Tokyo meets the world: Croatia

I’ve been posted to Japan for more than five and a half years now. When I was chosen for the assignment, my family and I were very happy. Back then, we had a quite typical Western perception of Japan based on what we knew about its history, gastronomy and art – you know, the Edo period, samurai, ninjas, manga and anime, Kurosawa. My personal interest is in history in general and military history in particular. Japan is one of the most peaceful countries in the world, but if you look at history that wasn’t always the case. So I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the people’s very peaceful, calm and respectful approach in interaction with others. 

Another thing is public safety. You feel completely safe here – you can go wherever you want and do what you like as long as you respect the culture. As for earthquakes, there’s a bit of an irrational fear that you could be hit by an earthquake in Japan at any time and be in grave danger. I used to always describe Croatia by saying it’s one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with great nature, heritage, sport – and we don’t have earthquakes! But last year we had two quite devastating ones, magnitude 5.3 and 6.4 respectively. One damaged the center of the capital and the other areas south of the capital. That makes you appreciate the quality of disaster preparedness in Japan, because while earthquakes of that size would go largely unnoticed here, in Croatia they caused significant material damage and about eight casualties.

There’s also a perception that all the technology in Japan is cutting-edge, with robots on the streets. There is that part, but many people miss how some things are also done in very old-fashioned ways that no longer exist elsewhere. You learn that when you’re a part of this society and get to know the daily routine. As for gastronomy, some elements of Japanese cuisine are very well known abroad – sushi, sashimi, tempura – but washoku is much richer than that, and the difference in local cuisines is remarkable. That’s been another pleasant surprise for me.

To give a quick introduction, Croatian cuisine actually encompasses four or five completely different cuisines. There are two coastal cuisines, the Dalmatian and the Istrian, which are part of the Mediterranean diet. The other two are Slavonian or Eastern cuisine, which is traditionally Croatian but influenced by the Hungarian and Ottoman Turkish cuisines – spicy, smoked meat, heavy and fatty food – and the cuisine of central and northern Croatia, which is influenced by Central European cooking.

Unfortunately there’s only one Croatian restaurant here in Tokyo – Dobro in the Ginza-Kyobashi area, which serves excellent Croatian cuisine slightly adopted to Japanese tastes. I go there several times a week. Also, my wife is a professional chef, so we often host Japanese friends at our residence.

Croatia and Japan are two friendly, likeminded countries that have a lot in common, though we’re far away from each other. We both advocate and actively work to support democracy, a rules-based international order, human rights, freedom of expression – our common values. As for cultural exchanges, we organise plenty of events, exhibitions and concerts, and cooperate with Hiroshima, Nagasaki and other cities that suffered tremendously during World War II. Croatia experienced a war much more recently – about 30 years ago – and we have many things to share with the world in that regard. 

Another interesting area of cooperation is sports. Croatia has had quite a number of sporting successes: in football [the Croatian team made the final of the World Cup in 2018] of course, but we were also finalists in basketball at the Barcelona Olympics, where we played against the American Dream Team, and have been Olympic gold medalists in handball, water polo, trap, and many athletics and skiing events. There’s exchange with Japan in this field too, involving athlete and coach exchanges and the sharing of expertise. Until recently, the most famous Croatian sportsman in Japan was the fighter Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipović, but now perhaps football players like Luka Modrić and Ivan Rakitić are more popular even here.

As for economic cooperation, we can’t be satisfied with the current level, as it’s much lower than what there’s potential for. Unlike most other countries, Croatia even has a small trade surplus with Japan, due to bluefin tuna being our main export product to Japan. Croatian bluefin tuna is one of the most expensive and highest-quality types of foreign tuna available in Japan, and many prestigious restaurants serve it.

Croatia, like many other European countries, is a migrant nation. There are many more people of Croatian ancestry living abroad than in Croatia itself – in Canada, the United States, Western Europe, South Africa, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, people of Croatian descent are major players in the tuna business. A few of them returned to Croatia some 30 years ago and established new companies there. One of the biggest tuna farming firms is Kali Tuna, which is now owned by a Japanese company. Tourists can actually swim with their tuna!

Before the pandemic, we had between 150 and 160 thousand Japanese tourists visit Croatia annually. The number of Croatian tourists visiting Japan has also been multiplying every couple of years.

The Croatian tourism industry is very old. It started in the mid-19th century, as the first hotel for foreign tourists was built in 1848. In 2019, Croatia hosted more than 18 million foreign tourists, which considering our population of 4.4 million is a lot, and even the most conservative pre-pandemic estimates for 2020 put the number at 20 million – almost five times our population.

Still, it’s not our goal to attract as many tourists as possible, but to have high-quality tourism that not only makes visitors happy but is also sustainable for the local nature and population. This is another area of ongoing cooperation with Japan. Croatia has a number of UNESCO World Heritage sites, but many of them are overburdened and the number of visitors to them must be limited. The old city of Dubrovnik is so overcrowded in July-August that you may have to wait several hours to go up on the city walls, even though the tickets are quite expensive. It’s like Halloween in Shibuya [laughs].

I firmly believe that the Games will be held in a safe environment, and I know that Japan is very well prepared to organise the Olympics in the best possible way. Olympic Games always attract the attention of the world, and I know from history how the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and the Osaka Expo after that brought Japan back to the world scene as a global power.

This year’s Olympics are seen as a symbol of peace and unity, a symbol of victory over Covid-19 and recovery from the pandemic, and they will send a message that Japan remains a contributor to world peace, security, technology, development, and the world economy. 

However, the world is also changing at an incredible pace, and what sort of society we would like to have and how we would like to interact with the world are not only our choices to make – we have to adopt to global realities. I believe that with the Olympics, Japan will open more to the world and become more international. 

There are certain Japanese values that I cherish tremendously and hope that Japan will keep forever – respect for the elderly, respect towards others and nature. At the same time, some things will inevitably need to change to keep pace with the rest of the world, such as having faster decision-making processes and more attention to foreign languages. I think these changes are already happening and will speed up after the Olympics.

We are switching to renewable energy, and are already above the European Union’s target levels through our use of hydro, solar and wind power. The Croatian government is encouraging green and blue investments, and we are not in a position to accept investment that would be damaging to the environment. We are also trying to strengthen our self-sufficiency in food production by shortening supply chains and reducing waste.

Croatia has a lot of high-quality agricultural land that’s not being used, while Japan faces more limitations due to 70 to 80 percent of its territory not being suitable for agricultural production. In both countries, however, there’s a trend of moving from rural to urban areas, and what both Croatia and Japan must do is to stop this extremely negative trend of people flocking to the big cities and leaving the countryside deserted. When the land in rural regions is left unmaintained, you get more landslides, erosion and floods. Policies that would keep people in or bring them back to rural areas are of the utmost priority. 

Technology can also increase yields, and I know that Japan is developing these technologies especially in vegetable and fruit production. Additional use of the sea and maritime areas is also important, as the potential there is huge – in energy in the form of offshore wind turbines, and possibly also in food production. Interview by Masashi Takahashi, coordination by Hiroko M. Ohiwa