ABSTRACT
It is an apparent paradox that internationalism and respect for traditional culture are the distinguishing slogans in the recent debate over the recasting of education-related laws in Japan. For under the influence of ‘key wordism’ (Moeran 1989) the Japanese word dentô (‘tradition’) has become nothing more than trite political parlance that evokes nationalistic sentiments. However, the idea of being international and at the same time demonstrating an understanding of traditional culture has become the constant focus of attention in contemporary Japanese popular culture. For example, the young entertainer Katori Shingo has become popular for studying English on Asahi TV’s weekly Sma Station show,2 where viewers can witness his improvement in conversing in English every Saturday night. Moreover, the same TV show has started a feature called Nippon o shirô! (Let’s Learn about Japan!), which shows the protagonist learning about Japanese history and traditional culture. The concepts of tradition and internationalism, usually considered to be opposed to each other, are shown at the same time and seem in fact to complement each other. As far as contemporary usage of these two terms is concerned, Jennifer
Robertson was accurate in stating that tradition and internationalisation are complementary (Robertson 1998: 128). People admire those who are internationally active, and at the same time show an understanding of traditional culture, which is to say that they present themselves as traditional. This tendency is also visible on the streets of the geisha quarter of contemporary Kyoto, discussed in this chapter, considering questions such as when this complementary relationship was constructed, and the nature of the connection between these two ideas. By exploring several attempts to popularise geisha in the Meiji period, I will present another aspect of this relationship, which is that internationalisation exploits traditionalism. In other words, I argue that traditionalism occurs or is even sought out after attaining international recognition.
