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While I respect you asking a legitimate question, I would recommend being cautious while reading this thread. Discussions about Japanese culture, and foreign cu

While I respect you asking a legitimate question, I would recommend being cautious while reading this thread. Discussions about Japanese culture, and foreign cultures in general, tend to be dominated by westerners retelling ideas they've read by other western people on the internet. Japan not having a large presence in American social networks makes it especially vulnerable to exoticization, speculation, and exaggeration of issues in the country. Especially when the discussion is largely (not always) the result of a long game of telephone. I'm sure the commenters mean well, just take everything with a grain of salt and do some of your own research into the ideas presented here.

graderjs 4y ago
I don't know...I think this is overcautious--and actually too dismissive of the views of non-japanese people, it sort of sounds like you think we need to discount those views, but I think that's pretty racist (a racist stereotype like if you're not Japanese then you can't think or talk about the culture in anything but a stupid way...very racist to say so), and maybe a part of the insularity I'm trying to investigate!--because the idea of insularity is about cultural interaction across cultures, so the opinions of other cultures and their experiences of Japan is vitally important...it can't just be from Japanese people as you seem to be suggesting, we have to listen to everyone from everywhere, that's the point of this question, which I don't think you got. So....But actually, I aimed to elicit the response from Japanese people about their own culture. I think there's an unintentional trend to view this as negative...I want to encourage Japanese people to tell the story of their insular culture in a positive way...I really just want to understand it. I thought that could kind of happen here, but maybe not today as it looks like this question has been flagged--for some reason? Oh well...HN can't be the forum for everything. I guess I'll have to rely on 1st hand experience again. It's not bad, 1st hand experience is probably better than something you can hear on a forum anyway. I would just love to hear some views from some Japanese people...I know they are here
- chimineycricket 4y ago
  Shame people flag this...it's an interesting and valid question. I can't fathom why its flagged.
- SnooSux 4y ago
  > I aimed to elicit the response from Japanese people about their own culture This is overly optimistic in my opinion. When I wrote my original comment I didn't see any indication that any of the other commenters had any connection to or expertise regarding Japan, they were speculating based on their own cultures and their own knowledge. In my experience expert opinions are very likely to get buried in a forum like this unless they agree with the mainstream, non-expert view. > I think this is overcautious--and actually too dismissive of the views of non-japanese people I never said you should ignore or dismiss people's views completely, just that you should be cautious. There's a lot of speculation going on that you should avoid putting too much faith into. > so the opinions of other cultures and their experiences of Japan is vitally important I'll concede that I hadn't considered that point. But on the other hand, do you really trust people getting little information from a insular country to make well-informed opinions. It's part of the story, but stay skeptical of anything you hear. I brought things up because of my own frustrations with social networks, particularly Reddit (see my username). Lots of Redditors repeating stuff they saw on Reddit with little critical thinking was part of the reason I strayed away and moved here (also the more technical focus here) Any time Redditors discuss topics or cultures that I'm familiar with, I can tell a lot of people are talking out of their ass. > question has been flagged--for some reason? This is unfortunate. I do think there is some interesting discussion to be had. As long as you do your due diligence on any discussions here.
PaulHoule 4y ago
For me Japan doesn't seem that foreign, I mean they have a basically individualistic outlook that doesn't seem to strange to an American, at least this American. I saw a line printed pin up of Lum from Urusei Yatsura when I was in college, went to the anime club, and developed an obsession with Japan that continues today. It is well compartmentalized (I rarely talk about it on HN) so I rarely come across as a North America weeaboo but if you open my backpack you might find a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendama and a Nintendo 3DS and a Sony Minidisc player and a box of 4x6 prints I made some of which are anime art and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e and also a book or a copy of the Pillow Book. (This is not all I am into you will find some Italian and Russian futurist painting reproductions, maybe a book about Fuzzy Logic or Margaret Thatcher too. Probably the strangest thing about my backpack is that it is overpacked, something appropriate for a long trek into an intellectual desert.) Until Japan every non-western culture posed no effective resistance to imperalism. The Japanese felt they had choice but to beat the white man at their own game and they've come very close to doing so, setting a precedent for other cultures. If there was one thing unique about Japan I'd say it is highly resistant to Christianity. In the past they banned Christianity and oppressed them just as violently as Christians oppressed Christians in Europe. Today there is little direct hostility to Christianity but there is almost no market penetration for it. Contrast that to Korea, where people will discover it, think it is the best news they ever heard, get more people to show up at church and next week have them bursting out the doors and ready to start a new church across town.

graderjs 4y ago

I don't know...I think this is overcautious--and actually too dismissive of the views of non-japanese people, it sort of sounds like you think we need to discount those views, but I think that's pretty racist (a racist stereotype like if you're not Japanese then you can't think or talk about the culture in anything but a stupid way...very racist to say so), and maybe a part of the insularity I'm trying to investigate!--because the idea of insularity is about cultural interaction across cultures, so the opinions of other cultures and their experiences of Japan is vitally important...it can't just be from Japanese people as you seem to be suggesting, we have to listen to everyone from everywhere, that's the point of this question, which I don't think you got. So....But actually, I aimed to elicit the response from Japanese people about their own culture. I think there's an unintentional trend to view this as negative...I want to encourage Japanese people to tell the story of their insular culture in a positive way...I really just want to understand it. I thought that could kind of happen here, but maybe not today as it looks like this question has been flagged--for some reason? Oh well...HN can't be the forum for everything. I guess I'll have to rely on 1st hand experience again. It's not bad, 1st hand experience is probably better than something you can hear on a forum anyway. I would just love to hear some views from some Japanese people...I know they are here

chimineycricket 4y ago
Shame people flag this...it's an interesting and valid question. I can't fathom why its flagged.
SnooSux 4y ago
> I aimed to elicit the response from Japanese people about their own culture This is overly optimistic in my opinion. When I wrote my original comment I didn't see any indication that any of the other commenters had any connection to or expertise regarding Japan, they were speculating based on their own cultures and their own knowledge. In my experience expert opinions are very likely to get buried in a forum like this unless they agree with the mainstream, non-expert view. > I think this is overcautious--and actually too dismissive of the views of non-japanese people I never said you should ignore or dismiss people's views completely, just that you should be cautious. There's a lot of speculation going on that you should avoid putting too much faith into. > so the opinions of other cultures and their experiences of Japan is vitally important I'll concede that I hadn't considered that point. But on the other hand, do you really trust people getting little information from a insular country to make well-informed opinions. It's part of the story, but stay skeptical of anything you hear. I brought things up because of my own frustrations with social networks, particularly Reddit (see my username). Lots of Redditors repeating stuff they saw on Reddit with little critical thinking was part of the reason I strayed away and moved here (also the more technical focus here) Any time Redditors discuss topics or cultures that I'm familiar with, I can tell a lot of people are talking out of their ass. > question has been flagged--for some reason? This is unfortunate. I do think there is some interesting discussion to be had. As long as you do your due diligence on any discussions here.

PaulHoule 4y ago

For me Japan doesn't seem that foreign, I mean they have a basically individualistic outlook that doesn't seem to strange to an American, at least this American. I saw a line printed pin up of Lum from Urusei Yatsura when I was in college, went to the anime club, and developed an obsession with Japan that continues today. It is well compartmentalized (I rarely talk about it on HN) so I rarely come across as a North America weeaboo but if you open my backpack you might find a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendama and a Nintendo 3DS and a Sony Minidisc player and a box of 4x6 prints I made some of which are anime art and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e and also a book or a copy of the Pillow Book. (This is not all I am into you will find some Italian and Russian futurist painting reproductions, maybe a book about Fuzzy Logic or Margaret Thatcher too. Probably the strangest thing about my backpack is that it is overpacked, something appropriate for a long trek into an intellectual desert.) Until Japan every non-western culture posed no effective resistance to imperalism. The Japanese felt they had choice but to beat the white man at their own game and they've come very close to doing so, setting a precedent for other cultures. If there was one thing unique about Japan I'd say it is highly resistant to Christianity. In the past they banned Christianity and oppressed them just as violently as Christians oppressed Christians in Europe. Today there is little direct hostility to Christianity but there is almost no market penetration for it. Contrast that to Korea, where people will discover it, think it is the best news they ever heard, get more people to show up at church and next week have them bursting out the doors and ready to start a new church across town.