The Fall of Japanese Culture?

[Qion]

Look at the modern Japan. All covered in concrete. Men spend 12 hours at work(in the citys). Children keep de-braining themselves with Nintendo, Gameboy and stuff(in the citys- mostly), the family life is(in the citys) as well as dead. The wonderful japanese art has been died and now you can see only extremely gawdy neons everywhere(in the citys). The only thing left from old Japan is the devotion of the employees towards their companies(nice rhyming, huh?). And maybe the feudal Yakuza.
Is the Japan Japan left only on the country side? What happened? Is it the lost war? Where is the nation's pride? Huh? Huh, huh, huh?

[ziritrion]

Yeah! And where are the cowboys in America? And the pirates in the Caribbean? (That movie rocked!) And where are all those bullfighters and dancers in Spain that Hemingway wrote about?

Now seriously, have you ever been to Japan? I haven't, but I can tell you one thing: what you just described is happening in all developed countries. It's called "progress". One of the main reasons of civilization is to make everyone's life easier by solving basic needs, so we don't have to worry about them. As time goes by, civilization advances and creates even more commodities. We've now reached a point on which we don't have to worry about getting food or shelter (as long as you have money, of course), and now we have many forms of entertainment, like videogames. Kids have always played with whatever they have at hand, and will always do. Playing with videogames is fun as well as straightforward: you don't have to worry about finding someone else to play with or a proper place: that's why they're so succesful. I'm not saying that playing always with videogames is good: playing outdoors and exercising is very important, so there must be a balance. Actually, I think that Japanese schools have kendo and judo as mandatory classes in 1st grade or so, so they exercise at least a bit. And I'm pretty sure that not everybody likes videogames and do something else. There's a factor called "individuality", which is the ability of someone to decide what to do by himself.

As for the massive industrialization of the country: well, you can always take a look at England. England was the first industrial country in the world and it has suffered a lot of degradation, but that doesn't mean that the whole country is messed up. There are still plenty of fields. The same applies for Japan: the whole country hasn't become like Coruscant, and it's not likely. Technology has advanced more than our ethics, so we haven't found the point yet on which we can have sustainable development, but we're getting close. Every single day we're learning more about living along with nature, and we're becoming more responsible. You're being defeatist.

The art: well, just like languages, new arts are created and old ones die. It's not a good or a bad thing: it's just natural. Music nowadays doesn't look (hear?) at all like music from just 50 years ago. But we still have music. Barroc paintings don't look at all like Romantic paintings. The same thing applies to any other art form: sculpture, architecture, painting (and all kind of visual art), etc... It's just progress. Unluckily, some good forms of art pass away, but that happens everywhere.

You should also bear in mind that the scale of values in Japan is very different than those of other countries. Sometimes their decissions (working for long periods of time) might seem weird or not appropiate, but that doesn't mean that they're wrong. It's just a matter of point of view.

I don't know how Poland is right now, but I can tell you about Spain, and I know that what I just said is happening, and I'm sure that in most countries is happening exactly the same. Progress and the changes that it carries with don't have to be bad at all if you learn to adjust to them. You can't expect to have samurai walking on the streets until the end of time, just like you won't see many druids in northern Spain woods nowadays.

Wow, that was long. Excuse me if I bored you

[takematsu]

The problem (if you want to characterize it that way) is the global media that has let us become aware of Japanese culture in the first place; in past ages, there were so many barriers to the movement of cultural cues that you could have 70 billion regional accents in a dinky place like England. Now, I can learn Japanese without ever meeting a nihonjin (can't prove that I actually KNOW it, of course ), watch a movie from Peru, and eat authentic Thai food, all in my little hovel in the Canadian steppes. Ready communication homogenizes cultures, and it's not just happening to Japan.

BUT, having spent a little bit of time in Japan, and somewhat more in Korea, from the point of view of a North American, despite plenty of Mickey Mouse and Macdonalds crap floating about, there is still definite local flavour to things-- you don't mistake downtown Fukuoka for San Francisco, US or Breda, NL (even when Gamera and Space Godzilla aren't tussling down by the stadium). Even the way the concrete jungle has developed is fairly specific to the nation in question, and there's enough non-concrete to keep things pleasant. I posted some slide shows at this link under a different nom de net-- reels 4 & 5 are around Fukuoka in Japan, the rest are South Korea, and you'll see differences in the way the urban landscape expresses itself. http://www.lowcrats.com/Art/Ernst/korea7.htm

I think that the really obvious difference between cultures will keep slipping as a result of global interaction (hakama v. trousers), but the small differences will be self-sustaining (hashi v. knife'n'fork) through transmission at the family level. After all, the accents of New York seem pretty stable, in the face of the "Melting Pot".

Of course, none of this has a lot to do with Samurai Rabbits...

[goandal]

Great post!

That's all I can say.

[takematsu]

I wanted to add a little bit to what I wrote earlier (good heavens, there's more?!).

I'm a little worried that we're being dismissive of Qion's initial posting; while it's true that what he's concerned about isn't just limited to Japan, it is something that we should all at least pay attention to. I think most countries with a developed history are doing small things to remind themselves of where they came from, so the pictures of neon'n'concrete Japan shouldn't be taken too much to heart. There is hope-- tiny Edo-period-style noodle-houses still lurk down the twisty alleys of the Japanese metropolis.

Of course, the others in this thread should be a little worried that the whole exchange is happening in English; language defines culture, after all (gulp...).

[Guest]

Yeah! And where are the cowboys in America?

In the White House, unfortunately.

And the pirates in the Caribbean?

They moved their operations to off the coast of Thailand.

[ziritrion]

ziritrion wrote:
Yeah! And where are the cowboys in America?


In the White House, unfortunately.

I thought it was funny .

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