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Cultural cringe in Japan? - ropsta - 2010-10-10
長過ぎ
0.0
Cultural cringe in Japan? - masaman - 2010-10-10
IceCream Wrote:It's weird, isn't it... I mean, it's the translation given in J-E dictionaries too, but when it's used in contexts like this, it really does give connotations that aren't very helpful to understanding history. Perhaps "thugs" would have been better. ；）It may not even be anything negative. At least in 時代劇 "南蛮渡来の (from 南蛮)" is a synonym for "novel". Of course it is just 時代劇, but it may have some truth in it. When Japanese in fact wanted to condemn westerners for their "barbaric" invasions, they used 夷, instead of 蛮.
南蛮 is a name for southern (west or south west from Japan) tribes. And ancient Chinese people considered them barbaric. Like Goth was a name for northern tribes for Romans, which Romans considered barbarians, and Gothic was once a synonym for barbaric. Slav is derived from a Latin word for slaves but I don't think English speaking people today consider Russians slaves. I definitely don't mean that when I use the word.
J-J dictionaries don't say 南蛮 means/meant barbarians or it is/was a disparaging word. Maybe J-E dictionaries need some update? 漢字 sometimes create interesting situations and even if Japanese today don't think Americans have blue eyeballs, there are still many misunderstandings in both sides. I find E-J dictionaries awful sometimes too, and don't use them very much. There are very good entries too though.
Cultural cringe in Japan? - vonPeterhof - 2010-10-10
masaman Wrote:Slav is derived from a Latin word for slaves but I don't think English speaking people today consider Russians slaves.It was the other way round. The Classical Latin word for slave is servus, which is the origin of both "serf" and "servant". Sclavus is a Medieval Latin word, which came into use because people from Slavic tribes were so frequently enslaved by both Latins and Germanics. The word "Slav" comes from the Proto-Slavic word slovo which means "word" or "speech" (the Slavs referred to themselves as Slovene, "the speaking ones", as opposed to Germanics, whom they called Nemtsy, "the mute ones"; in most modern Slavic languages this word still refers to Germans), although some claim that it is derived from the word slava, which means "glory".
Cultural cringe in Japan? - masaman - 2010-10-10
vonPeterhof Wrote:My explanation wasn't good enough, and to be honest, I'm not an expert on the matter, so thanks for chipping in.masaman Wrote:Slav is derived from a Latin word for slaves but I don't think English speaking people today consider Russians slaves.It was the other way round. The Classical Latin word for slave is servus, which is the origin of both "serf" and "servant". Sclavus is a Medieval Latin word, which came into use because people from Slavic tribes were so frequently enslaved by both Latins and Germanics. The word "Slav" comes from the Proto-Slavic word slovo which means "word" or "speech" (the Slavs referred to themselves as Slovene, "the speaking ones", as opposed to Germanics, whom they called Nemtsy, "the mute ones"; in most modern Slavic languages this word still refers to Germans), although some claim that it is derived from the word slava, which means "glory".
南蛮 seems to be a name for a type of tribes. And Chinese considered them barbarians, so 蛮 is often used in the context where it means barbaric. This is exactly the same situation as Slav started to mean slaves and Gothic was used to describe barbaric things. Now the 漢字 蛮 has 虫 in it so it's technically not really a nice 漢字, but it happens all the time. And this is peculiar to 漢字. Native users of 漢字 don't get worked up with it as much as the learners I guess. I remember somebody posted that 漢字 is very misogynic, but I don't think even the majority of Japanese females feel that way. Yeah when you think about it, maybe. But it's like digging up all the historical meanings of an English word and its root. I think it's just 漢字 is ideograph and each character creates more graphic, close to home imagery in our brains sometimes. If I was a person with Slav origin, it would probably be disturbing for me to deliberate on the fact that at some point of the time Slav was considered slaves, but that's just history, and pretty much all the cultures have considered, at some point of the time, other cultures less than them. I don't think I will be all worked up with a tiny historical detail. I think the most important thing is how the users intend to use a word, not the arcane root meanings of it.
Cultural cringe in Japan? - masaman - 2010-10-12
Finally finished reading it
@nest0r
I don't agree with the view that pre Meiji restoration Japan lacked scientific, empirical thinking and it imported them from the West. The article present the view that western ideas were the only scientific ones and Japanese didn't import them in the 17th century. But back then, western science was not overwhelmingly superior to Japanese, nor their way of thinking was more logical. It was the time when westerners were still burning heathens on the stakes and believed in witches. The article repeatedly mentions how Japanese lacked mathematics, but it failed to acknowledge the existence of Wazen 和算 in Edo era which invented calculus about the same time Newton lived. It also says that "Surgery would not develop very far in a culture where patients were conscious and unanesthetized." when in fact, the first surgery under anesthesia (breast cancer extraction) was performed in 1804 by Hanaoka Seishu, 42 years before westerners, and 100s of anesthetized surgeries followed it.
Of course, the technological advancement was not as great as the one in the west at large, but considering the size of the population and the geological factors, it was quite an achievement, and it is not feasible that the Japanese way of thinking lacked "empirical observation, controlled experiment, and mathematical modeling" and Japan imported the very idea of "scientific mode of thinking" only 150 years ago.
Likewise, Nishida's philosophy does not seem to be the product of the import of the western ideas either. I didn't know his theory but anybody who knows anything about Zen would immediately pick up the similarity between his ideas presented in the article and Zen beliefs/philosophy. 縁起, 色即是空, 実我 無我, These words instantly came up in my mind. And didn't the Zen master said this already in the 13th century?
"the fish is correct to see the ocean as a translucent emerald palace. The human being far out at sea is correct to see the ocean as a great circle. The celestial deities are correct to see the ocean as shining like a string of jewels in the sunlight. They are incorrect only if they claim that their view is the only correct view."
Einstein proved this is right.
Japan did have it's own science and sophisticated social system before Maiji restoration and it just imported the industrial revolution and the social system that supported it as a package. Wazanka 和算家 became mathematicians and engineers, Zengakusya 禅学者 became philosophers, Ryougaesyou 両替商 became banks, and Samurai became civil servants. Although its science and social system were of very different origin from western ones, the foundation for accepting industrial revolution was already there. That's why Japan became one of the world biggest powers in just 70 years after Meiji restoration. It was not a miracle, imo.
Cultural cringe in Japan? - nest0r - 2010-10-12
Yeah that's the stuff I skipped over--I really wasn't interested in the attempts to codify the differences between 'East' and 'West' in Neo-Confucian terms (especially as regards scientific thinking, because then we get into 'scientific stereotypes': http://www.zcommunications.org/scientific-stereotypes-east-and-west-by-andrew-dewit). Thus I was mostly interested in the stuff like so:
"For that reason, there has been no prominent modern Jap-
anese philosophy of "decolonization" as there has been in twentieth-
century Indian, African, Islamic, and (to a lesser extent) Chinese thought... " or "The second condition for developing a taste for the foreign was also
clearly present-a respect for the foreign culture."
There were probably a handful of places like that that mirrored stuff I'd been referencing including 'Giving up the Gun', so I wanted to share that as a similar train of thought that I found surprising touched on every turn of this thread--the rest of it I pasted in as it's a nice launchpad for the kind of fascinating analysis you just did, a sort of comparative analysis in the vein of Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions' -- the latter form of critical project is something the essay mentions, so it's on the right track... I've seen some interesting books out there on the history of science in Japan that I'd definitely read over the essay posted here. ;p
Cultural cringe in Japan? - masaman - 2010-10-13
nest0r Wrote:Yeah that's the stuff I skipped over--まじで？ :O
nest0r Wrote:"For that reason, there has been no prominent modern Jap-This I think is so true. I don't know if it is exactly a respect, but Japanese people have always been fascinated about foreign things for at least 1400 years.
anese philosophy of "decolonization" as there has been in twentieth-
century Indian, African, Islamic, and (to a lesser extent) Chinese thought... " or "The second condition for developing a taste for the foreign was also
clearly present-a respect for the foreign culture."
nest0r Wrote:Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions' -- the latter form of critical project is something the essay mentions, so it's on the right track... I've seen some interesting books out there on the history of science in Japan that I'd definitely read over the essay posted here. ;pIt sounds like my next post will be next year if I follow all of what you have mentioned. What you post is long enough for me. I used to think IceCream's posts were really long, but I guess they were nothing
Cultural cringe in Japan? - Whatsifsowhatsit - 2010-12-24
bodhisamaya Wrote:+2chair Wrote:+1Jarvik7 Wrote:Nationalism is a personality defect...
Cultural cringe in Japan? - thecite - 2010-12-25
+3
Cultural cringe in Japan? - thecite - 2010-12-25
Hmm, Australia's first. Not sure if that's good or bad :S
Edit: Although I don't know anyone particularly racist or discriminatory, you do get your occasional redneck, or 'bogan' as we call them here, who are racist. To say that in general Australians are racist or insensitive is very inaccurate IMO.
Cultural cringe in Japan? - Gingerninja - 2010-12-25
Since someones bumped this.. I'll chip in with something recent.
In my Japanese society and social class (which as you imagine is a 90 minute heckle about Japan in which the Japanese students sit and grit their teeth) We have to write a 10 page literary review and could pick our own topic... so i picked Japans crime rate in comparison with other first world nations.
we had to also do interviews...
and well where to start, getting straight answers from japanese people in either Japanese or English was damned difficult. Asking the question why are other countries different, the issue of mixed race popped up a lot, asking what could be improved about Japan.. met with blank looks. The younger people i asked (read students) couldn't think of a thing to criticize Japan about or improve, regardless of how i asked the question.. or how many times i prodded them with my pen because they'd kinda of talk about stuff and then wander off topic and not answer the question.
So from my research as an undergrad into Japanese society, i have found in my own interviews and readings so far, that while they may not come across patriotic, they certainly won't say anything bad either. Thinking back i should have a Japanese friend ask similar questions too, to rule out the theory that maybe they just didn't want to bad mouth Japan to a foreigner, but I can only speculate on that on.