Would you want to be taken to Asakusa by your Japanese friends?
In addition to the the question posed in the headline, I’d like to ask my Tokyo-based readers if your Japanese friends have tried taking you there, and what did they want to take you to there?
I discovered today another new-to-me web site, but this time it’s of a rather prominent research company, Macromill Inc. They’ve got some interesting opinion poll results on their site, but one that caught my eye was this one on the image of the towns within Tokyo. Over one day at the end of September last year they interviewed 1,032 people from their online monitor group, evenly split 516 male and 516 female, and each sex also evenly split with 129 people in each age band from between 20 and 29, 30 to 39, 40 to 49, and 50 years or older.
This is a slightly old survey, and since I am not a Tokyo expert by any long shot, I’ll skip a full translation (although give me a shout if you would like to see more!) and instead focus on the most relevant portion for my readers, a couple of images related to foreigners. Note that although the Japanese word 外国人, gaikokujin, means anyone from overseas, it is usually taken as referring to non-Asian foreigners. (Is it? I and many other English-speaking foreigners often assert this, but is there any evidence to support or disprove this supposition?)
Also note that Q1 specifically mentions foreigner friends, so it is presumably not just where they would recommend the average tourist should go. On the other hand, the respondent may be thinking of a friend from abroad coming to Tokyo for the first time, so perhaps it is the tourist spots that they are thinking of?
Q1: Where would you like to take foreigner friends to? (Sample size=1,032, up to three choices)
Asakusa 42.1% Roppongi 17.0% Akihabara 11.9% Shinjuku 11.7% Ginza 10.1% Shibuya 6.3% Ueno 6.0% Harajuku 5.8% Tokyo 5.1% Omotesando 3.3% Next, people were asked to choose from a list of nineteen attributes and for each of the districts Ginza, Nihonbashi, Asakusa, Shinbashi, Shiodome, Shibuya, Harajuku, Roppongi, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Ebisu, Omotesando, Akihabara, and Shinagawa, select the attributes that they associate with each of the locations.
Q2: What image does Asakusa have? (Sample size=1,032, multiple answer)
Working-class 66.3% Traditional 61.0% Cultural, artistic 42.2% Lively 30.0% International 24.7% Only the upper-class image of Ginza (74.4%) and the youth-oriented nature of Shibuya and Harajuku (74.0% and 72.5% respectively) was stronger than the plebian image of Asakusa, and its traditionalness was the next strongest image overall. Ginza’s adult-oriented nature at 55.7% was the only other image that registered with more than half the respondents.
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PeterD said,
January 17, 2007 @ 02:26
In my first trips to Tokyo (about 7 years ago), I was there on business. The folks from my local sales office brought me to Ginza, Shinjuku, and Akihabara. Ginza and Shinjuku may not count, as it really wasn’t for sightseeing, but for entertaining (dinners, drinks, karaoke, etc.).
Roy said,
January 17, 2007 @ 13:48
Those results seem about right. Although I would like to know what the Japanese word you translated “working class” from was. I’m guessing it was “shitamachi” in which case I would have to say that working class tends to have a negative “class” connotation attached to it that “shitamachi” doesn’t have. Although I’m not sure you could translate “shitamachi” accurately in a few words. I suppose Japanese people would describe Asakusa as “shitamachi” in the sense that it is a older community and has a more traditional flavor.
Ken Y-N said,
January 18, 2007 @ 15:06
Roy, the word I translated as “working class” was actually 庶民的な, shominteki-na. In a sub-question where people freely entered words they associated with each town, for Asakusa shitamichi was the top (I presume), followed by Asakusa temple, Kaminari-mon, tradition, and sightseeing.
Ken said,
January 20, 2007 @ 00:13
Great one. I’ve done some work in this field, so it was interesting to see this data.
From a few experiences, I would have to say that - at least by casual Tokyo usage - 外国人 generally refers to non-Asian foreigners. We don’t really hear 欧米人とかアフリカ人 getting tossed around so much in conversation, and there could be a lot of racial politics involved in that.
A couple of years working at a Japanese university in Tokyo gave me a great chance to get a feel for what kinds of perceptions the kids had. They generally thought that the Nigerians and Cameroonians in Tokyo were American blacks. Other kids would refer to American blacks as afurikajin.
At any rate, in every semester I had them devise marketing plans for increasing the number of foreign visitors to Japan. They were supposed to research it and come back with five suggestions. I heard some of the typical stereotypes from almost every group: “Foreigners can’t use chopsticks.” “Foreigners can’t sleep on futons.” “Foreigners can’t eat raw fish.” “Foreigners can’t eat Japanese food.”
I asked them what they meant by foreigners, where these foreigners were from? Almost every group said the west or America. I found it astounding that none of the groups ever did the research to find out that 50-60% of tourists to Japan were Chinese or Korean, and that’s where most of the money is.
At any rate, I would say yes, in conversation, gaikokujin means Western white. Just like the current usage of zainichi is somewhat of a misnomer - given it’s actual meaning, we’re both zainichi. But usage and meaning are often divorced…don’t even get me going on ‘hafu’…
Ken said,
January 20, 2007 @ 01:05
Oh yeah, the while point was to answer your question at the top of the post…
Asakusa - Took my brother here when he first visited. Didn’t go over well. I never go there. It’s like Disney Land. Some great temples though. No Japanese people ever took me there.
Roppongi - Took my brother here. Many times. Don’t remember most of them, and it’s best left that way.
Akihabara - Took brother and uncle here. Both loved it.
Shinjuku - Took brother, parents and uncle here. Generally hated due to the crowd. My brother loved it. Came back with a camera full of pics of these wacky establishments off the Kabukicho/Golden Gai path. Not sure how he found the places.
Ginza - Took lots of people there. General consensus was that the Sony showroom was great, rest of the area boring and full of people pretending to be rich.
Shibuya - Live near there, so have always taken people there and spent a lot of time there. People always just think it’s nuts. Just walking around can fascinate tourists.
Ueno - Refuse to go there. It stinks of piss. My brother went on his own and loved it. Came back with tons of cool photos of places I’ve never seen or heard of, and all these new friends he made.
Harajuku - I always take people there, they love it. Takeshita Dori is a big hit. The family loved it.
Tokyo - Boring. Marunouchi or Hibiya/Yurakucho would be much better. Never go there.
Omotesando - Brought the family here multiple times. Everyone loves it. Great restaurants, good shopping, busy people but not full of oyaji. Has an air about it, and you can duck down a side street and it’s quiet. Plus everyone loves Meiji-Jingu. This is the place to bring people. My brother announced it was “full of babes.” My dad nodded his head silently, and we didn’t care that mom and my wife were in some shop for a long time.