And So It Goes

Not-So Weird Japan
While using another machine* to search on Google for this page, I came across this link to my weblog (about halfway down). Contrary to what Eric Hancock says, I do not think that the Japanese are weird, or at least objectively weird. A lot of what goes on in Japan and Japanese society is, well, different from much of the world, but that doesn't make these things per se weird.

If I took that view, this weblog would be a lot easier to write, since all I would have to do is step outside, look at something peculiarly Japanese, and come back inside to write an entry about it. "My God, what's with all the women carrying parasols? And office lady uniforms! Good Lord, office window washers rappel down the sides of office buildings to do their jobs! And what's all this bowing stuff, anyways?" Hell, if I were a shallow writer willing to treat Japan like one giant freakshow, I could probably make a decent living at it. As it were, I'm only willing to go for the "shallow" part, as it means I don't have to do the research.

No, my point in the story that I had originally linked--in addition to pointing out the museum, which is just down the road from my company's old offices and which I had always intended to visit before we moved--was that the New York Times was doing exactly what I am decrying. In fact, a previous pair of their correspondents, the husband-and-wife team of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, were rather infamous for doing just that: so much so that a group of Japanese expatriates living in New York City compiled a book-length (as I recall) collection of their complaints against the two.

Not that New York Times is uniquely offensive: there's certainly no shortage of expats and visitors willing to rant and rave about how strange (or annoying) Japan is. There was even a reader-written column in the old Tokyo Classified free weekly magazine (now gone upscale as Metropolis) called "Rants and Raves", which was mostly befuddled foreigners complaining about Japanese ways. I have no intention of being one of those people. I may be an outsider, but then, that's always been the case no matter where I've lived.

The fact is, as an expatriate American whose colleagues are, in large part, not Americans and therefore have a different take on things, I sometimes think that it's the Americans who are world-class weird (I mean, between American society's obsession with the big (locomotive-sized SUVs, 96-ounce Big Gulps, Costco), its sexual puritanism, the fact (according to some polls) that half of Americans believe creationist theory is on par with evolutionary theory (i.e.; that the nutty fairy tales of a few Christian fundamentalists are on the same level as decades of biological research), and that Americans pay to see Adam Sandler movies). And this is why I cut slack for Dave Barry's very funny book about his visit to Japan, because while the book treated Japan and its society as one giant freakshow, his weekly column treats the United States and its society in exactly the same way.

*My telephone, actually, but that's another story.

Links of the day:

New York Times: Despite my complaints, it is still the first newspaper website I look at when I'm seeking news. That, and the Op-Ed columnists like economist Paul Krugman and foreign affairs correspondent Thomas Friedman. (Note: Requires free registration to read.)
New York Times News Tracker Service: A free e-mail alert service, notifying you by e-mail of stories using keywords. Up to three separate set-ups can created.