didn’t have enough change for the bus, the guy let me put in what I had and get on. My favourite ‘bending the rules in a nice way’ so far is the woman in the bank who responded to my completely bewildered face when asked to recall my ‘sign number’ (second PIN number) by turning her computer monitor round so that I could copy it down.

In Italy I didn’t experience many such touching moments myself, but I used the same techniques of forming a personal connection to ensure my survival by making eye contact with motorists and bikers so they didn’t mow me down.

The closest parallels, however, come in the shady world of kickbacks, mafia involvement, vote buying and other dodgy dealings that I only have knowledge of from the news (honest!). Having a culture where your connection to or sympathy for the person you are dealing with is more important than the rules leads almost inevitably to nepotism and all the rest, just as the opposite leads to heartless ‘jobsworth’ bureaucrats robotically following meaningless rules.

3. Japanese and Italian TV
My knowledge of Luxembourg’s or Greenland’s TV output is, admittedly, limited- but I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that Japan and Italy have the worst TV in the developed world, if for different reasons. What makes Japanese TV so unwatchable is the avoidance of controversy. This leads to, for example, the emphasis in the news on statistics, weather and business news that no one can argue about (or, in my case, take interest in). Not sure what leads to the bevy of half naked young women that accompany every TV program in Italy, but that does lead me to one of two similarities.

Apparently young girls grow up in Italy with the sole ambition of being the TV equivalent of a magician’s ‘lovely assistant’. In Japan the equivalent TV ‘talento’ does at least get to speak on TV occasionally, if mainly to react with a ‘heeeeeeeeeey’ of amazement to what is happening on the screen. Which leads seamlessly to the second similarity- in both places everything that is said and shown on screen is reacted to by someone in the studio. In Japan this means knowledge-free newscasters giving their shocked personal reactions to every story, and in Italy it means a studio audience being shown watching the making of every single program- even the news or the introduction to Film of the Week.

4. Japanese and Italian Embarrassment
After my hundredth complaint that I was bored with Italy already because it was just like doing my two years in Spain again, my boss asked a very pertinent question. Is there a tomato throwing festival in Italy? Bull fighting? Any kind of messy exuberance in public at all? And why not? It’s not just the danger of messing up their hair or smudging their huge sunglasses or pointy shoes, but mainly because the terror of ‘mala figura’ means fear making any kind of fool of yourself at all.

Basically, they can’t stand to lose face. Yes, that’s the Italians- though the Eastern concept of ‘face’ in Japan etc. is much better documented. Hence, perhaps, the silly amounts of money spent on clothes, hair gel, new cars and eating in places that look just as great as you do in both countries. Aside from not being able to get to the sink to wash your hands due to guys stuck to the mirror trying to find a hair out of place (or in Shibuya, not sufficiently out of place) the main consequence for me has been in the classroom. For example, in both countries testing your students on anything they think they should know but don’t, especially things about their own languages and countries, can lead to a chilly atmosphere for weeks.

5. Japanese and Italians and London
I don’t know if Italians and Japanese have the same dreamy reaction to the concept of New York as I have, but these are the only two countries where a significant portion of the people I meet go all misty eyed about London. I think many of their reasons are also the same. London is a cosmopolitan city where cultural things happen that are noticed and talked about around the world. Rome most certainly is not, and Milan only seems that way if you compare it to Rome. More surprisingly, Tokyo is a pretty provincial place too. Most of the biggest cultural events, including exhibitions of Japanese artists like Yoko Ono, are ones that have come from elsewhere. Fashion is, of course, an area where the journalists do flock to Milan and Tokyo to see what is going on (see above). Aside from fashion and cars though, few people in London, Paris or New York are waiting to see what next comes out of Japan as much as the Japanese and Italians are looking over there.

The other reason the word London gets a wistful sigh is more to do with what is back home. Being abroad means freedom. Freedom from the boyfriend who lives next door who you’ve known since you were 3 (Italians), freedom to get drunk and make a fool out of yourself (mainly Italians), freedom to really express yourself (Japanese) and freedom from constricting social ties and family emotional blackmail (both). On a related note, the next most national obsession I came across was the Japanese obsession with all things Italian (if with a confusion to how that was separate and different from the rest of European chic) and a certain segment of Italian society has an obsession with Japan as the ultimate representation of the future in a country that often seems burdened by the past.

6. Japanese and Italian Mamas
The fact that the Japanese choose ‘mama’ as the foreign borrowed word for mother probably has no significance at all. Or does it?? In both countries mama controls the purse strings. And both countries breed mama’s boys with an upbringing based on indulgence and guilt-tripping.

In case you are thinking I am just making gross generalisations (again), I should say that my sources include one news story on Japanese TV, TV drama viewing in Italy, a book of film reviews and the philosophy of ‘the thing with most stereotypes is…’.

As you might have guessed, I have not and never will be a Japanese and/ or Italian mother and/ or son, so I’m going a bit on hearsay here (unlike all my other points, obviously). The whole mother thing explains a lot though, such as why both countries are full of such nice boys still living at home but with such retrograde attitudes to womankind.

So case proven, I think you’ll find. Not identical, obviously, but there are certainly less similarities between the more often compared Germans and Japanese. Taking what is supposed to be the biggest similarity, it has to be a myth that the Germans work hard when they actually knock off at 5 and take 6 weeks holiday for some of the highest pay in the world. Talking about being lazy, one day in a hotel in Italy…