2008-02-28, 13:37 | Link #542 | ||
日本語を食べません!
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: San Francisco
Age: 41
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Ganguro:
Spoiler for Warning: Not safe for...well, anyone, really:
Quote:
Ugly girls are booted out of the country! Quote:
Osaka in Azumanga explained it well: What if you step in dog poo? You don't want to leave your shoes on and track it all across your floors. Just take that logic and apply it to schools. |
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2008-02-28, 15:04 | Link #544 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Oh, I think there are simply gorgeous girls all up and down the Pacific Rim. Japan doesn't have a lock on the concept. I'm sure Kang can flood us with massively cute Korean girls and I've encountered more knockout chinese and vietnamese girls... polynesian, hawaiian, multi-racial..... Okay, must stop -drooling is bad appearance.
Ganguro.... is just very bad and sad. Clowns....
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2008-02-29, 10:44 | Link #545 |
日本語を食べません!
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: San Francisco
Age: 41
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Yes... but by the same token, there are ugly people (females and males) along the Pacific Rim. I think people forget that sometimes.
No country is a mecca of only hot people. There's great and not-so-great in every region of the world. |
2008-03-03, 17:20 | Link #546 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Heading back to "Japanese Culture" (*cough* ), I enjoy this magazine:
http://int.kateigaho.com/index.html (4 issues, about $54/yr). Rather expensive but some seriously good articles and high quality pictures about various aspects of art, pop, and culture in Japan. Temples, bamboo, sashiko, pop (music, anime, etc), architecture, kokeshi, food (they particularly like discussing food as art), festivals, etc. Minor nit: the first 10 pages or so are wasted with extremely vapid jewelry and fragrance adverts you see in many high-end magazines --- and the adverts use almost exclusively white european models which I just find weird considering the focus of the magazine. Fortunately, its only about 10 pages out of a very thick magazine. As my wife's cousin said, while she was opening the magazine up, "What all these gaijin doing in these ads? What the f***?" (actual quote).
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2008-03-03, 19:30 | Link #550 |
神聖カルル帝国の 皇帝
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Korea
Age: 37
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I'm against multi-culturalism, at least in the sense of destorying one's own culture, which is what's going on in the western half of the world.
Also, Gaijin just means "foreigner." Seems you "lack" multiculturalism for not knowing basic phrases. |
2008-03-03, 19:59 | Link #551 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Sorry -5 karma for you not getting what she meant. +5 to Kang and Tri-ring for understanding what she meant (a japanese magazine about Japan and featuring/havind ads containing people you don't see much or at all in Japan -- the implicit cue in those ads is that "things and people Western are more beautiful than asian talent"). You should take a look at the ads (which are decidedly NOT multi-cultural) first.
Gaijin or hagaijin just means "outsider"(or "not japanese") to my wife's family. I'm a gaijin if that wasn't clear. My extended family is multi-cultural and multi-racial by definition. Multi-culturalism, which is a different subject from what I was talking about... America is a somewhat unique place where multi-culturalism seems to work for now (people have their heritage and ethnicity but like to enjoy the fun parts of other ethnicities or heritages). England's colonial background helps it handle multi-culturalism but you can hear some creaks and groans. Other countries.... well, YMMV but I'd hate to see, for example, Germany, Korea, or Cambodia lose what makes them special. If I ever immigrate, I'll always be "the dancing bear" standing out in the crowd, but I consider it my duty to know the local language and know the local customs and etiquette. It will be interesting to see how Japan handles a larger minority of foreign cultural influx (like the Brazilians) but I kind of applaud the noises I'm hearing about them insisting that incomers "learn the language, learn the culture, you don't have to drop what you like from where you're from *but* you came *here* after all".
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Last edited by Vexx; 2008-03-03 at 20:22. |
2008-03-03, 20:54 | Link #553 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Heh, if you're going to respond to a post a few pages back, you ought to at least quote it so you don't sound so random
I guess it depends on what you define as an adequate lunch. In america, eating out lunch can run $5-$10 for a middle class meal depending on what level of garbage you're ingesting. Japanese meals can be cheap yet quite nutritious and filling .... or expensive and silly.
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2008-03-03, 21:21 | Link #554 | |
勇者
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Tesla Leicht Institute
Age: 34
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Quote:
Anyhow multiculturalism, well I suppose in Asia it's really hard to find it especially in Japan or Korea, though in the US I suppose it's different story. Though so called multiculturalism in the U.S is quite funny imo, because the thing is that one ethnic group tends to live around each other, such as Korean would live in one area while Chinese would live in other area. Still I like diversity its quite nice, I love how they is a (well use to be like that before I moved) Chinese food, next to it Korean restaurant, and next to it bunch of other ethnic restaurant. Though US it self never really had it's own culture, I always believe that the culture of US was mixture of foreign culture. Now I have a question, lets say that I go to Japan, would there be some type of discrimination generally (not the best choice of the word, as it is too strong but I can't really think of other word to use) to me being Korean? Which is what my parent told me (though they have nothing against Japan, it's just what they told me) I asked similar question before but after what my parents said I want to know if there is some degrees of discrimination generally.
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2008-03-03, 21:28 | Link #555 | |
Disabled By Request
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: USA
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Quote:
Besides, it isn't restricted to Japan. You'll get discriminated against in the US too. My old boss would mutter wonderful phrases like "gook" and so on whenever an Asian person came into the store. I sorta quit because of that, but nevertheless. |
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2008-03-03, 22:20 | Link #556 | |||
神聖カルル帝国の 皇帝
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Korea
Age: 37
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Quote:
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However, when it comes to living in Japan for the long term, you can run into problems. A good starting point on this is the Wikipedia article Ethnic issues in Japan Quote:
The problem (on the Japanese side) mostly starts from the legacy of the Japanese Occupation of Korea from 1910-1945, with the 50,000+ Zainichi being the core. |
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2008-03-03, 23:23 | Link #557 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Kang pretty much answers the discrimination bit and the Korea/Japan bit accurately.... but I know anecdotally that, in general, there's little overt *discrimination*... more often its just wonderment or bewilderment at the novelty they see in front of them.
I've had several friends experience the elderly Japanese who refuses to believe the gaijin in front of them is speaking Japanese And one friend who was turned away from a bar because he was gaijin (his comrades apologized and explained it was more because of bad military personnel behavior in the area than because of racism). In my case, I could be there 20 years and people who know me would still be surprised I might know a proverb or the roots of a local festival (or be stunned if I managed a pun).... because I'm white. Heck, my wife's family is still shocked if I eat natto and I catch some of them watching me use chopsticks. You just have to chuckle (or mutter in Japanese). My experience with the Korean/Japan head-butting is more along the lines that it makes my Korean friends crazy when someone assumes they're Japanese. I had one Korean friend in college insist she could tell Chinese from Korean from Japanese even after utterly failing the tests we'd give her (my later-to-be wife is japanese but is routinely mistaken for a variety of Pacific Rim ethnics --- that was the very first "fail" test). Of course, though Korea and Japan work closely on many issues.... there's still hard feelings over that 20th Century imperialist period (especially when the right wing in Japan keeps double-facing on certain historical events---> heck they even piss off Japanese citizens (recent Okinawan history rewrite attempts)). I guess it boils down to a variety of levels of "fear, amazement, or bewilderment of the unknown". I'm ignoring the ultranationalists because they're raving loonies no matter what country we're talking about
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Last edited by Vexx; 2008-03-03 at 23:40. |
2008-03-04, 03:00 | Link #558 |
( ಠ_ಠ)
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
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I don't want to get into the topic much, but I can guarantee you it goes both ways.
South Korean media and educational institutes advocating hatred is just as much of a problem fueling the tention as Japanese cultural arrogance. For every finger you point, opposite fingers can be pointed back. So be careful.
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2008-03-04, 03:12 | Link #559 | |
神聖カルル帝国の 皇帝
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Korea
Age: 37
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Quote:
But since we're on the topic: the "Korean Anti-Japanese Education" is actually a hype. Yes, there are Anti-Japanese sentiments, but it tends to be reactive (although an extremely tense reaction) compared to China or DPRK. There is no systemized education where Japan as taught of as an Evil Empire. So please, unless you actually faced things yourselves, don't fall into the hype that the media tells you. |
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2008-03-04, 03:36 | Link #560 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Quote:
A classic example is the Okinawan annoyance at the attempts of some wingnuts in the educational textbook bureaucracy to rewrite historical events in Okinawa. The rewrite attempt conflicted with what Okinawan Japanese and Japanese military vets remember. If these wingnuts are so proud of themselves, one has to ask why they keep trying to misrepresent historical events. Wingnuttery isn't exclusive to Japan though.... we have our own brand in the US that keep creating a fairytale of history that falls apart the instant a few facts are presented but again that'd be a different thread
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Tags |
culture, discussion, japan, japanese culture |
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