Sean O'Toole looks at consumerism in Japan and speaks to Gabi Hadl, the organiser of Japan's Buy Nothing Day.
JAPAN FILE - OCTOBER 2000
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And it is not just televisions that fill retail stores cheek by jowl. A stroll along any moderately sized shopping walkway will reveal a wild profusion of competing products available in every conceivable shape and size, colour and texture. The almost dizzying availability of luxury brand goods - Fortnum and Mason tea sold in rural discount outlets, or last season's up-market Italian family brands displayed in used-goods store windows Ü are but a small part of the intensity of this spectacle. Almost indifferent to the implications of its appetite for luxury, Japan's predilection for the sheltering promise of the brand has seen Gucci open seven Japanese stores since the beginning of 1998. According to Gucci's Domenico De Sole "Japanese consumers are continuing to perceive great value in luxury brands."
Given the painfully slow pace with which Japan's economy is recovering from its big bang some ten years ago, the continuing pre-eminence of the brand in Japan is nothing short of curious. A recent publication entitled Yutkasa no Seishin Byori(Pathology of Affluence) has attempted to grapple with Japanese brand obsessions, and in its own way offer an insight into the cipher that is the brand. Penned by Ohira Ken, a psychiatrist at St Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo's Tsukiji, the book details Ohira's observations of how patient's with whom he has held consultations tend to talk incessantly about brand goods when discussing their personal problems. Noting how the varieties and names of brands have changed over the past decade, Ohira points out that the root obsession for tangible things has remained a common denominator throughout the years. Ohira's study levers open a Pandora's box of desires and provides an insight into the darker realms of Japan's consumer society. As Ohira himself has commented, his patients "try to fill their emptiness caused by flimsy human relationships with material goods."
In some respects Ohira's study offers a measured insight into the grand fable of Japan's metamorphosis into an individualistic society. The theory of this great migration from "we" to "me" is best summarised by Kawaguchi Satomi, editor of fashion magazine Zipper. "Young people," she confidently asserts, "are much more concerned about their future than before. They can no longer feel secure by wearing the same things as their friends, because they want to be identified as an individual." As one commentator has rightly asked of such shrewd definitions of a mercantile individualism; "how genuine can the recognition of the individual's value be? Is it not merely an opportunistic reversal of tradition for the sake of hoped-for economic gain?"
Readers wishing to unsubscribe from the onslaught of contemporary society's "affluenza," Japan's second Buy Nothing Day carnival might just suggest itself as a much-needed option. An international event traditionally held on November 28, Japan's Buy Nothing Day is organised by Kyoto resident Gabi Hadl. Sean O'Toole recently spoke to her.
Can you talk a little about Culture Jamming generally, and in the context of BND?
BND was initiated by a Canadian artist eight years ago, and was adopted by the Canadian based Media Foundation (http://www.adbusters.org/). The organisation was founded by Estonian born Kalle Lasn and is best known as the publisher of Adbusters Quarterly: Journal of the Mental Environment. As Adbusters' title suggests, it is very clear that the ecological crisis we are facing now has its roots in the pollution of the mental environment. Advertising is poisoning our collective psyche with marketing messages that encourage us to consume more than is needed and good for us. The Media Foundation has two campaigns aimed at counteracting the effects of our shopping culture. TV Turnoff Week is in the last week of April, and Buy Nothing Day is held at the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
BND particularly has received a lot of media attention, especially in Belgium and Korea, and is in essence a carnival of anti-consumerism. Both BND and TV Turnoff week are premised on a common idea - PAUSE. These campaigns offer a pause or break from the smooth routine of our shopping culture. Thoreau said that we don't need new places, we only need new eyes. Taking a break from something as habitual as turning on the TV or going shopping can give you a new perspective on things. You start to think about the results of your actions. I've always wondered why so many people here claim that shopping makes them feel relaxed. When you spend a weekend on Shijo Kawaramachi, you are unlikely to see many happy faces. Possibly its because people do not have any experience of pause or fun in their lives, any real experience of leisure and fun in their lives. Consequently they tend to think that what they feel at Sony Plaza is the experience of happiness and relaxation.
How does Culture Jamming differ from the notion of anti-consumerism?
Culture Jamming is an activity, and anti-consumerism is the philosophy on which it is based. CJammers are often portrayed as pranksters, and while I do believe in the musician Jello Biafra's dictum "a prank a day keeps the leash away," CJ is a very serious joke. Fun is important for the human psyche; we have been dehumanized by canned laughter. We have forgotten how to make our own fun. Perhaps the main difference between CJ and consumer activism that relies on lobbying and protests marches is that BND emphasises having a good time. You are also less in danger of becoming stuck up as a Culture Jammer; it's difficult to take yourself very seriously if you've just spent a day with a white beard glued to your face as a Zen Santa.
Isn't Culture Jamming just a way for people to relieve the pangs of liberal guilt in aggressively capitalist economies?
If you live in an industrialized country, you have to be pretty callous (or enlightened) not to feel guilty about the havoc your life-style is wreaking. Just look at your garbage. The problem for many who are worried about the environment is that they don't know where to start - nuclear pollution; overpackaging; garbage incinerators; dams; concrete coastlines - so they just get cynical and do nothing at all. But when you decide to call attention to something you feel is wrong, like surveillance cameras or vending machines or tell the shop clerk you don't want a shopping bag, of course that's empowering. You realize that every thing you do or do not do has an effect. Once you don't shop, the impact of your usual life-style just becomes clearer to you. I think very few BND fans have illusions about how much a single day of non-shopping is going to do for the environment in the short-term. But it changes something very fundamental inside you. Without this deep change in each of us, there will be no way out. As Gandhi said, "you must be the change you wish to see." You have to change yourself, and that's the most difficult part. That's why I use the slogan, "the revolution starts right where you're sitting."
Whilst Japan is ostensibly a democratic society, do you think that tongue in cheek humour such as that proposed by the notion of Culture Jamming (defacing public advertisments, waving at surveillance cameras) would be well received in Japan?
CJ is an idea that applies to all consumer societies (and those on the way there), but the forms it takes may vary according to local sensibilities. So if tongue-in-cheek stuff is not part of a culture, other kinds of humor will take its place. We are just getting started here in Asia. So far only Korea and Japan are on the BND track. We'll see where it takes us. Certainly, the now popular western leftist idea that companies are evil does not transport well to Japan. Only when things get really bad, as with the Tokaimura accident, are questions raised as to whether companies and the government are really doing what's best for everybody. Still, most Japanese feel Mitsubishi and Sony are like members of the family. Everybody has a relative who works for a big company, and Japan owes their wealth and international status to these companies. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I think most of the vilifying that goes on in the Western anti-consumerism movement is actually quite counter-productive. If you attack the people in charge, how do you expect them to co-operate with you? It ought to be easier here to make the point that it's not a bunch of environmentalists pushing their private agenda, but that we are all in it together. Even the late Prime Minister Obuchi ate spinach from the dioxin-polluted fields at Nose-cho, and he breathed the polluted Tokyo air. The hole in the ozone layer, the bad air, the polluted water, the lack of trees and public space affect us all.
CBS, in a letter rejecting the Media Foundation's Buy Nothing Day commercial, went as far as to say that Buy Nothing Day is "in opposition to the current economic policy in the United States." I think this knee-jerk critique would wash quite well with the captains of industry particularly given the prolonged recession Japan faces. What are your strategies to mobilise support in a country where television eulogises the sponsor with the words "grand sponsor"?
As it is now, economic growth and environmental concerns are directly opposed. The current GNP-based system of economics needs to be replaced with something that measures the well being of a society more accurately. Jamming the GNP gospel dissemination at economics departments is a very important part of the CJ movement. On a personal level, I try to tell people that what's good for the economy is not necessarily good for us. I always cite the example that if you get cancer, you should rejoice because your treatment is going to boost the economy.
A Buy Nothing Campaigner at a US demonstration once said; "The message is a positive one, not a confrontational one, We're not telling people we shouldn't buy what we need, but we need to look at what we're buying and what the effect of that is personally, socially and environmentally." After your first Buy Nothing Day in 1999, what responses did you encounter on the street?
I have gotten some very positive feedback on this aspect of what I'm doing. People here often feel "shikatta ga nai" (there's nothing you can do about it), but the BND message is that what you do in your everyday life has an influence on the world. It gives you a chance as an individual to do something without necessarily sticking out.
Other than your own Buy Nothing Day campaign do you know of any examples of Cultural Jamming in Japan?
There seems to be a group of pranksters in Kyoto who unplug vending machines - not a completely unreasonable action since Japan's vending machines use a whole nuclear power plant's energy output. The most successful campaign in Japan is probably the Critical Mass bicycle campaign (http://www.ecolink.sf21rpo.org/critical_mass). And then there seems to be a good number of young people out there who get a kick out of stunning their conformist buddies.
You mentioned that your Zen studies have influenced your BND activities, can you elaborate? Does it have something to do with cleansing one's mental space of the pollution of advertising and media, of the noise of the outside world generally?
That's correct. Silence is most underrated in our culture, partly because it doesn't add to the GNP, and it makes your self a little less persistent. Advertising is based on the premise that people want to feel good about themselves, that is, that they will do whatever it takes to prop up their ego. When you meditate and don't identify yourself so strongly with your small self, you will find that you don't need most of the things that advertising tries to sell you. Teenagers are such easy prey to hype and fashion because their egos are extremely fragile. Even as adults many of us never manage to untangle ourselves. I think activism without spiritual growth cannot go very far. Zen aesthetics of simplicity still play an important role in Japanese culture, and this is another reason why I am confident that BND ideas will catch on in Japan.
How can people interested in BND get involved in the festivities?
BND Japan is sponsoring two contests as part of its campaign:
1. For students of ESL the theme is 'Fun you can have without spending money.' Teachers are encouraged to make this into a writing assignment, but the submission format is free, anything from one sentence to a full-length essay will be considered for the quality of the idea.
2. For designers, artists, video artists and students, BND Japan is looking for a campaign poster and a storyboard for its uncommercial.