Xenophobia alive and well in Japan as racist books fly off the shelves

Books and publications carrying disparaging content about South Korea and China have been growing in popularity in Japan to the point that some bookstores even have a dedicated corner for such xenophobic literature.

But to fully understand the recent rise in this trend, beyond Japan's recent trials and tribulations with some of its closest neighbors over territorial and historical issues, anthropologists advocate looking at the situation from both a historical as well as a psychological perspective.

They note that Japan has always been a homogenous culture that largely isolated itself from the rest of the world until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

But in modern-day Japan, as the world's third largest economy, Japan now "presents" itself on a global stage as a progressive, hardworking, peace-loving country, committed to the ideals of internationalization, which in terms of Japanese history and persona, create inherent ethnological conflicts and contradictions, social paradoxes and divergence, resulting in a homogenous nation with a dichotomous personality.

It would appear, as experts in the field of anthropology have attested, that Japan's xenophobic gene, masterfully hidden from uninformed outsiders, is alive and well and has simply been laying somewhat dormant since Japan's warring days. And, as with any genetic material, it's passed on from generation to generation.

The recent revival of jingoism, including the proliferation of racist literature in Japan in particular, can be understood from two perspectives according to some leading sociologists. These can be best described as "in group versus out group" cultural ideology, and an "elitist social hegemony."

"It wasn't until I'd lived overseas for some years that I could truly see Japan, my country, objectively and while I was shocked at first, it makes sense when you consider the idiosyncrasies, many of them engendered historically, that comprise the Japanese psyche," Keiko Gono, a prominent Tokyo-based sociologist told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"I realized that Japan was obsessively group culture-oriented, meaning that if you weren't a member of a particular group, be it socially or at work, or were rejected by the 'in group,' then you were socially ostracized and became an 'outsider,'" Gono said.

"An adherence to the group culture principle is where Japan derives a lot of its strength from as a nation."

"By defining themselves as 'We Japanese' (a statement often used to introduce or reinforce personal opinions), they are simultaneously excluding all others. By rejecting other countries' norms and values, or by discrediting or disparaging them, such is the case with the recent wave of nationalistic books, Japan's own norms and values are fortified," said Gono.

And herein, it would seem, lies the recent popularity of the brand of books known here as kenchu-zokan (meaning "dislike China, hate South Korea").

As Japanese politics took a major step to the right with the rise to power of the hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in December 2012, the popularity of books slamming China and South Korea leapt.

In 2013, according to an accredited best-selling book list in Japan, three kenchu-zokan publications on the list reached the top 10 best sellers.

Books with such inflammatory titles as: 'An Introduction to China: A Study of Our Bothersome Neighbors,' 'The Hate Korea Wave, ' 'Why Koreans hate Japanese,' 'The Theory of Stupid Korea' and ' Big issues of China,' are among some of the publications that have been flying off the shelves of book stores recently, with the stores themselves and publishers keen to cash in on the trend.

At perhaps one of Japan's most popular and easily recognized chain of national bookstores, the manager said it would be bad business to not sell the books. And while recognizing the potential of these books to perpetuate and spread notions of nationalism and, indeed, xenophobia, he said that the customers have the right to choose.

"We are a business like any other. We have sales and profit targets and these necessitate that we sell books that are popular. Our business has already taken a major hit because of the rise of on-line books, so if a customer chooses to read literature of a controversial nature, it's entirely up to them," said the store manager in Tokyo's Shibuya shopping district, requesting his name be withheld.

"We are not the authors or the publishers and as you can see our books cover all sorts of topics to reach the broadest audience possible. It's not my job to censor what sells. It's my job to make money," he said.

This particular store had a dedicated display of books containing anti-Korean and China sentiments. The collection of best-selling paper backs had their jackets plastered with such blurb as: "There's no reason to get along with that nation!" "That race thinks of no one except themselves!" and, "We Japanese have nothing to learn from that nation!"

Along with brisk sales at stores, the publishers would seem couldn't be happier. Sankei Shimbun Shuppan Co., for example, who publish the hugely popular "Bokanron," which means "theory of stupid Korea," have said that sales had far exceeded their expectations as the book had sat in the top 10 best-selling list for seven straight weeks.

According to official distributor Tohan Corp., no kenchu-zokan- related books were listed in the top 10 in 2012, evidence that the phenomenon is a new one and is on the rise.

Local media reports also show that major publishers of weekly and monthly magazines here are also cashing in on the boom.

For Shukan Bunshun, which published 49 editions last year, all but one edition had at least one article with headlines that included the words "China," "South Korea," "Senkaku" or "comfort women."

Other reports show that at Shukan Shincho, 37 of its 49 editions had headlines with those words and at Shukan Post the figure was 38 out of a total of 44 editions. For Shukan Gendai, meanwhile, it was 28 out of 46 editions, but almost all of the articles featured derogatory and highly critical remarks about China and Korea and the two nations' leaders.

According to Naoto Higuchi, author of "Japanese-Style Xenophobia," one of the underlying factors in the popularity of these books is, as he puts it, a "persistent lack of stability in Japan's relations with its East Asian neighbors, which can be attributed to the Japanese government's ongoing failure to clarify Japan's responsibility for its past colonization and belligerence. "

"I would agree with this. There's discomfort in Japan right now because no one knows where they stand in terms of relations with China and South Korea and this is the government's fault for their failed diplomacy and irreversible actions," said Gono.

"But this is only part of the problem. By reading these books Japanese feel a renewed sense of identity, bordering on aristocracy or elitism over neighboring countries, and in doing so solidify the 'in group' and vilify the 'out group'."

"It is this unspoken feeling that unites Japanese in times of unease, uncertainty and, as we've seen historically, in times of war," Gono said.