by Roisi Proven

Created on: April 22, 2008

As recently as 160 years ago, the coasts of Japan were closed to foreign traders. It was a completely insular country with no outside influences. However, in recent years Japan has become a technological superpower with an unrivalled fascination with Western culture and aesthetics. But has the involvement of the West in the recent development of Japan been a positive or a negative thing, and have did we have the right to insist that they open their borders to the wider world?

In 1854, the American Navy forced Japan to begin trading with the outside world, and changed the culture of the country forever. The development of a nation firmly stuck in the past was forcefully accelerated. The first thing to go was the feudal government system, and most notably it caused the demise of the samurai warlords of old. The breakdown of this system initially caused much civil and financial unrest, until the centralized government of today established itself in modern Tokyo.

However, Westernization did not truly become prevalent until the last few decades. The Western media has presented a very different way of living to a nation that has always been very detached from the rest of the world, and one that has a unique social system of its own. The introduction of Western mainstream ideas has led to much change in etiquette, but at the same time is frowned upon by many of the older generation.

The first noticeable change was in popular culture. The phrase "Big in Japan" wasn't simply coined without reason. The fascination with Western film, music and celebrity has reached fever pitch over the past 20 years, with bands and film-makers who could not get the fame or money that they wanted over here heading East to find their fortune.

Japanese bands have taken on the style of Western bands and have stylised themselves to the extreme. They have their own, younger version of the Backstreet Boys in the form of Hey!Say!JUMP' (So named because all of the band's 10 members were born in Japan's "Heisei" era, and therefore are all under 18!) and their own Marilyn Manson style bands such as Malice Mizer and Dir En Grey.

Probably the most extreme and shocking form of Westernization in Japan is the aesthetic changes that people are willing to make to look more "Western". There are several trends followed in Japan, especially by people in their teens and early 20s, which are taken straight out of the gossip magazines and MTV shows from America and Europe.

Of all of these trends, the "Ganguro" girls,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>