7 ms·

> how Westerners idealize Japan Westerners are taught by the media and education to idealize Japan and hate China almost everywhere. They present cherry-picked

by qurren 5mo ago

> how Westerners idealize Japan Westerners are taught by the media and education to idealize Japan and hate China almost everywhere. They present cherry-picked aspects of both countries that make China look bad and Japan look good. In reality every country has its good and bad aspects. This is just part of the propaganda machine and what politicians want you to believe, in an effort to align their populations to be supportive of their foreign policy and military motives. That ultimately trickles down to things like this. When people come to HN, or any place, with rose-colored glasses of Japan, they will seek confirmations of that rose color everywhere.

wk_end 5mo ago
I really don't really think there's much political or propaganda interest in getting Westerners to idealize Japan, at this point. Now back in the 80s? Back in the 80s, despite being aligned with the West, they were perceived a lot like China is today. Everyone was scared that they were going to start eating the West's lunch and various negative stereotypes and exaggerations started to bubble up: it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. Between the Plaza Accords and the bubble bursting and decade after decade of Lost Decades, the Japanese threat was successfully neutralized. I think Cool Japan is mostly something they've earned for themselves, frankly.
- blowscum 5mo ago
  > it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. So basically just what the west is becoming?
  - user____name 5mo ago
    The US under trillionare leadership, certainly.
  - wk_end 5mo ago
    Not really? If I were to describe the issues inflicting the west, none of too-small homes, high suicide rates, or an economy based on long hours of white collar work would immediately come to mind. Rather, the west seems to be characterized mostly by insanely expensive housing caused by an extreme antipathy towards denser housing as populations grow, and a K-shaped economy where white collar coastal elites are actually doing relatively well but everyone else - namely blue collar and service workers - are doing worse and worse. Suicide rates aren't rising dramatically, and are nowhere near where they were in Japan at their peak in the 80s, which itself was always overstated (they were higher than they were in the US at the time, but were comparable to many other western countries).
    - astrange 5mo ago
      > everyone else - namely blue collar and service workers - are doing worse and worse * better and better https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010
- trentnix 5mo ago
  > Now back in the 80s? Back in the 80s, despite being aligned with the West, they were perceived a lot like China is today. Everyone was scared that they were going to start eating the West's lunch and various negative stereotypes and exaggerations started to bubble up: it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. Yep. A lot of cyberpunk fiction from that time that demonized corporate influence and power was inspired by the rise and perceptions of Japanese technology companies. I can remember one of the American news magazine shows, maybe 20/20, showing a Japanese school with long hours and intense discipline and contrasting it with fat, illiterate American kids (the same stereotypes were made about the Soviet Union). A lot of the perception of Japan, especially among Gen X and younger, is influenced from exports of Japanese culture. Nintendo, JRPGs, Manga, Anime, and even the quirky stuff reflects well on the Japanese though American eyes. No propaganda is needed.
- eunos 5mo ago
  > little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom You mean, American bathroom. Apartments in major Europe cities aren't that much bigger than Japanese but for sure the bathroom sucks.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
ExoticTiger 5mo ago
I disagree. People still trade, travel, and visit both countries regularly. Even if some media outlets are biased against China, that doesn’t mean Japan need to be idealized, it proves nothing. Your comments come across as more like propaganda.
h8hawk 5mo ago
From what I’ve seen, the opposite is often true. Western leftist mainstream media frequently portrays Japan as a racist and declining society. Meanwhile, on platforms like YouTube and communities such as Hacker News, the bias is even much stronger. China, along with the broader “Axis of Resistance” and third worldist camp (though China arguably doesn’t fully belong there), is often praised, while the West, including Japan, receives disproportionate criticism.
user____name 5mo ago
Is it propaganda though? Japan is more aligned with ‘the west’ not only in geopolitics but in the system of governance that was imposed upon it by via USA occuptation. Whereas China has a very different political system that is generally poorly understood and distrusted. Regardless, I don’t know where you’re from, but I see plenty of idolizing of China and how it manages to solve big problems at speeds unseen outside of mobilization in other parts of the globe. China-studies are a big thing at the moment. The positive view of Japan probably flows from its postwar boom years and popculture exports. China is at the moment being viewed with suspicion over its military buildup near Taiwan and creeping authoritarianism under Xi. This could all change again in the future depending on the actions China will take.
- ux266478 5mo ago
  > but I see plenty of idolizing of China and how it manages to solve big problems at speeds unseen This is actually a great example for extant romanticization of China. People lauding Chinese expediency in the context of industry and construction often don't realize it's almost entirely enabled by extreme underregulation and underenforcement of industrial safety standards. Chinese people themselves will often point this out, though depending on the person they may frame it more in a style of "The West is slow because of all of the red tape!" Of the subset of Westerners who are aware of this, sometimes I have to balk at how many of them will take that framing to heart and paint it as a positive thing. Even most Chinese don't have a positive view of it, not in reality. At most it's a tragic necessity required to build China up, though younger Chinese rightly tend to see it for what it is: corporate exploitation of laborers. Of course in the context of solving political problems, the Politburo readily cutting through its own invented problems is another matter.
  - jimbokun 5mo ago
    The recent Abundance movement on the left argues strongly that progress has been held back by over regulation and bureaucratic processes.
    - adamwk 5mo ago
mrkstu 5mo ago
Hate China? I don’t see that. There are plenty of factual reports about the CCP that are pretty damning, but the people/culture/place is generally perceived postively other than being a competitor…
- tredre3 5mo ago
  > I don’t see that. You seem to be an American so I'm very confused. You'd have to be willingfully blind at this point to not see the anti-chinese propaganda that has been going on in America for (at least) the past decade.
  - esseph 5mo ago
    Decade? At least as long as I've been alive and I'm very "mid-career".
  - nradov 5mo ago
    Is the propaganda false?
    - fooster 5mo ago
      by and large yes.
  - stevenhuang 5mo ago
    This is a not even wrong sort of misunderstanding to the realities of real politik. Your confusion is simple. You are unaware of the geopolitical games played at this level. It is true there is anti Chinese propaganda but that is neither here nor there since posturing in this way is simply what competing world powers do. Look past the institutional framing. The citizenry of all countries on this world are in reality on the same side far more often than opposed. The average American worker, Chinese worker, Russian worker, all want the same things: stability, prosperity, a future worth living. It is in the self interest of states to promote nationalism and construct out-groups. But that does not mean ordinary people should internalize such division. A wise citizenry knows to separate the notion of geopolitical competition from hatred towards ordinary citizens/culture of other countries, no matter what the state apparatus tries to tell them.
kibwen 5mo ago
> Westerners are taught by the media and education to idealize Japan and hate China almost everywhere. As an American educated by the American public education system and indoctrinated by American media, our government is certainly stupid and vengeful enough to make me want to support this if it were true, but it's just not. The much more banal truth is that Japan is extremely talented at exercising soft power by projecting a favorable image of itself via the media it exports, whereas China is just comparatively terrible at exercising this sort of soft power.
- lacewing 5mo ago
  Not being a single-party, notionally communist dictatorship may be helping with the image too? I don't know, spitballing here. I think the default approach in the West - and that's not a US-specific thing - is to treat exotic faraway lands with a mix of curiosity and awe. But China is a geopolitical rival with a political system that rightly makes many Westerners queasy, so it doesn't benefit from that anymore.
  - kibwen 5mo ago
    > Not being a single-party, notionally communist dictatorship may be helping with the image too? I don't know, spitballing here. No, everyday people are perfectly content to warm to brutal dictatorships who successfully put on a friendly face. Case in point: Dubai.
    - lacewing 5mo ago
      I don't think there are many people in the West who profess love for the UAE. But there are several reasons why it's not as disliked. First, it's a monarchy, and monarchies are harder to parse, given that many European countries are notionally monarchies too. Second, it's not by any stretch of imagination a serious geopolitical or economic threat to the West. Third, although it is authoritarian, by most third-party assessments, it's not nearly as authoritarian as China.
      - 5mo ago
jimbokun 5mo ago
China being an autocratic, authoritarian system with galling human rights abuses may have something to do with it, too. (For the record, I would put Japan above both China and the US at the moment in that regard.)
YurgenJurgensen 5mo ago
So in a discussion about a Korean’s view of an American’s view of Japan, you bring up China, and you’re the one complaining about propaganda?
robocat 5mo ago
> part of the propaganda machine and what politicians want you to believe Alternatively it could be due to emergent outcomes from our societies and systems. Is there a word or concept that explains the idea that "people in power are controlling us"? Maybe the word is related to hierarchy? I also see it in conspiracy thinking (Rothschild, lizard people). The assumption that somebody is in charge manipulating us, and that we can discern their motives based on what their incentives are imagined to be. A past example might be the red menace - which appeared to me to be part of US culture (politicians pushed it but I think they also took advantage of a natural us-versus-them zeitgeist). People seem to collectively desire a labeled enemy (you also see it about sports teams). Or see the sibling comment "banal truth is that Japan is extremely talented at exercising soft power by projecting a favorable image of itself" where manipulation is imagined as the base cause. I just don't see the world that way (apart from the scientific difficultly of discerning cause versus effect in human systems). Maybe it is just all memes. Individually even very well educated people don't seem to see systems and effects of systems: e.g. every thread about economics e.g. politicians pretending they are in charge when systems have fucked them.
pibaker 5mo ago
What I find weird is that they idolize Japan but not South Korea. South Korean is as much a western ally as Japan and share many of the same social ills as Japan, but the typical western perspective on it is a lot more negative.

by qurren 5mo ago

wk_end 5mo ago

I really don't really think there's much political or propaganda interest in getting Westerners to idealize Japan, at this point. Now back in the 80s? Back in the 80s, despite being aligned with the West, they were perceived a lot like China is today. Everyone was scared that they were going to start eating the West's lunch and various negative stereotypes and exaggerations started to bubble up: it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. Between the Plaza Accords and the bubble bursting and decade after decade of Lost Decades, the Japanese threat was successfully neutralized. I think Cool Japan is mostly something they've earned for themselves, frankly.

blowscum 5mo ago
> it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. So basically just what the west is becoming?
- user____name 5mo ago
  The US under trillionare leadership, certainly.
- wk_end 5mo ago
  Not really? If I were to describe the issues inflicting the west, none of too-small homes, high suicide rates, or an economy based on long hours of white collar work would immediately come to mind. Rather, the west seems to be characterized mostly by insanely expensive housing caused by an extreme antipathy towards denser housing as populations grow, and a K-shaped economy where white collar coastal elites are actually doing relatively well but everyone else - namely blue collar and service workers - are doing worse and worse. Suicide rates aren't rising dramatically, and are nowhere near where they were in Japan at their peak in the 80s, which itself was always overstated (they were higher than they were in the US at the time, but were comparable to many other western countries).
  - astrange 5mo ago
    > everyone else - namely blue collar and service workers - are doing worse and worse * better and better https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010
trentnix 5mo ago
> Now back in the 80s? Back in the 80s, despite being aligned with the West, they were perceived a lot like China is today. Everyone was scared that they were going to start eating the West's lunch and various negative stereotypes and exaggerations started to bubble up: it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. Yep. A lot of cyberpunk fiction from that time that demonized corporate influence and power was inspired by the rise and perceptions of Japanese technology companies. I can remember one of the American news magazine shows, maybe 20/20, showing a Japanese school with long hours and intense discipline and contrasting it with fat, illiterate American kids (the same stereotypes were made about the Soviet Union). A lot of the perception of Japan, especially among Gen X and younger, is influenced from exports of Japanese culture. Nintendo, JRPGs, Manga, Anime, and even the quirky stuff reflects well on the Japanese though American eyes. No propaganda is needed.
eunos 5mo ago
> little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom You mean, American bathroom. Apartments in major Europe cities aren't that much bigger than Japanese but for sure the bathroom sucks.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

ExoticTiger 5mo ago

I disagree. People still trade, travel, and visit both countries regularly. Even if some media outlets are biased against China, that doesn’t mean Japan need to be idealized, it proves nothing. Your comments come across as more like propaganda.

h8hawk 5mo ago

From what I’ve seen, the opposite is often true. Western leftist mainstream media frequently portrays Japan as a racist and declining society. Meanwhile, on platforms like YouTube and communities such as Hacker News, the bias is even much stronger. China, along with the broader “Axis of Resistance” and third worldist camp (though China arguably doesn’t fully belong there), is often praised, while the West, including Japan, receives disproportionate criticism.

user____name 5mo ago

Is it propaganda though? Japan is more aligned with ‘the west’ not only in geopolitics but in the system of governance that was imposed upon it by via USA occuptation. Whereas China has a very different political system that is generally poorly understood and distrusted. Regardless, I don’t know where you’re from, but I see plenty of idolizing of China and how it manages to solve big problems at speeds unseen outside of mobilization in other parts of the globe. China-studies are a big thing at the moment. The positive view of Japan probably flows from its postwar boom years and popculture exports. China is at the moment being viewed with suspicion over its military buildup near Taiwan and creeping authoritarianism under Xi. This could all change again in the future depending on the actions China will take.

ux266478 5mo ago
> but I see plenty of idolizing of China and how it manages to solve big problems at speeds unseen This is actually a great example for extant romanticization of China. People lauding Chinese expediency in the context of industry and construction often don't realize it's almost entirely enabled by extreme underregulation and underenforcement of industrial safety standards. Chinese people themselves will often point this out, though depending on the person they may frame it more in a style of "The West is slow because of all of the red tape!" Of the subset of Westerners who are aware of this, sometimes I have to balk at how many of them will take that framing to heart and paint it as a positive thing. Even most Chinese don't have a positive view of it, not in reality. At most it's a tragic necessity required to build China up, though younger Chinese rightly tend to see it for what it is: corporate exploitation of laborers. Of course in the context of solving political problems, the Politburo readily cutting through its own invented problems is another matter.
- jimbokun 5mo ago
  The recent Abundance movement on the left argues strongly that progress has been held back by over regulation and bureaucratic processes.
  - adamwk 5mo ago

mrkstu 5mo ago

Hate China? I don’t see that. There are plenty of factual reports about the CCP that are pretty damning, but the people/culture/place is generally perceived postively other than being a competitor…

tredre3 5mo ago
> I don’t see that. You seem to be an American so I'm very confused. You'd have to be willingfully blind at this point to not see the anti-chinese propaganda that has been going on in America for (at least) the past decade.
- esseph 5mo ago
  Decade? At least as long as I've been alive and I'm very "mid-career".
- nradov 5mo ago
  Is the propaganda false?
  - fooster 5mo ago
    by and large yes.
- stevenhuang 5mo ago
  This is a not even wrong sort of misunderstanding to the realities of real politik. Your confusion is simple. You are unaware of the geopolitical games played at this level. It is true there is anti Chinese propaganda but that is neither here nor there since posturing in this way is simply what competing world powers do. Look past the institutional framing. The citizenry of all countries on this world are in reality on the same side far more often than opposed. The average American worker, Chinese worker, Russian worker, all want the same things: stability, prosperity, a future worth living. It is in the self interest of states to promote nationalism and construct out-groups. But that does not mean ordinary people should internalize such division. A wise citizenry knows to separate the notion of geopolitical competition from hatred towards ordinary citizens/culture of other countries, no matter what the state apparatus tries to tell them.

kibwen 5mo ago

> Westerners are taught by the media and education to idealize Japan and hate China almost everywhere. As an American educated by the American public education system and indoctrinated by American media, our government is certainly stupid and vengeful enough to make me want to support this if it were true, but it's just not. The much more banal truth is that Japan is extremely talented at exercising soft power by projecting a favorable image of itself via the media it exports, whereas China is just comparatively terrible at exercising this sort of soft power.

lacewing 5mo ago
Not being a single-party, notionally communist dictatorship may be helping with the image too? I don't know, spitballing here. I think the default approach in the West - and that's not a US-specific thing - is to treat exotic faraway lands with a mix of curiosity and awe. But China is a geopolitical rival with a political system that rightly makes many Westerners queasy, so it doesn't benefit from that anymore.
- kibwen 5mo ago
  > Not being a single-party, notionally communist dictatorship may be helping with the image too? I don't know, spitballing here. No, everyday people are perfectly content to warm to brutal dictatorships who successfully put on a friendly face. Case in point: Dubai.
  - lacewing 5mo ago
    I don't think there are many people in the West who profess love for the UAE. But there are several reasons why it's not as disliked. First, it's a monarchy, and monarchies are harder to parse, given that many European countries are notionally monarchies too. Second, it's not by any stretch of imagination a serious geopolitical or economic threat to the West. Third, although it is authoritarian, by most third-party assessments, it's not nearly as authoritarian as China.
    - 5mo ago

jimbokun 5mo ago

China being an autocratic, authoritarian system with galling human rights abuses may have something to do with it, too. (For the record, I would put Japan above both China and the US at the moment in that regard.)

YurgenJurgensen 5mo ago

So in a discussion about a Korean’s view of an American’s view of Japan, you bring up China, and you’re the one complaining about propaganda?

robocat 5mo ago

> part of the propaganda machine and what politicians want you to believe Alternatively it could be due to emergent outcomes from our societies and systems. Is there a word or concept that explains the idea that "people in power are controlling us"? Maybe the word is related to hierarchy? I also see it in conspiracy thinking (Rothschild, lizard people). The assumption that somebody is in charge manipulating us, and that we can discern their motives based on what their incentives are imagined to be. A past example might be the red menace - which appeared to me to be part of US culture (politicians pushed it but I think they also took advantage of a natural us-versus-them zeitgeist). People seem to collectively desire a labeled enemy (you also see it about sports teams). Or see the sibling comment "banal truth is that Japan is extremely talented at exercising soft power by projecting a favorable image of itself" where manipulation is imagined as the base cause. I just don't see the world that way (apart from the scientific difficultly of discerning cause versus effect in human systems). Maybe it is just all memes. Individually even very well educated people don't seem to see systems and effects of systems: e.g. every thread about economics e.g. politicians pretending they are in charge when systems have fucked them.

pibaker 5mo ago

What I find weird is that they idolize Japan but not South Korea. South Korean is as much a western ally as Japan and share many of the same social ills as Japan, but the typical western perspective on it is a lot more negative.