Globalization is usually thought of as the worldwide spread of Western—particularly American—popular culture. Yet if one nation stands out in the pop culture in Asia, it is Japan. When I was in high school, millions of Chinese citizens of all ages were amazed by Japanese TV dramas such as Tokyo Love Story and Long Vacation. Now that I’m in America, it is not hard to meet Americans who fancy Kimono, Hello Kitty, anime, pop music, television dramas—I don’t mean it in a negative way. My point is that the export of Japanese media and culture is big business ever since the country’s economic took off.
An article in the New York Times further proves the spreading of Japanese culture in the age of globalization. “Few Americans had ever thought of Japan as a source for puzzles until a little more than two years ago, when sudoku suddenly took the nation by storm, flooding airport gift shops, and even rivaling crosswords in popularity. Now Nikoli, which publishes puzzle magazines and books, is widely regarded as the world's most prolific wellspring of logic games and brainteasers.” The “godfather” of sudoku Mr. Kaji believes that the world is hungry for more Japanese puzzles. This is probably true. I see people in the O’Hare airport, waiting patiently for their flights, while doing sudoku. In the meantime, Mr. Kaji’s business is doing exceptionally well. Mr. Kaji says his private company, with just 20 employees, had annual sales of about $4 million.
Another interesting point in this article is that no one controlled sudoku's intellectual property rights. Mr. Kaji is in favor of an “open culture”. This is an important factor that let the game's popularity grow unfettered. Oftentimes, business suffers when being loose on intellectual property rights. It is worth pondering why the sudoku case indicates the opposite. Can we promote the most of a culture by being totally open to the outside world?
The sudoku godfather is ready for another puzzle. In general, we can probably say that the Japanese culture is well-received in most of the countries. Thus I’ll conclude, in Japan’s case, globalization has strengthened its culture.
