Lost in Translation

My English conversation partner recommended me to watch Sofia Coppola’s movie, Lost in Translation (2003). It is the story about two Americans who spent a week in Tokyo. A middle aged movie star, Bob, once popular in the industry, visited Tokyo to shoot Japanese Whisky Company’s commercial (Suntory’s Hibiki) for big money, while accused by his wife of forgetting their son’s birthday by fax. At the same gorgeous hotel, a young Yale grad wife Charlotte was bored to death because her photographer husband was too busy to be by her side. Although Bob is old enough to be a Charlotte’s father, they became soul mates. Both of them were embarrassed with Japanese cultural environment as total strangers. Also, they struggled to cope with their loneliness in spite of their marriage and to find the meaning of their life. They spent their leisure time to visit Karaoke studio, sushi and shabu-shabu restaurants, and even to a hospital where nobody understands English, but knew that there was no quick solution for their loneliness and uncertainty.

This movie is slow paced and doesn’t have clear story line. There is no car chase, explosion, or murder case. They just visit some places in Tokyo, drank at the hotel bar, and chatted on Bob’s bed sipping Sake, but never slept. Just as they are jaded tourists, this movie may be boring tourist pseudo-documentary for some audiences. It is probably surprising for them that Sophia won the Academy Award for Best Writing.

But I like this movie. Sophia vividly depicted the dry atmosphere of twenty first century Tokyo with simple camerawork: flamboyant westernized fashion among Japanese youngsters in Shinjuku and Shibuya, cutting edge posh hotel facilities, neon-fused downtown night, numerous people overblown on streets, noisy public announcement omnipresent in town and buildings, and so on. Of course, some description may be too stereotypical. She, however, succeeded to grasp the essence of Tokyo: the anonymity and anomie in a gigantic megalopolis and the boredom and anxiety prevailed in Japan who lost the status of an economic superpower in world economy.

Some customer reviews on Amazon.co.jp resented Sophia for making fun of Japanese accent in English which cannot tell the pronunciation “r” from “l”, and main actors for ridiculing Japanese sushi chef in English. But her portrayal is critical and precise enough for me, Japanese who lived in the town just five minutes by commuter train from Shinjuku, where the hotel is located, and now live in a foreign country alone (but, unfortunately or fortunately, I haven't yet met Charlotte-type woman here).

As for stereotypical matter, the Japanese TV Host in a blonde wig and garish suits (as “Matthew Minami”) who welcomed Bob in his program is a strongly stereotypical image of “Gaijin”, non-East Asian in Japanese. This program appeared in this movie was actually aired in Japan until recently. Matthew, a son of a Japanese cellist father and an English mother who is a daughter of an earl, is a noisy gay-type geek of Japanese pop culture. Apparently, his image is meant to parody a westerner.

As California roll, popular sushi among American, isn’t authentic at all for Japanese, any foreign cultural stuff are translated though importers’ frame of recognition and localized by and large. So, picking and accusing the "inaccuracy" in this movie from Japanese standpoint is silly.

It’s interesting that, while this movie apparently deals with incommensurability among different cultures, it consequently describes the universal characteristics of our modernized world: incommensurability among family and friends. This homeless mind in individualized urban life may be shared among many Japanese. We are embedded in complex social structure but feel some uncertainty and loneliness, and this is what “Lost in translation” is all about.

Tolbert and Zucker (1983)

Below is the summary of and comment on Pamela S. Tolbert and Lynne G. Zucker (1983) “Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 28 (1), 22-39.

Summary

This paper analyzes the diffusion and institutionalization of change in formal organization structure. Theoretical goal of this paper is to specify the boundaries between the rational and the institutional approaches to organizations clearly and confirm the central role of history in understanding organizations. Both approaches emphasize different aspects to understand the underlying diffusion of an innovation in the formal structure of organizations. The rational approaches point to the need for effectiveness or efficiency that may follow adoption. The institutional approaches point to the legitimacy of the organization in the wider social structure.

To reconcile the two approaches, the authors analyzed the adoption of civil service procedures by municipal governments from 1880 to 1935. Using available data, this paper answers two questions: What is the effect of explicit hierarchical legitimation of a reform, and What is the effect of rapid and widespread legitimation of a reform on its subsequent adoption? To answer the first question, the authors compare the effect of hierarchical control by the state with the effect of non mandated spread of reform on the rate of diffusion. To answer the second question, authors explore the change in the ability to predict adoption on the basis of particular organizational characteristics from the early periods to the later periods.

The first analysis reveals that civil service procedures were adopted much more rapidly by cities when the state mandated them and the process of adoption was directed by a single source. In contrast, when no state-level legitimation occurred, civil service procedures were adopted gradually, diffusing largely through social influence among cities.

The finding from the second analysis is much more important for the authors. They found that internal organizational factors predicted adoption of civil service procedures at the beginning of the diffusion process, but did not predict adoption once the process was well underway. They interpreted this finding as follows: As an increasing number of organizations adopt a program or policy, it becomes progressively institutionalized, or widely understood to be a necessary component of rationalized organizational structure. Also, they insisted that the legitimacy of the procedures themselves serves as the impetus for the later adopters. This finding means that early adopters of innovation are driven by rational reason, effectiveness or efficiency, but late adopters are by the legitimacy.

Comments

I enjoyed this classic paper well. It has both theoretical and empirical contribution. As for theoretical contribution, the authors succeeded to examine two theoretical approaches in the same empirical study. Although two streams of organization theory seem incompatible, both explanations are probably plausible for practitioners. They sometimes adopt innovations willingly to improve their internal process of the organization, and sometimes incorporate them into their formal structure to maintain their legitimacy. The authors explained clearly about this difference by the timing of adoption: an early adoption of innovation is driven by the adopters’ rational reason to improve their efficiency and/or effectiveness, and a late adoption by the pressure from their institutional environment.

As for empirical contribution, this paper figured out a unique technique to describe the institutionalization process empirically. To show the increasing power of the institutionalization through the diffusion process, the authors observed the predicting power of the model explaining adoption of civil service procedures by organizational characteristics such as percentages of foreign born and illiterate people, and city age and size. According to their analysis, the predicting power continued to weaken through the diffusion process. The authors interpreted it as the evidence of the legitimation and the institutionalization of innovation.

However, I may cast some doubt upon their empirical expression of the legitimation and the institutionalization. They did not show any direct evidence. Why could they insist that the civil service was institutionalized by showing the weaken power of the model? They seemed to assume that diffusion without rational reason meant legitimation and institutionalization of the innovation. But are rational and institutional reason either-or? It is possible to think that irrational cities adopt the civil service without feeling the legitimating pressure. They also assume that cities are rational enough to perceive how the innovation is institutionalized and to think that they should adopt it once if institutionalized. It is not necessarily clear what “rational” means in this paper.

This paper is nevertheless a successful research on a diffusion process in modernized society constituted by active agents in institutionalized context. We still can use the technique adopted by the authors to analyze diffusion process observed in our contemporary society. It is fair to say that the problem mentioned above cannot be solved easily as far as we deal with historical case. If we analyze recent diffusion process, we can observe it more directly. For example, we can adopt an interview method to grasp adopters’ and non-adopters’ intention and perception about innovation. By comparing interview and available data, we can gain deeper insight on institutionalization process.

Farmers Market

Trenton Farmers Market








Yesterday I visited farmers market. My host kindly took me to Trenton Farmers Market (He is really kind!). I (and my wife) like to visit local markets in foreign countries, which arose our imagination on locals' ordinary life. In this summer, we were lucky to visit Balinese local market. Check some pictures below. You can feel how different (and similar) Indonesian and American local markets are. In future, maybe when I am sixty-four, I want to conduct a research project on international comparison of local market with my wife, then we can visit many foreign countries.

Bali, Indonesia

Trenton, NJ, US

Trenton Farmers Market sell not only fresh vegetables and fruits but also various ethnic foods from Italian to Hispanic to Polish. I found many stuff not sold in supermarkets. Italian shop has diverse inventory of fresh cheese, Polish meats shop sells various kinds of ham and sausage, and Hispanic shop sells casual fast foods, which was inexpensive and delicious (Unfortunately, I forgot the name), as well as dry foods such as red pepper.

Vegetables are very fresh. The assortment of each farmers are unique. Some farmer sell fresh tomato and basil. Other sell okra and coriander. By the way, "okra" is a Japanese loan word (in precise, we call it "Okura"). When I bought it in a supermarket a month ago, the cashier asked me the name of okra to input its unit price into the cash register (Here, supermarkets sell vegetables by weight and the cashier weigh them by the register, so each item should be put into each plastic bag by customer). I was at a loss for the answer, but the woman behind me said "Okra!". She, from Texas told me that okra was popular ingredients of BBQ there. We Japanese prefer lightly boiled Okra with vinegared soy source or Okra tempura.

Anyway, vegetables are very fresh and tasty. I stir-fried okra with some meat last night. This morning I made sandwich with tomato. Unlike vegetable sold in supermarkets, they have a flavor of vegetable. Okra is crisp and crunchy, and heirloom tomato has strong flavor. Considering this quality, the price is reasonable: okra is one dollar and half per one pound.

This market is entertaining for me. Their display is beautiful. Finding vegetable not sold in Japan is curious. At the milk and egg factory shop beside the market, we can observe the manufacturing line of milk from the shop.

The building of the market is owned and maintenanced by local government. It seems difficult to maintain such markets which consists of small scale shops and farmers without financial and managerial support from the government. Do they compete or coexist with supermarkets? How many percent share of US fresh foods market do farmers markets have ? What is farmers' motivation to sell their products at the market by themselves as well as wholesale to retailers? To answer these questions, I should visit there again. Of course, I will.

Pulp Consumption

There are many things I stop using after coming to US. One of them is business cards. In Japan, when we introduce ourselves at the first meeting, we always exchange business cards. So I must have carried my cards at any time. Even now I have some pieces in my bag, but there has been no opportunity to use them so far. I ordered two hundred pieces of my cards just before coming to US. But I don’t believe that I can consume them during my stay.

Another thing I don’t use in US is a handkerchief. Handkerchiefs seem to have given way to paper towels and napkins. To my surprise, every public restroom is equipped with paper towel. So, my handkerchief has been always kept in my pocket. Only chance to use it is perhaps when I cry. But I haven’t cry until now, unfortunately.

Why doesn't American use handkerchief? Wikipedia answers my question as follows. "Use of handkerchief instead of facial tissue paper is often seen as old-fashioned and, especially in North America, unhygienic". Oh, I see. That's why American doesn't. The following sentences are more interesting, "On the other hand, some see it as a more environment-conscious choice. In Japan and Sri Lanka, those carrying a handkerchief are considered to be well-educated." I didn't know that handkerchief was the proof of education.

Anyway, paper towels and napkins are omnipresent in US. You can use as much papers as you can anywhere at any time. In restroom, many men draw out too long roll of paper. In fast food restaurant, most customers take too many pieces of napkins. At first, I thought American waste more resources than Japanese do. Many Japanese thinks that US is more wasteful and Japan is more environmentally friendly. This impression may be rather correct. But as for pulp consumption, the difference between two countries seems not so large.

Omnipresent in Japan are tissue papers. In streets and stations, we often receive tissue packets with the flyer on the front. In huge terminal stations such as Shinjuku, getting five or six packets is not so difficult. We welcome and carry them in our bag because some of public toilets in Japan don’t have toilet paper as well as paper towel. Also, in spring, many Japanese who suffer hay fever (about fifteen percent of Japanese including me) always have to blow their nose. To use tissue, we have no option but to see the advertisement. From the advertisers’ standpoint, this high exposure is very attractive. If those packets are just flyer, we will not receive them. Even if we do, we will discard them immediately and seldom read them. That is why tissue packets are very strong promotion tool for marketers and convenient tool for people in Japan. Apparently this tool cannot be adopted by US advertisers. There is no reason to carry tissue packet for US people.

Sample of Tissue Packet Flyer on Sales Promotion Company's Website

12,500 yen (approximately 100$) per 1,000 pieces

Tissue Packet Flyer in Akihabara

Both US and Japan consumes huge quantity of pulp, but the style is different. US pulp consumption is more conspicuous than Japanese one. We can easily find paper towel and napkins anywhere in US. In the same way, we can easily find tissue papers in their pockets and bags in Japan (if inspection is allowed).

According to this website (written in Japanese), the quantity of paper consumption per capita/year in Japan is increasing from 239kg in 1995 to 246kg in 2005. On the contrary, US consumption is reducing from 332kg to 301kg. Of course, this contrast cannot be explained by the consumption of paper towel or tissue. It may be due to the influence of rapid growth of Information Technology. I found that US universities are good at utilize IT such as Blackboard to reduce paper consumption. But Japanese universities and companies seems to use more papers than before “IT Revolution”. The more the printers become faster, the more documents we print out, as I did. It is possible that Japanese paper consumption exceeds US one in future.