Word: japanism
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...strong sense of otherness has always been in Murakami's nature. It began with his early preference for foreign novels (to the chagrin, one presumes, of his parents, who were both teachers of Japanese literature). It continues to this day in the deliberate distance he keeps from Japan's literary community, and in his abstemious mode of living. "Writers and artists are supposed to live a very unhealthy, bohemian kind of life," says Murakami. "But I just wanted to do it differently." So he rises at 4 a.m. to write for hours before swimming or running, training for marathons...
...think Japan's hard-drinking business culture is as dead as the Sony Betamax, think again. After more than a decade of austerity (not to mention sobriety) during Japan's lengthy economic slump, many Japanese companies are thriving today - and they're reviving some of the business customs that were hallmarks of Japan Inc. during the booming 1980s. Not only are company-sponsored drinking marathons back, so too are subsidized dorms for single employees as well as corporate outings such as hot-spring retreats and annual visits to the company founder's ancestral grave. "We realized that workplace communication...
...have a responsibility." Though he says he doesn't want to talk about Japanese politics, he returns to the subject again and again throughout a 212-hour conversation, bushy eyebrows bobbing as he worries about "politicians who rewrite history," and the growing tendency in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Japan to forget about wartime atrocities. Japanese history has always been in the background of his works - and his best novel, 1994's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, dissected the groupthink that led Japan into a catastrophic war - but now he wants to act. "Before, I wanted to be an expatriate writer...
...spirit and togetherness - called soshikiryoku - that many Japanese corporations are trying to rekindle. A generation ago, college grads entered companies en masse, lived together, drank together, quite often married each other, and retired together. This close-knit corporate culture, which was virtually national labor policy, was widely credited for Japan's meteoric economic rise. But it all ended when the country hit the skids in the 1990s. Threatened by cheap labor and more efficient business models, Japanese companies began adopting American management concepts such as merit-based pay and competition among employees. "The Japanese equated globalism with not just...
...Despite such experiments, Japanese companies may find it hard to restore the glory days of Japan Inc. That's because today, one in three Japanese works part-time; younger employees in particular tend to value mobility over the security of lifetime employment. Indeed, during Noboru Koyama's Saturday-night drinking session, employee Eri Shimoda confides that his co-workers "feel like family." Yet most of those who attended the party also say that, warm and fuzzy sentiment aside, they plan to leave the cleaning company within a few years. "Work is just work," says one of them. No amount...