When Did “Japan Is Amazing” Begin? A Country That Has Lived with an Inferiority Complex Toward Foreign Countries for Over a Thousand Years

I was watching a YouTube video about Japanese history when it raised an interesting point about the “Japan is amazing” narrative.

Television and the internet repeatedly feature programs and videos in which foreigners marvel at the punctuality of Japanese trains, praise convenience stores, and are moved by Japanese cuisine.

Apparently, this kind of content attracts viewers.

It can be explained as a declining economic power clinging to anime and Japanese food to bolster its self-esteem. Until now, that was largely how I saw it too.

The history video, however, argued that a similar pattern had existed much earlier.

I had recently written a blog post on a related theme, but I had not given much thought to it from the perspective of the “Japan is amazing” narrative.

Japan has continually absorbed advanced civilizations from abroad. Each time, it has acknowledged the other side’s progress and been confronted with its own backwardness. In reaction, it has turned back toward questions such as, “What, then, is Japan?” and “What value is unique to Japan?”

Seen this way, “Japan is amazing” is no longer something that suddenly began in the last few decades.

Absorbing Foreign Civilizations Also Means Recognizing Your Own Backwardness

Japanese culture has absorbed an enormous amount from abroad.

In ancient times, Japan adopted Chinese characters, Buddhism, political systems, architecture, calendars, and a wide range of technologies and cultural practices from China and through the Korean Peninsula. In the modern era, it rapidly imported military systems, law, education, medicine, science and technology, industry, and much more from the West.

In hindsight, this can be praised as Japan’s ability to flexibly absorb foreign cultures and remake them in its own way.

For those doing the absorbing, however, it could not always have felt so positive.

The very act of desperately learning from another country also meant admitting:

“They are more advanced than we are.”

Japan saw the Black Ships and learned about steamships. It studied Western medicine, built a modern military, and imported foreign institutions.

Behind this was not only intellectual curiosity, but also the fear that Japan would lose if it remained as it was.

Absorbing a foreign culture wholesale is an act of cultural exchange, but it is also a daily exercise in recognizing the areas in which your own society is inferior.

Looking Too Far Outward Eventually Makes You Search Within

What I found interesting in the YouTube video was its discussion of the reaction to this process.

The stronger the influence of foreign culture becomes, the more urgently people ask, “What, then, is uniquely Japanese?”

During the Edo period, scholars of Kokugaku, or National Learning, such as Motoori Norinaga criticized the influence of ideas originating in China and sought to return to Japanese classics and spirituality. When the Mongols invaded, Japan was saved in part by typhoons. This led to the belief that Japan had been protected because it was a divine country.

In the modern era, Japan came under the immense pressure of Western civilization, while the Yamato spirit and Japan’s unique national character were increasingly emphasized.

A vast civilization arrives from abroad.

People desperately absorb it.

The more they absorb, the less certain they become about who they are.

Then they turn back and say:

“No, Japan has wonderful things that exist nowhere else.”

Once I considered this back-and-forth movement, the modern “Japan is amazing” narrative suddenly looked very familiar.

Did “Japan Is Amazing” Really Begin Recently?

China has overtaken Japan in GDP. The giant technology companies are concentrated in the United States, and the presence of the United States and China in AI is overwhelming.

In an era like this, content built around statements such as these becomes popular:

“But Japanese anime is popular around the world.”

“Japanese food is amazing.”

“The Shinkansen arrives on time.”

“Foreigners are astonished by Japanese convenience stores.”

Viewed in isolation, it is easy to explain this as escapism by an economic power in decline.

But when I place it alongside the history discussed in the YouTube video, it begins to look like a much older pattern.

People look outward and feel overwhelmed. They desperately try to catch up. The harder they try, the more clearly they see where they fall short. Finally, they begin to look inward and ask, “What, then, is our own value?”

Perhaps this psychology did not suddenly emerge because the economy began to decline. It may be a phenomenon inseparable from Japan’s long history of absorbing foreign civilizations.

Chive-and-Egg Stir-Fry and Sweet-and-Sour Pork Matter More Than Ideology

One story in the YouTube history video particularly stayed with me.

It said that when ancient Japanese people still ate a relatively simple diet, China had already developed a sophisticated culinary culture using oil and stir-frying. Even ordinary people ate dishes comparable to today’s nira-tama, or stir-fried chives and eggs, and sweet-and-sour pork.

For some reason, hearing this made perfect sense to me.

When we talk about the shock Japan received from ancient China, we tend to list impressive things such as Chinese characters, Buddhism, the ritsuryo legal and administrative system, and Confucianism. But perhaps the gap in civilization that actual people felt was much simpler.

“Those people are eating much better food than we are.”

That would have had a far greater impact.

An advanced political system is difficult and hard to understand. An ideology takes time to grasp. But when someone is eating something delicious right in front of you, you understand immediately.

The feeling is not only “That is amazing,” but also “I wish we had that.” And envy is inseparable from the awareness that you have not yet reached the same level.

An inferiority complex toward foreign countries sounds like a grand theory of civilizations, but its origins may have been far more human.

The difference between ideologies has to be explained. The difference between chive-and-egg stir-fry becomes obvious as soon as you taste it.