Global Coffee and Cultural Change in Modern Japan

Helena Grinshpun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000203820
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book explores the impact in Japan of the rise of global coffee chains and the associated coffee culture. Based on extensive original research, the book discusses the cultural context of Japan, where tea-drinking has been culturally important, reports on the emergence of the new coffee shop consumer experience, and reflects on the link between consumption and identity, on cultural fantasies about modern, Western, or global lifestyles, on the effects of global standardization, and on much more.

1 The mundane exoticism

Introduction: temples and other goods

A chilly December evening in downtown Kyoto: the automatic glass doors of one of the city’s centrally located office buildings lead to the marble-paved lobby with a small Starbucks outlet. An outer glass wall overlooks the backyard where, just a few meters away, stands the temple of Rokkakudō – one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the city. Seen through the transparent glass, the temple, with its noble contours and dark-brown color, appears to occupy the lobby’s inner space. Starbucks’ armchairs are lined along the glass wall, facing the outside, as if turning the transparent partition and the temple behind it into a huge screen. Quiet, Irish-sounding, Christmas-themed music is played in the background. Between the glass and the temple is a small garden patch with several tanuki statues hiding in the grass.¹ Erected in the center is a Christmas installation – a white carriage pulled by a white horse, both made of illuminated wires; by its side, an illuminated Santa climbs an illuminated tree trunk. The brightly lit hall, gleaming horse, and dark mass of the temple in the background create a rather surreal landscape. Visually, the temple is turned into an exhibited artifact; however, it is a functioning temple – to some extent, more real than the blinking Christmas images. The temple and the marble hall seem to represent two polarities of Japanese cultural construction: the old tradition, on the one hand, and the incorporation of new (often foreign, mostly Western) trends, on the other. Gazing on this scene, we can either lament the loss of elegance and spirituality of ancient times to the imported images of globalized consumption or try to comprehend the new reality that embraces both aspects as two interconnected elements responsible for forging new tastes, lifestyles, and identities.

What place does Starbucks – a globalized American chain notorious for its ubiquity and aggressive expansion – occupy in this culturally crafted landscape? What is the nature of its interplay with the temple, the very epitome of “Japaneseness”? How does the consumer experience constructed by global coffee chains in Japan correspond with the cultural “baggage” of coffee? This chapter answers these questions and illuminates the way that various “cultural odors” (Iwabuchi 2002) intertwine with each other in contemporary consumption. In this process, new cultural substances are generated – partly real and partly imagined – and new modes of authenticity are produced and reproduced along with new meanings, interpretations, and applications. Therefore, coffee’s “behavior” tells a story of how authenticity, cultural appeal, and cultural identity are constructed around an everyday commodity – a story that sheds light on the broader expressions of globalization and indigenization.

Literature discusses the migration of global products as moving in three possible directions: movement towards the homogenization of local markets has earned for itself the labels of “McDonaldization” and cultural imperialism typically associated with American cultural hegemony (Ritzer 2004; Tomlinson 1999). The alternative direction, involving a more dynamic mixture of the global and local, is depicted as “hybridization” or “creolization” (Hannerz 1992; Pieters 2009). Both directions assume major transformations experienced by the local fabric under the influence of the globalizing force; therefore, both imply hierarchy and power relations between the local and global. The third approach emphasizes the contextuality of the two entities as flexible cultural constructions, a dynamic dialog in which the focus may shift from one entity to another, contributing to the “movement of culture” (Silverberg 2006, 34). In this scenario, the locality emerges as an equal co-producer of culture rather than the mere recipient of foreign produce.

In the context of Japan, I find two conceptualizations of the third scenario particularly useful: the idea of “cultural mélange,” shaped by emic distinctions between the Japanese and the Western drawn by the local actors (Goldstein-Gidoni 2001a, 22), and the metaphor of “code-switching” – moving between various elements of the native and foreign cultures (Silverberg 2006, 33–34).² Both concepts emphasize the creative participation of the local agency in an ongoing process of producing new cultural forms and challenge the view of mere cultural borrowing in favor of cultural strategizing (Silverberg 2006, 33). The notions of mélange and code-switching imply a conceptual duality between local Japanese and foreign (for the most part, Euro-American) cultural elements, which Gordon refers to as “double life” – namely, the simultaneous presence in the realms of daily life and national imagination of goods and practices described as “Western” and “Japanese” (2007, 12). While this description relates to Japan’s trans-war years (1920s–1960s), the duality that Gordon points at continues well into the postmodern phase, constituting a source of both symbolic tension and cultural capital – and, as such, is consumed, appropriated, and (at times) contested. It also acquires additional complexity as multiple cultural forms are created around the two entities, producing new assemblages and interpretations.

The role of Western goods and ideas in shaping the face of modern Japan has been widely discussed. From the “big” ideas of modernization, democracy, and science (Gluck 1985; Garon 1994) to sewing machines, radios, and home design (Gordon 2007; Sand 2003), both the material and immaterial culture of the West provided a frame of reference for the consolidation of modern Japanese lifestyle and middle-class identity – a process rooted in the close association between ideals of modernity and images of Western, notably American, life. Naomi, a novel written by Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki (2001) in the 1920s, builds upon this association to weave a heartrending love story between a middle-brow engineer and a young café waitress – a flamboyant, Eurasian-looking girl. Through this relationship, the author depicts the Japanese fascination with the West and its destructive influence on the identity of the protagonist, who represents the dilemmas and aspirations of the middle class. This sense of destructiveness, coupled with the state’s nationalistic policies, was responsible for the contestations of Western influence that peaked during the prewar years.

Yoshimi (2000, 2003) traces the postwar fluctuations of this love–hate relationship. In the aftermath of the war, direct experience of the U.S. presence shaped the image of America among the Japanese; once the occupation ended, however, “America” became a sanitized image consumed mainly through the media – a symbol and model rather than an irritant or stimulus. Further into the 1970s, “America” became interiorized as a system of meanings that operated at a deep level in everyday life. In recent decades, it has undergone yet another change, turning once again into a direct experience through globalized consumption – no longer a symbol or system, but rather an accessible artifact consumed along with other artifacts, such as “Japan” or “Asia.” Either embraced or contested, today’s Euro-American culture represents a commodity rather than a hegemonic power.

One of the most illustrative cases of this trend is Tokyo’s Disneyland. Often depicted as an epitome of American cultural imperialism, Disneyland is, in fact, a commodity appropriated and modified to suit the local needs (Brannen 1992; Raz 2000; Yoshimi 2000). Japanese department stores may be regarded in a similar vein, having domesticated foreign customs, holidays, and fashions by selling foreign products and attaching meanings to them consistent with the existing fabric of Japanese culture (Creighton 1991). Moreover, by drawing clear boundaries between “things Japanese” and “things foreign,” department stores helped to reaffirm Japanese identity. This delineated and acculturated Western “other” is often imagined (or “imagineered,” using Disney’s lingo) to be an authentic product, with this alleged authenticity providing a source of lasting consumer appeal. Thus, consumption of foreign commodities is a twofold process through which the imaginary West is constructed and, simultaneously, the notion of “Japaneseness” is crystallized through juxtaposition with the cultural “other.”

Along with “things foreign,” the commodification of “things Japanese” plays an integral part in this process. These “things” – domestic tourism and the furusato movement (Creighton 1997; Robertson 1988),³ local foods (Francks 2007; Rausch 2008), and traditional arts and crafts (Goldstein-Gidoni 1997; Moeran 1997) – continuously help to define and consolidate Japan’s national identity. Food, in particular, has provided a fertile ground for this consolidation, as Japanese cuisine continues to accommodate appeals to nationalism through cultural branding of culinary products and styles (Cwiertka 2006; Kojima 2011).

As the mundane substances of food and beverage serve to demarcate cultural boundaries and assert identities, their consumption practices offer a captivating case for examining construction of the “self” and the “other.” This cultural setup is by no means exclusive to Japan. Caldwell’s study of McDonald’s in Moscow demonstrates how the chain’s acceptance was determined by its eventual domestication, whereon its product was labeled as “ours” and, as such, successfully drawn into the Muscovites’ intimate spaces (2004). The highly negotiable contents of “ours” and “theirs” challenged neither the clear separation between the two nor their mutually complementary role. Wilk’s (1999) ethnography on the construction of “native” cuisine in Belize reveals how local foods were reinvented as elements of “authentic” diet through contrast with an externalized Western “other.” Therefore, the presence of the foreign helped to objectify the local, becoming part of the postcolonial discourse on national identity.

The Japanese appropriation of non-Japanese goods and images that had earned itself a rather one-dimensional (and certainly outdated) label of “Westernization” is, in fact, a multifaceted historical process that was ascribed various meanings during the course of the last hundred years. The overpowering enthusiasm for things Western (depicted in Naomi) had vanished as Japan joined the club of “lifestyle superpowers.”⁴ In post-bubble, affluent Japan, what used to constitute a symbolic tension became part of the complex Japanese reality, incorporating local traditions with elements of foreign cultures and lifestyles – but, nonetheless, still accommodating negotiations on identity.

Today, the complex relations between foreign and native, “other” and “self,” estrangement and familiarity, represent a powerful resource for both marketers and consumers. By maneuvering between the two poles, marketers construct their product experience; the consumers construct their cultural capital in the same way that code-switching between two languages endows access to additional symbolic resources and identities (Heller 1995, quoted in Silverberg 2006, 33).

Everyday commodities provide multiple axes around which these negotiations on identity take place. Mundane substances like food and house appliances, and ordinary places like department stores and amusement parks, play a significant role in shaping not only our consumer experiences but also the very way we experience culture. Culture is more often than not a function of otherness – exploiting culture often involves appealing to its foreignness or strangeness. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find that foreign “odor” is still in demand in contemporary Japan, owing largely to its ability to infuse re-enchantment into everyday life (Clammer 1997, 95). The issue of imagination (I find the term “imagineering” to be the most appropriate to describe the process of cultural production) is crucial in this context, as both the “foreign” and “Japanese,” the global and local, emerge as subjective products of negotiation on identity – cultural codes rather than objective cultural entities.

Coffee provides a particularly fascinating case of this cultural production. Simultaneously a powerful substance and potent symbol, it has been imported and exported, imagined and reimagined across centuries and civilizations, having become a form of what Elliott terms “transborder communication” (200...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 The mundane exoticism
• 2 Acquiring the taste for coffee
• 3 The city and the chain
• Conclusion: not on coffee alone
• References
• Index