Reflections of an Old Japanophile
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: Japan 4 Comments »I had an interesting experience a while back at the local Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, here in Seattle. I was with wife and daughter, buying book, and I decided to check out the English-language manga section. I usually try to read manga in Japanese, for practice and for the JLPT, but I wanted to see if certain titles I liked had also been published in English (research for the blog 
). While there, I saw some young, die-hard anime fans and Japanophiles. The aisles are narrow, so I said “excuse me” as I passed one fellow, and he simply waved me past rudely while stock-piling English-language manga books in his arm. A big stack, too! But it wasn’t just one person, there were some very nerdy, socially-awkward people there.
It got me thinking about myself as a teenager and how I was also very socially awkward and already obsessed about Japan. Being at the bookstore was strangely familiar to me, but now I am seeing it years later older and more experienced in life.
I was a pretty nerdy fellow, not liked by girls, and struggling to find an identity. For some reason, partly by chance, the Zen/Japan connection really struck me when I was about 16. I really took it seriously for years until I met my wife, went to Japan, and got to know more about the culture in general.
Things like Zen, Samurai, Geisha, anime and such are indeed a part of Japanese culture, but only a very small part. And these can easily be taken out of proportion and distorted, in the same way that people might think all Americans are cowboys and eat hamburgers all the time.1 I never appreciated this point until I went to Japan, Vietnam, Ireland and other places. A culture is a lot more deep and complicated than books, movies and TV imply.
But anyway, my encounters at the bookstore got me thinking: what makes a person obsessed about another culture? It’s not just people who love Japan. There are Francophiles, Anglophiles, and so on. I remember one fellow I knew briefly who was obsessed with Thai culture and Muay Thai boxing. I also know from limited experience of Japanese people who are obsessed with American culture, British culture or French culture too, so it runs both ways.
It’s just an interesting phenomenon I guess.
1 This happened to me when I was a college student at 23 and riding a taxi in Thailand. The driver joked I was “American Cowboy”.
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed, but I LOVE Paris, France. For me, it’s the mysterious something..
The language I don’t quite understand, but sounds beautiful, like music. I also love the way they dress, tres chic!! I heard that even the waitresses (who have to be on their feet all the time), wear high heels!
Addendum: Japan? I know about it more, so that it’s not so “mysterious”
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I totally agree. I try to show my students that they won’t be able to use the japanese they learnt from Naruto or say “dattebayo” or “temeeeee”, that Japan is not all about Akihabara and “oppai”.
On the other hand I know some (older) French people who are completely obsessed with kanji and one of them told me about learning 16th century kanji and I thought : “why learn so many kanji that you can’t even use with people now?”.
It seems we all have our vision of Japan.
to Onono Komachi. Yes lots of heels now but I guess it’s the same the word over. Only in Paris I find them uncomfortable because we have lots of paving stones !!! Waitresses don’t wear them though they wear sensible shoes because they have to work.
Hi guys,
Ono no Komachi: It’s definitely the element of “mystery” in general. Japanese culture was more mysterious and fascinating to me until I really invested the time to learn it (language, culture, etc). Now it’s just another culture to me. I like it of course, but I see what you mean about the element of mystery.
MChan: Good point. You can’t learn Japanese from Anime. It really doesn’t work. The “oppai” comment was pretty funny. ;p Yes, I too find obsession with Kanji somewhat useless. Having studied Japanese enough now, I don’t have any interest in them anymore, and sometimes find them very annoying because of the lack of consistent usage (homonyms, obscure pronunciations, etc). Korean is nice because Hanja is only rarely used, and with a sensible alphabet, it is lot less frustrating to learn.
Regarding Paris: I’ve visited there once with my wife and daughter when we lived in Ireland. We liked Paris quite a bit, but we wish we knew more French. We knew just enough to get around, but missed out on some things. Indeed, women are quite stylish there (just as in Japan/Korea), and it was hard not to appreciate that.
I ate at a couple cafes there in Paris, and women dressed sensibily I noticed, though very tastefully (as one would expect from Paris of course). The EU in general is pretty conscious of worker rights and conditions, so I wouldn’t expect to see anything unreasonable there.
I have some photos of Paris mixed in with other photos from the EU on my Flickr site.