The Meaning of Japan

[luka]

Or meanings rather. At one time it was the future. That future never eventuated and yet it retains a central place in many western imaginations. This isn't about Japan as it really is or as it is to the Japanese. This is about fantasy Japans. Orientalist Japans. Try and avoid too many nudge nudge wink wink remarks about squid etc.

 

[constant escape]

Are we just talking what kinds of vague impressions it tends to make on people? What image lands in their minds after having been filtered through this or that news source?

 

[luka]

More the people who who are bang into it really

 

[Corpsey.]

were talking about weebs, constant

 

[Corpsey.]

its quaint and delicate, an inverse to the fetishes of american culture and seen as a reprieve

 

[Corpsey.]

any group marginalized in the west seem to take interest. anime is prominent in both far left and far right iconography, same with black and Hispanic communities (at least here in america)

 

[william kent]

 

[constant escape]

were talking about weebs, constant

Ah, well, proceed. I'll hang back.

 

[mvuent]

japan went from being the cool, edgy cyberpunk future to being the hikikomori future.

 

[DannyL]

I read a book called "Angry White Pyjamas" a few years ago, which is about a guy who ends up doing the same super tough Akido training as the Tokyo Riot Police. Trains alongside 'em IIRC. There's a load of "bushido" warrior philosphy in the training and the author, the cops literally couldn't give a fuck about it, but you have a buch of whiteys who've washed up there who make it their lives centre of meaning. A familiar story. Wiggers but with Japanese martial arts.

Alex Kerr's Lost Japan is I suppose similar in some ways - a foreigner projecting and discovering himself in Japanese culture - but he goes deep on architecture, calligraphy and other traditional Japanese arts. He buys a house that's several hundred years old in the opening chapter, and you do get the sense he's discovered a vanishing world. Wonderful book.

Has anyone here ever been? Would love to go almost more than anywhere else I think.

 

[pattycakes_]

@DannyL funny in a way because the Japanese made that whole laser focusing on foreign cultures, reviving, projecting, reinterpreting thing an art unto itself. Hard to find another culture that does it so thoroughly. Although maybe because its more centered around youth cultures the motives are different to Kerr and Photek etc?

 

[boxedjoy]

any adult who has an anime character as their profile picture on social media must be avoided, this is a fact

 

[luka]

japan went from being the cool, edgy cyberpunk future to being the hikikomori future.
Oh good point

 

[luka]

Has anyone here ever been? Would love to go almost more than anywhere else I think.

I've been there a couple of times. I think I went in 2010 and again in 2012 when I was making Australian wages and could actually afford too leave the house

 

[DannyL]

How was it?

 

[luka]

after Sydney one of the things I really enjoyed about it was how rich it is as a visual environment. I keep photographing fire escapes for some reason. There's a density of visual information. All these different interlocking forms and patterns. On a visual level it's very pleasing.

 

[luka]

An the other thing you can't help being knocked out by is the care, consideration and attention that is put into everything, There's never a 'that's good enough' attitude it feels like. In that way it felt somewhat protected from the full impact of capitalism

 

[luka]

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

 

[luka]

Obviously there's a whole genre of documentaries which focus on this quality of the Japanese psyche/society. 90 year old sushi master strives for perfection.

 

[luka]

My cousin lived there for years and he says it gets less enjoyable once you know enough of the language to evesdrop on the conversations, but that's true of every foreign country.