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Paper short abstract

Foreign-elderly aging needs have motivated younger generations to seek recognition within Japan's long-term care system. They have created space where language, culture, tradition, food, and activities enliven nostalgic memories of "homeland", providing a sense of security and comfort for the aging.

Paper long abstract

The Japanese government in April 2000 implemented the "long-term care insurance law" to improve the quality of health care services for an aging population. It aimed to alleviate the burden from family-based care to an integrated central and local welfare policy. The new care system introduced various services. The concept of "care management" also encouraged the private sector to act as a service provider.

The enactment of this long-term care system mobilized Zainichi Koreans, one of the largest ethnic minorities, for the benefit of their first generation parents. Zainichi women stood at the forefront petitioning the Japanese government to acknowledge their "cultural" needs that did not fit into a uniform and standardized Japanese system. Through women's groups in ethnic organizations, faith-based facilities, and community networks, Zainichi women became the representative voice speaking for the first generation.

Aging and care needs of an increasing number of foreign long-term residents have motivated younger generation immigrants to seek similar recognition within Japan's long-term care system. Through the emotional sentiment of "paying back debt" (ongaeshi) to the first-generation parents who have aged in Japan, the younger generation displays agency in the idea of "taking care of our own". Through creating a space where language, culture, tradition, food, and activities enliven the nostalgic memories of the first generation, an imaginary "homeland" is constructed providing a sense of security and comfort for their parents who are aging in a foreign land.

This paper presents examples of "Day-service" NPOs for Zainichi Koreans, Japanese-orphan returnees from China, and former Vietnamese refugees, who have incorporated their "ethnic-cultural needs" within the care of their elderly. I argue that the narrative of "emotional fulfillment within ethnic-cultural needs" for the aging foreign residents has added a new dimension to Japan's long term care-insurance system, further broadening the discussion of a "multi-ethnic" Japan.

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Paper short abstract

This paper discusses cultural and human interactions between Japan and Turkey in "micro" of everyday contact. Specifically, it draws attention to how everyday, embodied performances of "Japanese-ness" shape imaginings and articulations of "Japan" in public discourse in Turkey.

Paper long abstract

Much of the literature on "transnational Japan" and the lived experiences of Japanese overseas has focussed on East/Southeast Asia, Australia, some regions of the Americas, and to a lesser extent, Western Europe. There has been much less attention on Japanese lives in areas like Southern/Eastern Europe and the Middle East. This paper attempts to address this gap by spotlighting Japanese lives in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically in Turkey.

The paper draws on research on cultural and human interactions between Japan and Turkey in the "micro" spaces and moments of everyday contact. On the surface, the juxtaposing of Turkey and Japan may seem an odd choice of topic, given the geographic distance between the two countries, as well as their (apparently) very different socio-economic and cultural conditions. However, there are in fact areas of historical and socio-economic intersection and commonality between Japan and Turkey, including the ways in which the project of modernity unfolded in both countries. While there is some impressive research by both Turkish and Japanese scholars on the historical relationship between the two countries, most of the work on contemporary interactions is slanted towards the economic or geo-political aspects of the relationship.

My research, however, while situated against the above historical backdrop, draws attention to contemporary cultural and grass-roots interactions. The focus of the project is on the ways individual actors, in spaces of everyday life, can embody and articulate discourses that frame state-to-state relations, in this specific instance, Turkey and Japan. These actors encompass a range of individuals situated in the "contact zones" and "contact moments" between the two countries - Japanese students studying in Turkey, Turkish students studying Japanese or interested in Japan, partners and children of Turkish-Japanese marriages/relationships, business executives, researchers with a stake in the relationship, among others. For the purposes of this paper, however, I focus on the narratives of Japanese (rather than Turkish) informants, and how their everyday, embodied performances of "Japanese-ness" shape and contribute to the imaginings and articulations of "Japan" in public discourse in Turkey.

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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the processes of cross-cultural meaning-making involved in production and consumption of Japanese services in Guangzhou. It focuses on the increasing importance of bodily practice, sensory experience, and the concept of personalized service for value creation in commodity chains

Paper long abstract

Arjun Appadurai observed that greater "spatial, cognitive and institutional distances between production, distribution and consumption" entail a proliferation of "culturally constructed stories and ideologies about commodity flows". Japanese service industry in Guangzhou (i.e., Japanese restaurants, Ginza-style bars, Japanese beauty salons) provides a particularly good opportunity to examine this notion, because even though the physical distance between the service provider and the service consumer is indeed very close, as in a sushi restaurant where the chef has to perform right in front of the patron, the baggage of disjointed perspectives each of them brings into the experience continues to stand between them. To what degree do these gaps in knowledge sometimes help the creation of value, for example, increasing the chef's sense of well-being by giving him a chance to show off and feel proud of his fish slicing skills, something that the patron may not even view as significant? Does the close setting in services help the actors shrink the knowledge gap? Are service providers better placed than the producers of goods to shape and appropriate the imaginative activity of creative consumers?

Based on the empirical data gained through participant observation and in-depth interviews with informants in Guangzhou, one of the wealthiest coastal cities in China, this paper investigates the reflexive interactions between Japanese service professionals (sushi chefs, bartenders, hairstylists, etc.) and Chinese customers, newly middle-class urban dwellers. In promoting their business, Japanese service professionals rely less on explicit marketing and more on emphasizing dedication and continuous effort to master their craft. For example, seemingly trivial, often repetitive, actions such as polishing glassware and liquor bottles by bartenders, sharpening knives, wiping and replacing utensils after each use by chefs and so on, gain a special meaning. This in turn is viewed as an expression of personalized care and affection by a new generation of freer-spending Chinese consumers, looking for a space to assert their individual taste and increasingly sophisticated consumer attitudes in a market struggling with high stakes issues related to food safety, service quality and product credentials.