Japan Times
Ever since the reopening of Japan to the outside world in the mid-19th century, people from the West have categorized Japanese life in terms of one or another social model. Whatever the category chosen, though, the inference has always been that Japan is "different." How else would you account for something like the 1904 British bestseller, "More Queer Things About Japan"?
But is it possible that Japan, though so commonly categorized as bizarre and exotic, is actually a pretty normal place? Certainly, if you judge some American and European "ways" against the civic harmony, relatively equitable income spread and low level of violence in Japan, it is the West that comes out looking somewhat outlandish.
And yet the model-building goes on.
The current picture of this country in the West might be called "Funky Japan." Of course there is plenty that is funky about Japan, and the nerd craze is highly visible today, with many television commercials featuring geeky guys with big glasses and atrocious haircuts leering at cars or electronic devices.
But funk is only a fad with a deliberately anti-stylish appeal. It is no more the mainstream theme of Japanese life than "South Park" is of American. Today's nerd is merely a dorky version of the sarariiman of old. Last year's hit film "Lost in Translation" paints a Japanese backdrop for the two "lost" Americans of a clownish, freak-out society. The Western media has clearly selected a few colorful aspects of Japan and blown them out of all proportion to project yet another image of inscrutability....more...
