I mentioned earlier in this thread that a Swiss engineer judged Japan to have a poor maintenance culture during a visit over 20 years ago and was widely dismissed on the grounds that he hadn’t taken into account the peculiarities of Japanese culture. It occurred to me to get in touch and see how the old boy was since I haven’t heard from him for a while. Good timing. Having never been invited back to Japan, he tells me he has just been asked to be a keynote speaker at a conference which he thinks is going to be called something like “The crisis in maintenance”. As he says, he may have got short shrift at the time but somebody must have remembered him. I sent him this link:

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200710200078.html

One reason he might also be back in favour is that he had some preliminary findings that equipment maintenance standards seem to fall when a company is acquired by a private equity firm which might be a message some bureaucrats would like to hear.

Necroposting over. Back to the studio.

Indeed, I would imagine that academics, given the freedom that comes with the job in most circumstances, are more open to helping out than say, the 12 hour work day power business crowd.

I’m not sure that the job/money thing is such a big thing for academics, either. If you are well known / published enough to be labeled as a go to guy or gal for some info, you probably have a steady university job.

In any case, LOTS of academics will go on NPR, do interviews, etc. for no money. Just like to talk (^_)

Like Adamu, I suspect Cope’s introduction reflects the conversations and experience he may have had while doing his research. I don’t think it’s unfair to point out that there are some Japan hands who do jealously guard their territory and their contacts. I’ve often wondered why they do this. At times, it is a simple case of catching someone on a bad day: there’s usually a finite limit to most people’s goodwill.

Sometimes, though, there is an attempt to recreate the sempai/kohai relationship even when both individuals are not Japanese. That might work for some while rubbing other people up the wrong way. I’ve also heard it compared with the situation of women in business and politics – a successful woman might treat her female subordinates poorly on the basis that since she had to beat the odds, no-one following her should get an easier ride.

Another aspect that shouldn’t be forgotten is money. When there a fewer job vacancies for foreign correspondents, academics, researchers etc and the number of foundation grants declines then people seem less inclined to welcome potential competition no matter what country you look at. M-Bone is right that there are many generous people out there willing to lend a helping hand but there are certainly others who will look down their nose at you. However, you would expect to see that in any community so looking for reasons specific to Japan might be pointless.

no,no you are not missrepresenting here, you are quite right.

I was a graduate student of anthropology during the 90ies when Kuwayama raised this question about the problem of asymmetry in anthropology.

“in defense of the American anthlopologist.Antholopology is a study of translating one culture to another.If a Japanese antholoplogist is working on Japanese subject,perhaps it is necessary for American counterpart to use the material as secondary sources that need to be handle with their interpretation.”

Kuwayama did raise the question that non-western anthropologist were rather under pressure to play the role of “native anthropologist” thus an informant for the western anthropologist. That he said was a sign of prevalent intellectual imperialism (which I think is true to some degree).

I think that there is also the problem of multi-cultural PC in US academic circles.

Here you go Mr.Cope.なぎら健壱 himself.He is a man, not a band and not even a rock singer but a folk singer.
http://www.yamano-music.co.jp/docs/jacket-link/BEF9A23E.jpg

Now my trust upon his work is slowly deteriorating.

On the UK/US thing and ‘Jap’, I don’t know how derogatory ‘Jap’ is in the UK, but I do recall hearing about Americans getting rather upset over “Oriental”, which the Brits (and the School of African and Oriental Studies in particular, perhaps) do not. Nor does Oriental Land, the parent company of Tokyo Disneyland, to just name one example. Actually, at the risk of being overly controversial, I don’t feel ‘Jap’ should be a “bad” word, since it is just short for ‘Japanese’ and doesn’t take a racial or cultural stereotype like ‘chink’ or ‘frog’: its sole reason for being non-PC as far as I can tell is that it was used as a casual dismissive shorthand in WW2 by Allied troops. Does that mean it is forever seen as a ‘word used to describe people you don’t like’?

http://www.japrocksampler.com/japrocksampler/

Just took glance at it.and now I’m confident that Cope is either Neomarxisme or Click Opera reader or perhaps both.

It seems that he is trying to privilege his own POV here – “the Japanese” are mostly whiting, I’m the one who is going to be all objective. He is also talking about the “hitherto unexplored”. Does he mean not by Japanese or not by some random white guy? It really seems that Japanese POVs are irrelevant to the mandate of this work.

“I have no intention of whiting the American cultural sepulchre for its own sake, as the Americans have historically proved quite capable of doing that for themselves.’

This one should make us uncomfortable. Let’s face it, it would be a laughable statement from someone who knows no English.

“I have no intention of whiting the Jewish cultural sepulchre for its own sake, as the Jews have historically proved quite capable of doing that for themselves.”

This one should make us sick. Just change the group and it should seem ignorant and venomous to just about everyone. I don’t think that tossing around the same comment about Japan is any more appropriate.

He attempted to turn the tables somewhat by taking American studies of Japan as a subject to shed some light on the US mindset. He has some entertaining observations about the frequent use of images of young women in such works. He also found well into the 80’s that a picture of a typical Japanese family often portrayed them wearing formal kimono or at least yukata.

On Julian Cope, I found the last part of his comment interesting: he reassures his readers that he isn’t a Japanophile which he uses to imply that he isn’t out to overpraise Japan. He then points out that neither is he going to slam the country. He didn’t seen the need to write anything like that in his earlier work on German music.

Here’s something else he writes a few pages later:

“And so the purpose of this Japrocksampler is to roll up our sleeves, excavate through the sanctimonious bullshit, and reveal those hitherto unexplored shadowy basements wherein Japanese musical culture shines like a jewel. However, Japanese rock’n’roll is not the new black, and this book is not being written to create a new generation of Western neo-Japrock snobs. My four visits to Japan through the ‘80s and ‘90s were quite enough to reveal both sides of the coin, and there is a truth to be learned about ourselves from studying the Japanese ways. But this book is ultimately a quest for the truth. And, as I must restate, I have no intention of whiting the Japanese cultural sepulchre for its own sake, as the Japanese have historically proved quite capable of doing that for themselves.”

I wonder how he came to feel the need to justify himself in this way? Perhaps he kept meeting people who accused him of wearing rose tinted spectacles about his subject because he didn’t have enough Japanese to understand what was going on so he wants to somehow point out that his critical faculties are intact.