Cashier Xiao Qiu
One weekend early in the morning, I suddenly received a call from a Japanese company. The person in charge reminded me not to forget to bring my seal when I came to handle the relevant procedures tomorrow. After spending hours trying unsuccessfully to find out if the last time I used a seal was from several years ago, I realized that redoing one was inevitable. Fortunately, there is a seal house that is also open on weekends two stops away. After delivering 700 yen (about 41 yuan) and waiting for 10 minutes, a simple stamp engraved with my Chinese surname was completed. The next day when I arrived at the sales office, another different employee saw me taking out my stamp and said with a smile: You are really careful. In fact, in order to comply with the voices of all walks of life for the abolition of seals, we can now complete the procedures by signing alone. In a mentality similar to "all coming", I chose to stamp, and quite forcefully. Even if I knew that this alone would never be able to destroy a company or the powerful bureaucracy of Japanese society as a whole.
Perhaps it is precisely because the grievances stirred up by such complicated formalities have gathered to a certain extent that even the Japanese government can no longer sit idly by. After being appointed Minister of Administrative Reform in September last year, Kono made the abolition of unnecessary administrative procedures his main policy. Among them, the seal became a top priority. In a meeting with journalists a month after taking office, he announced the government's plans to abolish the current 15,000 administrative procedures that require printing. But before the real effects of this reform could be perceived by the public, he was opposed by all sides. A strong rebound in the stamp industry is certainly expected, while the dissatisfaction from companies, public institutions, etc., who should be the beneficiaries of the policy, is somewhat unexpected. The fact that the seal of the Internet age exists as an "anachronism" but is still tenacious is probably a microcosm of the problems faced by the Japanese technology industry as a whole. But if we can move away from a linear view of progress, we may also be able to rethink the way technology and tools of all kinds exist and develop reality in a society.
Power and Administration: A Brief History of the Japanese Seal
Emperor Guangwu presented the "King of Han Weinu" with a golden seal and an inscription.
Like many other artifacts or institutions, Japan's seal culture came from Eurasia. The earliest seals that can be confirmed today were born in the Middle East more than 6,000 years ago. But since then, the more direct influence on Japan has mainly come from the Central Plains. China's native seal culture originated in the Warring States period, and the earliest surviving seal in Japan is the golden seal of "King Han Weinu" given by emperor Guangwu of the Later Han Dynasty in 57 AD. Although the authenticity of this national treasure unearthed in today's Fukuoka Prefecture is still controversial, the attitude of being "given" contained in it undoubtedly hints at a primitive "first-mover" state's posture of power over "late-developing" countries. Japan's real systematic absorption of seal culture did not take until the 7th and 8th centuries AD. The regime modeled after the Sui and Tang dynasties formally made explicit provisions on the use of "official seals" in official documents in 701. Some high-ranking officials with privileges were also given the privilege of engraving "private seals".
But soon, Japan's native "national style culture" began to rise. Just as kanji was slowly replaced by cursive Japanese kana, the act of stamping kanji stamps on documents was overshadowed by the "hanabi", which was dominated by graphics and symbols. The revival of seal culture did not take until the Kamakura shogunate era, when the Song and Yuan literati seals, which came together with Zen Buddhism as appendages of calligraphy and painting, became very popular. But no matter how it developed, the seals of medieval Japan generally spread to a very limited extent. It has little to do with the lives of the common people. The seals that were first used as symbols of higher civilizations on the outside evolved at this time to act as representatives of power of the higher classes within.
The use of seals began to penetrate the people on a large scale, beginning in the Edo period, and there were two important structural factors behind it. First, one of the key targets of the shogunate's policy of lock-in was the spread of Western Christianity. The government requires people to register their identities and sign non-religious agreements in grass-roots management bodies, and at a time when literacy rates are low, simple seals are used instead of signing documents. Second, in the generally peaceful environment of the past 400 years, Japan's domestic business has developed by leaps and bounds, which has put forward requirements for the "credit" guarantee of the participants in each transaction. The personal seal that has been registered in the local administrative unit is the best countermeasure. At the same time, the details of each transaction accurately grasped through the recognized seal also provided the greatest guarantee for the shogunate's collection of finance and taxation.
As many historical studies have revealed, the Meiji Restoration, known as the "starting point of modernization" in Japan, actually inherited many legacies from the Edo period. This assertion is also true here in the seal. In 1873, the new government codified the previously prevalent regulations that needed to be engraved at the time of transactions. The penalties for forging or stealing other people's seals are almost analogous to the precedent. Another interesting point is the formal establishment of Japan's modern cabinet system in 1885, and each cabinet member is required to provide his own additional flowers instead of a seal when signing policy documents, a habit that continues to this day. Through the differentiation from the names and badges of ordinary people, the special social status and power enjoyed by modern bureaucrats have once again been reflected in the small act of "pressing".
The "alienation" of the seal system
In fact, as early as the Meiji period, discussions about whether seals were no longer appropriate had taken place. One of the reasons why seals are popular as mentioned earlier is that they can solve the various formalities caused by the low literacy rate of the population. But in the Meiji era, when the rate of education had been greatly improved, its rationality had been lost by more than half. Further, the practice of relying on signatures to verify one's identity has long become a habit in Western society, which gives an important excuse for the abolition of seals by the pro-Westernization faction. However, with the support of the opposition's "soft" claims for the protection of traditional culture and the interests of the "hard" seal industry, the signature only gained legal effect similar to that of the seal for a long time afterwards, let alone completely replaced the latter. With the development of time, this institutional alienation due to "path dependence" can be said to be more and more intense.
Faced with the abolition of traditional seals, more and more Japanese companies are beginning to introduce more designed seals to attract consumers. The picture shows the popular product cat seal series launched by Seongsan Bowentang. Source: oricon News
Minister Kono's announcement that more than 10,000 formalities requiring seals would be abolished actually tells us two things. First, there are at least so many links that cannot be completed without a seal so far. Second, they are not necessary at all. In today's Japanese society, seals can be roughly divided into two types. A type of seal is called a "real seal". They need to be registered at the relevant windows of the local government and have a full legal status, which is indispensable in cases such as real estate transactions, inheritance and so on. The other is the so-called "recognition seal". This unregistered seal actually only represents "I am familiar with the above matters" and does not have any judicial role at all. In fact, if your name isn't a strange word or you're in no hurry, you can buy a stamp that works instantly at a cheap price at any Japanese version of the "binary supermarket." After all, the only things engraved on the "recognition type" seal are surnames such as "Sato" or "Takahashi". As a result, Japan's seal culture has fallen into an embarrassing situation where "anyone can be proved and no one can be proved."
When the seal itself changed from a "means" to an "end", the resulting series of special rules of use were even more frowning. A classic example is that a former employee of a Japanese banking giant once revealed that the company had a rule when stamping that the print should not be kept upright, but needed to be slightly tilted towards the seal of the superior, which is usually stamped to its left, to show respect. In addition, after more and more companies have chosen to work from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, both external negotiations and internal communication can be done remotely through the Internet. But many employees of Japanese companies have to go to the company at least once a week because they have to complete the "press-to-print" step on physical paper that cannot be replaced by the Internet. It was these inverted acts that brought the popular criticism of the seal to a climax. There is even a group of people known as "seal police" on the Internet. Like the "self-censorship police" who appeared earlier in Japan's state of emergency and scolded whenever someone loosened their masks slightly, these "seal policemen" would rush out whenever they found that there were companies still stipulating that employees were printing, and put big hats such as "causing economic stagnation in Japan" on their heads.
It is also in this environment that the reform attempts launched by the Suga government have a strong legitimacy. According to an estimate by NHK, the abolition of the seal will save at least 10 minutes on average for every public service. The accompanying electronics will save 30 million yen in a year.
"Mosaic" technology in society and culture
Under the banner of various "great righteous names", the onslaught launched by Minister Kono and the Suga government against the seal seems to show their determination and execution. But as sociologists often refer to as the concept of "embeddedness", the "technology" of the seal has developed inextricably linked to the corresponding social and cultural structures over time. The extent to which policies that are imposed without taking these real-world issues into account are effective is a question mark. An example of the connection between seals and established interest groups is the existence of a coalition of parliamentarians within the Japanese Diet that "guards the Japanese seal system and culture." It has close ties with the National Stamp Industry Association, a group composed of various enterprises in the stamp industry. One of the most surprising members of this organization, which can be compared to the U.S. Congressional lobby, is Naoichi Takemoto, the minister in charge of IT policy who aims to promote e-modernization. Although he has always stressed that the seal culture and electronicization are not contradictory, in the government's strong gesture of abolishing the seal, he eventually chose to withdraw from the parliamentarian union.
Even more surprising is that complaints about the abolition of the seal also come from the logical beneficiaries of this policy. According to Japanese media reports, many companies said that although the reduction of transaction links that require seals has indeed reduced the burden on employees, the problems it has caused at the same time cannot be ignored. The financial magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai published a very enlightening report on this issue. The authors of the report point out that the positive effects of abolishing the seal are basically internal to the company, while its negative effects are generated by the company when dealing with external companies. Furthermore, the core of the problem lies in Japan's macro-industrial structure. Although some large companies that everyone can name influence economic activity and social opinion, more than 90% of Japanese companies are still small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of numbers alone. Their willingness to transform technology, including paperless offices, is undoubtedly much smaller. The authors provide an obvious data: in the Japan Federation of Business Organizations, which is mainly involved by large enterprises, 97.8% of member companies have fully implemented the remote working environment. But in contrast, companies with between 50-300 employees have a telecommuting adoption rate of only 28.2%, compared with 14.4% for small companies with less than 50 employees. In other words, maybe we think that "an employee of a large company commutes for an hour, and then goes to the office of the vice president above the fifth floor just to stamp a stamp" would feel outrageous. But if we replace it with "a subordinate who lives in a staff dormitory goes to the company next door to the dormitory and hands the contract book to the president next to him and asks him to look at it," it is easy to understand why small and medium-sized companies have no incentive to realize information-based offices, including the abolition of seals.
The author of the report further proposed that the seal has largely become a "scapegoat" for the Japanese economy in the mire. Looking back at history, we will find that almost every ten years will set off a great criticism of seal culture. But so many years later, the seal still stands firm. So, the crux of the matter is not the seal itself, but the bureaucracy lurking behind it. Conversely, it is completely unworkable to think that a complete economic transformation can be achieved by abolishing the seal. This is reminiscent of zoom video conferencing because at the beginning of the epidemic, many Japanese companies received inquiries about which sub-screen is "seated". This more ridiculous reality than the paragraph shows that if there is no fundamental change in the structure and culture of the enterprise, no matter how "advanced" the technology is, it is unlikely to bring about change.
Another related example is the fax machine. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan's health clinics still used faxes to communicate with each other and report on their illness. At about the same time, the news was that Japan's supercomputer "Fugaku" won the world's first ranking in terms of performance performance. The contrast between the two is even more confusing. What can answer this question is the "mosaic" of the technology itself. In fact, Minister Kono once said that the next step to abolish after the seal was the fax machine, which was widely used in public services. But the declaration was withdrawn shortly after its release. In the case of reporting on the condition, if the system is to be comprehensively upgraded, it will require the integration of several heterogeneous links such as large public hospitals, small community clinics, and the health sector. But the postwar Japanese government undoubtedly lacked the funds, powers, or legal means to achieve this goal. In addition, several incidents in Europe and the United States that have caused the loss of patient information due to hacking have also greatly reduced the willingness of the Japanese people and doctor groups to change. And if it is really possible to import computers into each clinic, how to achieve compatibility with network systems in the illegible "writing style" that doctors around the world seem to share may be another problem that has to be considered.
The seal designed by the tokyo industry owner with the theme of "Kono Taro". While indirectly conveying dissatisfaction, it also turns this "headwind" into an opportunity to promote seal culture. Source: Tokyo Seals Synergy.
But stubborn, such as the Japanese stamp industry, also experienced a sense of crisis that change was bound to come. Fortunately, practitioners don't look as worried as we might think. On the one hand, a certain number of procedures for requiring a seal mentioned earlier are still preserved, including both the mandatory provisions of the sale and purchase of houses and the commemorative optional link of marriage application. More importantly, the positive cultural dimension of the tool of excavating seals has been laid by practitioners from an early age. For example, at the Seal House in Tokyo, a name stamp design contest was launched. The theme of the competition was ironically set as "Kono Taro". In the end, 23 craftsmen presented 77 pieces of design without duplicates, showing everyone the charm of hand-engraved seals. In fact, minister Kono soon after announcing the abolition of the seal also posted his own collection of calligraphy and painting prints on Twitter. As a result, he actually adopted the same position as the minister in charge of it policy in the previous article, that is, networking and seal culture are not contradictory. On the other hand, both the "stamp relay" that is reserved for various tourist spots in Japan and the decorative seals in Japan's handbook culture, which have become more popular around the world in recent years, have largely compensated for the losses caused by the government's policy.
Seals have also become popular around the world with the Japanese stationery fever of the past two years. The picture shows the stamp product of the hand-booked shop Traveler's factory. Source: Official company Twitter
All in all, whether it is a fax machine, a seal, or a supercomputer, no technology is "objectively" playing a role in promoting human progress. The social and cultural dimensions that surround them are an integral part of whether a technology can play a positive or negative role.
bibliography:
Seiichi Kadota, Hankoto Japanese, Daitakusha, 1997
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Zhu
Proofreader: Yan Zhang