The Fax of Life

If you had a language with 2,000 characters and two additional alphabets, writing a letter with a traditional-type keyboard can be a bitch! Even with the advent of computer character recognition programs, which make tying into such a complex linguistic paradigm fairly easy, locals are still loathe to abandon the handwritten notes that make using such characters quite natural and personal, particularly in a culture where calligraphy and maintaining traditional customs are deeply embedded in the national psyche. Add a touch of xenophobia, a desire to maintain a clear separation with the rest of the world (probably stemming from centuries of relative isolation on an island) and a strong affinity for ritual and tradition… and you have a pretty solid definition of contemporary Japan.

Japan makes it almost impossible for persons not born in that nation to become citizens. Things foreign threaten the purity of their very ethnocentric lives. But with a severely graying population and a birth rate of 1.35 live births per adult female (2.1 is the rate necessary for replacement of the existing population), Japan’s population is expected to drop by one third in the next fifty years.

Its population has required increasing rates of pay to keep up with the complex and archaic multilayered protectionist supply chain delivery system and the need of companies to support their “job for life” commitments that are staggering under the weight of an endless economic downturn. The last good economic year in Japan was 1991, and with increasing competition from technology manufacturers in Korea, Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China, Japanese local manufacturing has simply priced itself out of the market. Japan’s insistence on building consensus within its corporate structures has made it slow to innovate and respond to competition.

Nothing screams “out of step with change” more than Japan’s lingering obsession with fax machines in an era of Web-based communications. In the United States, the Smithsonian has added two old-world fax machines to its historical presentation of technology. In 2012, “Japanese households bought 1.7 million of the old-style fax machines, which print documents on slick, glossy paper spooled in the back.” New York Times, February 13^th. Battery-run fax machines exploded in popularity after the loss of power from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, reinforcing the power of faxes in Japanese life. A Tokyo lunch-to-go delivery service almost went out of business when it tried to substitute Web-based ordering to replace faxed orders; they restored the fax tradition very quickly.

The warm personal tone of a handwritten note is lost in a digital typeface, a reluctance that seems consistent with cultural traditions. That they have a complex, character-driven written language as an excuse, but then China has the same issues, and it seems to have adapted rather well to electronic typing. Japan could have abandoned traditional character-driven words after WWII and relied much more heavily on their modern alphabetical systems instead, but that would have created too much transparency to the rest of the world.

“Japan’s reluctance to give up its fax machines offers a revealing glimpse into an aging nation that can often seem quietly determined to stick to its tried-and-true ways, even if the rest of the world seems to be passing it rapidly by. The fax addiction helps explain why Japan, which once revolutionized consumer electronics with its hand-held calculators, Walkmans and, yes, fax machines, has become a latecomer in the digital age, and has allowed itself to fall behind nimbler competitors like South Korea and China...  ‘Japan has this Galápagos effect of holding on to some things they’re comfortable with,’ said Jonathan Coopersmith, a technology historian who is writing a book on the machine’s rise and fall. ‘Elsewhere, the fax has gone the way of the dodo.’

“In Japan, with the exception of the savviest Internet start-ups or internationally minded manufacturers, the fax remains an essential tool for doing business. Experts say government offices prefer faxes because they generate paperwork onto which bureaucrats can affix their stamps of approval, called hanko. Many companies say they still rely on faxes to create a paper trail of orders and shipments not left by ephemeral e-mail. Banks rely on faxes because, they say, customers are worried about the safety of their personal information on the Internet... Even Japan’s largest yakuza crime syndicate, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, has used faxes to send notifications of expulsion to members, the police say.” NY Times.  

As we enter a sushi restaurant even in the United States and hear the greetings of the local chefs as we enter, it is a warm tradition that makes us feel welcome. But sometimes warm traditions can get in the way of growth, inevitable change and perhaps survival itself. Japan once found itself facing the need to change in 1858 as Commodore Perry sailed his technology-laden ship into Tokyo Bay. But the internal debate that followed required two full decades before Japan finally dived headlong into modernity in 1878,  after scores of top-level Japanese returned from their exploration of the Western world, all within the “enlightened” Meiji Period (1868-1912) that transformed this island nation into a global powerhouse. Perhaps it’s time for another such renaissance in Japanese history.

I’m Peter Dekom, and American bonds to Japan are strong... such that we truly want them to grow and prosper to their fullest potential.