Post
by Rorschach » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:16 pm
Well, Japan does have its prejudices, but they are more of the natives vs. foreigners variety than the racist kind. I'd say that American and Japan tend to have similar and mutual views: just as the Japanese don't like a bunch of Americans who try to tell them what to do, we Americans get pretty grouchy about Europeans who try to tell us what to do. (Think of Ohio and the morons from the UK's scandal rag Guardian who tried to tell the voters what to do, for example.)
I certainly don't blame them for wanting tourists to mind their manners, since we certainly expect the same of our tourists, though we might be more forgiving of their gaffes and foibles when they've just gotten here. (It's my understanding that a lot of Japanese tourists will tell you how much they admire your possessions and ask how much you paid for them, a touchy subject, to be sure.)
It's not as if we don't import various cultural ideas from each other, it's just that we tend to prefer friendly things like anime and TV shows to obvious propaganda and vitriol-filled addle-pated rants about how America is bad, bad, bad, and how foreigners must be really wonderful people for pointing this out to us. I'm sure you can imagine how well Japan would take that kind of criticism.
With anime, we get a bit of insight into the Japanese psyche, just as they get some idea of our culture from TV shows they've imported from us. The only problem I see with this is how these media do tend to tell only one side of any given story. From our decidedly secular TV shows, you'd never know how religious America is and how this affects everything we do, and from all the racy imagery in anime, you'd never know that actual sex in Japan has lately been in decline. Some more open and honest portrayal of these realities would be a good thing for all of us.
