Spot the Disney!

Disneyfication is the transformation of society to imitate Walt Disney’s theme parks. Usually used to say that there is a homogenization of theming, consumption, merchandising and emotional labor.

An example of disneyfication in Japan is the foreign-countries theme parks.

In northern Hokkaido, there is a Canadian World; a Swiss Village in Tohoku region; Praque Espana in south central Japan to represent Spain etc. There are several of these theme parks sprouted up all around Japan, from Russia to Germany and Thailand.

All these theme parks are set up for both tourists and locals to experience the scenery and culture of the various countries.

Characteristics of Disneyfication

Theming

They follow the model of Disneyland, adopting the idea of setting an amusement park for people to experience the theme (foreign countries’ culture in this case). The theme parks have a similar concept of showcasing the iconic structures of these countries, merchandises, way of life and scenery.

Hybrid Consumption and Merchandising

Is know as a general trend where concepts of consumer products are interlinked with one another such that they are quite similar or no difference at all.

Everywhere we go, souvenir shops definitely would have key chains, mugs and t-shirts with their iconic symbol, statue or flower. The idea is so that customers would bring back a representation of their country so as to remember by, and hopefully enticing them to come back and visit again.

Well, these foreign country theme parks also has all these for sale, with the themed country as the main focus, but below would have been stamped: “Made in Japan”.

Performative Labor

It is the growing tendency for service providers, the employees, or mascots and actors/actresses in this case to be viewed as performing instead of working, showing visitors to the theme parks a certain expression or mood, for them to better understand the country’s culture.

The people working would also adhere to standard operating procedures when dealing with visitors, like to take photographs with them, educate them about that particular country and what they are doing.

These theme parks based on foreign countries’ themes are a result of globalization. It is through globalization that Japan is able to adopt the ideas and imitate these various countries so perfectly that visitors feel that they are in that particular destination itself and not in Japan.

This idea was started in the 1980s but failed a few months later due to economic downturn. However, it is now back in trend and attracting a constant flow of visitors.

Hence, I agree with this statement: “The result of globalization has ‘disneyfied’ many cities in the world.” Globalization has brought in the culture, technology advancement of the visitor to the host country. It is through these activities of interacting with one another that cause the countries involved to be influenced by each other, causing them to adopt the “better” ideal, for the purpose of, let’s say, increasing economic growth.

Take Singapore for example, foreign countries are able to fly to Singapore through the invention of airplanes in a shorter period of time, just to visit our National Library Board and observe how we use the Auto Return Kiosk. To them it’s fascinating, being quite high-tech, that returning books can actually be automated.

Changes brought on by tourism

Japan has been thriving on their advance technology all these years. Famous brand names like Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi have expanded into every possible technological sector (car, television, mobile phones etc.). But because of this, the have finally reached their peak, and is now overtaken by China and India as the two most fast-growing industries in the world.

Hence I feel that changes brought on by tourism into Japan are a good way for them to continue growing. Tourism always exists, especially more so now with places made more accessible with better transportation systems.

Tourism: Culprit in commodifying cultures and traditions?

I do think that tourism is the mastermind behind our commodified cultures and traditions, even though tourism is a result of globalization, and globalization due to our human’s greed. We have unlimited wants but with limited resources, hence the need to develop more and more advance technology, media, so as to “gain” the whole world.

Therefore we come up with things like Internet, email, global broadcasting, airplanes, cruise liners, and many others, just so we could travel and explore the world, see for ourselves, feel them at our fingertips. And this created tourism.

When we travel to these other places, we’ll tend to adopt their ideals and beliefs. “The grass is always greener on the other side.” That is also why more and more people are migrating, but as they do so, they bring along their own culture, those that they are more familiar with, practicing them unconsciously in foreign countries, and impacted the people there as well.

As we travel and mix our cultures here and there, eventually everyone has similar beliefs; everyone has a similar culture that they follow. And that is commodified global culture.