One of the most commonly discussed issues of national character in Japan revolves around the question of personal creativity. Put simply, it is this: Are the Japanese lacking in the DNA of originality?

This is an old, and tired, polemic, but I want to revisit it today to throw some light on Japanese achievements in science and technology.

The image of Japan as "a nation of copycats" was conjured up in the early Meiji Era (1868-1912). After more than two centuries of national isolation imposed (on pain of death) by the Tokugawa Shogunate, a new modern Japan sprang full-blown out of the heads of talented and impetuous individuals who dreamt of a nation equal in greatness to any other. This meant catching up with the empires of the West; and one of the slogan-engines propelling the newly conceived nation-state forward represented just that: Oitsuki oikose, or "Catch up (with the West) and overtake it."