Influences stay and go, here and there, countries are much or less a melange of the cultures they have meet or have been over time. Japan is an island, right, the politics about his openness to the world changed many many times. From staying in a selfcontained bubble of a state of isolation, to an incentivated hunger of outside world knownledge. Take for instance the hindu influence of the Buddhism, the chinese characters (kanjis) and nowadays... the american influence. Specially after the situation Japan was in after the end of WWII, who would have thought that after of such a traumatic blast, Japan would soon upsurge as one of the most important economies in the world.
Well, enough with class history... let's read about that beloved fast-food serving restaurant, so close to our hearts (specially to our arteries), and undeniable proof of an american influence over any country in the world... McDonald's. Yeah, here named マクドナルド(makudonarudo), their food might be considered a state of the art one. If you want to take over this island culture you have to make some changes in order to adapt. Here lately I've been seeing publicity from McDonald's about a new type of mcflurry... sadly couldn't find the video, but picture this... you have to see a beautiful
zen garden, or so it looks like in the commercial, then a swirl starts to mix the sand, the rocks and the grass together, soon after you see those elements where actually a mcflurry; the sand is vanilla ice cream, the rocks are oreo's bits and the grass, well, is
still kinda grass...it's matcha(green tea)ice cream, being consumed by some beautifully dressed in kimono occidental like hottie.
And searching something more about makudonarudo... I found out that Ronald is named Donald(ドナルド), Why? you tell me... So, some years ago there were also some commercials featuring the stunning Donna MacDonalds and what appears to be some kind of
Emo McDonalds. This publicity was very well received, unique in Japan... or so they say, I think is quite original.
So you have to adapt to the culture you are in, example is the Coronel, from Kentucky Fried Chicken (ケンタッキーフライドチキン kentakkii furaido chikin). This photo was taken one day before "Kodomo no Hi" (こどもの日) or "Children's Day", celebrated on May 5th. There's a story of a very famous samurai well known for had an exceptional strength even being a child, his name was Kintarō (金太郎). Behold the Coronel disguised as Kintaro at Akihabara!!
Here you can see a lot of american influence... Disney, Nike, Brad Pitt(pronounced buratto pitto)... but there's something missing... Wal-mart.... there are no Wal-marts!! Something smeeeells fishy here... looking for an answer I found some information about the fruitless efforts of this gigant to enter Japan. Some people say it was because the formula of "low prices always" doesn't "always" work with the good quality japaneses prefer to get despite the price (maybe in Mexico or China). Wal-mart has struggled to gain some terrain here, by owning stock and managing the Seiyu stores... but again, in a culture where life-time work in the same company is expected, is not well received if the foreign new owner fires thousands of japanese workers to replace them with americans. An so on, Wal-Mart here has lost billions of dollars, and are still losing non-gained terrain, the american management doesn't work quite well here... and I thought the monster was unstoppable.
