Cultural adoptions and attitudes

[Void]

sorry for a topic name, but i can`t come up with better one.
I ran onto one interesting point while surfing some blogs (at least, interesting to me)

When I interact with Arab Israelis in work related areas, I see no difference
between them and any other Israeli. But when you interact socially with them, you see that many have a "chip on their shoulder" and they feel like sell outs because they have adopted western ways. This an attitude I never saw when interacting with Japanese, Chinese or Indians. Sure, there is resentment of the west, but never a sense of being sell outs because certain western ways and values were adopted.

i `d like to ask Jref members who live (lived) in Japan (China) or japanese themselves how japanese (chinese) fill about adopting "western ways" (no matter in what field - business, culture, food and such). I suspect that the perception of different generations would be different, therefore i am interested in as many points as i can get.

i am aware that here were discussions somewhat related to that question, but unfortunately, i don`t have time to search and sift the posts. So, if anyone will be able to reply i`ll be greatefull


unkind P.S. those who are willing to comment attitudes of arab world and never lived for lengthy period or worked in any arabian country, please keep them to oneselves or express in separate thread. ☝

 

[Mars Man]

First of all, Void san, I am privileged to be talking with you again !!

Then, I have seen that much that is taken from the West, has kind of slid in under the front door without any really noticing it so much. I would say that by far, Japanese people would not feel like sellouts for having adopted Western ways.

Hope to talk to you later !!

 

[Void]

Then, I have seen that much that is taken from the West, has kind of slid in under the front door without any really noticing it so much. I would say that by far, Japanese people would not feel like sellouts for having adopted Western ways.

thanks, Mars Man sama
yeah, i understand about "sellouts", but what are the feelings, can you elaborate? Even in my country we often think that we throw a baby with water

 

[Mars Man]

Please let me sleep on it, and get back with you Void san. It's one in the morning, and I'm pretty slow in the head now....sorry.

 

[yukio_michael]

I've seen more of an actual agenda as it were in keeping out foreign influence from countries such as France, who among other things in business tried to stipulate that English words like "email" not be used in favour of French ones.

In Japan I do know that there is an older sort of societal aversion to English. On the one hand you have companies like Nova selling the idea of knowing English conversation, and on the other you have a society that is basically telling you that knowing English lessens your own Japanese-ness, that culturally its preferable to be ignorant of English entirely...

I'm not that well versed in Japanese business practices beyond the commonality of you know, promoting by seniority rather than merit--- Some people should be able to tell you instances of sucessful companies ---perhaps Mitsubishi is one of them, whom use a more Americanized method of business...

That said, there is still the semi-famous book, 「NO」と言える日本 ("No" to ieru nihon) English title: "The Japan that can say no." (1989) which critised the Western business style in favour of a more independant Japanese one. That said, the book of couse is a pretty nationalistic tome that fails to recognize it's own hypocrisy in that it basically denounces one empire while bolstering another... It ignores the failures in the Japanese business system that led to the post-bubble era cash, basically claims the US to be racist for dropping the atomic bomb on Japan rather than Germany (ignoring the fact that Germany had already surrendered among other things) and fails to see Japan's own sense of greed & monetary manueverings all while lambasting those of the United States. Direct translation of the text: here. Amazon, here.

But this is a pretty heavy-handed nationalistic text, and though famous, isn't indicative of everyone's viewpoint on Western influence.

I don't think that youth-culture thinks a lot about Western influence, even though I initially thought like many that they did. What I mean is that say, when the Japanese wear blue-jeans & rock n roll atire, they aren't trying to be Western, they're simply re-contextualizing an outside culture--- that in fact they are removing any sort of external-context it may have had. When you see people in the street wearing this or that, its an image that lacks content.

One example is surfing. Japanese surfers tend to take their sport very seriously. I grew up surfing quite a bit and it was just something that we did because we lived near the beach... We skated when we didn't surf and it was a pretty relaxed sort of ideology... There are certain elements to Japanese surfing that seek to re-contextualze the sport to be more nature-based, to be a more spiritual thing... In my opinion, they tend to be overzealous in these sorts of areas. Japan if anything lacks a sense of irony & sarcasm... I know there must be more causal adoptions of external culture, but Japan has a tendency to take things to their un-natural extremes... (Look at yankii culture and the pompadour...)

If anything I don't think that Japanese feel that they are all that Western, and there is a strong, if not a bit self-loathing sense of national identity.