America in the Mind of Japan

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Sony. Toyota. Honda. Mitsubishi. Nikon. Ricoh. Toshiba. There seems no escaping Japan in the U.S. these days. But just try to escape America in Japan, especially if you are young and yearn to be hip in Tokyo. America is an essential element of growing up urban in Japan.

It starts with the clothes: a pair of Bass Weejuns, baggy chinos, a Stanford sweatshirt, a Washington Redskins hat. And it's also the food: the Cool Ranch- flavored Doritos tortilla chips bought from 7-Eleven; real American all- beef frankfurters eaten under a Wrigley Field mural in the Chicago Dog restaurant; or ersatz American pizza ordered from Chicago Pizza, which promises home delivery as speedy as archrival Domino's.

America does not stop at food and clothing: it's entertainment too. The blockbuster movies are all American -- Terminator 2, Home Alone, Pretty Woman -- and require buying tickets days in advance. Hours after the box offices | opened, all 56,000 seats for M.C. Hammer's concert at the Tokyo Dome were spoken for. Millions of dollars' worth of CDs -- from New Age to rap to jazz to blues -- are bought at stores like Tower Records. Don't want to buy? Listen to American music on J-Wave (81.3 FM), presented by English-speaking deejays with names like Jon and Carole.

And what about sports? The national pastime is baseball, which became popular at the turn of the century, but among college students, the latest craze is American football (setdown, ready, ichi, ni, san). The Super Bowl, as well as the World Series, is broadcast live in Japan.

America is also on Japan's mind and stays there even after a Japanese outgrows blue jeans. American books, both pop and profound, can at times sell more in Japanese translation than back home in English. News is often seen through an American prism. Trends and movements sweep across the Pacific from America and take root. In Japan these days many people prefer whale watching to whale eating: environmentalism has arrived.

The puzzle is how two countries so intertwined can be so frequently at odds. Ever since President George Bush showed up in Tokyo last month with a group of vituperative business leaders in tow, the U.S. and Japan have once again been sniping at each other. And once again the ambiguous mix of Japanese attitudes toward the U.S. has been brought to the surface. In the mind of Japan, the superpower on the other side of the Pacific is both an object of respect and envy, of emulation and repulsion, of gratitude and contempt. Despite the years of wrangling between the two nations, Japan retains a large reservoir of good feeling toward the U.S. For the Japanese, America is the foreign country, the one that is admired and imitated, the standard for measuring national success.

What has changed is Japan's growing desire for respect. The unquestioning adulation of the U.S. that once prevailed has been replaced by increasing self-confidence. The Japanese believe that social and economic problems have eroded America's strength at just the moment when their own hard work has brought their country wealth and prosperity. While few officials hope or expect that Japan will eclipse America as a great power, they firmly believe it is time for Washington to treat Tokyo as its most important ally, and not like a junior partner.