As we often write in this blog, whenever a new technology emerges, many people initially resist it. This isn\u2019t unique to Japan\u2014it happens all over the world.<\/p>\n
When personal computers first appeared, people said, \u201cThat\u2019s not for me.\u201d When the internet arrived, they said, \u201cI\u2019m not interested.\u201d When smartphones came out, they said, \u201cI don\u2019t need that.\u201d And now, we\u2019re hearing the same kind of reaction toward AI.<\/p>\n
The same pattern applies to anything that feels foreign. This has existed in Japan since the Edo period.<\/p>\n
Whenever new things\u2014or people\u2014arrive from abroad, there are always two sides: those who welcome them and those who resist simply because they\u2019re foreign.<\/p>\n
Today, the number of international visitors to Japan has grown at an incredible pace. In 2014, about 13.4 million people entered Japan. In 2024, that number reached 36.8 million, nearly tripling in just ten years. If we exclude the pandemic years, it\u2019s clear that this growth has been astonishingly rapid.<\/p>\n
Alongside this rise, we also hear voices saying things like \u201cThere are too many foreigners,\u201d \u201cThey don\u2019t follow manners,\u201d or \u201cThis is Japan.\u201d These reactions focus only on the negatives and come from a stereotypical point of view. But in truth, this isn\u2019t unusual\u2014it\u2019s the same as what people in the Edo period felt when foreign influences first arrived. History, as always, repeats itself.<\/p>\n
Just like in the earlier examples, there will always be people who struggle to adapt to sudden change\u2014or react strongly against it. Every era has them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As we often write in this blog, whenever a new technology emerges, many people initially resist it. This isn\u2019t unique to Japan\u2014it happens all over the world. When personal computers first appeared, people said, \u201cThat\u2019s not for me.\u201d When the internet arrived, they said, \u201cI\u2019m not interested.\u201d When smartphones came out, they said, \u201cI don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[186,18,185],"class_list":["post-581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-in-japan","tag-cultural-change","tag-japan","tag-technology-adoption"],"yoast_head":"\n