Sigh... I blame Greenpeace. Really. Japan was slowly moving away from whale meat. The only people who ate it were older people who nostalgically ate it because it used to be in their school lunches 50 years ago. Everyone I ever talked to said that they didn't like it the few times they ate it. "The Cove" was aired and it moved public perception of eating dolphin meat and whale meat into something embarrassing. It was almost certainly going to disappear.
And then Greenpeace decided it would be a good idea to confront Japanese whaling ships and throw rancid butter onto the decks. It hit all the big news outlets in Japan. From that point on, all I heard was, "What are these people children? Why are they doing such anti-social things to our fishermen?" It put everybody's backs up. In defiance, a few izakayas started featuring whale meat. It still wasn't popular but there was this idea of "This is our cultural identity and it's under attack". So people ate it.
Now whale and dolphin meat are in every supermarket I've been to in the last few months. It's so incredibly stupid. On top of that, I'm hearing people talk about tuna stocks and say, "All those foreigners are eating sushi now and the tuna is disappearing. It's not their culture. Why does Japan have to suffer from the selfishness of others?" Of course, the average Shunsuke in the street has no idea that Japan takes 80% of the tuna catch and that it's been unsustainable for decades.
It is so frustrating when I see people make such hamfisted efforts on such important issues. If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly.
I think it's important to note that Greenpeace's anti-whaling campaign started in 1975 in a world that was much less environmentally conscious than it is now. It can be argued that protests, lobbying and direct action on the part of Greenpeace eventually led to the acceptance of a moratorium by the IWC in 1986. So I think it's a bit unfair to blame Greenpeace. But I agree that it's debatable whether or not the same tactics are useful today. And you bring up a really good point- tuna is a HUGE issue but doesn't get nearly as much attention- perhaps in part because it's not a "sexy" issue. While I think it is important to be extremely sensitive regarding cultural differences and even "eco-imperialism", we also can't just ignore problems so as not to offend anyone..
I agree. It is not common at all in most of Japan.
My own anecdotal experience, but for reference, I believe horse meat is orders of magnitude easier to find and consume in EU countries than whale in Japan. And yet I'd argue most Europeans wouldn't consider horse meat common at all.
> If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly.
In my experience, these tactics don't really work in any culture.
I think is was the Sea Shepherd group that was confronting the whaling ships and spoiling the meat. They had a TV show on Discovery called Whale Wars which documented the confrontations. The founder of Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson, was one of the founders of Green Peace but parted ways due to his beliefs that active measures should be taken to stop whaling.
And then Greenpeace decided it would be a good idea to confront Japanese whaling ships and throw rancid butter onto the decks. It hit all the big news outlets in Japan. From that point on, all I heard was, "What are these people children? Why are they doing such anti-social things to our fishermen?" It put everybody's backs up. In defiance, a few izakayas started featuring whale meat. It still wasn't popular but there was this idea of "This is our cultural identity and it's under attack". So people ate it.
Now whale and dolphin meat are in every supermarket I've been to in the last few months. It's so incredibly stupid. On top of that, I'm hearing people talk about tuna stocks and say, "All those foreigners are eating sushi now and the tuna is disappearing. It's not their culture. Why does Japan have to suffer from the selfishness of others?" Of course, the average Shunsuke in the street has no idea that Japan takes 80% of the tuna catch and that it's been unsustainable for decades.
It is so frustrating when I see people make such hamfisted efforts on such important issues. If you want to convince Japanese people, you can't use the tactics you used in other cultures. You need to understand Japanese culture and you need to be very careful because if you get it wrong it will backfire spectacularly.