Tokyo’s culture Tokyo’s culture and diversity take different forms from world cities such as London, Paris or New York. What distinguishes Tokyo culture is the active role that ordinary citizens play as independent actors in cultural activities. While Tokyo has been Japan’s most important city for almost 500 years, its rise to world city status was driven by its remarkable recovery from the ashes of the Second World War. Japanese companies and their famously hard-working staff were responsible for an ‘economic miracle’ that by the end of the 1980s had turned Japan into one of the world’s richest nations. This rise had its echoes in culture, too. Elements of Japanese popular culture, from karaoke to manga comics and sushi bars spread across the globe, while creative products like the Sony Walkman shaped the way the world experienced culture. Japanese artists, whether they were filmmakers like Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa or fashion designers like Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo, achieved worldwide reputations for the originality and quality of their work. Yet Tokyo remains different from other world cities. It has never been a draw for tourists on the scale of Paris or New York, and it has never had the levels of ethnic diversity or the number of foreign students of a London or Sydney. However, Tokyo has developed a distinctive diversity of its own that takes unexpectedly various forms. Because of its depth, Tokyo’s culture can be hard for tourists and even for the city’s residents to fully grasp. The long period of economic stagnation since the early 1990s has led to a relative decline in Tokyo’s world city status, while the rise of other major cities in its region, such as Shanghai and Seoul, is increasing competition. The tragedy of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 has also been a trigger for re-assessing society’s priorities. There is now a growing sense that culture will play an important part in Tokyo’s reinvention of itself in response to these challenges; what some commentators have called a ‘new paradigm’. What, then, are Tokyo’s particular strengths? One answer lies in the multiple meanings of the Japanese word bunka (culture): artistic production, but also ‘lifestyle’, ‘quality of life’, and ‘wellbeing’. Tokyo people do not see culture as separate or ‘not for them’: as the city puts it, ‘common citizens have historically been very involved in a rich variety of artistic and cultural activities’. The culture of Tokyo is marked by ‘reciprocal communication and an exceptional level of equality in cultural participation’. There has long been a blurring of the boundaries between consumers and creators, and between what Westerners sometimes call ‘high’ and ‘pop’ culture. In this way, what distinguishes Tokyo culture is the active role that ordinary citizens play as independent actors in cultural activities. There is a cultural element in the lives of many citizens, which forms a rich foundation for Tokyo’s wider culture. A second great strength of the city is its seamless continuity of tradition and modernity. In Tokyo, the traditional and the modern are linked not only spatially but temporally as well. Many foreigners see the city as an ultra-modern city of skyscrapers, cutting-edge fashion and design and high-technology. Yet the city remains the most important centre for traditional Japanese culture, having preserved its many traditional cultural forms, from ancient shrines and temples to Noh and Kabuki theatres and rakugo performances. Tokyo has several major venues for such art, including the Kabuki-za Theatre, the National Noh Theatre and the Kokugikan Hall in Ryogoku. It is also home to more traditional artisans than any other Japanese city. This concentration of traditional culture is a source of techniques, values, and inspiration for contemporary cultural workers in fields like design and architecture. The more obviously modern aspects of Tokyo’s culture can be seen in the city’s various districts. Areas like Roppongi, Akihabara, Harajuku and Shibuya each have their own distinct culture – the city is keen to cultivate these. Although Tokyo is not a ‘multicultural’ city in the Western sense, it is open to ideas and culture from abroad, adapting them for its own purposes. This is apparent in Tokyo’s cuisine which has absorbed and adapted foreign influences on its way to becoming (according to Michelin) the world’s best city for high-class restaurants. Tokyo recognises the need to improve its cultural offer through a programme of strategic investment. It believes it is essential to cultivate its human resources through supporting cultural facilities and programmes. The Tokyo Council for the Arts has been sustaining a mid- to long-term cultural policy to provide improved funding and support for the arts, and so to provide a platform for introducing and cultivating new talent. For this reason, Tokyo is keen to upgrade its existing cultural facilities, as well as developing newer ones, such as the Tokyo Wonder Site, to create centres for new art (and artists). The city is also supporting new festivals and projects, which provide a stage for the cultivation of human resources by expanding opportunities for artists and arts administrators to enrich their experiences. In 2008, the city launched the Tokyo Culture Creation Project, which includes FESTIVAL/TOKYO, Roppongi Art Night, and Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions. One of the most notable programmes is the Tokyo Artpoint Project, which serves as a unique mechanism for forming regional cultural centres and promoting civic participation in creative endeavours. Tokyo hopes to be able to demonstrate the fruits of this investment, and the new thinking that underpins it, to the world in 2020, as it is preparing a bid for that year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. If this is successful, it will generate numerous opportunities for the city to forge new ties between people and to facilitate creative production, while absorbing a diverse set of values from around the world. It will also demonstrate the ways in which the city’s distinctive cultures express themselves. The Olympic and Paralympic Games thus have the potential to further stimulate Tokyo’s culture of impartiality, interactivity, and tolerance, giving rise to an even deeper, more vibrant, dynamic, and diverse culture.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 08:36:13 +0000
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