Ryan Ginstrom wrote:

> <snippity snip snip>
>
> Do the trappings of culture, adopted in a haphazard fashion

[snippity snip snip!]

> > 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!
>
> Hey John, don't look now but I think you're on to something!

I know I am. I nearly made it explicit, but I thought I'd pretty much
covered it with the paragraph:

> 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.

I do take your point - even when the Japanese consciously and explicitly set
out to imitate or reproduce a foreign culture the result is more likely to
be a grotesque transmogrification than anything a member of that country
could recognise and warm to (is that a fair summary?) - but I'm sticking to
my guns here.

Now, maybe you're thinking you were cute bringing up the Spain mura thing -
and you *were* in a way, as well as being more fun to talk to than some
people ;-) - but the Spain angle cuts another way. I lived in Spain for many
years. Do you imagine you can buy the Spanish equivalent of the Japan Times
or the Yomiuri Shinbun in English from a kiosk in Madrid? Think again. Do
you imagine you would find Macdonalds and Starbucks on every street corner
and take in a trip to Spanish Disneyland before going to a baseball match
and rounding off the day with an American movie broadcast bilingually on
your television? Do you imagine the Americans wrote Spain's constitution?
That Spaniards have cosmetic surgery in order to look more like Americans?
That Spaniards go to the United States in droves and attract Matthew
Outland's attention by imitating the hairstyles and manners of the local
yobbos?

The reason none of these things applies to Spain is because Spain is
comparatively unamericanised.

Now, I can see you have a point. Does it seem to you that I've got a point
here, or does none of that really cut it for you?

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com