Tokyo meets the world: Italy

It’s difficult for an Italian not to feel at home in Tokyo, because when walking in the city, you see more Italian flags here than in Rome – by far. There’s an Italian restaurant on almost every corner, and they fly the Italian flag because it’s a brand. For the Japanese consumer, the Italian flag symbolises good taste, good food, the good life, happiness. One time, in a remote corner of Japan, I even saw an Italian flag used to signify ‘Western food’ [laughs].

The attraction of the Italian way of life for the Japanese public is immense. When a Japanese person goes to Italy, they’ll find – especially among the young generation – a fascination with Japan due to its image as a ‘cool’ country. Japan is considered cool for a number of reasons, but I think the Japanese still underestimate the soft power of manga and its cultural message.

Manga has revealed Japanese landscapes and cities to an entire generation of Westerners. I remember walking through narrow little streets after first arriving in Japan, watching the buildings and the overhead power lines that are so typical here. It felt like déjà vu to me, because I remembered the scene from manga. 

This soft power is quite similar to what Italians experienced after World War II with American movies. Everyone knew about the US, because we were inundated with American movies and the landscapes of American cities. The soft power of Japan is strong in Italy. You go to Rome now and you see ramen restaurants, sushi bars…there’s a strong and deep mutual attraction.

I have to answer this very diplomatically [laughs]. ACCI, the Japanese association of Italian restaurants, has a vast number of members. Still, not all Italian restaurants in Japan are part of it, because there are membership criteria you need to fulfil. My Japanese friends tell me that only 20 years ago, when you went to a Western restaurant here, it was usually a French one. Now there are almost 10 times more Italian than French restaurants in Tokyo. It’s a huge change.

In Italian restaurants, the food is of course very important, but so is the atmosphere. You want to feel at home to some extent, and there’s discussion between the guest and the chef – it’s like talking to your mother [laughs]. That family environment is there at good Japanese restaurants too, be it a sushi bar or a tonkatsu place.

The problem that comes after the Olympics and other big events – and this is the same the world over – is how to develop what’s already been developed.

In Milan, which hosted the World Expo in 2015, [the Expo area] was developed into a technological district called MIND. It has gathered a lot of investment and is becoming an economic success story. You have a university, hospitals, high-tech incubators, robotics…many companies have set up offices in the area, which is one of the most successful follow-up developments to a large event such as the Expo.

I believe Japan is also ready to take a very innovative approach to post-event development.

Japan and Italy share many interests. We both lost World War II but won the peace – I say that because neither country has a lot of natural resources, but thanks to the very hard work and skills of a generation of people, we’ve both built economies that are among the most advanced in the world.

We’re both dependent on international markets. Italy is one of the world’s largest exporters of goods, as is Japan. Both countries have long focused their foreign policy on trying to defuse tensions between the superpowers. In that vein, there’s one field in which Italy and Japan can play – and are playing – a very important role: the green economy.

Japan’s goals in this field align with Italy’s. There’s room for dialogue, with the new administration in the US, China and Russia, and the EU all responding positively. Italy is a leader in green energy, seeing that already in 2019, 35 percent of our electricity came from renewable sources and only 25 percent from coal and oil. Italians also rejected nuclear energy in a 1986 referendum. In Japan, the push towards an economy driven by green energy is very strong throughout society, so there are many things we can work on together.

That would surely be in its interest, and I think Japan appreciates that the green economy brings along many business opportunities.

Municipalities in Italy are quite active in this regard, and the focus now is very much on mobility. Experiments in bike and car sharing are going strong. Covid has also led to innovation at many companies, and some will not go back to full office occupancy. Some companies will shift to having half of their staff work from home, saving a lot of money on office space and other things in the process. We’ve discovered how convenient online meetings are, even for [political] summits.

In the future, Italian municipalities that are already working on protecting historic city centres will seek to isolate them from traffic. The main cities of Italy are old, with medieval centres, and many of them have already become pedestrianised ‘islands’. On the other hand, more and more people will move outside the city.

This will probably happen in Greater Tokyo too, with people looking for homes in suburban areas and only coming to the centre once in a while. I think this will be very beneficial for the environment and for everyday life in the city. Interview by Masashi Takahashi, coordination by Hiroko M. Ohiwa