Lecture 2 - Technology and the Changing Demographic

Question 1

What two key variables do societies use to construct their own internal concepts of who they are, in opposition to other societies?

Answer 1

Symbols and rituals.

Question 2

What is a symbol?

Answer 2

• something that causes a human reaction in a certain way

- symbol itself may be arbitrary, e.g. national symbols, flags, anthems

Question 3

What is a ritual and what is it imbued with?

Answer 3

• all equally arbitrary
• way we eat, dress, talk, move, all highly ritualised performance
• imbued with moral value - the way we do it is correct

Question 4

What is culture shock?

Answer 4

We are socialised into doing things a certain way and are not used to other societies doing things differently - reverse culture shock after returning to own country, question why things are done a certain way

Question 5

Rituals are a way of ____

Answer 5

Making life easy

Question 6

What kind of ritual society is Japan? How does the UK compare?

Answer 6

Very high ritual society. Rituals constructed around every social action in Japan, in many ways easier to live in.

UK is a relatively low ritual society - need to work out correct way to behave. Example of dinner and ‘gochisousama deshita’

Question 7

What are symbols and rituals used to divide?

Answer 7

Space and time, which in turn are highly morally imbued.

Question 8

Why are symbols and rituals interesting (two points)?

Answer 8

They are arbitrary and changing all the time

Question 9

What does the legitimisation of ritual and symbolic behaviours depend on?

Answer 9

Historically changing factors such as culture, religion, and science.

Question 10

What is Nihonjinron and what does it look at?

Answer 10

Nihonjinron - ‘theories of Japaneseness’. Examines who Japanese are, how are they constructing and legitimising who they are.

Question 11

What is significant about the pronoun ‘wareware’?

Answer 11

Can only really be used with ‘nihonjin’, i.e. ‘wareware nihonjin’ - ‘we Japanese’.

Question 12

What is Japan’s only natural resource and how does this help us to understand the concept of education in Japan?

Answer 12

Natural resource is people. We can’t understand the concept of education in Japan without understanding that investing in people is the number one priority.

Question 13

Apart from nuclear power which stopped after Fukushima was closed down, what are two other waya that Japan has tried to combat its lack of natural resources?

Answer 13

1. Becoming an export economy - taking resources from developing countries and using them and selling to developed countries.
2. Technology - has been ahead in the last 30-40 years.

Question 14

What is Japan’s attitude towards robots?

Answer 14

Development in industrial robots. There has never been technophobia in Japan, always a sense that people and robots can work together.

Question 15

What has Japanese technology had the biggest impact on and what has this caused?

Answer 15

Biggest impact in health area, one reason why life expectancy has increased.

Question 16

What is considered to be one possible reason for the increase in life expectancy in Japan?

Answer 16

Social equality.

Question 17

What was significant about the birth rate in 1966?

Answer 17

1966 was the ‘fire-horse’ year and there is a belief that girls born in that year will become bad wives, struggle to get married, etc. and so birth rate dropped. Shock when that happened as people thought Japan had entered the modern era. ‘1.57 shock’.

Question 18

Roughly what percent of children are born outside marriage in Japan?

Answer 18

2%.

Question 19

What are the three factors that explain Japan’s shrinking population?

Answer 19

1. People are living longer.
2. Fewer children being born.
3. Very little immigration (to make up for fewer children).