What do you think is best to protect Japan Culture, or any culture?

[Animeniax]

One big step to preserving culture is to remove American bases from foreign countries, specifically Japan and Korea, but also Italy, Germany, etc. There's no more need to maintain a military presence there, and the soldiers run amok on the local populace. I'm ashamed to say that the Japanese authorities look the other way to the crimes and bad influence that soldiers perpetrate on their people, in order to protect their political and economic interests. In today's international climate, countries have allies to augment their own national defense forces, so it's not like the US needs to be there to protect them.

I've met a Japanese born in Brazil. Supposedly there's a decent-sized population in Sao Paolo, and they emigrated there after WW2. Beyond being quiet and somewhat reserved, he was not outwardly Japanese at all. He had a Spanish first name, didn't speak Japanese, and as far as I knew he didn't observe any of their culture. He was basically a Brazilian guy of Japanese descent.

[Buffalobiian]

Tourists or not, I think the thing that impacts on culture the most is the media and upbringing of the new generation. Australia for example, is following the global "Americanism" trend not because we have lots of American tourists, or that they come spreading their culture whilst on trip. It's things like television, radio and the sense of nationalism that the government promotes. All of these are, (or were, we just got a new Prime Minister, he's much more heavily influenced by Chinese culture, so we'll see how things turn out) following the US trend. The only thing I can really call Australian here are probably our sport preference, but even that's changing. If the young aren't educated enough about their own culture, that too is lost in them. We learn jack here about Auzzie history for example, until we reach middle high school, and that's if we choose to study history. Sense of cultural identity is lost. Same with the Japanese. Education, not just sheer knowledge, but teaching them early what it IS to be Japanese. Perhaps Australia was a bad example since we don't have such a deep history like many other countries, but that's all I know really.

For an extreme example of cultural identity crises, see Stolen Generation.