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Japan fact of the day
Analysts estimate that 20 percent of all luxury goods are sold in Japan and another 30 percent to Japanese traveling abroad -- meaning Japanese buy half of all luxury goods. Today, approximately 40 percent of all Japanese own a Vuitton product.
That is from Dana Thomas's really quite interesting Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster. Thomas believes that the Japanese are so infatuated with luxury goods because they wish to brand themselves in what otherwise pretends to be a "classless" society.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 18, 2007 at 10:46 AM in Data Source | Permalink
Comments
That's a good explanation. I think it might be a substitute for not being able to purchase land.
Posted by: Wild Pegasus at Aug 18, 2007 11:24:19 AM
They are all acolytes of Veblen.
Posted by: John at Aug 18, 2007 11:31:47 AM
If you pay for space what the Japanese do, anything less would be better left vacant.
Posted by: Lord at Aug 18, 2007 1:50:52 PM
I'd recommend "The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia's love affair with luxury"
Apparently some 80% of japanese females in their 20's have a LV bag. China's crazy for the stuff too.
http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Luxury-Brand-Inside-Affair/dp/1904838057
I think it's less land and more just the concept of face translated into consumerism.
Posted by: Steve L at Aug 18, 2007 2:45:44 PM
Whatever. The Japanese just appreciate high quality goods.
Posted by: kvn at Aug 18, 2007 3:53:13 PM
Japanese people usually demand high quality when they buy goods. If you work in Japan their standards
tend to rub off on you so that when you return home you can see all kinds of imperfections in products
that you never noticed before. If anyone here wants a nutty explanation of why Japanese people demand and produce high quality products, I'll give you one. In Japan people tell each other apart by noticing asymmetries in
people's faces. This habit of looking for asymmetry lets them readily notice it asymmetries in manufactured
products and drives them to produce and purchase products that approach perfection.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Aug 18, 2007 5:17:16 PM
My Asian ('being an asian') perspective:
1) I don't know where this "Classless" society idea from, but in most Asian country, Japan included, your wealth defines your class, and they seldomly pretend the otherwise. So, other than just simply "vanity consumption" and "peer pressure", buying an expansive bag is a way to masquerade as a 'upper' class. Of course, the truely rich then has to up the war and use other means to signal their wealthiness.
2) Being in a warring society since 12th centuries until before their Meiji restoration, the craftsmanship and other manufacturing skills were cultivated by warlords in order to empower their army. This is a long tradition and has a spillover effect. It is just like the competition of European cities has generally improve the standard of art and clock design.
This is only possible when we fought in old style warfare (usually small and limited in scale, battle ended in days after initial conflict). The 'Total War', on the other hand, encourages mass production, and quantity trumps quality (e.g. U.S.A)
Posted by: Anthony at Aug 18, 2007 6:01:11 PM
so do the Japaneses really save a larger % of their income than Americans? do they make less but more expensive purchases?
Posted by: thehova at Aug 18, 2007 7:00:17 PM
The "classless society" illusion of the post war years is one of the most fascinating aspects when combined with a culture (and language) with so many fine gradients of status.
There may be important regional differences within Japan, for instance between Tokyo, which as the home of power for 400 years is prone to status comparisons, and Osaka, disparaged as a city of merchants. In the former, income is linked to status, and luxry goods are bought as Veblen goods, in the latter, income is linked to what one can buy, and luxury goods are bought as quality goods. I can look at my parents-in-law, from the latter, and note that they have a Mercedes used only to drive to their yacht, but there doesn't seem to be any status element to the purchase, merely that it's a good car that they can afford (but don't need to drive much). This impression is supported by the fact that they produced a daughter who evaluates purchasing products solely on their quality in regards to price (and subsequently buys home brand food products usually).
In fact, I had to explain the concept of class almost entirely when I was mocking both my upper middle class relatives and some noveau riche in the same vicinity.
Posted by: Richard Green at Aug 18, 2007 7:00:42 PM
I have no clue as to why the Japanese like luxury goods, but it is a clear indication of how wealthy the country is despite the so-called long deflationary crisis they were said to be in since the late 80s.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Aug 18, 2007 8:52:19 PM
Before the Meiji Reformation Japan was highly class stratified into castes. The caste were defined by their societal value and "cleanliess" according to Shinto and Buddhist tradition.
The Rank were:
Samurai/Royal Family -There were several divisions of Samurai, not all were wealthy warlords or "knights" some were civil servants, tax collectors, etc.
Artisans - this included Geisha but also smiths, potters, thespians, etc.
Farmers
Merchants - although next to the lowest class because they were seen as a type of parasite, they were often wealthier than many Samurai.
Eta/Burakumin - basically untouchable, because they did jobs that were "dirty"...undertakers, slaughters, etc.
After Meiji the Samurai and extended Royals took various upper-level societal positions from politicians, to professors, high level bureaucrats, military officers.
After WWII, much of the old society was reformed again and gave way to more of a meritocratic system. Many of the old guard were still at the upper levels but there was much movements in the social structure and much less resistant by the old "blue bloods" as compared to in Europe or even America.
This is where the "classless society" comes from.
For instance there are no ghettos in Tokyo (although there are poor who live in poor housing in mixed income neighborhoods). Most people say they are middle class, the income inequality in Japanese society is one of the lowest in the world, CEOs get paid far less than in America.
The Japanese fascination with brand names is an East Asian cultural thing.
Having cool things gives one more "face" in society so they like to have things they can show off.
This is true in Japan, Korea, and China (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc). I would say that Japanese don't act as nouveau rich as the Chinese tend to or as overly, "in your face" with their stuff.
A Chinese friend once told me when I asked why he had a 5 year old low end BMW but lived in a relatively crappy apartment..."Most people see what kind of car you drive but most don't know where you live". That about sums it up I think.
Posted by: Dragon Horse at Aug 18, 2007 10:01:26 PM
it's because VL bags are made from chinese baby skin
Posted by: d at Aug 19, 2007 1:24:15 AM
The Japanese are not as "nouveau riche" as the Chinese or other Asians, because they have been richer for longer than
the others.
The description of the old class structure of Japanese society given above was sorely hurting in several ways.
The royal family and the samurai were not on the same level. In between them was the aristocracy, the noble
lords, who were definitely below the royal family, but were above the samurai. The samurai worked for the
aristocrats and were loyal to specific ones, except for the unattached ones, who certainly were not at the top
of the social scale on par with the royal family. After all, the emperor was a god. None of these others was.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 19, 2007 2:19:25 PM
I spent nearly a year in Japan, and this luxury habit isn't surprising in the least. They are extremely class conscious.
To have a tanned face was considered low brow as it showed that you worked outside. Thus paler skin was a virtue, and this affinity for white crossed over into a number of things, most noticeable being their car purchases. I was there in 1990, so it may have changed some, but there was a preponderance for white cars.
Other things like not being seen with the gaijin; I'm sitting on a crowded commuter train that is absolutely packed with people. All standing chest to back, hanging on to the straps, trying not to stumble when the trains makes a sudden move, and no one will even look at me, much less think of occupying one of the three empty seats in my little booth.
Posted by: Ray G at Aug 19, 2007 3:04:05 PM
Ray:
I lived there from 2001-2002...most of that stuff is not really true anymore.
White skin is still favored by women, but often you will see tan Japanese men on TV, which makes the skin color difference extreme between people of the same ethnicity. My wife (who is Japanese) told me it looks more "manly".
I don't think this is true in Korea, as when we visited all the guys on TV are as pale as the women. Japan goes through a lot of fads though, in the late 1990's a lot young girls (and some guys) kogaru would spend a lot of money to tan themselves as dark as possible which older people found disgusting but it was quite popular. Now that fad has faded. Dyed hair (blond, red, auburn) was also quite popular but now black hair/dark brown is back in style. This also bled into when hip hop started spreading into the Japanese teen mainstream.
White car thing? Never heard of it, probably another fad (ryuko).
I never had an issue of people not sitting next to me in Tokyo (where I lived). Now if you go outside of Tokyo that is a little different. I notice that older women are the least likely to sit next to foreigners, younger men are the most likely. My wife told me they think foreigners smell bad. I sat next to some continental European once on the train and yeah he smelled bad as they don't wash or use deodorant as much as American. I wouldn't be surprised if that stereotype came from Europeans in Japan.
I would say if you are ever on a bus in Hong Kong in the summer some people don't smell so great either, but I noticed in Japan, even men in suits don't sweat much in the summer and I never met a Japanese guy who 'smelled'(other than the homeless people in the stations). My wife thinks it is diet. She says Japanese people often say gaijin smell like meat/butter. Could be.
Barkley
For this topic I didn't feel it was necessary to differentiate between Royal Family/Daimyo/Samurai.
The Royal Family routinely married with the Daimyo and especially with the clan of the Shogunate in power.
Samurai were loyal to the Daimyo or directly to the Shogunate..blah blah blah...point was there strict class differences
In some ways the Japanese system was very much like Medieval Europe, much more than China was as China routinely had peasant emperors (due to the mandate of heaven) and a meritocratic system of sorts that created powerful civil servants, many of who came from humble backgrounds. There is much less class mobility but then again the Tokugawa thought this up and I'm not sure exactly when it was initiated but that shogunate lasted from 1603 to the Meiji Restoration so before that I'm not sure.
In any case I don't believe Japanese are really class consciousness in the Western science. Wanting to show off certain things due to status is not "class" as we think of in Western Europe, which is based far more on family.
Posted by: Dragon Horse at Aug 19, 2007 5:20:02 PM
I would also add that things like looking down on rural people (something common in America and also China) or looking down on people who speak dialects is not a common thing in Japan. I've known many Japanese people who are from Tokyo the surrounding Kanto area or Koshinetsu (Nagano, Niigata, Gunma) talking like this. The only remarks I have heard are about how "money grubbing" and arrogant people are from Osaka or how the people from Okinawa are "different" or "do not act 'really' Japanese". Other than that, I can't recall such behavior...but I have pretty much dealt with Japanese people who are under 40.
Posted by: Dragon Horse at Aug 19, 2007 5:37:42 PM
Why don't the japanese have any luxury goods houses like the West does? Or do they?
Posted by: russ at Aug 19, 2007 8:18:13 PM
Dragon Horse -- i think you've got a couple of your ranks flipped, the usual description of the ranks is 士農工商 (shi nou kou shou, or samurai -> farmers -> artisans -> merchants) (followed of course by the eta/burakumin who didn't get a place in the four-character compound).
Posted by: groobles at Aug 20, 2007 10:50:06 AM
Regarding luxury goods stores, there are specialty stores like Tiffany and Harry Winston.
In terms of a more general luxury goods store, the most famous is Wako in the heart of the
Ginza, the most valuable real estate area in the world. The building it is located in is
famously one of the few in Tokyo to survive the WW II firebombing of the city, with the
imperial palace (consciously not bombed), the Diet building (which looks a lot like the
LA city hall), the Kabuki theater not far from Wako, and the main building of the central
railroad station (along with some temples and shrines), being among the few others to do so.
Regarding Okinawa, it is the poorest part of Japan and was long the center of the independent
kingdom of the Ryukyus, which was allied more with China than Japan, as was Korea, until the
late nineteenth century, when the Japanese came in. The Okinawans have their own dialect, now
mostly faded, but a continuing sense of a distinct ethnic identity, including a distinct cuisine
and their own distinctive (and spicey) form of sake, known as awamori.
Regarding class, it is clear that as time has gone on, with major breaks both with the Meiji
Restoration that basically ended the power of the samurai, and after WW II, the old hereditary
based class system has pretty much broken down, although apparently the Eta/Burakumin continue
to be discriminated against. Otherwise, education matters, and if one can get into one of the
top universities, with the University of Tokyo at the pinnacle, one can get into the upper
levels of the hierarchy, which depend on positions in the government or major keiretsu businesses,
with income tending to correspond to those levels.
There is definite hierarchy, but it is not nearly as much tied to heredity as it used to be.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 20, 2007 2:22:46 PM
Grooble...yeah you are right. :-)
Barkley:
As far as Eta...I know that in the past even major keiretsu would do background checks to divulge Korean and Eta ancestry. I'm not sure how common this is now. If a Eta moves out of their rural area to Tokyo or Osaka no one knows who they are. They are not distinguishable by appearance or name.
I also know many actors/performers in Japan (and even Yakusa) are ethnic Koreans who have just changed their names.
Posted by: Dragon Horse at Aug 20, 2007 9:07:41 PM
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Posted by: wslmwps at Aug 21, 2007 2:05:03 AM
various reasons...
like the first post, japanese people have a hard time buying property. it's much easier to buy luxury goods than buy luxury property. also,as japanese people live in tiny housing (and live in a moderate climate), they go outside where they are many people who are much more critical of presentation. recall that japanese people have a mentality of "uchi" and "soto" -- outside, and inside-- the way they present and interact with those on the outside and inside are v different. count the number of women on tokyo public transport who dont wear makeup or respond to a question with an artificial pitch.
quite a few japanese people also have a fair bit of disposable income to spend on luxury goods, particularly if they are young women living at home, first sons living at home (who will inherit the house and carry the family name), etc. -- v little spending on rent, food, etc.
the japanese are also late developers who'd like to be considered part of the western league of advanced nations. maybe after purchases of european material wealth make the japanese feel better about how they've managed to catch up, and feel slightly more "western" they will spend more of their money elsewhere.
Posted by: neko at Aug 21, 2007 9:35:15 AM
Enjoy watching the samurai shows, don't care for the self tanners on them, its too much looks overdone = ridiculous. Maybe a light beige or even better none at all. Love the armor, fighting, and horseriding! Were there women samurais? Would like to see women warriors.
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