Ding Dong Moronically on high...

I take it all back.

For a while there, I may have given the impression that raw commercialism had flitted away from these shores for good and that Japan has lost the will to make money. I may have hinted that the entire sprawl of bureaucracy and once mighty boardrooms of Japan Inc only care about scuttling the ship before either nasty foreigners or (worse!) young Japanese can get their hands on it. But I was wrong.

Because in Ginza (and this may be a world-wide record), Christmas has already started! Yup. I've seen it with my own eyes. By last Friday, Mitsukoshi's main branch on Ginza crossing - the most valuable retail real estate in Japan - had already got the Yuletide bunting out. [Forgive the low-quality evidence on the right]. Trees, fairly lights and a cheerful "Merry Christmas from Mitsukoshi" proudly mark the season of goodwill - October.

I mean, even the ridiculous US waits until after Halloween before giving the shop-fronts the bauble and twinkly light treatment. As I calculate it, Mitsukoshi's decision to get the Xmas decorations up at this spectacularly premature stage - as well as pipping Macy's and Selfridge's to the post by a majestic 6 weeks - means that a little over 15 per cent of Mitsukoshi's year will be spent Christmasified. Crazy enough anywhere; utterly baffling for a country that doesn't really give a hoot about Christmas.

Unless, underneath it all, Mitsukoshi represents some new, thrusting side of Japan I'd been missing.  A side for whom raw, unbridled capitalism is all in a day's work. A cold, calculating aspect of the Japanese business world that cynically sees Christmas for what it is and thinks "hell, if it gets the punters through the door, give me a red hat now and call me Santa Tanaka."

I like this agressive new Japan. It may start with a bit of festive gouging, but who knows what strange new directions it might lead the country? Companies deciding that they don't necessarily need to bury all their loot in debt repayment? The government deciding to give profits a chance? It may be the Xmas egg-nog talking but might it even develop into - ooh I don't know - shareholder interests figuring on the average chief executive's "to do" list...

One of my pals (a big fund manager at a US house) pointed out to me the absurdity of the fact that, despite sub-prime calamity and other potentially disturbing malarkey, there are only two bear markets in the world at the moment. One of them is Japan, the other is Sri Lanka. The latter has unspeakably bloody civil conflict. Japan has gone past  excuses. It has simply chosen the wrong role model.

What it should have done is model itself on Samson, whose astonishing strength and resilience of spirit returned to him once more after a "lost decade" without hair. Instead, Japan has opted for an altogether less dynamic hero as it grumbles into national retirement. It should have gone for Victor Mature, but in the end it cleverly opted for Victor Meldrew. Merry Christmas!

Comments

[Mia Clark]

It looks like Christmas may soon be celebrated only in Japan. Last year, a survey of 2,300 employers, quoted in The Times, found that 74 per cent had banned decorations because they were worried about offending other faiths. The Royal Bank of Scotland banned staff in its City offices from putting up Christmas decorations because it could cause fire or injury. (Staff were told to book an engineer who would hang the decorations on the ceiling for them). West Midlands Fire Service, presumably less worried about the incendiary hazards, warned fire fighters not to leave Christmas tree lights on because of rising costs, while,in 2004, a secondary school in Bristol banned children from wearing tinsel on a non-uniform day because it could be used to strangle others.
According to the article, nurses at Pembury Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, also in 2004, were told not to wear "decorative Christmas garb" as part of "infection control". I can only hope the Japanese are aware of the risks they are laying themselves open to.