5 ms·

> They care instead more about cultural issues, which is why people have fond views of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a c

> They care instead more about cultural issues, which is why people have fond views of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a cultural desert for us, Westerners, right now. Compare that to the excellent movies they made back in the '50 to the '70s, back then they were on the vanguard of world cinema together with the French (la Nouvelle Vague) and the Italians (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini), as Hollywood was on its dying bed. Taiwan is even more a cultural wasteland, I can only name you Tsai Ming-liang (who apparently has just filmed his last ever feature film) and Hou Hsiao-hsien, other than that it's only the idea of money and of making money that comes out of Taiwan. South Korea is a little bit more complicated. There's K-Pop that's definitely a thing among younger people (I'm personally 40+ so I'm not in their target demographic) and there's Korean TV dramas, which rival Turkish TV dramas in many parts of the world, but I would say that's not probably what the author had in mind. SK used to have a very, very vibrant movie scene in the 2000s and a little in the early 2010s, its Busan film festival was one of the most interesting movie festivals in the world at some point, but for some reason or another all that is a thing of the past now.

eatonphil 5y ago
I think South Korean film industry and quality has only grown massively since the 2000s. All Bong Joonho's work for example.
- paganel 5y ago
  I'd say he is a product of the 2000s, his "Memories of Murder" (imo his best movie) dates from 2003 and "The Host" from 2006, it's only now that mainstream Western audiences have gotten a chance to see his work.
vehemenz 5y ago
You're forgetting about video games. Japan has Nintendo, Sony, and many of the biggest IPs. South Korea has PUBG and is a huge player in eSports.
- paganel 5y ago
  Yeah, I did, sorry for that, in my defence I'm not into video-games (see the age part).
  - danbolt 5y ago
    If you’re interested in checking out new Taiwanese video games, I really enjoyed Opus: Echo of Starsong. It’s worth a go! The Legend of Tianding has a fun feeling to it as well.
- eatonphil 5y ago
  For that matter, South Korean electronics are massive too. Samsung, LG, SK Hynix. Not just phones but laptops, refrigerators, chips, air conditioners, etc. Japan of course has many name brand consumer and engineering product companies. Taiwan has TSMC and Foxconn which while two of the most important companies in the world aren't well known outside of tech because they dont sell directly and don't do branding (like Intel for example).
  - danachow 5y ago
    I think durable goods is a stretch for what is considered the export market of “culture”/creatives - talking appliances aside. Nobody was claiming that these places had no export economy.
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  Meh, China is probably the biggest county in DOTA (just as Korea with SC). The piece has very interesting points, but the author eagerness to criticize every single thing about China (ironic, because he complains that the Chinese are petty) clouds his judgement. Also, I dont know in which world he lives (I suppose most of his friend were Asian-Canadians) but your average westerner cannot name even 1 single cultural production of Taiwan. In the case of South Korea, most of the stuff they are known for (mainly KPop, and great movies/tv shows) has been produced in the last 20-25 years when the country reached an economic level and show business know-how that allowed them to flourish. China is not there yet. China produces lots of good stuff, that for many reasons (distribution, advertisement, political hostility) are not known in the west. Just one example, this is a fantastic TV show. I even say it is the best show I've watched in 2021, and you can watch it, legally and for free: https://www.iq.com/album/the-bad-kids-2020-19rrhl1l3l?lang=en_us https://www.iq.com/album/the-bad-kids-2020-19rrhl1l3l?lang=e... The quality is there, it needs to be more wisely advertised. Lots of mediocre productions too of course, but that is just Sturgeon's law in action.
rhtgrg 5y ago
Somewhat off-topic but this is an excellent opportunity to recommend this lovely chili sauce from Taiwan. [0] [0] https://yunhai.shop/collections/su-chili-crisp/products/su-chili-crisp-mala https://yunhai.shop/collections/su-chili-crisp/products/su-c...
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Coming from the perspective of culture rather than pop culture, Japan and Taiwan have shared a lot to the west, while Korea has recent ascendence in the area of pop culture. Taiwan, in particular, has preserved much of the traditional Chinese culture that was beat down in the mainland during the cultural revolution.
deltaonefour 5y ago
You're talking about entertainment media. "Culture" is more than just cinema and the entertainment industry.
- danachow 5y ago
  Sure it is - food, clothing, architecture, design. What else am I missing? Moreover, when taking this into account how does it change the original post’s point?
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    I'm referencing stuff like this: "Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a cultural desert for us, Westerners, right now." Japan is much much much more than just anime when you consider the country from a cultural perspective, EVEN from the western viewpoint.
  - orojackson 5y ago
    As mentioned in a different post, he completely missed video games. For example, Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise in the world. Many game companies are headquartered in Japan such as Nintendo, Sony, and Square Enix. So when taking that into account, it absolutely changes the original post's point. He also mentioned how he's not really into video games (I don't really count age as a factor for this anymore because video games have been around for a couple of decades already). The more interesting question out of this particular discussion, though, is this: are video games part of culture? I absolutely agree that it is, but the fact that neither you nor the original post brought it up tells me that it is not for a certain percentage of the HN crowd here.
    - paganel 5y ago
      > are video games part of culture? Back in the late '90s - early 2000s the "Cahiers du Cinema" were beginning to treat them like culture, if I'm not mistaken they used to have a relatively small (but important, given the context) "chronique" in each issue talking about a specific game. Then came a "reactionary" backlash, as is typical with French cultural institutions, the directorship of the magazine got changed and there were no more "chroniques" about video games and Michael Jackson. I think Les Inrocks might still give the video-games world a fair representation but to be honest I haven't read them in a long time. In the Anglo world a magazine like Sight&Sound just ignores video-games almost completely, or that's what they seem to have been doing since I first started reading them (10+ years ago). More generalist media institutions like The Economist, the Financial Times (both of these I try to read pretty constantly), NY Times or the Guardian don't seem to allocate too much space to video games reviews in their Arts&Culture pages, or at least I don't remember having read too many of them (if any, to be honest). And I do know that video-games have been available for a few decades now, but the thing is that they've become quite compartmentalised from society's point view. More exactly if you like video games or if you're into video games most probably that means that you're the kind of person that is spending tens of hours per month (week?) hooked to a PC or a game-console, ignoring the outside world, hence the outside society. Culture, by definition, was meant to provide some "glue" to society, to embrace it, so to speak, today's video-games (or most of them, anyway) run counter to all that.
neartheplain 5y ago
In terms of fashion, Japan's Uniqlo is quite popular in the US and continues to grow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniqlo#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniqlo#United_States Americans remain fascinated with all aspects of Japanese culture, from food ("Jiro Dreams of Sushi" and sushi/hibachi places) to clothing to martial arts to Marie Kondo. Haruki Murakami's books are sold at Wal-Mart. Judo and karate studios still populate strip malls. Pokemon's going strong more than 20 years on. I would say Japan's second only to the UK in terms of visible cultural exports here.
- paganel 5y ago
  > I would say Japan's second only to the UK in terms of visible cultural exports here. That's really interesting, I haven't been to the States until now so that is really news to me. To be honest I had thought that the Japanese "mania" (if I may call it so) had run its course back in the '80s (the "Karate Kid" movies, Akira as an underground (?) cultural phenomenon, the Nakatomi Corporation), with an important continuation in the '90s through the anime mania, maybe also in the 2000s, when many people (re-)discovered Miyazaki and Takahata. Also the JDM car scene that was made famous by the first F&F movies. Anyway, I thought all that was in the past, for example a Mk4 Toyota Supra sold for a record auction price recently [1], I thought there's no way that culture is still part of the mainstream, joining it has become too expensive. I certainly do notice the fascination Japan as a country still holds among many in the tech-crowd scene like is the case for many HN-ers in here, but I thought that was a local and contained phenomenon. [1] https://www.thesupercarblog.com/toyota-supra-a80-mark-4-rm-sothebys-auction-record-price-amelia-island/ https://www.thesupercarblog.com/toyota-supra-a80-mark-4-rm-s...
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    In the 1980s, Japan was painted as a threat. "Economic Pearl Harbor", Japanese developers snapping up US real estate, Crichton's "Rising Sun", etc. Then the Japanese bubble economy burst and new bogeymen (terrorists, China, etc) took center stage, and now the popular image of Japan is blue-haired anime girls squealing "kawaii!".
- 5y ago
tsimionescu 5y ago
I know less about SK and Taiwan, but for Japan I think you're looking at it quite narrowly. Others have mentioned videogames, where Japan is more influential than all of Europe combined, this being the biggest (by revenue) cultural industry by far. In literature then, Japan has one of the most popular still-living authors in the world, Haruki Murakami. Japanese cuisine and culinary design (pottery, tea paraphernalia) is extremely influential everywhere in the world - with some amount of mix up with Chinese symbolism, to be fair. Japanese visual designs are influential in fashion. It's true that in cinema and music Japan's influence is small and even shrinking (especially given that they had titans like Akira Kurosawa). But Japanese culture is still an item if fascination and influence in much of the world.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Studio Ghibli's movies have been extremely popular in the US. Midnight Diner has a dedicated following on Netflix. Lost in Translation was set in Tokyo. Pacific Rim is quite clearly a Japanese cultural artifact, even if it wasn't filmed there. Giant-robot-movie is practically a genre. Japan's influence on world cinema is bigger than just "movies made in Japan".
Apocryphon 5y ago
Lee Ang is Taiwanese. South Korea’s cultural export boom is finally going mainstream in the U.S.- Squid Games, Parasite, etc.
ljhsiung 5y ago
I speak with California bias, but the culture/recognition of Taiwan is rather massive here. Not as massive as Japan or South Korea, but very notable. It's all mostly food related though. Boba, Night markets, Taiwanese breakfast. On the "namebrand" side, there is TSMC as well, though I feel that's gained notoriety in the last few years from the US's media push, not necessarily through Taiwan's own efforts. There's still a fair amount of association with Taiwan <--> Chinese culture in many American's minds, but there's certainly some differentiation. Again, potential California bias.
porknubbins 5y ago
In terms of tv/film/music quality Japan is almost a cultural desert even to Japanese. The industries are pretty stagnant. Japanese have Netflix now and can see the cinematic quality of (some) US tv shows that is beyond anything locally. But Japan is still widely admired for a good number of iconic cultural exports like food, architecture, games, decorative arts like bonsai, ikebana, martial arts, etc. And every midsize US city has a few ramen restaurants in the past 5-10 years.
wodenokoto 5y ago
With Squid Games being one of the most watched and talked about TV-series last year, and Parasite winning the Oscar for Best Film the year before, I find it odd that you consider SK to be past it's prime.
petre 5y ago
> Korean TV dramas, which rival Turkish TV dramas in many parts of the world I disagree. While K-drama plots are mostly superficial their execution is quite good and is done with very talented actors. Same goes for the K-pop scene. The competition is overwhelming. Turkish dramas on the other hand are just like South American telenovelas. Culturally just about everything is bearish right now. I think it has to do with the generally pessimistic feel: the pandemic, the social rift, the threat of a new financial crisis, tensions with China and Russia. Quite a bit like in the 80s behind the Iron Curtain.
riversflow 5y ago
> Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a cultural desert for us, Westerners, right now. I'm a late millenial and I would completely disagree. In fact from my perspective growing up and living on the West coast I'd argue that the only significant cultural imports into the US are from Mexico, the UK, and Japan, and to a much lesser extent Korea. For one, sushi is incredibly popular amongst virtually everyone I know. Probably the single most popular foreign food choice, perhaps in a tie with "Mexican" which I put in quotes because American Mexican food is typically significantly different from authentic Mexican food while American Sushi is far closer to the real thing, at least in my experience. As other people have mentioned video games are another absolutely huge cultural import from Japan, and the Japanese have created at outsized number of the most beloved franchises. I'm not sure I know a single person who isn't familliar with at least one Japanese-created video game character, Mario and Pikachu have a lot of reach! I don't think I could say that about even US videogames. Pokemon all by itself is absolutely massive, and I think in this conversation it is noteworthy that Pokemon Go! is the only successful AR title to date (that I'm aware of). Not to mention Samurai and Ninjas are well known amongst virtually everyone I've met. I can't claim similar about the warriors of other countries. It's also worth noting the Made in Japan is very much synonymous with high quality, and they have tons of brands that are very successful in this vein: Toyota, Honda, Sony, Hitachi, Makita, Nikon/Canon just to name a few. Finally I think saying that "apart from anime" is a pretty huge cop out. Most people around my age watched a significant amount of anime shows growing up, and many still do. These aren't tech bros either-I didn't grow up in the Bay- just normal people with blue collar careers who will very much talk your ear off about anime. If we're talking about movies, Studio Ghibli continues to be extremely popular even amongst people who aren't into anime. Elsewhere in the thread you say that you were under the impression that Japanese fever had eclipsed, but I really don't think it has, you also wrote >I certainly do notice the fascination Japan as a country still holds among many in the tech-crowd scene like is the case for many HN-ers in here, but I thought that was a local and contained phenomenon. I can honestly say nope! fascination with Japan is a very common phenomenon amongst a lot of people, from many walks of life and I honestly don't see it changing.
- orojackson 5y ago
  Along with a couple of others (this [1] being an example), thanks for responding. I read paganel's follow up post [2] and was flabbergasted at how out of touch he sounded. The shock is the main reason why I chose not to respond myself this morning. You and the others gave a far more eloquent explanation than the one I would have given. I will say this, though: just because paganel considered Bong Joon-ho's 2003 film Memories of Murder to be his best work doesn't mean that Parasite winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 2020 meant absolutely nothing in terms of South Korea's state of its cinema scene. If anything, it's even more indicative of South Korean cinema scene's stock rising in the global stage in recent years. To put it in Civilization terms (which I'm sure he won't understand due to his dismissive outlook of video games), South Korea's going for the cultural victory. Soft power really is a thing! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761879 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761389
dillondoyle 5y ago
I actually didn't know that about Korea's film past. I'm pretty excited about the sudden burst and interest in Korean TV coming out now it feels like it's growing! Parasite, Train to Busan, and Squid Game have really helped bring in a lot of eyes. Netflix seems to be invested in growing Korean market, better yet if they can get more english language viewers of Korean language content! I just put Silent Sea on my list looks interesting.

eatonphil 5y ago

I think South Korean film industry and quality has only grown massively since the 2000s. All Bong Joonho's work for example.

paganel 5y ago
I'd say he is a product of the 2000s, his "Memories of Murder" (imo his best movie) dates from 2003 and "The Host" from 2006, it's only now that mainstream Western audiences have gotten a chance to see his work.

vehemenz 5y ago

You're forgetting about video games. Japan has Nintendo, Sony, and many of the biggest IPs. South Korea has PUBG and is a huge player in eSports.

paganel 5y ago
Yeah, I did, sorry for that, in my defence I'm not into video-games (see the age part).
- danbolt 5y ago
  If you’re interested in checking out new Taiwanese video games, I really enjoyed Opus: Echo of Starsong. It’s worth a go! The Legend of Tianding has a fun feeling to it as well.
eatonphil 5y ago
For that matter, South Korean electronics are massive too. Samsung, LG, SK Hynix. Not just phones but laptops, refrigerators, chips, air conditioners, etc. Japan of course has many name brand consumer and engineering product companies. Taiwan has TSMC and Foxconn which while two of the most important companies in the world aren't well known outside of tech because they dont sell directly and don't do branding (like Intel for example).
- danachow 5y ago
  I think durable goods is a stretch for what is considered the export market of “culture”/creatives - talking appliances aside. Nobody was claiming that these places had no export economy.
Ostrogodsky 5y ago
Meh, China is probably the biggest county in DOTA (just as Korea with SC). The piece has very interesting points, but the author eagerness to criticize every single thing about China (ironic, because he complains that the Chinese are petty) clouds his judgement. Also, I dont know in which world he lives (I suppose most of his friend were Asian-Canadians) but your average westerner cannot name even 1 single cultural production of Taiwan. In the case of South Korea, most of the stuff they are known for (mainly KPop, and great movies/tv shows) has been produced in the last 20-25 years when the country reached an economic level and show business know-how that allowed them to flourish. China is not there yet. China produces lots of good stuff, that for many reasons (distribution, advertisement, political hostility) are not known in the west. Just one example, this is a fantastic TV show. I even say it is the best show I've watched in 2021, and you can watch it, legally and for free: https://www.iq.com/album/the-bad-kids-2020-19rrhl1l3l?lang=en_us https://www.iq.com/album/the-bad-kids-2020-19rrhl1l3l?lang=e... The quality is there, it needs to be more wisely advertised. Lots of mediocre productions too of course, but that is just Sturgeon's law in action.

rhtgrg 5y ago

Somewhat off-topic but this is an excellent opportunity to recommend this lovely chili sauce from Taiwan. [0] [0] https://yunhai.shop/collections/su-chili-crisp/products/su-chili-crisp-mala https://yunhai.shop/collections/su-chili-crisp/products/su-c...

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Coming from the perspective of culture rather than pop culture, Japan and Taiwan have shared a lot to the west, while Korea has recent ascendence in the area of pop culture. Taiwan, in particular, has preserved much of the traditional Chinese culture that was beat down in the mainland during the cultural revolution.

deltaonefour 5y ago

You're talking about entertainment media. "Culture" is more than just cinema and the entertainment industry.

danachow 5y ago
Sure it is - food, clothing, architecture, design. What else am I missing? Moreover, when taking this into account how does it change the original post’s point?
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  I'm referencing stuff like this: "Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a cultural desert for us, Westerners, right now." Japan is much much much more than just anime when you consider the country from a cultural perspective, EVEN from the western viewpoint.
- orojackson 5y ago
  As mentioned in a different post, he completely missed video games. For example, Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise in the world. Many game companies are headquartered in Japan such as Nintendo, Sony, and Square Enix. So when taking that into account, it absolutely changes the original post's point. He also mentioned how he's not really into video games (I don't really count age as a factor for this anymore because video games have been around for a couple of decades already). The more interesting question out of this particular discussion, though, is this: are video games part of culture? I absolutely agree that it is, but the fact that neither you nor the original post brought it up tells me that it is not for a certain percentage of the HN crowd here.
  - paganel 5y ago
    > are video games part of culture? Back in the late '90s - early 2000s the "Cahiers du Cinema" were beginning to treat them like culture, if I'm not mistaken they used to have a relatively small (but important, given the context) "chronique" in each issue talking about a specific game. Then came a "reactionary" backlash, as is typical with French cultural institutions, the directorship of the magazine got changed and there were no more "chroniques" about video games and Michael Jackson. I think Les Inrocks might still give the video-games world a fair representation but to be honest I haven't read them in a long time. In the Anglo world a magazine like Sight&Sound just ignores video-games almost completely, or that's what they seem to have been doing since I first started reading them (10+ years ago). More generalist media institutions like The Economist, the Financial Times (both of these I try to read pretty constantly), NY Times or the Guardian don't seem to allocate too much space to video games reviews in their Arts&Culture pages, or at least I don't remember having read too many of them (if any, to be honest). And I do know that video-games have been available for a few decades now, but the thing is that they've become quite compartmentalised from society's point view. More exactly if you like video games or if you're into video games most probably that means that you're the kind of person that is spending tens of hours per month (week?) hooked to a PC or a game-console, ignoring the outside world, hence the outside society. Culture, by definition, was meant to provide some "glue" to society, to embrace it, so to speak, today's video-games (or most of them, anyway) run counter to all that.

neartheplain 5y ago

In terms of fashion, Japan's Uniqlo is quite popular in the US and continues to grow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniqlo#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniqlo#United_States Americans remain fascinated with all aspects of Japanese culture, from food ("Jiro Dreams of Sushi" and sushi/hibachi places) to clothing to martial arts to Marie Kondo. Haruki Murakami's books are sold at Wal-Mart. Judo and karate studios still populate strip malls. Pokemon's going strong more than 20 years on. I would say Japan's second only to the UK in terms of visible cultural exports here.

paganel 5y ago
> I would say Japan's second only to the UK in terms of visible cultural exports here. That's really interesting, I haven't been to the States until now so that is really news to me. To be honest I had thought that the Japanese "mania" (if I may call it so) had run its course back in the '80s (the "Karate Kid" movies, Akira as an underground (?) cultural phenomenon, the Nakatomi Corporation), with an important continuation in the '90s through the anime mania, maybe also in the 2000s, when many people (re-)discovered Miyazaki and Takahata. Also the JDM car scene that was made famous by the first F&F movies. Anyway, I thought all that was in the past, for example a Mk4 Toyota Supra sold for a record auction price recently [1], I thought there's no way that culture is still part of the mainstream, joining it has become too expensive. I certainly do notice the fascination Japan as a country still holds among many in the tech-crowd scene like is the case for many HN-ers in here, but I thought that was a local and contained phenomenon. [1] https://www.thesupercarblog.com/toyota-supra-a80-mark-4-rm-sothebys-auction-record-price-amelia-island/ https://www.thesupercarblog.com/toyota-supra-a80-mark-4-rm-s...
- dustintrex 5y ago
  In the 1980s, Japan was painted as a threat. "Economic Pearl Harbor", Japanese developers snapping up US real estate, Crichton's "Rising Sun", etc. Then the Japanese bubble economy burst and new bogeymen (terrorists, China, etc) took center stage, and now the popular image of Japan is blue-haired anime girls squealing "kawaii!".
5y ago

tsimionescu 5y ago

I know less about SK and Taiwan, but for Japan I think you're looking at it quite narrowly. Others have mentioned videogames, where Japan is more influential than all of Europe combined, this being the biggest (by revenue) cultural industry by far. In literature then, Japan has one of the most popular still-living authors in the world, Haruki Murakami. Japanese cuisine and culinary design (pottery, tea paraphernalia) is extremely influential everywhere in the world - with some amount of mix up with Chinese symbolism, to be fair. Japanese visual designs are influential in fashion. It's true that in cinema and music Japan's influence is small and even shrinking (especially given that they had titans like Akira Kurosawa). But Japanese culture is still an item if fascination and influence in much of the world.

stickfigure 5y ago
Studio Ghibli's movies have been extremely popular in the US. Midnight Diner has a dedicated following on Netflix. Lost in Translation was set in Tokyo. Pacific Rim is quite clearly a Japanese cultural artifact, even if it wasn't filmed there. Giant-robot-movie is practically a genre. Japan's influence on world cinema is bigger than just "movies made in Japan".

Apocryphon 5y ago

Lee Ang is Taiwanese. South Korea’s cultural export boom is finally going mainstream in the U.S.- Squid Games, Parasite, etc.

ljhsiung 5y ago

I speak with California bias, but the culture/recognition of Taiwan is rather massive here. Not as massive as Japan or South Korea, but very notable. It's all mostly food related though. Boba, Night markets, Taiwanese breakfast. On the "namebrand" side, there is TSMC as well, though I feel that's gained notoriety in the last few years from the US's media push, not necessarily through Taiwan's own efforts. There's still a fair amount of association with Taiwan <--> Chinese culture in many American's minds, but there's certainly some differentiation. Again, potential California bias.

porknubbins 5y ago

In terms of tv/film/music quality Japan is almost a cultural desert even to Japanese. The industries are pretty stagnant. Japanese have Netflix now and can see the cinematic quality of (some) US tv shows that is beyond anything locally. But Japan is still widely admired for a good number of iconic cultural exports like food, architecture, games, decorative arts like bonsai, ikebana, martial arts, etc. And every midsize US city has a few ramen restaurants in the past 5-10 years.

wodenokoto 5y ago

With Squid Games being one of the most watched and talked about TV-series last year, and Parasite winning the Oscar for Best Film the year before, I find it odd that you consider SK to be past it's prime.

petre 5y ago

> Korean TV dramas, which rival Turkish TV dramas in many parts of the world I disagree. While K-drama plots are mostly superficial their execution is quite good and is done with very talented actors. Same goes for the K-pop scene. The competition is overwhelming. Turkish dramas on the other hand are just like South American telenovelas. Culturally just about everything is bearish right now. I think it has to do with the generally pessimistic feel: the pandemic, the social rift, the threat of a new financial crisis, tensions with China and Russia. Quite a bit like in the 80s behind the Iron Curtain.

riversflow 5y ago

> Apart from anime Japan is pretty much a cultural desert for us, Westerners, right now. I'm a late millenial and I would completely disagree. In fact from my perspective growing up and living on the West coast I'd argue that the only significant cultural imports into the US are from Mexico, the UK, and Japan, and to a much lesser extent Korea. For one, sushi is incredibly popular amongst virtually everyone I know. Probably the single most popular foreign food choice, perhaps in a tie with "Mexican" which I put in quotes because American Mexican food is typically significantly different from authentic Mexican food while American Sushi is far closer to the real thing, at least in my experience. As other people have mentioned video games are another absolutely huge cultural import from Japan, and the Japanese have created at outsized number of the most beloved franchises. I'm not sure I know a single person who isn't familliar with at least one Japanese-created video game character, Mario and Pikachu have a lot of reach! I don't think I could say that about even US videogames. Pokemon all by itself is absolutely massive, and I think in this conversation it is noteworthy that Pokemon Go! is the only successful AR title to date (that I'm aware of). Not to mention Samurai and Ninjas are well known amongst virtually everyone I've met. I can't claim similar about the warriors of other countries. It's also worth noting the Made in Japan is very much synonymous with high quality, and they have tons of brands that are very successful in this vein: Toyota, Honda, Sony, Hitachi, Makita, Nikon/Canon just to name a few. Finally I think saying that "apart from anime" is a pretty huge cop out. Most people around my age watched a significant amount of anime shows growing up, and many still do. These aren't tech bros either-I didn't grow up in the Bay- just normal people with blue collar careers who will very much talk your ear off about anime. If we're talking about movies, Studio Ghibli continues to be extremely popular even amongst people who aren't into anime. Elsewhere in the thread you say that you were under the impression that Japanese fever had eclipsed, but I really don't think it has, you also wrote >I certainly do notice the fascination Japan as a country still holds among many in the tech-crowd scene like is the case for many HN-ers in here, but I thought that was a local and contained phenomenon. I can honestly say nope! fascination with Japan is a very common phenomenon amongst a lot of people, from many walks of life and I honestly don't see it changing.

orojackson 5y ago
Along with a couple of others (this [1] being an example), thanks for responding. I read paganel's follow up post [2] and was flabbergasted at how out of touch he sounded. The shock is the main reason why I chose not to respond myself this morning. You and the others gave a far more eloquent explanation than the one I would have given. I will say this, though: just because paganel considered Bong Joon-ho's 2003 film Memories of Murder to be his best work doesn't mean that Parasite winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 2020 meant absolutely nothing in terms of South Korea's state of its cinema scene. If anything, it's even more indicative of South Korean cinema scene's stock rising in the global stage in recent years. To put it in Civilization terms (which I'm sure he won't understand due to his dismissive outlook of video games), South Korea's going for the cultural victory. Soft power really is a thing! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761879 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761389

dillondoyle 5y ago

I actually didn't know that about Korea's film past. I'm pretty excited about the sudden burst and interest in Korean TV coming out now it feels like it's growing! Parasite, Train to Busan, and Squid Game have really helped bring in a lot of eyes. Netflix seems to be invested in growing Korean market, better yet if they can get more english language viewers of Korean language content! I just put Silent Sea on my list looks interesting.