Ryan Ginstrom wrote:

> Just out of curiosity, what aspects of Japanese culture do you think are
> Americanized?

Astute question! Anyone in whose eyes I have not yet made an ass of myself
can now sit back in anticipation of watching me flounder.

Well, here goes...

<rant html/start>

Never having been to the US, I can only point to a few things. There are the
obvious ones, like Disneyfication, Macdonaldisation and Starbuxomeness. Oh,
and the constitution ;-). And the fact that very little British stuff ever
gets to Japan except via America (example, Mr Bean wasn't successful when it
first hit American audiences and hence didn't even get an airing here; it
was only when it made it big in the States the second time round that it
finally reached Japan).

Anyone time-travelling a hundred years or so from the Meiji period would
probably want to add clothing, baseball, pop music, TV culture (notably game
shows), and a host of other stuff, though it would be quite in order to
point out that many such influences have taken on a life and identity of
their own here in Japan, making them rather different from their source.

And perhaps as important as actual influences is the question of cultural
orientation, a kind of lodestone against which everything gets measured.
Hence Japanese unassertiveness is seen in counterpoint to Western
(especially American) assertiveness, etc., and lead to kids striking a
certain pose, dying their hair, adopting a teenage rebel image and having a
nose job or other cosmetic surgery to look more Western.

Of course, the results may often strike us as comic, rather than an
authentic representation of the West, but I find that a rather sad comedy,
the spectacle of people losing dignity and pride in what they are and
becoming pathetic travesties of something they strive to imitate.

In the end, though, does one really need to ask the question? Isn't it
something of a truism to say that since WWII Japan has been looking across
the Pacific, rather than at its own cultural heritage or its neighbours in
Asia, in its aims, aspirations and attempts at self-definition? Sure, it's
come up with a few things of its own - karaoke, pachinko, manga - but they
mainly seem to be symptomatic of a glitzy throwaway consumer culture that I
associate (perhaps unfairly) with America.

There's also a kind of embracing of American values at a political level
that ranges from the acceptance of GM foodstuffs to pretty much knee-jerk
support for US military action anywhere around the world. US influence on
the education system has led to problems in that area, as have US influences
on urban planning, and so on. I'm sure someone with a more specialised
knowledge of the subject could write a book about it. (What's that? They
already have? Oh!)

This is not to say that the Japanese are incapable of making a hash of
things without American interference. Their public works programme, which
looks set to cover every blade of grass in the country with concrete is, as
far as I know, entirely - or largely - home-grown. On the whole, though,
Japan has done as well - perhaps better - out of resisting the urge to go
the American way as by giving in to it. All the stuff in this thread about
perverts on trains does rather hinge - as Declan implies - on the fact that
there actually *are* trains - lots of 'em, whereas in the US (mimicked
perfectly, in this case, by the British, who are belatedly trying to salvage
the situation) the blood, sweat and tears of those who laid down the track
were spat on (metaphorically) by the cynics who destroyed as much of the
railway infrastructure as they could and neglected what was left all in the
name of forcing anyone who wants to go anywhere to buy a motor car.

<rant html/end>

In response to your other question, Ryan, no I haven't been to Spain mura,
but one of my students did. She was a returnee from Spain (she and I used
frequently to chat in Spanish together), and her friends thought it would be
a treat, but she spent the whole day in sad despondency, not knowing how to
make her friends understand that the Spain she knew and loved was nothing
like this!

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com