Not always in a bad way, they have some good food, music, movies, etc… But they’re very frequently very weird.
Kimpatsusays
Who do you mean by “they”, Kassul? People like me?!
Aliensays
I want a sushi Christmas tree too….
Kassulsays
Kimpatsu, if you had a hand in the making of some of the music film television and such that I’ve watched(and frequently enjoyed) from Japan, then yes, you :P
I’ll hasten to add that I don’t think that weird is a bad thing, it just means something unusual. People with genius level IQ are weird. People who are over 200 cm tall are weird. And the people who make certain manga? REALLY weird.
alexsays
yep, this is what my christmas is like this year. i’ve already seen a gigantic christmas tree with a full-scale light-up crucifix on top. from the description my japanese friends gave me, japanese christmas is almost exactly like a more extravagant version of valentines day.
on the other hand, new year is generally more significant, and more like the family-orientated western christmas.
I think Japan has to be one of the best places on earth. For all its issues, its people are simply amazing. Wish I was there. Anyone want to talk about Japan’s cultural evolution?
japanese christmas is almost exactly like a more extravagant version of valentines day.
Same in China. It’s a day for couples rather than family, with all the requisite “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman” covers sung in barely intelligible English.
atheist in Japansays
Just make sure you get your reservations for KFC in early. I hear they book up pretty quick when it is Christmas in Japan.
How about a little Japanese Christmas rap for ya:
Ichthyicsays
Flying across the pacific for Xmas?
Whaddya know!
after several delays and scheduling nightmares (originally thought I was going to be there at the end of October!), that’s exactly what I’m doing… well pretty close anyway.
arriving in Auckland, NZ on the 23rd, and will likely stay there through the 26th before heading on a roundabout trek that will eventually put me in Wellington, and then on to explore the South Island for a few weeks.
If anyone around these parts is spending the holidays around Auckland, let me know. Drinks are on me, especially if someone can show me the weirdest way to spend xmas day in NZ.
fisheyephotosAThotmailDOTcom
cheers!
atheist in Japansays
> PS: Japanese translation via “I don’t speak or write Japanese” software.
Yeh, that Japanese is not correct. Something like:
上記のビデオを紹介してくれてありがとう！おもろかった。
would be more natural ;)
Pedantic? Yes, but when else can I write in Japanese on this blog and not be marked off-topic?
alexsays
atheist:
上記のビデオを紹介してくれてありがとう！おもしろかった。
Pedantry +1.
but you got me on the kanji, i can’t read those.
have you seen the kfc christmas advert where one of those colonel sanders/santa statues spins round to watch as a young girl runs past it into the store? it’s put the fear of the colonel into me.
atheist in Japansays
alex:
おもろかった is slang for おもしろかった
:P
clinteassays
23rd,the day fishman lands in our parts of the world….Will put a note in calender….
Not in NZ tho as ya know !
Have a good trip mate !!
I understand that the best Japanese Christmas tradition is to take your spouse or lover out for a romantic dinner & visit to a love hotel.
Ichthyicsays
thanks!
very much looking forward to it.
so far it looks like xmas on the beach is what’s in store for the 25th.
some sort of rum drink might be appropriate.
will be visiting the aquarium (tarlton’s) on the 24th.
Cloudworksays
I don’t undertand why people are saying that Japanese people are weird. It seems to me that there are a fair few Americans in that video and they seem to have been the ones to have set it up. If I asked people here (UK)if they thought Japanese people were eccentric I’d get a definite yes, but not If I used weird instead of eccentric. If I asked the same about Americans then I’d get “they’re not eccentric they’re just weird” as an answer, usually.
Mr. Sparklesays
I’m disrespectful to dirt!! Can you see that I am serious?
Get out of my way, all of you. This is no place for loafers. Join me or die. Can you do any less?
Ichthyicsays
George in Japansays
“alex” is pretty much in line with my experience here. Most American holidays end up being an excuse to trade presents, throw a party, or drink yourself silly. Christian religulous overtones are almost completely ignored.
Halloween is starting to become popular. Right now it’s just an excuse to get drunk in a costume.
My Japanese teacher had never had turkey before I invited her to a Thanksgiving dinner.
Bueller007says
> おもろかった is slang for おもしろかった.
なんでやねん。
俗語じゃなくて、関西弁やで．
Your Mighty Overload who doth reside in Japansays
Last time I was here for Xmas I went skiing on Xmas eve, then pulled an all nighter, sleeping in the lab. I did my Xmas shopping on Xmas day, then two days later went to Tokyo before flying out.
This year, I plan to be in the lab, working. Over New Year, the more typical Japanese holiday, I plan to be in the lab working, although as little as possible, and drinking, as much as possible.
Happily, December is “bonenkai” （忘年会, for those as want to use Japanese) season – end of year party time (for those who don’t)!! Happy happy! Gotta love all you can drink (nomihoudai, 飲み放題) restaurants! Messy though….
Kimpatsusays
So, how many Pharungulites are in Japan? I take it AtheistinJapan is, so that makes at least two of us. We should organise a meetup.
@Kassul: That makes me doubly weird, because I belong in two of the three categories of “weird” you cited. (I’m just not 200cm tall.)
AiJ is right; “おもろかった” is slang for “おもしろかった”, and comes mainly from the Kansai region. Bonus points for anyone who correctly tells me why “interesting” is written with the following kanji: 面白い
—
Just to temper the enthusiasm for all things Yamato, do note that the current government is the most right-wing, xenophobic, and racist in my three decades of experience with the country, and many Japanese people are unintentionally racist. 9/11 gave many governments the excuse to indulge their authoritarian natures, and the GOJ is no exception. Go here for more information: http://www.debito.org/
—
We now return you to our regular programming of “Hello, Kitty” and “Crayon Shin-Chan”…
I’m in Japan but I fly out tomorrow night. I did check out some of the ‘I love you Xmas’ events at the Queen’s Plaza mall in Yokohama
Lancesays
This is great. My GF is there now and won’t be back until early January. I’m sending this to her.
atheist in japansays
So, how many Pharungulites are in Japan? I take it AtheistinJapan is, so that makes at least two of us.
I’d be interested. We would need a neutral site to share contact information / organize. Something like meetup.com. I can’t imagine there are too many of us but maybe if we reach critical mass we can have semi-regular events. I’m in Tokyo, btw. Nerima to further narrow that down geographically.
Debito is a pretty interesting character and his site is a good general resource for foreigners living in Japan. A somewhat depressing (at times infuriating) site, but highly recommended.
RickrOllsays
This is absolutely histerical becasue last night’s Mission Hill was the “Kimpatsu” episode.
And it’s hard to say that japan is weird becasue they do things like this on purpose. Weird people don’t know they are weird.
Japan- simply the coolest. For lack of anytthing else to call it lol. Such a shame my japanease is essentially nil.
RickrOllsays
And Shin-Chan is hysterical. Props to Adult swim- though weren’t they a Toonami Affiliate in the olden days? Since the two represent probly the greatest import of Japanease culture, i thought it was pertinant, at any rate…
How timely you should post this. I have been in Japan for a week now and have just arrived in Osaka. Yes, xmas here in Japan is interesting. Lots of strange sounding christmas carols too. I just happened to buy an xmas ornament to take home with me tonight. Funny to see a christmas tree standing next to a buddhist shrine in Kyoto! That’s the spirit!
Atheist in Japansays
Bonus points for anyone who correctly tells me why “interesting” is written with the following kanji: 面白い
I’ll wager a guess. Since 面=めん/つらwhich means face and 白い is white, my intuition is to say it is related to Noh theater, or some other theater where the actors (traditionally all men) paint their faces white. Since they put on a good show it came to mean interesting/amusing?
RickrOllsays
I actually have a pen pal in japan from Kobe. So this will make nice conversation peice, eh?
The Japanese have a gleeful fascination with American traditions. It was thus even before World War II, and got even more so after. Given the opportunity, they will celebrate life unlike most any other people in the world. We would do well to emulate them.
RickrOllsays
It will be a good day when i can finally understand the subtlety of Japanease language to get all the Corollian Wordplay…
They sure spend a lot of time in anime paying lip service to Western Gods (even Norse mythology) from what i’ve seen; i wonder if this is due to their exposure to Christianity by the Dutch (Fransisco Xavier)?
MikeinJapansays
ザッツオモロー！
I gotta say tho, Christmas in Japan makes me a sad panda. There’s no snow (where I am), lots of ugly fake trees, and worst of all they make me come to work. T_T
On the other hand nobody takes offense when I say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Xmas.
MikeinJapansays
@atheist in japan
Nerima here too… if you wanna have a Cephalopodmas party, I can be reached at hachi_ichi[spammenot]hotmail.com
Sulinsays
One more atheist in Japan here. Been here only about a year and having a great time.
multipathsays
Ah, ni hao from China. My first Christmas overseas. It seems that the celebration of Christmas here in Shanghai closely resembles that in Japan. Thanks PZ.
Your Mighty Overloadsays
One more here, but in Sendai.
I will, however, be in Tokyo in Early April and late May, also in Nagoya and Osaka in March.
Of course, it is possible to shoot down to Tokyo almost any weekend – it’s not so far.
For some background, read Google’s translation of the Swedish Wikipedia article on commencement: http://translate.google.com/translate?langpair=sv|en&u=http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolavslutning
(“closings of churches” unfortunately doesn’t mean closings of churches, but refers to commencement ceremonies in churches. Kyrkobyggnad means church building.)
This has been a somewhat infected issue at the end of each semester in Sweden the last few years.
secularguysays
[Off topic]
The standing is currently 71% for “YES – commencement should be held in church“.
1355 total votes
Maybe time to cut back on flying hither and yon all the time, PZ? If you won’t do it for the future of human civilisation, do it for the jumbo squid!
Nick Gottssays
i wonder if this is due to their exposure to Christianity by the Dutch (Fransisco Xavier)? – RickrOll
Xavier was sent by the Portuguese, not the Dutch. The Portuguese were eventually expelled by the Tokugawa shogun, their trading activity being given to the Dutch. One reason for this was that the Dutch did not insist on proselytising.
alexsays
おもろかった is slang for おもしろかった
:P
gosh darn it, i’ve been out-pedanted. kudos to you sir.
don’t think i’ll make it to a pharyngu-meetup – i’m on a student budget at minute and am pretty much booked-up until i leave the country in january.
RickrOllsays
Doh!- history fail. thanks for the correction. By the way, message on the other thread at the top of the recent comments list.
alexsays
AiJ is right; “おもろかった” is slang for “おもしろかった”, and comes mainly from the Kansai region.
関西ね？分からへんだった。おおきに。
RickrOllsays
speaking of proselytising, that is where your message is, nick. Sorry for the inconveniance.
The best part for me was seeing KFC, because it was the first independent confirmation of something I heard years ago.
A friend of mine from high school had gone to Japan and taught English. She came back to the states for a visit and I did a feature story about her travels for the newspaper I was working at.
The thing that has stuck in my mind all these years has been her telling me how KFC was somehow linked with Christmas in Japan. My friend theorized that, basically, old white men with snowy beards were pretty much indistinguishable to the Japanese, and “Sanders=Santa.”
QrazyQatsays
Here in Thailand they like Christmas and Valentine’s Day too. Basically any excuse for a holiday.
Nick Gottssays
RickrOll@47,
Sorry, you’ve lost me – which thread?
OT: I managed to get banned by the hypocrite John Shore after a single spate of messages – without a single “bad word” in them!
andyosays
I was in Japan in 1995 for christmas, it was just cake and a small tree, but I think the family I was spending it with probably thought I wanted something special, so I don’t know if they did it for me.
I’m third generation myself (sansei), but I was born somewhere else. The modern descendants of my ancestors are indeed… interesting. I’ve been imbued in (pseudo-)Japanese culture all my life, but the modern Japanese never cease to intrigue me, to say the least. I work now with some of them here in L.A. Let’s just say a culture that censors their own porn, but make up for it with really weird shit (so I’ve been told, REALLY!) can be anything but uninteresting.
djlactinsays
Canadian in Korea here. (Any pharynguloids here?) Formerly in Beijing. I can assure you that the Christmas thing is delightfully off-base in both countries. In China, restaurants would feature a painfully thin adolescent standing outside wearing an ill-fitting Santa suit with a ‘beard’ consisting of a swatch of cotton sewed to the chest, with no connection to his face. (Beards are an alien concept there). Santa decorations would remain on display until March or so.
In Korea (where I am now) my campus features several beautifully lit-up trees. Thousands (yes) of white lights covering them. The only problem is that they are leafless cherry trees. Conifers abound, but have not been decorated.
Christmas day will feature a few desultory carolers. Odd, considering that in some urban areas, there may be a church every couple of blocks (red neon crosses, as distinct from green neon crosses, meaning ‘hospital’.)
I’m not going to get onto the Valentine’s day/white day/black day thing (unless someone asks!) but it’s another twist on the western ideas.
And, yes, ‘weird’ = unexpected. Wait until the West begins celebrating Buddha’s birthday, or Universities declare that the anniversary of the founding date is a holiday…
Hey! Thanks for posting this! And it was neither weird Japanese nor weird Americans that put the video together – it was weird Canadians!! Though I guess we can just say Canadians because up there the weird part goes without saying…
:-)
Merry Happiness!
Genesays
Yet another regular in Japan, currently in Gifu ( about a 20-minute train ride north of Nagoya, where this video was shot- I recognized some of the locations).
Gotta say, I wish there wasn’t a reason for this. As much as I hate to play into the stereotype of the grinchy atheist, I consider Christmas to be one of the most annoying times of the year, and between the holiday lights at the JR Gifu station to the carols playing over the PA at the local Tomidaya, it seems like the holiday is haunting me like a curse. Is no place safe? Or specifically, no place where I might want to live?
bricsays
One year, to get away from the Christmas nonsense, we went to Penang in Malaysia for the holiday season (my partner happens to come from there). Despite Malaysia being a Muslim country Christmas trees, Father Christmases, Mother Christmases, Christmas songs and carols were everywhere. And yet every year the Daily Mail tells me ‘other cultures’ are somehow offended by these amusing ‘local’ customs in cold wet UK.
@AtheistinJapan:
You are certainly along the right lines, but not completely there, so you get 1/2 a point.
The legend is that Susano-o-no-mikoto, the storm god, wsa being his usual bratty self, so his elder sister, Amaterasu, the sun goddess, got pissed off and went to sulk in a cave. Because she was in hiding, the world went dark, so all the other gods started holding a party outside the cave to entice her back out. Intrigued by the merrymaking, she peeked her face (面) outside the cave, and light (白)returned to the world. Hence, “interesting” came to be written 面白い.
I’ve been in Japan for 16 years; has anyone been here longer?
I only lived in Japan for a little over a year and that was 12 years ago, but I will never forget that amazing country. Weird? Oh yeah. But That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as a few here have pointed out.
Well I’m not there now, but I’ll be spending lots of 1- and 2-week periods in Japan starting next February. First in Machida (40 minutes SW of Shinjuku), then Tsukuba, and finally in 2013, Tanegashima. I’ve only got 28 stamps in my passport(s) so far; time to hit the air again.
And boy does this thread remind me I need to whip out the ol’ Kanji flashcards again!
There’s two great things about christmas here in Japan: it’s pure essence of schlocky commercialism, undiluted by any religious meaning to ruin the fun; and the morning of the 26th there is no trace of the holiday whatsoever.
Really – you walk down Shinsaibashi shopping street on the night of the 25th and there’s big, gaudy christmas decorations everywhere, christmas-themed shop windows, christmas music, christmas billboards and commercials. The next morning it’s all gone, replaced by the symbols and music (and commercials) of traditional New Year celebration. From bossanova versions of “RUdolf the red-nosed reindeer” to Koto music – it’s enough to get cultural whiplash unless you’re careful.
@Cloudwork: “I don’t undertand why people are saying that Japanese people are weird.”
Here’s one answer straight from Tokyo (20+ years): It’s an Internet meme. Pre-Internet, actually (just stronger now); there’s a long history of visitors searching for (or making up) exoticism to spice up stories. _Further_ aided by a fair number of natives who love being told how exotic they are.
The video is fun and the song catchy, but really, it _tells_ us about “weird Christmas in Japan” more than it actually shows anything a visitor should find bizarre. Then again, the bar for “weird” is set pretty low when relaying stories of crazy foreign countries, so make of it all what you will…
Regarding KFC as a part of Xmas here: The traditional Xmas dinner is a big bird, but turkey’s hard enough to find in Japan, let alone goose. That leaves chicken as the choice, and KFC is the one who makes chicken quick, easy, and ubiquitous in Japan. No exotic mystery over why KFC does brisk business here at Xmas!
Umiliksays
Any country where there is a market for worn girls’ undergarments – yes that qualifies as weird in my book. And that the Japanese, who seem to be effortlessly combining bits and pieces of shintoism and buddhism, would add a little western x-mas kitsch to the mix – that too would seem appropriate.
Lagosays
Always wanted to go to Japan, but I may wait until they stop being amazingly racist…
Atheist in Japansays
@Kimpatsu I’ve been in Japan for 16 years; has anyone been here longer?
I think 16 years qualifies you for veteran status.
I’ve lived here a total of 4 years. Spent about a year in Nagoya as a study abroad student at Chukyo University (中京大学), and 3 years here in Tokyo.
@Gene Yet another regular in Japan, currently in Gifu
I’ve some great memories of Hida Takayama and Gero onsen :)
Cute video, but we all might want to think twice before dismissing certain ethnic groups as “weird,” even jokingly. It’s also probably not very wise to form our opinion of entire cultures based around the creepy porn we downlo… err, that one of our friends saw once.
Your Mighty Smitey Overloadsays
Lago at 68
I’m interested by what you mean by “amazingly racist”? From my own experiences, say 2 years total, I have had many more positive than negative experiences with Japanese people. Then again, I’m not a language teacher, who generally do not have a good rep with Keiichi Q Public.
More “naive” than “racist” in many cases – foreigners are exotic (and by extension, dangerous (and this is a prejudice not without some justification, their murder rate is two orders of magnitude lower than the US)).
Of course, one could always do what I council so many young guys and girls, outraged by the fact that things are different to what they are used to at home, to do (and this is one for Debito Arudou too), and simply grow a pair.
ShadowWalkyrsays
Damn you, Myers!
Now I’m craving sushi.
chocolatepiesays
俗語じゃなくて、関西弁やで．
わあ～関西弁なつかしい。
My friend and I vowed last year to go back to Japan for Christmas one year, just to experience the most commercial holiday in history in one of the most commercial nations on the planet. SO MANY LIGHTS!
And am I the only one who kind of likes the romanticization of Japanese Christmas? It seems more genuine than Valentine’s Day.
Atheist in Japansays
More “naive” than “racist” in many cases – foreigners are exotic (and by extension, dangerous (and this is a prejudice not without some justification, their murder rate is two orders of magnitude lower than the US)).
I can’t speak for accuracy of the source (it seems fairly recent) but according to this site Japan’s murder rate per capita is an order of a magnitude lower than the U.S.
I would wager that the low murder rate has nothing to do with Japan’s largely homogeneous society but more to do with the lack of firearms.
Th average Japanese person, much like the average American, is not an over racist or card carrying member of the KKK / Japanese ultra-right equivalent. I wouldn’t characterize Japanese people as extremely racist, but there is a fair amount of institutionalized racism and xenophobia in Japan.
Japan has a nation has a less than stellar record in this arena.
Svensays
I recently left (Tsukuba) after around 4 years. Pity – I woulda been up for a Squidmas party for sure :)
And I agree with the smitey overlord… often naivete is more at play than any distinct racism. But I disagree that murder rate has much to do with it. Read “Dogs and Demons” for a relevant assessment of Japan’s fear of things slightly wild and unpredictable. I think foreigners fall into this category, in as much as they’re an unknown commodity – rather than any sense that they (and their murder rate) is “known”. And besides, not all foreigners are American, yet a Japanese reaction is mostly uniform – regardless of where the foreigner is from.
Japan would be a great place if it weren’t for the racism and sexism.
Lagosays
“I’m interested by what you mean by “amazingly racist”?”
See the posted sites by the other posters on the subject.
Also, it is not that I figure they are more racist than say, the KKK, but the US as a whole generally hates prejudice, and does not support groups like the KKK. If we find someone didn’t get a job due to race, or someone said something about someone else race during an election event, on a whole they lose face in the US. Not so in Japan. In Japan governmental officials have often said very racist things and no one blinks.
There are many others things too, like, the Japanese require people like Koreans to change their names to Japanese names if they are to become citizens. Weird stuff like that just makes little sense..
Lagosays
Remember these?
In 1986, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said U.S. intelligence is low “because there are many blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans.”
Two years later, Michio Watanabe, who later became foreign minister, said, “blacks did not repay debts.”
And in 1990, Justice Minister Seiroku Kajiyama compared prostitutes in a Tokyo district to “America when neighborhoods become mixed because blacks move in and whites are forced out.”
Imagine these statements being said in the US?
MIKEsays
I’m surprised no one reading this blog is familiar with the girl in the video. Applemilk, or “Emery,” as she has come to be called, is several levels of weird past anything Japan has come up with.
Also, @ 67
When the biggest message board in japan, 2chan, found out about this myth spread by foreigners, they scoured the country looking for these vending machines. Two were found and both sell clean, unused underwear.
Atheist in Japansays
There are many others things too, like, the Japanese require people like Koreans to change their names to Japanese names if they are to become citizens.
This is no longer mandated by law although the UN stated concerns that naturalization applicants may be pressured into taking a Japanese name.
176. Noting that although Koreans applying for Japanese nationality are no longer required, legally or administratively, to change their names to a Japanese name, the Committee expresses its concern that authorities reportedly continue to urge applicants to make such changes and that Koreans feel obliged to do so for fear of discrimination. Considering that the name of an individual is a fundamental aspect of the cultural and ethnic identity, the Committee recommends that the State party take the necessary measures to prevent such practices.
Lagosays
“This is no longer mandated by law although the UN stated concerns that naturalization applicants may be pressured into taking a Japanese name. ”
Saw a show the other day (2 days ago?) where they were talking to foreigners, and they still were not able to become citizens because they were not changing their names to Japanese ones. I think we are dealing with fake changes in the law, where they claim change, but still stick to the prejudices that established the laws in the first place…
Atheist in Japansays
@Lago Remember these?
Don’t forget Ishihara Shintarou, governor of Tokyo!
On Japan’s militaristic adventures:
“People say that the Japanese made a holocaust but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie.”
On the role of women in society:
“old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin”
On white people and history:
“If Japanese hadn’t fought the white people, we would still be slaves of the white people. It would be colonization. We changed that.”
This is why I get such schadenfreude when someone makes fun of weeaboos (weeaboos are what nobody who knows the lol internet term calls ‘wapanese’). Seriously, I have known many of them in my time, and they are all thoroughly ridiculous. There’s this girl who draws an anime-esque comic in my university’s newspaper, and I am sorely tempted to actually make a rather well-publicized comment on my university’s shout-out page about the fact that any white, supposedly independent-thinking woman (though weeaboos tend to be a bit cultish and they get really uppity when anyone makes fun of their intellectually shallow comics and cartoons) is a fan of one of the most sexist, racist Westernized cultures in the world.
Whups. That sentence should be ‘any white, supposedly inde-endent-thinking woman (though weeaboos tend to be a bit cultish and they get really uppity when anyone makes fun of their intellectually shallow comics and cartoons) shouldn’t be a fan of one of the most sexist, racist Westernized cultures in the world.’
itwasntmesays
Yah know, 63 years ago, we hated these peoples guts, and with good reason. Now we’re all singing together. My new year wish is that it doesn’t take 63 years until we’re singing something equally silly and fun with the people of the middle east – and beyond.
I can only send out this message of hope to the world and try to live it every day.
Lagosays
“”People say that the Japanese made a holocaust but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie.””
Very true. They have been repressing the truth about the Rape of Nanking, and calling it, “foreign lies.”
They also say the US started the war with the Japanese, as we were the brutal aggressors.
RickrOllsays
“Sorry, you’ve lost me – which thread?
OT: I managed to get banned by the hypocrite John Shore after a single spate of messages – without a single “bad word” in them!”- Nick Gotts #52
Yeah i noticed. So i left you a message on the “Prostelyzation is not allowed” thread.
Also, to make a good case of Xenophobia, rascism/social situations, I liked Ghost in the Shell, S.A.C. 2nd Gig. Very poigniant display of what they do to foreigners, even the invited ones. very well worked discussion of the political arena of Japan as well (with a decent amount of ass-kicking added in, of course).
Eccentric often does mean bigoted, sexist, weird, often all together in one package. Most “eccentrics” however, have the luxury of being part of the upper class in a society- in japan’s case, global economics. They are indead manic zealots when they feel it is necessary. WWII was a perfect example of their extremist tendancies. If they really are going back that direction, i will be very dissapointed, to say the least.
Note also that the War in the Pacific was essentially just a diversionary tactic on the largest of scales so that Germany could clinch the European theater in the meantime. To begin with, at least. the treatment of native Japanease decent was just meta-xenophobia, really. Doesn’t make it right, but the government was well aware of what Japan was capable of.
As a nation aren’t they are kind of like the little kid on the playground with visions of becoming the Alpha-male? Gotta admire the short-man’s complex. Two cents, nothing more.
Wonderful! I actually spent last Christmas in Japan, I was living in Tokyo but spent Christmas week skiing in Hokkaido.
andyosays
Posted by: Katharine | December 16, 2008 12:28 PM
Also, Japan is rather conformist and collectivist, and collectivism sucks balls.
I was gonna mention that. I don’t necessarily agree with your other posts, but this has struck me, and its level has suprised me especially with the young people. They don’t seem to care about anything that’s consequential. Many of the younger (even not-so-young, 25-ish or so) don’t even know who the Prime Minister is, for example. It’s not lack of education, they’re just not worried about world or even national affairs that much.
andyosays
Sorry, I’m gonna do a triple, but I’ll finish my comment right above.
Also, I think it’s one of the reasons that the Japanese are not very religious, they just don’t think about it or stuff like that. When I’ve asked my Japanese friends, they don’t know what to tell me. Of course they’re a very superstitious society but ofter their superstitions are of the drive-through variety (magnetic patches, acupuncture, ghosts, etc) and are not even very important to them.
andyosays
Posted by: itwasntme | December 16, 2008 1:07 PM
Yah know, 63 years ago, we hated these peoples guts, and with good reason. Now we’re all singing together. My new year wish is that it doesn’t take 63 years until we’re singing something equally silly and fun with the people of the middle east – and beyond.
I can only send out this message of hope to the world and try to live it every day.
To put in perspective your first sentence, would you say today, “Yah know, we hate these peoples guts, and with good reason” referring to the people of the middle east?
Dr. Bryan Grieg Frysays
My particular favorite was about ten or so years ago, when XMas in Japan was just taking off (they of course had realised there was big money to be made) and one of the big Tokyo dept stores had a huge display…. of a giant Santa on a cross. I thought it was a particularly appropriate social commentary but they hastened to take it down once the slight cultural misinterpretation was pointed out to them! :D :D :D
Wassupsays
Very true. They have been repressing the truth about the Rape of Nanking, and calling it, “foreign lies.”
They also say the US started the war with the Japanese, as we were the brutal aggressors.
==
Uh, no…
The Rape of Nanking is mainstream knowledge in Japanese society, to the extent that left-wing mangas have been made about it (See “Kuni ga Moeru”.) People just don’t talk about it.
The *majority* of real research that is being done into the incident is being done in Japan. Most Chinese researchers merely toe the party line, and most English researchers don’t know what they’re on about, because a huge number of them have been misled by Iris Chang’s poorly “researched” piece of trash. (Note that even the Japanese researchers who say that 300,000+ were killed in Nanjing urged the publisher not to release it. It was so full of known errors that they themselves had exposed, and they knew it would make an easy strawman target for the holocaust-deniers and end up hurting their cause.)
There are three schools of Japanese thought on the matter that have been labeled:
-Daigyakusatsu-ha (the massacre school; holding that ~300,000+ were killed; generally left-wing scholars)
-Chukan-ha (the middle-of-the-way school; holding that -100,000 were killed)
-Maboroshi-ha (the illusion school; holding that no more people were killed than is normal for a military occupation; generally ultranationalists)
There is widespread consensus among these groups that Iris Chang’s book is a piece of garbage. Since this is the main source of info about the massacre for most English speakers, *most English speakers are grossly misinformed* and what Americans and Chinese tend to say about the massacre ARE lies.
Legitimate English researchers, like Herbert Bix, agree with the Chukan-ha, and say that *of course* there was a massacre, but the numbers for the massacre have been greatly exaggerated over time, and emphasis should be put on the brutality that occurred during the Sanko Sakusen scorched-earth policy that killed millions, rather than a symbol of Chinese nationalism.
And if you think America didn’t help precipitate the attack on Pearl Harbor (which was completely ) you’re just completely ignorant of history.
America made the correct, moral decision to cut off shipments of fuel and scrap metal to Japan when atrocities in China were discovered. But that was considered an act of aggression, and was ultimately what drove the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. (They needed to expand the empire to American and British holdings in SE Asia in order to get the supplies needed for war in China.)
And yeah, Pearl Harbor was a military target, whereas the US burned (I would estimate) about a million Japanese civilians alive. McNamara has admitted that if the Americans had lost the war he would have been strung up for war crimes, just like the Japanese responsible for war crimes in China. So let’s not get all high and mighty.
Your Mighty Overloadsays
Wassup at 95…
…makes some nice points. I am not saying that Japan committed no atrocities in the second world war, most, except for ultra right wingers like Ishihara, accept that.
Really, we should all admit to ourselves that the only real crime the Japanese and Germans made was that they came late to the colonisation party. My own race, the British had conquered the world a century earlier, often in very harsh ways.
Granted, the Japanese raped Nanking. And the Americans wiped out the indigenous people when they arrived. As did the Australians, and the Kiwis.
Seems to me, all nations have blood on their hands, it just seems to be more okay if it happened over 100 years ago, for some reason.
So why don’t we steer clear of history, as there are simply too many dearly held misconceptions, which are only too easily bruised in my experience, and focus on the Japanese who are actually alive today. After all, it is the way those people treat us which is important – and as I say, been here 2 years, and not a bad word to say about them.
Monimonikasays
Kimpatsu wrote:
Bonus points for anyone who correctly tells me why “interesting” is written with the following kanji: 面白い
Well, Bueller007 posted the answer in Japanese, but let me explain it in English.
面 (omo) is a kanji having the meanings “face, mask, surface”.
白 (shiro) is a kanji meaning “white”.
In “omoshiroi” 面白い, “omo” indicates what is in front of the eyes and “shiro” indicates the brightening (whitening) of the view. So, in other words, when you look at or hear about something interesting/funny, your vision/outlook temporarily brightens.
Bertoksays
More holiday stormtrooper, please.
Your Mighty Overloadsays
Atheist in Japan at 74
Okay, you are right, it is “only” an order of magnitude difference. And, although some part of it surely can be put down to a lack of firearms, murder is much more about psychology than logistics. If someone really wants to kill someone, they won’t need a gun. Not that I am advocating the kind of crazy situation like they have in America, where everyone and their dog are packing. Guns are definitely enablers, and they enable us to act of a moment of madness in a way that is hardly possible with pointy sticks and suchlike.
And I wouldn’t be so keen to neglect the perception that Japanese have of foreign crime rates as a factor in precipitating their fear or xenophobia of gaijin. Remeber that kid who went to America on a trip, and got shot for walking on someone’s lawn, because he couldn’t understand them telling him to get off it? There is a real perception in Japan that every American has a swimming pool and a gun! There are some places in the world I would simply not go. I am simply afraid to go to places like Dafur, for example. Perhaps I am xenophobic toward those people – I think they are dangerous and I fear to go there.
Call it wariness, call it naivety, call me Ishm… wait, no, that’s different, scratch that last one.
Monimonikasays
Ugh, I forgot to use blockquotes.
My own words begin again at “Well,”.
Nick Gotts, OMsays
Really, we should all admit to ourselves that the only real crime the Japanese and Germans made was that they came late to the colonisation party. – Your Mighty Overload
Absolute tosh. Rather, we should admit that earlier colonisers were also guilty of horrendous crimes.
Nick Gotts, OMsays
Also, whatever the crimes of the allies in WW2, they are dwarfed by those committed by the Nazis – let alone what they would have done had they won.
Malcolmsays
I lived in Yokohama for 11 years and I can vouch for Japan being weird.
At one stage, I was force to move out of my apartment because the building had been sold. My Japanese neighbours spent three days cleaning their place after they moved out. I didn’t bother as the reason we had to move was that the new owners were demolishing the place. Most of my Japanese friends were shocked that I didn’t clean the place anyway. Some even volunteered to do it for me.
Ichthyic,
I was beginning to wonder when you’d turn up. January is probably a better time to come to Dunedin than December anyway, as it is a better time to see the penguin and albatross chicks.
Your Mighty Overloadsays
Nick at 101
Fair enough, my phrasing may have been bad, but it was designed to provoke – glad to see it did its job.
The point is that throughout history aggressor people have set to impose their will upon other people and other cultures – what the Japanese and Germans did was no worse than the actions of Ghengis Khan, or the actions of other colonial powers throughout history. Worse than either may have been the colonisation of New Zealand by the maori, who simply ate the people who had lived their before. Not much is known about that period, however.
Yet people do not chastise me for the British Empire, the way that they chastise the Japanese. We don’t even consider the murder of the indigenous people when we visit America or Australia, or a hundred island nations scattered over the world.
It seems the Japanese will always be scapegoats for their past actions, which seems excessive, given that almost every nation on earth had similar transgressions.
Your Mighty Overloadsays
Ichthyic
There shall undoubtedly be a big party in Gisbourne for New year – being one of the most easterly points in the world. Otherwise, Taupo holds a good New Year.
Xmas was always quieter for me when I lived there. Just another day….
Jyotsanasays
Damn. Y’all are making me wish I’d studied harder in my Japanese language classes!
I was only in Japan for a month, as an exchange student with the Nagoya Feminine Culture College back in the early nineties (it was a strange deal…they would send roughly thirty or so girls to our college for a month in exchange for one of our students to go over there for a month). While I was there, my host sisters took me to a theme park with the most interesting haunted house…not only was there the standard haunted house stuff, but at the entrance there were animatronic undead cyclopean worshippers at a (Shinto?) shrine, and their heads would turn slow 360s. Inside there was a crucifixion scene where several animatronic men were each writhing in pain on their crosses. There was a pressure plate in the floor which, when stepped on, made one of the crucifixes fall towards the haunted house attendees. I’d love to see something like that in an American haunted house, but then I do tend to have an mischievous streak :D
lagosays
“And if you think America didn’t help precipitate the attack on Pearl Harbor (which was completely ) you’re just completely ignorant of history.”
Hm, you say the above and then give no legit reason for the attack on Pearl Harbor. All you do is mention the fact that we cut them off as to slow their military spread. We warned them we would do this, (unlike their attack on Pearl Harbor)
Oh, and the Japanese did everything in their power to try and attack the US mainland, they just were not able to do it. All they managed was the killing of a bunch of kids and their teacher on a school outing. Seems their silly balloon idea didn’t work all that well…
Re the comment: “And that the Japanese, who seem to be effortlessly combining bits and pieces of shintoism and buddhism, would add a little western x-mas kitsch to the mix – that too would seem [weird].”
That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. We have people in Japan taking native traditions from Shinto – a pretty mundane and harmless religion, as those things go – and later adopting some traditions of Buddhism, a religion that famously fits very comfortably with other faiths. Then in modern days, residents of Japan see all that nifty stuff about Santa and Xmas trees and presents, and decide to join in on the fun – just the easy secular bits, not the difficult religious stuff. The kind of Xmas that I, an atheist, gleefully enjoy myself.
Sounds simple enough to me. Yet I’m constantly told that this this is “strange” and “weird” and even, according to some, “boggling to the Western mind”.
Meanwhile, what about religious traditions in “the West”? Well, let’s look at Christmas itself:
The holiest day of Christianity celebrates the birth of a Jew who added new teachings to traditional Jewish ones. The holiday actually originated in pre-Christian pagan winter solstice celebrations, borrowed its date from an ancient Roman sun-worship festival, picked up Germanic and Scandinavian pagan elements like trees, wreaths, and “Yuletide”, and is jam-packed with things like Santa and reindeer and presents and blowout sales that have no connection to Christ/God whatsoever. (Trivia: This year, Christmas falls on a day named in English after the Norse god of thunder.)
This “Western” mish-mash is arbitrarily labeled as _not_ weird. Why? The best reason I can come up with: Because it’s much more fun to say that the foreigners are doing weird, inscrutable things.
Or take another comment, “Japan is rather conformist and collectivist”. Well, nothing wrong with that as a casual opinion, but is it factual? What are the definitions, and how do we measure? Is the rest of the world _not_ conformist and collectivist? How about the amazing groupthink regarding religion in the US, which makes Christian identity a practical requirement for public office? Is that not conformist? If not, why?
And so on. I’ve been inspired by “rationalist” sites like Pharyngula to blog about “cultural comparison” ( http://www.homejapan.com ). Like faith and superstition, it’s a field just packed with irrational thinking: confirmation bias, correlation/causation confusion, received knowledge, and so on.
Granted, these “cultural difference” claims are mostly quite harmless, and pretty trivial compared to the havoc wreaked on the world by religion’s sloppy thinking. But as an exercise in critical thinking, if nothing else, I find it interesting to look at “cultural comparison” through a skeptical lens.
Your Mighty overloadsays
Traveller at 108
Nice post, and I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on your website tonight….
MikeinJapansays
@Atheist in Japan
Wow you were one of the Chukyo crew? I was there for a year in 2000. Have I gone schizo and you are actually me?
Blondinsays
djlactin, I have a daughter (Alana) teaching in Suwon. We visited her last year for the Lotus Lantern Festival. Had a fantastic time.
jj, I love your music! Coincidentally, I’m also from the ‘Peg (Charleswood). You guys would be a big hit at the Folk Festival at Birds Hill.
Ichthyicsays
There shall undoubtedly be a big party in Gisbourne for New year – being one of the most easterly points in the world. Otherwise, Taupo holds a good New Year.
ah, good.
will check those out.
cheers
Atheist in Japansays
Wow you were one of the Chukyo crew? I was there for a year in 2000. Have I gone schizo and you are actually me?
I attended Chukyo in 2002. It was a choice between Chukyo or Kansai-Gaidai since those were the only two schools offered through my university. Chukyo sounded like the less traveled path and the more immersive experience. It was college without the need for study… the closest thing to heaven I will ever know, perhaps ;)
Hey Winnipeg! Woot woot! Believe me, if we could play the Folk Festival, we’d be happier than you know. Every year my life follows a cycle, depressed and missing home in July, loving life in Japan in Jan/Feb!
Umiliksays
@108: you are misquoting me (@67). I did not say that mixing bits of shintoism, budhhism and x-mas kitsch seemed “weird”. I said it seemed appropriate.
There would seem to be a difference. Of course, by their very nature, all religions are weird.
It’s refreshing to see some substantive responses to the stereotyped attitudes about “The Japanese” that have been plaguing this thread. I’m thinking especially about Mighty Overlord, Traveler and Wassup. I’ll definitely be checking the Home Japan blog in the future.
Ukiwasays
Another Pharyngulite in Japan (Tsukuba).
@Kimpatsu
I’ve been in Japan for 16 years; has anyone been here longer?
-I’ve lived here my entire life (I’m 22) except for one year in Germany, so yeah. Are there any other Japanese natives here?
@Traveller (#108)
-Great post. I just checked your blog as well, interesting stuff.
As for racism in Japan: I suppose it has a lot to do with naivete and inferiority complex, not outright racism a la Daily Mail. Most people probably don’t know that they’re racist, and I don’t think they (myself included) really know what racism is about, either. That’s why lots of politicians can get away with such racist remarks. Of course, it also has to do with the general indiference towards politics and social matters (and all things ideological)…
David Marjanović, OMsays
Ah, ni hao from China.
Nǐmen hǎo. Plural.
And, yes, ‘weird’ = unexpected. Wait until the West begins celebrating Buddha’s birthday, or Universities declare that the anniversary of the founding date is a holiday…
The University of Vienna does have a holiday that nobody knows what it’s good for: March 12th (though it gets moved if it would fall on a weekend!!!), dies academicus or Rektorstag.
My thanks in response to a few compliments about my post and blog. (Aside to Ukiwa: I used to be a Tsukuban myself!)
Well, wherever all Pharyngulans are, whatever your name for this holiday season, make it a happy one! Me, I’ll be happily celebrating Santa’s birthday in a week. May he fly forever!
RickrOllsays
March 12th- hmm, close to Pi Day. Though there are nearly as many Days for Pi day as there are digits of pi. 3/14 is just one.
http://www.ratemyeverything.net/image/1748/2/JAPAN.ashx
^Picture is very relevant to the topic under discussion.
Japan is … weird.
Not always in a bad way, they have some good food, music, movies, etc… But they’re very frequently very weird.
Who do you mean by “they”, Kassul? People like me?!
I want a sushi Christmas tree too….
Kimpatsu, if you had a hand in the making of some of the music film television and such that I’ve watched(and frequently enjoyed) from Japan, then yes, you :P
I’ll hasten to add that I don’t think that weird is a bad thing, it just means something unusual. People with genius level IQ are weird. People who are over 200 cm tall are weird. And the people who make certain manga? REALLY weird.
yep, this is what my christmas is like this year. i’ve already seen a gigantic christmas tree with a full-scale light-up crucifix on top. from the description my japanese friends gave me, japanese christmas is almost exactly like a more extravagant version of valentines day.
on the other hand, new year is generally more significant, and more like the family-orientated western christmas.
このビデオを示すためにありがとう!
I think Japan has to be one of the best places on earth. For all its issues, its people are simply amazing. Wish I was there. Anyone want to talk about Japan’s cultural evolution?
PS: Japanese translation via “I don’t speak or write Japanese” software.
haha yes, I’m half japanese and yes…I would definitely agree that Japan can be reallllllly weird. Weird tv shows, weird porn.
japanese christmas is almost exactly like a more extravagant version of valentines day.
Same in China. It’s a day for couples rather than family, with all the requisite “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman” covers sung in barely intelligible English.
Just make sure you get your reservations for KFC in early. I hear they book up pretty quick when it is Christmas in Japan.
How about a little Japanese Christmas rap for ya:
Flying across the pacific for Xmas?
Whaddya know!
after several delays and scheduling nightmares (originally thought I was going to be there at the end of October!), that’s exactly what I’m doing… well pretty close anyway.
arriving in Auckland, NZ on the 23rd, and will likely stay there through the 26th before heading on a roundabout trek that will eventually put me in Wellington, and then on to explore the South Island for a few weeks.
If anyone around these parts is spending the holidays around Auckland, let me know. Drinks are on me, especially if someone can show me the weirdest way to spend xmas day in NZ.
fisheyephotosAThotmailDOTcom
cheers!
> PS: Japanese translation via “I don’t speak or write Japanese” software.
Yeh, that Japanese is not correct. Something like:
上記のビデオを紹介してくれてありがとう！おもろかった。
would be more natural ;)
Pedantic? Yes, but when else can I write in Japanese on this blog and not be marked off-topic?
Pedantry +1.
but you got me on the kanji, i can’t read those.
have you seen the kfc christmas advert where one of those colonel sanders/santa statues spins round to watch as a young girl runs past it into the store? it’s put the fear of the colonel into me.
alex:
おもろかった is slang for おもしろかった
:P
23rd,the day fishman lands in our parts of the world….Will put a note in calender….
Not in NZ tho as ya know !
Have a good trip mate !!
I understand that the best Japanese Christmas tradition is to take your spouse or lover out for a romantic dinner & visit to a love hotel.
thanks!
very much looking forward to it.
so far it looks like xmas on the beach is what’s in store for the 25th.
some sort of rum drink might be appropriate.
will be visiting the aquarium (tarlton’s) on the 24th.
I don’t undertand why people are saying that Japanese people are weird. It seems to me that there are a fair few Americans in that video and they seem to have been the ones to have set it up. If I asked people here (UK)if they thought Japanese people were eccentric I’d get a definite yes, but not If I used weird instead of eccentric. If I asked the same about Americans then I’d get “they’re not eccentric they’re just weird” as an answer, usually.
I’m disrespectful to dirt!! Can you see that I am serious?
Get out of my way, all of you. This is no place for loafers. Join me or die. Can you do any less?
“alex” is pretty much in line with my experience here. Most American holidays end up being an excuse to trade presents, throw a party, or drink yourself silly. Christian religulous overtones are almost completely ignored.
Halloween is starting to become popular. Right now it’s just an excuse to get drunk in a costume.
My Japanese teacher had never had turkey before I invited her to a Thanksgiving dinner.
> おもろかった is slang for おもしろかった.
なんでやねん。
俗語じゃなくて、関西弁やで．
Last time I was here for Xmas I went skiing on Xmas eve, then pulled an all nighter, sleeping in the lab. I did my Xmas shopping on Xmas day, then two days later went to Tokyo before flying out.
This year, I plan to be in the lab, working. Over New Year, the more typical Japanese holiday, I plan to be in the lab working, although as little as possible, and drinking, as much as possible.
Happily, December is “bonenkai” （忘年会, for those as want to use Japanese) season – end of year party time (for those who don’t)!! Happy happy! Gotta love all you can drink (nomihoudai, 飲み放題) restaurants! Messy though….
So, how many Pharungulites are in Japan? I take it AtheistinJapan is, so that makes at least two of us. We should organise a meetup.http://www.debito.org/
@Kassul: That makes me doubly weird, because I belong in two of the three categories of “weird” you cited. (I’m just not 200cm tall.)
AiJ is right; “おもろかった” is slang for “おもしろかった”, and comes mainly from the Kansai region. Bonus points for anyone who correctly tells me why “interesting” is written with the following kanji: 面白い
—
Just to temper the enthusiasm for all things Yamato, do note that the current government is the most right-wing, xenophobic, and racist in my three decades of experience with the country, and many Japanese people are unintentionally racist. 9/11 gave many governments the excuse to indulge their authoritarian natures, and the GOJ is no exception. Go here for more information:
—
We now return you to our regular programming of “Hello, Kitty” and “Crayon Shin-Chan”…
I’m in Japan but I fly out tomorrow night. I did check out some of the ‘I love you Xmas’ events at the Queen’s Plaza mall in Yokohama
This is great. My GF is there now and won’t be back until early January. I’m sending this to her.
So, how many Pharungulites are in Japan? I take it AtheistinJapan is, so that makes at least two of us.
I’d be interested. We would need a neutral site to share contact information / organize. Something like meetup.com. I can’t imagine there are too many of us but maybe if we reach critical mass we can have semi-regular events. I’m in Tokyo, btw. Nerima to further narrow that down geographically.
Debito is a pretty interesting character and his site is a good general resource for foreigners living in Japan. A somewhat depressing (at times infuriating) site, but highly recommended.
This is absolutely histerical becasue last night’s Mission Hill was the “Kimpatsu” episode.
And it’s hard to say that japan is weird becasue they do things like this on purpose. Weird people don’t know they are weird.
Japan- simply the coolest. For lack of anytthing else to call it lol. Such a shame my japanease is essentially nil.
And Shin-Chan is hysterical. Props to Adult swim- though weren’t they a Toonami Affiliate in the olden days? Since the two represent probly the greatest import of Japanease culture, i thought it was pertinant, at any rate…
Noted: Halloween+Christmas=WIN.
How timely you should post this. I have been in Japan for a week now and have just arrived in Osaka. Yes, xmas here in Japan is interesting. Lots of strange sounding christmas carols too. I just happened to buy an xmas ornament to take home with me tonight. Funny to see a christmas tree standing next to a buddhist shrine in Kyoto! That’s the spirit!
Bonus points for anyone who correctly tells me why “interesting” is written with the following kanji: 面白い
I’ll wager a guess. Since 面=めん/つらwhich means face and 白い is white, my intuition is to say it is related to Noh theater, or some other theater where the actors (traditionally all men) paint their faces white. Since they put on a good show it came to mean interesting/amusing?
I actually have a pen pal in japan from Kobe. So this will make nice conversation peice, eh?
The Japanese have a gleeful fascination with American traditions. It was thus even before World War II, and got even more so after. Given the opportunity, they will celebrate life unlike most any other people in the world. We would do well to emulate them.
It will be a good day when i can finally understand the subtlety of Japanease language to get all the Corollian Wordplay…
They sure spend a lot of time in anime paying lip service to Western Gods (even Norse mythology) from what i’ve seen; i wonder if this is due to their exposure to Christianity by the Dutch (Fransisco Xavier)?
ザッツオモロー！
I gotta say tho, Christmas in Japan makes me a sad panda. There’s no snow (where I am), lots of ugly fake trees, and worst of all they make me come to work. T_T
On the other hand nobody takes offense when I say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Xmas.
@atheist in japan
Nerima here too… if you wanna have a Cephalopodmas party, I can be reached at hachi_ichi[spammenot]hotmail.com
One more atheist in Japan here. Been here only about a year and having a great time.
Ah, ni hao from China. My first Christmas overseas. It seems that the celebration of Christmas here in Shanghai closely resembles that in Japan. Thanks PZ.
One more here, but in Sendai.
I will, however, be in Tokyo in Early April and late May, also in Nagoya and Osaka in March.
Of course, it is possible to shoot down to Tokyo almost any weekend – it’s not so far.
ljirving[at]gmail.com
If someone is organizing…
Here’s another one, in Tokyo
And another in Kobe, at the RIKEN Developmental Biology Insititute
[Off topic]
Correct a web POLL in Sweden’s second largest morning paper!
“Do you think [public!] schools should hold their commencement ceremonies in church?“
“Tycker du att skolor bör hålla sina avslutningar i kyrkan?”
Fråga = Poll
Yes = Ja
No = Nej
Vote = Rösta
Show result = Visa resultat
For some background, read Google’s translation of the Swedish Wikipedia article on commencement:
http://translate.google.com/translate?langpair=sv|en&u=http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolavslutning
(“closings of churches” unfortunately doesn’t mean closings of churches, but refers to commencement ceremonies in churches. Kyrkobyggnad means church building.)
This has been a somewhat infected issue at the end of each semester in Sweden the last few years.
[Off topic]
The standing is currently 71% for “YES – commencement should be held in church“.
1355 total votes
Rise in CO2 ‘affects jumbo squid’.
Maybe time to cut back on flying hither and yon all the time, PZ? If you won’t do it for the future of human civilisation, do it for the jumbo squid!
i wonder if this is due to their exposure to Christianity by the Dutch (Fransisco Xavier)? – RickrOll
Xavier was sent by the Portuguese, not the Dutch. The Portuguese were eventually expelled by the Tokugawa shogun, their trading activity being given to the Dutch. One reason for this was that the Dutch did not insist on proselytising.
gosh darn it, i’ve been out-pedanted. kudos to you sir.
don’t think i’ll make it to a pharyngu-meetup – i’m on a student budget at minute and am pretty much booked-up until i leave the country in january.
Doh!- history fail. thanks for the correction. By the way, message on the other thread at the top of the recent comments list.
関西ね？分からへんだった。おおきに。
speaking of proselytising, that is where your message is, nick. Sorry for the inconveniance.
That was AWESOME!
The best part for me was seeing KFC, because it was the first independent confirmation of something I heard years ago.
A friend of mine from high school had gone to Japan and taught English. She came back to the states for a visit and I did a feature story about her travels for the newspaper I was working at.
The thing that has stuck in my mind all these years has been her telling me how KFC was somehow linked with Christmas in Japan. My friend theorized that, basically, old white men with snowy beards were pretty much indistinguishable to the Japanese, and “Sanders=Santa.”
Here in Thailand they like Christmas and Valentine’s Day too. Basically any excuse for a holiday.
RickrOll@47,
Sorry, you’ve lost me – which thread?
OT: I managed to get banned by the hypocrite John Shore after a single spate of messages – without a single “bad word” in them!
I was in Japan in 1995 for christmas, it was just cake and a small tree, but I think the family I was spending it with probably thought I wanted something special, so I don’t know if they did it for me.
I’m third generation myself (sansei), but I was born somewhere else. The modern descendants of my ancestors are indeed… interesting. I’ve been imbued in (pseudo-)Japanese culture all my life, but the modern Japanese never cease to intrigue me, to say the least. I work now with some of them here in L.A. Let’s just say a culture that censors their own porn, but make up for it with really weird shit (so I’ve been told, REALLY!) can be anything but uninteresting.
Canadian in Korea here. (Any pharynguloids here?) Formerly in Beijing. I can assure you that the Christmas thing is delightfully off-base in both countries. In China, restaurants would feature a painfully thin adolescent standing outside wearing an ill-fitting Santa suit with a ‘beard’ consisting of a swatch of cotton sewed to the chest, with no connection to his face. (Beards are an alien concept there). Santa decorations would remain on display until March or so.
In Korea (where I am now) my campus features several beautifully lit-up trees. Thousands (yes) of white lights covering them. The only problem is that they are leafless cherry trees. Conifers abound, but have not been decorated.
Christmas day will feature a few desultory carolers. Odd, considering that in some urban areas, there may be a church every couple of blocks (red neon crosses, as distinct from green neon crosses, meaning ‘hospital’.)
I’m not going to get onto the Valentine’s day/white day/black day thing (unless someone asks!) but it’s another twist on the western ideas.
And, yes, ‘weird’ = unexpected. Wait until the West begins celebrating Buddha’s birthday, or Universities declare that the anniversary of the founding date is a holiday…
私も神戸市に住んでいる。もう１５年間が中級の日本語を話せます。
ところで、日本人はおかしいと思っているか。アメリカにウッピ・ゴルドバーグの「ﾀﾞ・ビュウ」は大ヒットだ！それはおかしいじゃないか？
Hey! Thanks for posting this! And it was neither weird Japanese nor weird Americans that put the video together – it was weird Canadians!! Though I guess we can just say Canadians because up there the weird part goes without saying…
:-)
Merry Happiness!
Yet another regular in Japan, currently in Gifu ( about a 20-minute train ride north of Nagoya, where this video was shot- I recognized some of the locations).
Gotta say, I wish there wasn’t a reason for this. As much as I hate to play into the stereotype of the grinchy atheist, I consider Christmas to be one of the most annoying times of the year, and between the holiday lights at the JR Gifu station to the carols playing over the PA at the local Tomidaya, it seems like the holiday is haunting me like a curse. Is no place safe? Or specifically, no place where I might want to live?
One year, to get away from the Christmas nonsense, we went to Penang in Malaysia for the holiday season (my partner happens to come from there). Despite Malaysia being a Muslim country Christmas trees, Father Christmases, Mother Christmases, Christmas songs and carols were everywhere. And yet every year the Daily Mail tells me ‘other cultures’ are somehow offended by these amusing ‘local’ customs in cold wet UK.
This message brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
Gifu is lovely. have you seen the Garden of Reversible Destiny? makes for a fairly bizarre day out.
Sioux Laris, 神戸も面白い所。でも、私はまだ日本でダ．ビュウを見たことがない。本当に、私はイギリスから来たのですからそのばんぐみをぜんぜん見なかった。
@AtheistinJapan:
You are certainly along the right lines, but not completely there, so you get 1/2 a point.
The legend is that Susano-o-no-mikoto, the storm god, wsa being his usual bratty self, so his elder sister, Amaterasu, the sun goddess, got pissed off and went to sulk in a cave. Because she was in hiding, the world went dark, so all the other gods started holding a party outside the cave to entice her back out. Intrigued by the merrymaking, she peeked her face (面) outside the cave, and light (白)returned to the world. Hence, “interesting” came to be written 面白い.
I’ve been in Japan for 16 years; has anyone been here longer?
I live in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in Japan.
This video is awsome.
I only lived in Japan for a little over a year and that was 12 years ago, but I will never forget that amazing country. Weird? Oh yeah. But That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as a few here have pointed out.
My time there still has an effect on me today.
Well I’m not there now, but I’ll be spending lots of 1- and 2-week periods in Japan starting next February. First in Machida (40 minutes SW of Shinjuku), then Tsukuba, and finally in 2013, Tanegashima. I’ve only got 28 stamps in my passport(s) so far; time to hit the air again.
And boy does this thread remind me I need to whip out the ol’ Kanji flashcards again!
もう五年間に大阪市に住んでいるけど、日本製のクリスマスはまだ慣れていないね。
There’s two great things about christmas here in Japan: it’s pure essence of schlocky commercialism, undiluted by any religious meaning to ruin the fun; and the morning of the 26th there is no trace of the holiday whatsoever.
Really – you walk down Shinsaibashi shopping street on the night of the 25th and there’s big, gaudy christmas decorations everywhere, christmas-themed shop windows, christmas music, christmas billboards and commercials. The next morning it’s all gone, replaced by the symbols and music (and commercials) of traditional New Year celebration. From bossanova versions of “RUdolf the red-nosed reindeer” to Koto music – it’s enough to get cultural whiplash unless you’re careful.
@Cloudwork: “I don’t undertand why people are saying that Japanese people are weird.”
Here’s one answer straight from Tokyo (20+ years): It’s an Internet meme. Pre-Internet, actually (just stronger now); there’s a long history of visitors searching for (or making up) exoticism to spice up stories. _Further_ aided by a fair number of natives who love being told how exotic they are.
The video is fun and the song catchy, but really, it _tells_ us about “weird Christmas in Japan” more than it actually shows anything a visitor should find bizarre. Then again, the bar for “weird” is set pretty low when relaying stories of crazy foreign countries, so make of it all what you will…
Regarding KFC as a part of Xmas here: The traditional Xmas dinner is a big bird, but turkey’s hard enough to find in Japan, let alone goose. That leaves chicken as the choice, and KFC is the one who makes chicken quick, easy, and ubiquitous in Japan. No exotic mystery over why KFC does brisk business here at Xmas!
Any country where there is a market for worn girls’ undergarments – yes that qualifies as weird in my book. And that the Japanese, who seem to be effortlessly combining bits and pieces of shintoism and buddhism, would add a little western x-mas kitsch to the mix – that too would seem appropriate.
Always wanted to go to Japan, but I may wait until they stop being amazingly racist…
@Kimpatsu
I’ve been in Japan for 16 years; has anyone been here longer?
I think 16 years qualifies you for veteran status.
I’ve lived here a total of 4 years. Spent about a year in Nagoya as a study abroad student at Chukyo University (中京大学), and 3 years here in Tokyo.
@Gene
Yet another regular in Japan, currently in Gifu
I’ve some great memories of Hida Takayama and Gero onsen :)
Cute video, but we all might want to think twice before dismissing certain ethnic groups as “weird,” even jokingly. It’s also probably not very wise to form our opinion of entire cultures based around the creepy porn we downlo… err, that one of our friends saw once.
Lago at 68
I’m interested by what you mean by “amazingly racist”? From my own experiences, say 2 years total, I have had many more positive than negative experiences with Japanese people. Then again, I’m not a language teacher, who generally do not have a good rep with Keiichi Q Public.
More “naive” than “racist” in many cases – foreigners are exotic (and by extension, dangerous (and this is a prejudice not without some justification, their murder rate is two orders of magnitude lower than the US)).
Of course, one could always do what I council so many young guys and girls, outraged by the fact that things are different to what they are used to at home, to do (and this is one for Debito Arudou too), and simply grow a pair.
Damn you, Myers!
Now I’m craving sushi.
わあ～関西弁なつかしい。
My friend and I vowed last year to go back to Japan for Christmas one year, just to experience the most commercial holiday in history in one of the most commercial nations on the planet. SO MANY LIGHTS!
And am I the only one who kind of likes the romanticization of Japanese Christmas? It seems more genuine than Valentine’s Day.
More “naive” than “racist” in many cases – foreigners are exotic (and by extension, dangerous (and this is a prejudice not without some justification, their murder rate is two orders of magnitude lower than the US)).
I can’t speak for accuracy of the source (it seems fairly recent) but according to this site Japan’s murder rate per capita is an order of a magnitude lower than the U.S.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
I would wager that the low murder rate has nothing to do with Japan’s largely homogeneous society but more to do with the lack of firearms.
Th average Japanese person, much like the average American, is not an over racist or card carrying member of the KKK / Japanese ultra-right equivalent. I wouldn’t characterize Japanese people as extremely racist, but there is a fair amount of institutionalized racism and xenophobia in Japan.
Don’t take my word for it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4671687.stm
Japan has a nation has a less than stellar record in this arena.
I recently left (Tsukuba) after around 4 years. Pity – I woulda been up for a Squidmas party for sure :)
And I agree with the smitey overlord… often naivete is more at play than any distinct racism. But I disagree that murder rate has much to do with it. Read “Dogs and Demons” for a relevant assessment of Japan’s fear of things slightly wild and unpredictable. I think foreigners fall into this category, in as much as they’re an unknown commodity – rather than any sense that they (and their murder rate) is “known”. And besides, not all foreigners are American, yet a Japanese reaction is mostly uniform – regardless of where the foreigner is from.
Japan would be a great place if it weren’t for the racism and sexism.
“I’m interested by what you mean by “amazingly racist”?”
See the posted sites by the other posters on the subject.
Also, it is not that I figure they are more racist than say, the KKK, but the US as a whole generally hates prejudice, and does not support groups like the KKK. If we find someone didn’t get a job due to race, or someone said something about someone else race during an election event, on a whole they lose face in the US. Not so in Japan. In Japan governmental officials have often said very racist things and no one blinks.
There are many others things too, like, the Japanese require people like Koreans to change their names to Japanese names if they are to become citizens. Weird stuff like that just makes little sense..
Remember these?
In 1986, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said U.S. intelligence is low “because there are many blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans.”
Two years later, Michio Watanabe, who later became foreign minister, said, “blacks did not repay debts.”
And in 1990, Justice Minister Seiroku Kajiyama compared prostitutes in a Tokyo district to “America when neighborhoods become mixed because blacks move in and whites are forced out.”
Imagine these statements being said in the US?
I’m surprised no one reading this blog is familiar with the girl in the video. Applemilk, or “Emery,” as she has come to be called, is several levels of weird past anything Japan has come up with.
Also, @ 67
When the biggest message board in japan, 2chan, found out about this myth spread by foreigners, they scoured the country looking for these vending machines. Two were found and both sell clean, unused underwear.
There are many others things too, like, the Japanese require people like Koreans to change their names to Japanese names if they are to become citizens.
This is no longer mandated by law although the UN stated concerns that naturalization applicants may be pressured into taking a Japanese name.
Following from http://www.crnjapan.com/en/japanvsun.html
176. Noting that although Koreans applying for Japanese nationality are no longer required, legally or administratively, to change their names to a Japanese name, the Committee expresses its concern that authorities reportedly continue to urge applicants to make such changes and that Koreans feel obliged to do so for fear of discrimination. Considering that the name of an individual is a fundamental aspect of the cultural and ethnic identity, the Committee recommends that the State party take the necessary measures to prevent such practices.
“This is no longer mandated by law although the UN stated concerns that naturalization applicants may be pressured into taking a Japanese name. ”
Saw a show the other day (2 days ago?) where they were talking to foreigners, and they still were not able to become citizens because they were not changing their names to Japanese ones. I think we are dealing with fake changes in the law, where they claim change, but still stick to the prejudices that established the laws in the first place…
@Lago
Remember these?
Don’t forget Ishihara Shintarou, governor of Tokyo!
On Japan’s militaristic adventures:
“People say that the Japanese made a holocaust but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie.”
On the role of women in society:
“old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin”
On white people and history:
“If Japanese hadn’t fought the white people, we would still be slaves of the white people. It would be colonization. We changed that.”
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=228
Also, Japan is rather conformist and collectivist, and collectivism sucks balls.
「面白い」の語源はほんまに誰も知らんけ？
広辞苑を引くと、「一説に、目の前が明るくなる感じを表すのが原義で、もと、美しい景色を形容する語」という説あるんやで。
This is why I get such schadenfreude when someone makes fun of weeaboos (weeaboos are what nobody who knows the lol internet term calls ‘wapanese’). Seriously, I have known many of them in my time, and they are all thoroughly ridiculous. There’s this girl who draws an anime-esque comic in my university’s newspaper, and I am sorely tempted to actually make a rather well-publicized comment on my university’s shout-out page about the fact that any white, supposedly independent-thinking woman (though weeaboos tend to be a bit cultish and they get really uppity when anyone makes fun of their intellectually shallow comics and cartoons) is a fan of one of the most sexist, racist Westernized cultures in the world.
Whups. That sentence should be ‘any white, supposedly inde-endent-thinking woman (though weeaboos tend to be a bit cultish and they get really uppity when anyone makes fun of their intellectually shallow comics and cartoons) shouldn’t be a fan of one of the most sexist, racist Westernized cultures in the world.’
Yah know, 63 years ago, we hated these peoples guts, and with good reason. Now we’re all singing together. My new year wish is that it doesn’t take 63 years until we’re singing something equally silly and fun with the people of the middle east – and beyond.
I can only send out this message of hope to the world and try to live it every day.
“”People say that the Japanese made a holocaust but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie.””
Very true. They have been repressing the truth about the Rape of Nanking, and calling it, “foreign lies.”
They also say the US started the war with the Japanese, as we were the brutal aggressors.
“Sorry, you’ve lost me – which thread?
OT: I managed to get banned by the hypocrite John Shore after a single spate of messages – without a single “bad word” in them!”- Nick Gotts #52
Yeah i noticed. So i left you a message on the “Prostelyzation is not allowed” thread.
Also, to make a good case of Xenophobia, rascism/social situations, I liked Ghost in the Shell, S.A.C. 2nd Gig. Very poigniant display of what they do to foreigners, even the invited ones. very well worked discussion of the political arena of Japan as well (with a decent amount of ass-kicking added in, of course).
Eccentric often does mean bigoted, sexist, weird, often all together in one package. Most “eccentrics” however, have the luxury of being part of the upper class in a society- in japan’s case, global economics. They are indead manic zealots when they feel it is necessary. WWII was a perfect example of their extremist tendancies. If they really are going back that direction, i will be very dissapointed, to say the least.
Note also that the War in the Pacific was essentially just a diversionary tactic on the largest of scales so that Germany could clinch the European theater in the meantime. To begin with, at least. the treatment of native Japanease decent was just meta-xenophobia, really. Doesn’t make it right, but the government was well aware of what Japan was capable of.
As a nation aren’t they are kind of like the little kid on the playground with visions of becoming the Alpha-male? Gotta admire the short-man’s complex. Two cents, nothing more.
Wonderful! I actually spent last Christmas in Japan, I was living in Tokyo but spent Christmas week skiing in Hokkaido.
I was gonna mention that. I don’t necessarily agree with your other posts, but this has struck me, and its level has suprised me especially with the young people. They don’t seem to care about anything that’s consequential. Many of the younger (even not-so-young, 25-ish or so) don’t even know who the Prime Minister is, for example. It’s not lack of education, they’re just not worried about world or even national affairs that much.
Sorry, I’m gonna do a triple, but I’ll finish my comment right above.
Also, I think it’s one of the reasons that the Japanese are not very religious, they just don’t think about it or stuff like that. When I’ve asked my Japanese friends, they don’t know what to tell me. Of course they’re a very superstitious society but ofter their superstitions are of the drive-through variety (magnetic patches, acupuncture, ghosts, etc) and are not even very important to them.
To put in perspective your first sentence, would you say today, “Yah know, we hate these peoples guts, and with good reason” referring to the people of the middle east?
My particular favorite was about ten or so years ago, when XMas in Japan was just taking off (they of course had realised there was big money to be made) and one of the big Tokyo dept stores had a huge display…. of a giant Santa on a cross. I thought it was a particularly appropriate social commentary but they hastened to take it down once the slight cultural misinterpretation was pointed out to them! :D :D :D
Very true. They have been repressing the truth about the Rape of Nanking, and calling it, “foreign lies.”
They also say the US started the war with the Japanese, as we were the brutal aggressors.
==
Uh, no…
The Rape of Nanking is mainstream knowledge in Japanese society, to the extent that left-wing mangas have been made about it (See “Kuni ga Moeru”.) People just don’t talk about it.
The *majority* of real research that is being done into the incident is being done in Japan. Most Chinese researchers merely toe the party line, and most English researchers don’t know what they’re on about, because a huge number of them have been misled by Iris Chang’s poorly “researched” piece of trash. (Note that even the Japanese researchers who say that 300,000+ were killed in Nanjing urged the publisher not to release it. It was so full of known errors that they themselves had exposed, and they knew it would make an easy strawman target for the holocaust-deniers and end up hurting their cause.)
There are three schools of Japanese thought on the matter that have been labeled:
-Daigyakusatsu-ha (the massacre school; holding that ~300,000+ were killed; generally left-wing scholars)
-Chukan-ha (the middle-of-the-way school; holding that -100,000 were killed)
-Maboroshi-ha (the illusion school; holding that no more people were killed than is normal for a military occupation; generally ultranationalists)
There is widespread consensus among these groups that Iris Chang’s book is a piece of garbage. Since this is the main source of info about the massacre for most English speakers, *most English speakers are grossly misinformed* and what Americans and Chinese tend to say about the massacre ARE lies.
Legitimate English researchers, like Herbert Bix, agree with the Chukan-ha, and say that *of course* there was a massacre, but the numbers for the massacre have been greatly exaggerated over time, and emphasis should be put on the brutality that occurred during the Sanko Sakusen scorched-earth policy that killed millions, rather than a symbol of Chinese nationalism.
And if you think America didn’t help precipitate the attack on Pearl Harbor (which was completely ) you’re just completely ignorant of history.
America made the correct, moral decision to cut off shipments of fuel and scrap metal to Japan when atrocities in China were discovered. But that was considered an act of aggression, and was ultimately what drove the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. (They needed to expand the empire to American and British holdings in SE Asia in order to get the supplies needed for war in China.)
And yeah, Pearl Harbor was a military target, whereas the US burned (I would estimate) about a million Japanese civilians alive. McNamara has admitted that if the Americans had lost the war he would have been strung up for war crimes, just like the Japanese responsible for war crimes in China. So let’s not get all high and mighty.
Wassup at 95…
…makes some nice points. I am not saying that Japan committed no atrocities in the second world war, most, except for ultra right wingers like Ishihara, accept that.
Really, we should all admit to ourselves that the only real crime the Japanese and Germans made was that they came late to the colonisation party. My own race, the British had conquered the world a century earlier, often in very harsh ways.
Granted, the Japanese raped Nanking. And the Americans wiped out the indigenous people when they arrived. As did the Australians, and the Kiwis.
Seems to me, all nations have blood on their hands, it just seems to be more okay if it happened over 100 years ago, for some reason.
So why don’t we steer clear of history, as there are simply too many dearly held misconceptions, which are only too easily bruised in my experience, and focus on the Japanese who are actually alive today. After all, it is the way those people treat us which is important – and as I say, been here 2 years, and not a bad word to say about them.
Kimpatsu wrote:
Bonus points for anyone who correctly tells me why “interesting” is written with the following kanji: 面白い
Well, Bueller007 posted the answer in Japanese, but let me explain it in English.
面 (omo) is a kanji having the meanings “face, mask, surface”.
白 (shiro) is a kanji meaning “white”.
In “omoshiroi” 面白い, “omo” indicates what is in front of the eyes and “shiro” indicates the brightening (whitening) of the view. So, in other words, when you look at or hear about something interesting/funny, your vision/outlook temporarily brightens.
More holiday stormtrooper, please.
Atheist in Japan at 74
Okay, you are right, it is “only” an order of magnitude difference. And, although some part of it surely can be put down to a lack of firearms, murder is much more about psychology than logistics. If someone really wants to kill someone, they won’t need a gun. Not that I am advocating the kind of crazy situation like they have in America, where everyone and their dog are packing. Guns are definitely enablers, and they enable us to act of a moment of madness in a way that is hardly possible with pointy sticks and suchlike.
And I wouldn’t be so keen to neglect the perception that Japanese have of foreign crime rates as a factor in precipitating their fear or xenophobia of gaijin. Remeber that kid who went to America on a trip, and got shot for walking on someone’s lawn, because he couldn’t understand them telling him to get off it? There is a real perception in Japan that every American has a swimming pool and a gun! There are some places in the world I would simply not go. I am simply afraid to go to places like Dafur, for example. Perhaps I am xenophobic toward those people – I think they are dangerous and I fear to go there.
Call it wariness, call it naivety, call me Ishm… wait, no, that’s different, scratch that last one.
Ugh, I forgot to use blockquotes.
My own words begin again at “Well,”.
Really, we should all admit to ourselves that the only real crime the Japanese and Germans made was that they came late to the colonisation party. – Your Mighty Overload
Absolute tosh. Rather, we should admit that earlier colonisers were also guilty of horrendous crimes.
Also, whatever the crimes of the allies in WW2, they are dwarfed by those committed by the Nazis – let alone what they would have done had they won.
I lived in Yokohama for 11 years and I can vouch for Japan being weird.
At one stage, I was force to move out of my apartment because the building had been sold. My Japanese neighbours spent three days cleaning their place after they moved out. I didn’t bother as the reason we had to move was that the new owners were demolishing the place. Most of my Japanese friends were shocked that I didn’t clean the place anyway. Some even volunteered to do it for me.
Ichthyic,
I was beginning to wonder when you’d turn up. January is probably a better time to come to Dunedin than December anyway, as it is a better time to see the penguin and albatross chicks.
Nick at 101
Fair enough, my phrasing may have been bad, but it was designed to provoke – glad to see it did its job.
The point is that throughout history aggressor people have set to impose their will upon other people and other cultures – what the Japanese and Germans did was no worse than the actions of Ghengis Khan, or the actions of other colonial powers throughout history. Worse than either may have been the colonisation of New Zealand by the maori, who simply ate the people who had lived their before. Not much is known about that period, however.
Yet people do not chastise me for the British Empire, the way that they chastise the Japanese. We don’t even consider the murder of the indigenous people when we visit America or Australia, or a hundred island nations scattered over the world.
It seems the Japanese will always be scapegoats for their past actions, which seems excessive, given that almost every nation on earth had similar transgressions.
Ichthyic
There shall undoubtedly be a big party in Gisbourne for New year – being one of the most easterly points in the world. Otherwise, Taupo holds a good New Year.
Xmas was always quieter for me when I lived there. Just another day….
Damn. Y’all are making me wish I’d studied harder in my Japanese language classes!
I was only in Japan for a month, as an exchange student with the Nagoya Feminine Culture College back in the early nineties (it was a strange deal…they would send roughly thirty or so girls to our college for a month in exchange for one of our students to go over there for a month). While I was there, my host sisters took me to a theme park with the most interesting haunted house…not only was there the standard haunted house stuff, but at the entrance there were animatronic undead cyclopean worshippers at a (Shinto?) shrine, and their heads would turn slow 360s. Inside there was a crucifixion scene where several animatronic men were each writhing in pain on their crosses. There was a pressure plate in the floor which, when stepped on, made one of the crucifixes fall towards the haunted house attendees. I’d love to see something like that in an American haunted house, but then I do tend to have an mischievous streak :D
“And if you think America didn’t help precipitate the attack on Pearl Harbor (which was completely ) you’re just completely ignorant of history.”
Hm, you say the above and then give no legit reason for the attack on Pearl Harbor. All you do is mention the fact that we cut them off as to slow their military spread. We warned them we would do this, (unlike their attack on Pearl Harbor)
Oh, and the Japanese did everything in their power to try and attack the US mainland, they just were not able to do it. All they managed was the killing of a bunch of kids and their teacher on a school outing. Seems their silly balloon idea didn’t work all that well…
Re the comment: “And that the Japanese, who seem to be effortlessly combining bits and pieces of shintoism and buddhism, would add a little western x-mas kitsch to the mix – that too would seem [weird].”
That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. We have people in Japan taking native traditions from Shinto – a pretty mundane and harmless religion, as those things go – and later adopting some traditions of Buddhism, a religion that famously fits very comfortably with other faiths. Then in modern days, residents of Japan see all that nifty stuff about Santa and Xmas trees and presents, and decide to join in on the fun – just the easy secular bits, not the difficult religious stuff. The kind of Xmas that I, an atheist, gleefully enjoy myself.
Sounds simple enough to me. Yet I’m constantly told that this this is “strange” and “weird” and even, according to some, “boggling to the Western mind”.
Meanwhile, what about religious traditions in “the West”? Well, let’s look at Christmas itself:
The holiest day of Christianity celebrates the birth of a Jew who added new teachings to traditional Jewish ones. The holiday actually originated in pre-Christian pagan winter solstice celebrations, borrowed its date from an ancient Roman sun-worship festival, picked up Germanic and Scandinavian pagan elements like trees, wreaths, and “Yuletide”, and is jam-packed with things like Santa and reindeer and presents and blowout sales that have no connection to Christ/God whatsoever. (Trivia: This year, Christmas falls on a day named in English after the Norse god of thunder.)
This “Western” mish-mash is arbitrarily labeled as _not_ weird. Why? The best reason I can come up with: Because it’s much more fun to say that the foreigners are doing weird, inscrutable things.
Or take another comment, “Japan is rather conformist and collectivist”. Well, nothing wrong with that as a casual opinion, but is it factual? What are the definitions, and how do we measure? Is the rest of the world _not_ conformist and collectivist? How about the amazing groupthink regarding religion in the US, which makes Christian identity a practical requirement for public office? Is that not conformist? If not, why?
And so on. I’ve been inspired by “rationalist” sites like Pharyngula to blog about “cultural comparison” ( http://www.homejapan.com ). Like faith and superstition, it’s a field just packed with irrational thinking: confirmation bias, correlation/causation confusion, received knowledge, and so on.
Granted, these “cultural difference” claims are mostly quite harmless, and pretty trivial compared to the havoc wreaked on the world by religion’s sloppy thinking. But as an exercise in critical thinking, if nothing else, I find it interesting to look at “cultural comparison” through a skeptical lens.
Traveller at 108
Nice post, and I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on your website tonight….
@Atheist in Japan
Wow you were one of the Chukyo crew? I was there for a year in 2000. Have I gone schizo and you are actually me?
djlactin, I have a daughter (Alana) teaching in Suwon. We visited her last year for the Lotus Lantern Festival. Had a fantastic time.
jj, I love your music! Coincidentally, I’m also from the ‘Peg (Charleswood). You guys would be a big hit at the Folk Festival at Birds Hill.
There shall undoubtedly be a big party in Gisbourne for New year – being one of the most easterly points in the world. Otherwise, Taupo holds a good New Year.
ah, good.
will check those out.
cheers
Wow you were one of the Chukyo crew? I was there for a year in 2000. Have I gone schizo and you are actually me?
I attended Chukyo in 2002. It was a choice between Chukyo or Kansai-Gaidai since those were the only two schools offered through my university. Chukyo sounded like the less traveled path and the more immersive experience. It was college without the need for study… the closest thing to heaven I will ever know, perhaps ;)
Hey Winnipeg! Woot woot! Believe me, if we could play the Folk Festival, we’d be happier than you know. Every year my life follows a cycle, depressed and missing home in July, loving life in Japan in Jan/Feb!
@108: you are misquoting me (@67). I did not say that mixing bits of shintoism, budhhism and x-mas kitsch seemed “weird”. I said it seemed appropriate.
There would seem to be a difference. Of course, by their very nature, all religions are weird.
It’s refreshing to see some substantive responses to the stereotyped attitudes about “The Japanese” that have been plaguing this thread. I’m thinking especially about Mighty Overlord, Traveler and Wassup. I’ll definitely be checking the Home Japan blog in the future.
Another Pharyngulite in Japan (Tsukuba).
@Kimpatsu
I’ve been in Japan for 16 years; has anyone been here longer?
-I’ve lived here my entire life (I’m 22) except for one year in Germany, so yeah. Are there any other Japanese natives here?
@Traveller (#108)
-Great post. I just checked your blog as well, interesting stuff.
As for racism in Japan: I suppose it has a lot to do with naivete and inferiority complex, not outright racism a la Daily Mail. Most people probably don’t know that they’re racist, and I don’t think they (myself included) really know what racism is about, either. That’s why lots of politicians can get away with such racist remarks. Of course, it also has to do with the general indiference towards politics and social matters (and all things ideological)…
Nǐmen hǎo. Plural.
The University of Vienna does have a holiday that nobody knows what it’s good for: March 12th (though it gets moved if it would fall on a weekend!!!), dies academicus or Rektorstag.
My thanks in response to a few compliments about my post and blog. (Aside to Ukiwa: I used to be a Tsukuban myself!)
Well, wherever all Pharyngulans are, whatever your name for this holiday season, make it a happy one! Me, I’ll be happily celebrating Santa’s birthday in a week. May he fly forever!
March 12th- hmm, close to Pi Day. Though there are nearly as many Days for Pi day as there are digits of pi. 3/14 is just one.