Xenophobia alive and well in Japan as racist books fly off the shelves

Books and publications carrying disparaging content about South Korea and China have been growing in popularity in Japan to the point that some bookstores even have a dedicated corner for such xenophobic literature.

But to fully understand the recent rise in this trend, beyond Japan's recent trials and tribulations with some of its closest neighbors over territorial and historical issues, anthropologists advocate looking at the situation from both a historical as well as a psychological perspective.

They note that Japan has always been a homogenous culture that largely isolated itself from the rest of the world until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

But in modern-day Japan, as the world's third largest economy, Japan now "presents" itself on a global stage as a progressive, hardworking, peace-loving country, committed to the ideals of internationalization, which in terms of Japanese history and persona, create inherent ethnological conflicts and contradictions, social paradoxes and divergence, resulting in a homogenous nation with a dichotomous personality.

It would appear, as experts in the field of anthropology have attested, that Japan's xenophobic gene, masterfully hidden from uninformed outsiders, is alive and well and has simply been laying somewhat dormant since Japan's warring days. And, as with any genetic material, it's passed on from generation to generation.

The recent revival of jingoism, including the proliferation of racist literature in Japan in particular, can be understood from two perspectives according to some leading sociologists. These can be best described as "in group versus out group" cultural ideology, and an "elitist social hegemony."

"It wasn't until I'd lived overseas for some years that I could truly see Japan, my country, objectively and while I was shocked at first, it makes sense when you consider the idiosyncrasies, many of them engendered historically, that comprise the Japanese psyche," Keiko Gono, a prominent Tokyo-based sociologist told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"I realized that Japan was obsessively group culture-oriented, meaning that if you weren't a member of a particular group, be it socially or at work, or were rejected by the 'in group,' then you were socially ostracized and became an 'outsider,'" Gono said.

"An adherence to the group culture principle is where Japan derives a lot of its strength from as a nation."

"By defining themselves as 'We Japanese' (a statement often used to introduce or reinforce personal opinions), they are simultaneously excluding all others. By rejecting other countries' norms and values, or by discrediting or disparaging them, such is the case with the recent wave of nationalistic books, Japan's own norms and values are fortified," said Gono.

And herein, it would seem, lies the recent popularity of the brand of books known here as kenchu-zokan (meaning "dislike China, hate South Korea").

As Japanese politics took a major step to the right with the rise to power of the hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in December 2012, the popularity of books slamming China and South Korea leapt.

In 2013, according to an accredited best-selling book list in Japan, three kenchu-zokan publications on the list reached the top 10 best sellers.

Books with such inflammatory titles as: 'An Introduction to China: A Study of Our Bothersome Neighbors,' 'The Hate Korea Wave, ' 'Why Koreans hate Japanese,' 'The Theory of Stupid Korea' and ' Big issues of China,' are among some of the publications that have been flying off the shelves of book stores recently, with the stores themselves and publishers keen to cash in on the trend.