Is Japan really a “weird” country? These days, we have encountered more and more occasions where we cannot helping wondering if this question is true.
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| Photo by Akane-K used under CC |
As a blogger discussing Japanese social and cultural aspects, we are happy that Japanese popularity has been hitting high in other countries. Without any doubt, some unique characteristics of Japanese culture, such as
Manga (English: comics),
Anime (English: animated cartoons),
Maid Café (English: coffee shops where costumed waiters attend), have been contributing to this popularity. These unique characteristics have attracted foreigners—recent supporters as well as ardent long-time fans of Japanese culture.
However, these unique characteristics are just part of Japanese culture. Furthermore, if some “cheesy” aspects (e.g., weird persons and behavior), which are only a fraction of them, are heavily focused on, there is some danger that foreigners, who have limited access to Japanese culture, might create a distorted image of Japan and Japanese culture based on the biased information available. We think this is very sad and unfair at the same time.
In our next entry (part 2), we would like to discuss more this unfortunate phenomenon we have encountered these days. We also want to clarify our stance in reporting people’s behavior and cultural practices in Japan.
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