I wonder why the Japanese like so much American stuff - like baseball, bowling, golf, jazz, etc. I don't know, but being american I'm flattered. Maybe it's Hollywood & stuff. I like it when American makes good friends with another country, for instance, with Britain, there is a vibrant cultural exchange going on, take for instance with rock n roll. We listen and are influenced by each other, and the music transmutates. One thing I find fascinating about Japan is this kind of cultural exchange. I'm curious how they change the music, or literature, movies, etc. and make it their own. Like Shakespeare was an influence on Akira Kurasawa, and he in turn was an influence on Spaghetti Westerns. (and darn good movies they are too.) And here in Seattle there's alot of Japanese influence, because of our location, trade & stuff. woops is this a very bad tangent i've gone off on?
Anyway my point of that was that Japan must also generalize us in a positive way, to like American stuff alot. Do they think we all bowl alot and things like that? Maybe. There was one guy that even did a little talk about our influence on Japan, and he showed a photo of a billboard with James Dean on it.
About their view of crime here. There was a sad and shocking case of a Japanese guy, I think just a teenager, visiting the states who was going to a Halloween party and went to a house to ask directions. This was in Texas and he was wearing a mask. Apparently the man in the house told him to stop or something, but he didn't understand and the man shot him. That was a very disturbing story - they had it on American Justice I think, and no doubt left a bad impression on the Japanese. Even though it was a rare case, it shows what could happen when you get some nut with a gun like that. But that attitude of having guns to protect yourself, not many americans I know are like that at all. Most I know don't have guns. There is more violence here than in many countries, but it's still much safer than people realize. They don't put the statistics into perspective. I think the news distorts just about everything, and it's really not the best way to get your info. And it's shallow. If you for instance just read the headlines and watched tv news, you may never want to come out of your house. But the real America isn't really like that mostly.
I hear alot of generalizations about Japan, but I take them with a grain of salt. I think it was Donald Keene, who said that for every stereotype about Japan there are exceptions. I like to not make assumptions about individual people. And that can blind you to seeing who they really are. And making assumptions about a whole country is, ignorant. It's just too complex. However, I find the generalizations people have about countries to be a very interesting topic. And there's usually some truth in them. Just don't apply it to ME, lol.