MBA 2004

RICE: It's More Than Just a Food
Linda S. Wojtan November 1993
Although U.S. students usually learn about rice during their study of Japan, the coverage is often quite limited. Typical textbook treatment focuses on rice as food, on rice growing as an occupation, and on terracing as a geographic accommodation. Little mention is made of the intrinsic position of rice in Japanese culture.
Contemporary media coverage of rice as a trade topic also contains serious omissions. Headlines focus on the fact that the average Japanese consumer pays an average of five times more for rice than the average U.S. consumer. Details reveal that the typical Japanese farm is slightly less than three acres, with rice farms averaging 1 1/2 acres. Rice is treated as strictly an economic or consumer topic. The economic conclusion from this kind of analysis seems clear: Japan should lift its ban and import more rice--that is, U.S. produced rice.
However, behind the narrow textbook treatment and economically-driven media conclusions is the concept of rice in its cultural context. This digest examines: 1) rice as a deeply embedded cultural concept, 2) the role of rice in the culture, beyond merely a foodstuff, and 3) aspects of the rice trade issue.
Rice: A Deeply Embedded Cultural Concept
Rice is so important in Japanese society that it has been called the essence of the culture. Even a superficial examination of Japanese culture reveals the complex connection rice has to many of its forms and expressions, in both historical and contemporary settings.
Many believe that the following aspects of Japanese social behavior originate from wet rice cultivation: the notion of wa (harmony), consensus-seeking, and the assessment of the context of actions. Some even include the concept of amae (feelings of dependency). Historically, wet rice cultivation was a labor-intensive task that could not be accomplished easily. As a result, families pooled their labor. More importantly, they also shared their water resources and irrigation facilities. Typically, irrigation arrangements called for water to run downhill, linking all the surrounding families in their shared destiny of communal resource usage. Further, people lived in houses clustered together and depended heavily upon each other since the rice was usually planted on the same day after several days of watering. This necessitated an emphasis on group interests, the enhancement of skills in group decision-making and the avoidance of friction between families who would be neighbors and workmates for generations. This historic commitment to group harmony, a hallmark of the original culture of rice, echoes today and continues to shape group consciousness. Despite the fact that a small number of people actually grow rice, 124 million people still try to sustain group harmony, as they seek daily accommodation in a relatively confined space.
The Role of Rice in the Culture
The language of a culture provides clues to important concepts and values. This is true in the Japanese culture. The primacy of rice as a diet staple is echoed in the Japanese language. "Gohan" is both the word for "cooked rice" as well as "meal." This is also true in other Asian cultures where rice is the main dietary staple. The use of gohan in Japanese is extended with prefixes to give us asagohan (breakfast), hirugohan (lunch), and bangohan (dinner). These multiple terms signal that it was almost impossible for most Japanese to think of a meal without rice.
Another linguistic link is the early indigenous name of Japan, mizu ho no kuni (the land of the water stalk plant or rice). Early identification, then, encompassed the concept of rice-growing. Interestingly, the name the Japanese have used to identify the United States has been beikoku (land of rice), thereby implying abundance.
Historically, rice has many links to various aspects of Japanese culture. For example, the Emperor became a "priest-king" early in Japanese history. Many of his priestly functions under the Shinto religion revolved around rice-growing and included rice products such as sake (rice wine) and mochi (rice cakes), as well as the actual grain and its stalks. Indeed, the previous Emperor Hirohito, right up to the time when he became seriously ill, tended a rice plot, as had previous emperors, on the Imperial grounds in Tokyo. Further, during the last September of his life, Emperor Hirohito inquired about the weather and actively worried about the crop. Tradition continues as Emperor Akihito blesses the rice crop, and his many coronation ceremonies involving rice and rice products underscore links to the emperor and to Shinto.
Over time, control or guarding of the rice crop became a political function, confirming the importance of rice in society. Indeed, rice signalled wealth and also determined wealth through the use of a "sho," a measure of rice. At various times rice was an instrument of trade, functioning as hard currency. Rice measured the wealth of the daimyo (lord) and provided payment for samurai (warriors).
This cursory survey could be augmented by examples from numerous other aspects of Japanese life ranging from folklore, festivals, and family rituals to the arts and specific rice-based foods. Historically, all parts of the rice plant were fully utilized, with over 70 pounds of stalks being recycled into each tatami mat, bran providing a face scrub, and rice paste being used in bookbinding, as well as a resist-dye technique for fabrics, especially silk for kimonos. Rice is so enmeshed in the culture that while people in the U.S. refer to the man in the moon or see a woman's face, Japanese see a rabbit pounding rice cakes (mochi), a reminder of a popular folktale.
Rice is nourishment with numerous cultural and historical nuances that are deeply woven into the fabric of Japanese culture. But what of rice in the modern day diet? Japan is no longer a country where 90% of the population is engaged in rice cultivation. Will rice retain its cultural importance?
Statistics regarding Japanese household consumption of rice provide only part of the picture. Although Food Agency surveys reveal a decline in household consumption, rice continues to be popular in such mainstays of modern life as 24-hour convenience stores and restaurant chains geared towards families. Further, throughout the almost 4,000 7-Eleven stores in Japan, fast food sales figures show rice snacks continuing to outpace bread snacks.
Aspects of the Rice Trade Issue
In the postwar period, rice was linked to politics as a disproportionate amount of power went to farmers, due to imbalanced populations among representative districts. It is currently estimated that some imbalances in favor of farming districts are as high as 3.68 to 1. Therefore, farmers wield great influence in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Rice farmers have used voting power to display displeasure over recent reductions in price subsidies and proposed changes in the rice import policy. In Japan, rice is a controlled commodity, with the government regulating the amount of land used for cultivation and overseeing the distribution, usually through designated stores. Each year the government establishes the beika, the price paid for rice.
Today Japan is the world's largest consumer of foreign agricultural products. Yearly agricultural imports total $30 billion. Increasingly, the term "food security" is used to note Japanese concern over their food dependency. Indeed, 53% of the daily Japanese caloric intake comes from imported foodstuffs. Thus, rice serves as a psychological, if not actual, staple of the Japanese diet. Self-sufficiency in growing rice, therefore, has important emotional as well as material ramifications. This is especially true for those who lived through the privation of the post WWII era.
Another factor that is often mentioned is the impact of the furusato (hometown). This involves a nostalgic attachment to one's ancestral home, where, typically, rice was or is grown. In line with this, recent polls reveal a concern for the livelihood of Japan's shrinking number of rice farmers.
Liberalization of the Japanese Rice Market
The evaluation of rice's role in a contemporary Japanese context, then, is a difficult one. The potential impact of liberalization on the rice market is equally troublesome to assess. While U.S. farmers hope for a share of the Japanese domestic market, many have pointed out the differences between domestic consumption in the two countries. In recent decades, media advertisements for rice in the U.S. have extolled the virtues of long-grain, fluffy rice that does not stick together. In contrast, Japanese consumers prefer short-grained, sticky rice that will accommodate the demands of sushi-making and other aspects of Japanese cuisine. Although some sticky rice is grown in the U.S., notably Kokuho Rose, it is questionable whether many of the estimated 11,000 U.S. rice growers will switch to growing short- grained rice. The growing of rice varieties such as Kokuho Rose entail greater risks since they typically require 160 days to mature, versus 130 for other rice crops.
Some have countered that changes in the rice policy might actually pave the way for Japan's approximately 500,000 rice farmers to fulfill increasing U.S. demands for glutinous, short- grained rice. Still others have argued that if restrictions are lifted, Japan should buy rice from Southeast Asia, where rice is cheaper and contains fewer farm chemicals. Such purchases would distribute Japan's wealth and perhaps reap goodwill among its neighbors.
Currently, Japan is experiencing gai-atsu (foreign pressure) to lift the ban on the importation of rice, especially at the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Some proposals call for the lifting of import restrictions to be matched by a 700% tariff that would be reduced by 15%, over six years.
In an interesting twist of fate, the issue was recently forced by a Japanese company, Sushi Boy, Inc. of Osaka. In late 1992, this firm made plans to manufacture, freeze, and export sushi from Escondido, California to the company's 44 shops in Japan. Despite shipping and other costs, the firm will cut the price nearly in half, since California rice and automation will be used. This immediately raised the issue of whether sushi is a fish product and therefore legal to import, or a rice product and therefore banned. Following protracted discussions, and weighing of the product to determine the component parts, fish and rice, the imports were approved. The firm's next challenge, however, is to convince Japanese consumers to eat this novel version of a time-honored dish. Will psychological factors play a role in the decision- making? Will savvy Japanese consumers opt for the cheaper version? Whatever the outcome, the rice issue will continue to remain in the headlines.
References
Dennis, Franklin. "Go Easy on the Rice Issue." BUSINESS TOKYO (April 1992): 8.
"Farm Chief Backs Freeze on Producer Rice Price." THE JAPAN TIMES (June 26, 1992): 1.
Pollack, Andrew. "Japan, Relenting, Plans to Allow Import of U.S.- Made Sushi." THE NEW YORK TIMES (October 4, 1992): A.
Shibazaki, Tomoko and Yuji Utsunomiya. "Taste, Not Price, Governs Rice Eaters." THE JAPAN TIMES, Weekly International Edition (March 23-29, 1992).
Smith, Patrick. "Letter from Tokyo." THE NEW YORKER (October 14, 1991): 105-118.
Wojtan, Linda S. "Rice : A Look Behind the Trade Talks." UPDATE (Spring/Summer 1991): 1-2.
Teaching Resources
Kay, Karen. "JAPAN: Geography, Cuisine and Culture." New Haven: Yale University East Asian Resource and Education Program, 1985.
Martin, Robert, ed. "Infusing a Global Perspective into the Study of Agriculture: Student Activities." Alexandria, VA: National Council on Agricultural Education, 1990.
"Symbolism in Japanese Language and Culture: Activities for the Elementary Classroom." Stanford, CA: Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), 1991.
Turkovich, Marilyn and Linda Bubolz Ashida with Peggy Mueller. "Omiyage." Wellesley, MA: WORLD EAGLE, 1990.

PICKENS VS. JAPAN, INC. By T. Boone Pickens
T. Boone Pickens is the General Partner of the Mesa Limited Partnership. This is the first of an occasional Multinational Monitor guest column on controversial topics. AMERICANS HAVE ACQUIRED a taste for many Japanese products, but the Japanese cartel system that has engineered Japan's economic growth is one thing we should never accept. One year ago I had no idea what a "keiretsu" (a Japanese cartel) was. Through my experience as the largest shareholder in a Japanese auto parts manufacturer, I have become all too familiar with keiretsu, and the threat it represents to consumers and free trade throughout the world. My investment company, Boone Co., had the rare opportunity to purchase 26 percent of a Japanese company, Koito, and given the prosperity of Japan, it seemed like an investment with great potential. I have just returned from my second Koito shareholders meeting in Tokyo, and what I've learned from that experience and my 18 month involvement with corporate Japan is shocking. Koito is part of the Toyota keiretsu. Toyota, owning 19 percent of Koito, manipulates the company through many former Toyota employees who now sit in executive positions or on one of Toyota's three board seats at Koito. Toyota is also Koito's largest customer, buying more than 50 percent of the headlights the company produces. The way Toyota exerts influence on Koito, blocking my participation in the company, is a classic example of Japan's keiretsu. Keiretsu is the latest evolution of Japan's economic system. Today's keiretsu exploit laborers, markets, capital and the free market system to entrench a few powerful elites at the top of Japan's industrial empire, and fuels Japan's continued growth. Keiretsu is not nearly as blatant as the feudal systems of the past. Indeed, the real threat of keiretsu may be in its subtlety. Names like Toyota, Nissan, Sony, Mitsubishi and others, merely brand names to consumers around the world, are actually keiretsu-bosses which control Japan. Through a system of cross-ownership and forced reliance on the keiretsu for large production orders, each of the keiretsu member companies develops an unbreakable dependency on the keiretsu. Any resistance to the wishes of the keiretsu superior could result in a supplier being thrown out of the keiretsu, thus ruining the supplier's business. There are some Japan-apologists who claim that keiretsu is a major part of Japanese culture and the rest of the world should just accept it. This culture-base rhetoric is a sham. A keiretsu is a cartel, and a cartel is a cartel is a cartel. Any economic system that benefits a few at the expense of many is wrong and will ultimately fail. More than 100 years ago, the U.S. economy rejected control of cartels, and for good reason. Consumers, small businesses, innovation and entrepreneurship all suffer when ultimate control of the marketplace is vested in too few hands. At the very time when U.S. principles of democracy and equality are sweeping the globe, we can't afford to lose sight of the economic foundation which has afforded us those freedoms. As we enter a new era of global trade, we have two alternatives: continue pressing our case in the international arena that free trade and fair competition is the best way for all nations to continue prospering; or, alternatively, change our laws to allow cartels to form in this country to compete with Japan's keiretsus. Taking a step backward, as the latter suggests, is not the choice any nation interested in the future should make. Our trusts were outlawed by tough anti-trust laws and since then, the U.S. free market economy has led the world in productivity and maintained the highest living standard in the world. Now is not the time to lose sight of our own economic achievements. In the past 30 years, the Japanese economy has been the miracle of the world, and in that time its cartels have become world powers in their own right. They have created a great deal of wealth, but only a few elites at the top have benefitted at the expense of workers and consumers. The cost of living in Tokyo is as much as 60 percent more than in New York. The standard of living for Japanese workers is inferior to that of their U.S. counterparts, and, increasingly, reports of deaths from overwork and exhaustion are leaking out of Japan, much like the sweatshop stories of the United States' own cartels earlier in this century. This also increases skepticism about Japan's supposed superior, and culturally- driven, work ethic. European and North American technology and labor is not inferior, it simply competes on a more equitable footing with the rest of the world, and chooses not to exploit laborers. If Japan, and not just its cartels, is to become a true global power, it will have to limit the power of its cartels and compete fairly in the world. Upgrading the living standard of its people is a good place to start. By keeping out foreign competition, forcing high prices on consumers and limiting full benefits of labor to workers, Japan's cartels are restricting Japan's power in the world. Some Japanese business people and politicians are saying that Japan can afford to say no to the rest of the world. But truthfully, Japan can only stand up to the rest of the world when it has said no to its cartels. The Japanese people know the truth about keiretsu; through the last year I have received hundreds of letters of support. Most poignant for me was the appearance of a Japanese auto executive before a Congressional committee. Because his keiretsu-boss would destroy his company if his identity were revealed, this courageous businessman flew to Washington, D.C. and testified anonymously before Congress. Protected behind a screen, he asked Congress to help Japan say no to the cartels. As I watched this, I thought about how this man had lived his life, building a company, supplying a good product and employing hundreds of people. Yet even in his success, he saw the deficiencies of a system that would allow his company only so much success. He told of how he was forced to cut prices, how his keiretsu supporters constantly threatened to cut him off and ruin his business if he didn't comply with their demands. In what should be the pinnacle of his career, this man, under maximum security, made his way to a foreign capital asking for help, because, he said, in Japan his requests would fall on deaf ears. Other Japanese people have written expressing their support for our cause as well. Many of the letters support the witness's claim that change in Japan will only come as a result of external pressure. There is a realization by many of those who wrote that this may be the last, best hope to break up the keiretsu system. As Americans become more aware of what keiretsu is, the disparity in our trading relationship becomes clearer. Demands on the Bush administration and Congress to put more pressure on Japan to break up the keiretsu system have increased as people realize the United States can compete, but that the cartel system in Japan makes it impossible to compete fairly. The growing awareness and concern about keiretsu has led to investigations launched by the Federal Trade Commission, the Commerce Department and the Justice Department. Each of these investigations stresses the antitrust implications of keiretsu as it affects U.S. ventures in Japan, as well as the threat of keiretsu in the United States. These are unprecedented investigations into the use of laws stretching beyond one country's borders to protect citizens doing business with another country. The support for the investigations has been broad. Additionally the Koito affair has been discussed by President Bush and Prime Minister Kaifu, as well as during the Structural Impediment Initiative (SII) negotiations (designed to alter trade structures to eliminate the U.S. trade deficit with Japan). This is what Koito has wrought during the past 16 months. Koito has spent, according to spokesmen, over $1.5 million fighting us--money that could have been distributed to its shareholders. In its efforts to protect Toyota, Koito has become the focus of major international legal investigations, Congressional legislation and of business people around the world interested in free trade. The Japanese government has assured U.S. negotiators that it will open up the keiretsu system. These pledges made during the recently completed SII talks show the good intentions of the Japanese government. The ability to translate those good intentions into action remains to be seen. Koito is where those promises can be tested with cold reality. The way to judge Japan's sincerity is for Koito to put me on the board of directors for one year. Let us build a relationship based on trust and the mutual interest of the company's success. I went to Japan as a shareholder interested in doing business. I was up-front with my intentions toward Koito; I invested in the company for the long-term. My interests then were purely business related--I saw an opportunity to share in the management and growth of a Japanese auto parts manufacturer during a period of unprecedented growth in Japan's auto industry. The events of the past year have convinced me that Koito's battle against me is much more than a business transaction. It has become an example of the frustrations building inside Japan, as well as with Japan's trading partners, concerning the unfair practices of keiretsu. This is about the long-term--the future of trade relations between Japan and the United States, about the future of the Japanese shareholder, consumer and working family. This is about the future growth of the world's economy due to expanded free trade.