FOCUS ON JAPAN
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countries. In the process, the Japanese who visited Europe and the US from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji period in the 19th century went with an attitude of humble learning, recognising they were absolute beginners in terms of understanding these distant worlds. Recently, there has been some concern about the cultural insularity of the Japanese. Young people, for example, have turned their backs on Western music. Despite their awareness of the value of speaking English, they no longer listen to Coldplay or Ed Sheeran, preferring instead their home-grown J-pop idols. People in the music business will tell you this is because J-pop is now as sophisticated musically as Western pop. But it is precisely when Japan is celebrating itself that it takes the wrong path and heads for decline. History proves this. Against the backdrop of a weaker yen, people are doing their best to enjoy domestic
travel. This is understandable economically — but is it good that the number of Japanese students studying abroad is faltering or that there’s no sense of ownership of the international situation? The US writer Scott Fitzgerald was living in France when he wrote his masterpiece Tender Is The Night, set in Cannes and Antibes. He learned something from the south of France. For those who love Fitzgerald’s
“Japan has an opportunity to go back to being an absolute beginner and learn about innovation from the world’s finest creatives”
novels, just breathing the air of Cannes is a magical experience. It’s as if there’s a fountain of creativity that cultivates beautiful works that appeal to people’s hearts. Japan has once again an opportunity to go back to being an absolute beginner and learn about innovation from the world’s finest creatives. Japan has finally emerged from the coronavirus disaster and is attracting ever growing numbers of tourists from abroad. The Nikkei stock average reached its highest level since March 1990 in June. On the other hand, there is serious anxiety about the future, driven by a declining birth rate, an ageing population, rural depopulation and a spate of natural disasters. Creativity offers one way to break through this sense of stagnation and uncertainty. So let’s learn from the creatives of Cannes, like the great American writers of the Lost Generation and the samurai who struggled with the Meiji Restoration.