PRESENT-DAY JAPAN AND ATTITUDES TOWARD IRAN:
A SURVEY STUDY CONDUCTED IN OITA PREFECTURE (2005-6)
Part One: Introduction
Through interaction with ordinary Japanese people within their society for the purpose of conducting this research on Japanese tourists to Iran, several hypotheses were developed regarding their understanding of Iran as a nation and a culture. The overall research hypothesis under which all other hypotheses may be classified as subordinate is that Japanese people, on the whole, have a lack of knowledge about Iran that a) often leads to misunderstanding about the true nature of Iran and b) often results in negative perceptions of the country. The researcher of Iran as a tourist destination in Japan confronts these misunderstandings and negative perceptions as obstacles to portraying Iran as an attractive tourist destination. This Chapter discusses those perceptions and the resulting limitations on an Iranian tourism based on Japanese overseas travellers through reference to comprehensive surveys carried out for the wider study.
A questionnaire was designed for the purpose of gathering statistical data regarding the perceptions and awareness of Iran in Japan. The questionnaire consisted of 12 questions, 3 open and 9 multiple-choice, drawn from an initial 30. The questions were selected bearing in mind areas of particular interest to the Japanese. Research by others into the Japanese tourism market has shown that food, weather and language are particularly important factors to Japanese overseas travellers. A sample group of 10 native Japanese speakers tested the questionnaire and confirmed that it was easy to understand and not too time-consuming. Also of importance for the particular emphasis of this study was that the questionnaire was stimulating and aroused interest in the subject matter. For this purpose, certain comparisons were drawn with Japan in order both to provide a familiar point of reference and to evoke representations of a tangible rather than abstract entity. The questionnaire was tested in Oita
Research Problem and Hypotheses
As noted above, through interacting with Japanese within their society with the purpose of conducting this research, several hypotheses were developed regarding their understanding of Iran as a nation and a culture. The overall research hypothesis under which all others may be classified as subordinate is that do Japanese people, on the whole, have a lack of knowledge about Iran that a) often leads to misunderstanding about the true nature of Iran and b) often results in negative perceptions.
Sub-Hypotheses
Three sub-hypotheses were considered in addition to the overall hypothesis:
a) Do “Iran” and “Persia” mean quite different things to Japanese people?
b) Is Iran culturally misunderstood as being part of the Arabic world by Japanese people because perceptions of the true Iranian culture are absent? and
c) Does the dry weather of Iran misrepresent the various climates of the country which brings an image of Iran as being a desert nation?
Iran and Persia
As mentioned above, a number of other sub-hypotheses were reached, each regarding a specific area of knowledge of Iran held by the Japanese. One of the most important of these concerns a significant gulf between perceptions of and attitudes toward “Iran” and those regarding “Persia”. This is perhaps understandable given that Iran’s 20th century history is so distinctively marked by events that have asserted its identity as “Iran” as opposed to its
former identity as “Persia”, specifically, Reza Shah’s formal decision17 to rename the country in 1934 and the revolution of 1979, which saw Iran become the “Islamic Republic of Iran”.
It has been observed on numerous occasions that initial responses to the introduction of Iran as a topic of conversation are, on the whole, negative. Reactions are often characterised by fear and concerns for safety. Proximity to Iraq is often an important contributing factor as is a perceived lawlessness. Compared to “Persia”, “Iran” rarely elicits responses concerned with cultural or artistic heritage and instead is most commonly associated with region-wide or domestic political issues including the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, the Islamic revolution and Iran’s international relations. “Persia”, however, generally elicits a very different set of reactions, most often concerning the Persian cat and the Persian carpet and the story of
“Thousand and One Nights”. It thus became an important research question to ask whether or not “Iran” and “Persia” mean quite different things to Japanese people and why the two names have almost diametrically opposed emotive values.
Iran and Arab Culture
A very common misconception regarding Iran encountered among Japanese people is that Iranians speak Arabic as their first language. The reality is that the Persian language (Farsi) is entirely distinct from Arabic, with a different set of phonetics and a different, although closely related, written script. Arabic is taught in Iranian schools as the language of the Koran but the language is not in general use in Iran except in the relatively small ethnically Arab areas of the Persian Gulf region. A less commonly expressed but equally symptomatic misconstruing of Iranian culture with Arab culture is the idea that Iranian men are able to and often do take up to four wives. Although Islamic law technically allows this form of polygamy and it is
acceptable and indeed common in countries such as Saudi Arabia, in Iran, social, cultural and legal restraints make the practice almost non-existent.
It is hypothesised that mistakes such as these have at their root a deeper misunderstanding of Persian and Islamic culture than they might suggest if taken at face value. It would seem that when clear perceptions of what Iranian culture actually consists of are absent, stereotypical representations of Arab culture arrive to fill the vacuum. This in turn suggests a strong tendency to associate Iran with the Arab lands to its West rather than the Asian lands to its East, when in reality it is at once part of both, with distinctive and unique cultural characteristics of its own.
Iran’s Climate
Another commonly encountered misconception is the belief that Iran’s climate is primarily hot and its terrain predominantly desert. The size of Iran and its consequent climatic and geographical variety are often not appreciated. Iran, which covers an area of 1,648,000 square kilometres, has climates ranging from temperate in the north to sub-tropical in the south. Most of the country experiences four distinct seasons, summers and winters having high and low temperatures comparable with those of Japan. Mountainous regions with long winter seasons and heavy snowfall make Iran an ideal destination for winter sports. Although Iran does have two major deserts, the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut, it is clearly a mistake to define the entire country as a desert nation (Kiani, 2001).
One consequence of this strong association of Iran with the desert and heat is an image of Iran as a barren and inhospitable land with little to offer. The desert commonly carries with it connotations of vast featureless expanses, accessible only to the bravest adventurer – certainly not an attractive proposition to the average tourist. Those with little knowledge of Iran will
not, of course, be aware that even the desert cities of Yazd and Kashan, two of Iran’s most rewarding tourist destinations, are both easily and comfortably visited during the spring and autumn, and will therefore, in associating Iran with the desert tend to see the country as an empty wasteland. It thus became a hypothesis for this study that there is a lack of information on Iran’s various climates as a tourist destination and the dry climate of Iran in the image of Japanese people represents the entire weather of the country as a desert nation.
Ordinary life in Iran
Japanese perception of ordinary life in Iran as a developing country is not far from the reality, unlike the other concepts mentioned above like culture, history and climate. As a nation with a relatively high experience of international travelling, Japanese people are aware of the strength of their own economy which makes their trip possible. Interactions with Japanese people suggest that Iran as a tourist destination is not an exception in the Japanese mind in this case. A high interest to know about ordinary life in Iran was particularly experienced through interaction with Japanese in this study.
METHODOLOGY: The Questionnaire and the Research Procedures