The Meaning of Japan

luka

Well-known member
We've had quite a few people here live over there teaching English. I met someone from dissensus last time I visited. Can't remember his name now, but he was working as an architect.
 

luka

Well-known member
He said in England you do a drawing and you can leave out redundant detail, just gesture at it but he said in Japan you're expected to draw every single roof tile etc
 

luka

Well-known member
You don't really see poor people much either. Not saying they don't exist but maybe they keep them underground or far away from city centres I'm not sure.
 

luka

Well-known member
So the right would take a lot of these things, plus eg the absence of street crime, begging, antisocial behaviour and see them as boons granted by ethnic and cultural homogeneity
 

luka

Well-known member
I remember being in an izakaya and a load of office workers in suits came in, mostly, maybe all men, and one promptly passed out and no one squished a sushi in his ear or anything. They just let him sleep. The staff left him alone too. He's not hurting anyone, let him sleep. That impressed me a lot.
 

woops

is not like other people
i am a recovering japan obsessive

i speak a little japanese and have been over three times - the third time was for a music tour yes it's true

as a student it was a super dream of mine to go over there, like an obsession but obviously once i got there it wasn't what i thought it was, i.e. a paradise. loads and loads of interesting music in tokyo and osaka though. the record shopping was amazing. first time i went i bought 100 records

however a lot of the people i know got out of tokyo after fukushima. so i don't know what it's like now at all.
 

woops

is not like other people
yeah the drinking culture is strange like that. if you're a salaryman the boss will take you out drinking and you literally cannot refuse a drink. so you see suits passed out and suits absolutely wankered getting the last tube, in a way you don't see her
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
The example that sticks in my head is buying cheese from the supermarket (this was summer, quite hot) and they put ice around it so it doesn't get fucked on the way home
You get a sense of that from the second book I mentioned. Maybe it's just cos he's writing about pre-modern artefacts but you get that sense of meticulousness.
Actually I guess that carries through into the kinda homage/repro culture that William Gibson writes about.
 

woops

is not like other people
You don't really see poor people much either. Not saying they don't exist but maybe they keep them underground or far away from city centres I'm not sure.
not sure about that, i saw people sleeping on the road median and all sorts, people reselling old magazines on the street, there's definitely urban poverty
 

luka

Well-known member
The meticulousness is very real and can't help making you angry and upset about England (or Australia)
 

luka

Well-known member
not sure about that, i saw people sleeping on the road median and all sorts, people reselling old magazines on the street, there's definitely urban poverty

Maybe a bit more in Tokyo. I wasn't there long and I didn't like it very much.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Feels strange to me to write about a culture I don't know with an only an awareness of these kinda edited highlights.
 

woops

is not like other people
The example that sticks in my head is buying cheese from the supermarket (this was summer, quite hot) and they put ice around it so it doesn't get fucked on the way home
the example that sticks in my head is that i lost my bank card while i was out there so i went to pick up a new one from the bank office and the geezer literally ran across the office to give it to me
 

version

Well-known member
 

luka

Well-known member
Feels strange to me to write about a culture I don't know with an only an awareness of these kinda edited highlights.
That was the premise of the thread though. More about the imaginary Japan than the real one but now I'm just in 'what I did on my holidays' mode
 

luka

Well-known member
That was one thing that struck me when I went, it obviously wasn't the future and hadn't been for some time. But it would have been a brilliant future. Much better than Dubai and Shanghai.
 
Top