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one way of achieving this: to learn the skills of the West.
    Today the word ‘imitation’ has a
pejorative, almost contemptuous ring in Western ears; in Japanese it is a
laudatory term.
    The attitude of the West is a survival
from the twenties and thirties and is of course understandable. In those years
the Japanese just copied whatever they could lay their hands on, with complete
disregard of patent laws. The copies made were frequently skilful, sometimes
ingenious but always inferior to the original in quality and workmanship.
Relying on starvation wages paid to their own workers, and on the stolen
patents, they were able to dump a lot of cheap and inferior stuff on the
world’s markets. Little wonder the West became apprehensive and angry,
suspicious and contemptuous.
    Imitation — or some of its close
synonyms — has a different ring in Japan. In the Meiji period, innumerable
study-groups were sent to Europe with the sole, admitted purpose of learning
Western techniques and learning them fast. They went to Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and a few other countries (also to the United States, across the Pacific), tried to pick up the best in every country, take it home and
improve on it.
    They came to Europe and, after
relatively brief inspections, transplanted our institutions wholesale. They
copied our dress, and our building methods; they copied our parliaments, our
press, our railways, our shipping, our mining methods, our royal courts, our
criminal and civil codes, our civil service, our armies and navies, our
taxation systems. They copied everything, deliberately and not only unashamedly
but eagerly, almost proudly. Many of these institutions — European
parliamentary democracy, for example — were in need of improvement; yet it
cannot be stated that the Japanese succeeded in improving upon them.
    For some time we were very
patronizing about the Japanese ability to imitate — and, of course, flattered,
too. We would go so far as to admit that their genius for imitation was better
than third-rate originality. During the period of Dumping we were less pleased.
After the last war, we saw their car-models and smiled at their names; Century,
Debonair, Corona, Gloria, Skyline, Contessa, etc.: all the names were Western
imitations and so were the cars. Even today, you can see Japanese Fiats,
Japanese Alfa Romeos, Japanese Minis. We grew more and more patronizing: let
them enjoy themselves, let them copy Western brand names, let them produce
their second-rate little cars, this concentration on industry will keep them
out of serious mischief. They did continue, they kept the Western trade names
for many of their products but — to our surprise and often hardly concealed
annoyance — their products kept on improving. A few years after the war people
said about Japanese cameras: ‘Well, not bad for the price.’ Then it became
widely known that the lenses were superb, perhaps the best in the world, but
the rest — shutters, built-in exposure meters etc. — were somewhat inferior.
But before long Japanese cameras improved further and gained an excellent,
all-round reputation — yet remained very competitive in price. Similarly, we
tried out their cars and nodded benevolently: ‘Not bad,’ which in this
exceptional case meant what it should mean: not bad but not really good. We
were right: even five or six years ago they were not outstanding. Today they
are.
    The Japan Times has a slogan
printed on its front page: ‘All the News Without Fear and Favor’. Being a good
Westerner, I smiled at this at first. It was, of course, a childish imitation
of the New York Times slogan: ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’. A mere
rewording. And why have a slogan, in the first place? The overwhelming majority
of newspapers appear without slogans and (with regrettable exceptions) survive.
But after a few days I came to regard this slogan in the Japan Times as
a prototype of Japanese treatment of imported methods and