@IceCream

A very satisfying response. I have only two things to add:

(1) The mechanism you described is the same by which culture and history are transmitted. Although they should be criticized as you did in your post, societies seem to be built upon meta-narratives. I find it difficult to envision a united society that lacks such meta-narratives. How we approach reality is shaped by meta-narratives, and without having similar fundamental shared meta-narratives, we may as well be living in different worlds. Is it possible to remain a community without these shared narratives, and how so?

(2) Learning of any narrative is bound to influence your judgments if you take it to heart. What makes a less common narrative more valuable or interesting? I assume it's because it shows you a perspective that presents things you took for granted in remarkably new ways. Although it seems like common narratives initially have this effect as well, but may their danger lie in people accepting them without giving thought to alternative narratives? Perhaps my assumptions here wrong, however. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Anyhow, your post was brilliant. Thank you.

@Vileru
From my impressions, the people who have the most balanced world views of the two cultures are the ones who've spent a lot of time in their formative years (though not necessarily childhood) in both cultures. The ones I've met don't parrot off the silly meta-narratives of either community and generally seem well adjusted to either place. Perhaps that sort of fence sitting leaves someone might leave one feeling slightly estranged from both societies, though.

The westerners in these videos about Japan are the ones who have entertaining things to say about it. The well integrated ones to whom Japan is as normal as America or Europe probably wouldn't bother to make or appear in videos about it, so you don't see them. You just hear the same stereotypical things that again and again, as guided by their west-centric world views. Even most Japanese people speak stereotypically about their country because their ideas of how their culture fits into the world are just second hand knowledge as they have no personal experience of alternatives to form their own views.

Hyperborea Wrote:I'll bet your under 25 too. This is the way that banks were in North America until not too long ago. People used to have to slip out on their lunch hour to go to banks that opened at 10am and closed at 3pm and only on Thursday and Friday would be open until 4 or 5pm. Your Japanese coworkers are dealing with this so why don't you ask them how they do it?

Close! I'm 26. It's not actually impossible to live with the inconveniences, but I'm just saying that Japan isn't the convenient heaven that many people think it is. It's just a normal country, and has it's convenience perks and downfalls like any place in the world. So doesn't that mean that we agree? I work in a somewhat remote location on a mountain, so I take half-day nenkyuu to go to the bank, which is what my coworkers do. I also know why there aren't any garbage cans around (and experienced the same in London), but that doesn't change the fact that Japan doesn't always live up to it's magical reputation of convenience.

Hyperborea Wrote:Ahhh, but they get 都北美人 in compensation but I guess from your name that you probably don't care. Actually the Japanese inaka can be pretty nice but it's a lot different from city living. The pace is much slower.

I also agree that the Japanese inaka can be nice! But they're definitely a far cry from the compact urban image many people have of Japan.

@dizmox:
I actually think the people that are the worst to talk to ARE the people that have spent their "formative years" in a country. These are the people that will go to other countries and spend time there and have issues with them and talk about how its so wrong/backwards/problematic and then turn around and go home. And they go home because they feel "home" is better than these other countries. Because you've spent time in your formative years in some place you grow to "accept" these problems and many people treat them as just "it can't be helped" or "thats just how it is" or just completely ignore them. I mean sure, you can complain about small stuff like the lack of strong AC on trains or something like that, but I think most people will see that for what it is which is petty bickering about small annoyances. But there are larger issues but people don't see them or don't care because they grew up with them.

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EDIT:
Something I would like to point out that I kind of like about this documentary; even though many people aren't overly thrilled about it and it seems somewhat "unguided." Many of the people in this film are not people that have been here for 3-4 years. Many of these people in this video have been living in Japan for 20-30 years. Some before the bubble even. So this filmographer is really looking for input from people that have sort of moved through many stages of adaptation to Japanese culture/society.

I meant people who can call both places home though.

And people that have lived here for 10-20 years can't call both home?

I just meant that you're going to get a biased impression if you primarily just listen to people who are culturally foreign to Japan to form your views, for just the reason:

Quote:These are the people that will go to other countries [Japan] and spend time there and have issues with them and talk about how its so wrong/backwards/problematic and then turn around and go home. And they go home because they feel "home" is better than these other countries.

The people in the video seem fine but I imagine a lot of the foreigners who go live in Japan for a while are like this ↑, or at least consider themselves relative outsiders (their views influenced by this mental status). I don't know why one would want to live in Japan with this kind of mindset and it seems best not to contract it from other gaijin.

Honestly the people who I've met who were culturally Japanese and western have seemed to be the most sensible compared to people who just belong to one culture. Being (part) culturally Japanese doesn't render one incapable of critical judgement about Japan and suggesting that only foreigners can give a "balanced" view seems awfully colonialist.

@vileru: Thanks!!! ^_^

hmm, i'm not sure if i can answer adequately this time though. Those questions are difficult ones...

Firstly, about (1). Yes, i think it's impossible to remain a community without shared narratives (although, just to be pedantic, i think an awful lot of culture isn't passed on in narrative form at all). The basic function of language itself is to allow for that - what we do when we give something a name is simply to create a shared narrative on a very basic level. By creating and sharing narratives we can change behaviour, solve problems, and move society forward. But we can also bring about the opposite of that, depending on the narrative. When narratives stagnate, society also tends to, i think.

About (2), yes, i agree with all of that. At one point, that documentary would have been more interesting to me, because it would have had lots of narratives that i hadn't heard before. But i doubt it would ever have been one of my favourite documentaries on Japan, despite also having many nice points about it.

That's because newness of a narrative is only one aspect that makes it interesting. i think there's lots of aspects that can influence how much you enjoy one narrative or set of narratives over another.

Certainly, one of them is how much it can make you see things in new ways. Another is by connecting various facts together to create connections and links in people's minds that they might not have considered before - again, it doesn't really have anything to do with the truth (see Adam Curtis documentaries for a great example of this). Self awareness that they are presenting a narrative generally makes it more interesting to me. Take the John Pilger documentary i presented earlier. I went back, wondering why i liked that video so much more than the other one. And i realised that the cultural narratives being used are being used in a very self aware manner... he is using the imagery as a metaphor to tie together various concepts rather than stating "hey this is Japan". The rest of the narratives, historical, social, and so on, are the same. He presents an overall picture that is coherent and interesting. So it has a lot more depth, and comes across as a thoughtful documentary.

Really good narratives tend to inspire your imagination and aesthetic sense, i think. i can't count the number of books i've read where i can't remember what might have gone on in the book at all, and therefore can't necessarily create a narrative about it, but i can remember as clear as anything the atmosphere of it, and how i felt reading it. A really good story moves beyond itself, and beyond words, to a kind of understanding that is different, for me, at least, and hard to describe.

One last thing i can think of, is that on the level of the type of narratives given in that program, i like them to be deeply personal. The narratives you ascribe to do, and should, say a lot about yourself as a person. Narratives about yourself and about the external world are linked, and play off against each other. You can learn a lot about a person by the types of stories they tell themselves about the world and themselves, which is always interesting to some extent to me. So, i liked those parts of the interviews where there were more personal touches to the narratives, like the man who gave back the bag he found, or the woman who said that there's a comfort in knowing your own place that you don't necessarily find in a society where people identify having a strong personal identity as important (or something like that). That last one, i suppose, because it's interesting beyond a statement about Japan. Anyway, there are times when i've met people with such incredibly different narratives about things to my own, that i've found really beautiful and surprising, but generally it's when it feels like that narrative reflects something really at the core of that person, rather than something parroted.

On the other hand, though there is a time and a place for narratives like that (conversation, perhaps), i do think that this personal-ness can also be expressed in a documentary in a much better way than people directly saying stuff. I felt like i connected much more with an aspect of Japan in "Japan, a story of love and hate", because it's so intensely personal. Again, it leaves a deeper impression, like i was speaking about about the books above.

agh, i think i've mixed up narrative and meta-narrative in this reply, but i can't be bothered to go back now, i'm sure you get what i mean. Sorry for the rambliness of this response hahah.

The video was removed :/
@IceCream Wow, that's a huge post!

undead_saif Wrote:The video was removed :/
@IceCream Wow, that's a huge post!

I'm going to try to find "the Century of the Self". It sounds really interesting, Freud and consumerism/democracy as control. I'll take note of Bernays' skill at weaving ideas in unexpected ways. And I'll do the same for Pilger and his self-awareness. Thanks, @IceCream.

The Documentary is not available anymore.
Has anyone taken a copy of that?
I am going to request the youtube user PetriStorlopare to re upload the video.
Please you too do the same so that the user might upload the video.
Thank You!

undead_saif Wrote:The video was removed :/

The Official website for the Documentary has a Download option.
The site says (dated on 18 of this month)that re-editing process is going on and hopefully available in a month.
Check PetriStorlopare's account or the website after a month or so.
I hope it will be available then.

pras92 Wrote:

undead_saif Wrote:The video was removed :/

The Official website for the Documentary has a Download option.
The site says (dated on 18 of this month)that re-editing process is going on and hopefully available in a month.
Check PetriStorlopare's account or the website after a month or so.
I hope it will be available then.

Thanks! that was indeed helpful!

undead_saif Wrote:Thanks! that was indeed helpful!

You're Welcome.

IceCream Wrote:As far as i'm aware, convictions are rarely based on circumstantial evidence, but on confessions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_ju...estigation

http://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#arrested

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