What This Week’s Anime Taught Me About Japan and Life
May 11, 2011
In Japan, they keep their changing booths very clean:
In Japan, their cows are alien creatures:
In Japan, they take the saying “Eyes are the window of the soul,” literally:
In Japan, shark beats paper, rock, and scissors:
In Japan, they learn a version of English known as Engrish. Seldom correct, it’s still more coherent then Charlie Sheen:
In Japan, they expect physics to apply in their cartoons:
In Japan, all young girls are geniuses and can build robots that can pass the Turing Test:
In Japan, they still like Snoopy:
And finally, in Japan, they believe less skin equals more win. (Not that I really blame them in this case.) :
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Japanese grammar is based upon particles between words rather than conjugations of the word itself.
Thus people who aren’t adept at utilizing English grammar will default back to their Japanese roots and say things like “Ze Crown” as one noun. English particles make no sense in the Japanese language and the Japanese particles do not translate into English grammar very well.
Addendum: The Japanese call the US, Gashu (the act of uniting or being united) or simply America. Since combination was presented in Fusion Dragon Ball Z and almost an entire universe of mecha series has small robots combining into a great giant robot that now mows enemies down, it’s an interesting look upon exactly what they are thinking here.
The Japanese have 3 significantly different factors from the US.
1. They have kouban, distributed network single occupant police stations, to deter or stop crime. Citizens are encouraged to seek those out in order to prevent 10 minute police response times we often see in the US. 10 minutes is more than long enough for criminals to get the job done.
2. They still expect males to escort and protect females from dangers.
3. They consider it common sense for women to avoid dangerous activities such as dressing like a prostitute while alone and in dark, uncivilized, places.
In the US, however.
1. We have guns. The Japanese call us the Gun Society of the World. Of course, we know that’s only true for certain places in America. It’s not true for Detroit, Chicago, or New Orleans. Nor for MS13′s Los Angeles, San Fran, or Maine. Chicago attempts to use the centralized police authority of Japan, but with neither the passion, compassion, care, efficient, or lack of corruption (civic awareness and duty). The police in Chicago have a bright idea of how to deal with thefts. They tell the complainers to just give the criminals their stuff and nothing bad will happen.
2. The Japanese have feminists, but they imported it from us. So we’re the base for feminism. And feminism says that the Japanese are rather chauvinistic and primitive on this aspect. Since the Japanese are considered highly cultured/civilized and feminists are often ignorant of true multicultural knowledge, this never really comes up in public debates.
3. While the Japanese consider it common sense for a woman to recognize the benefits and disadvantages of doing dangerous things as opposed to taking it safe, we here in America, specifically Boston, had a Slut protest march in order to take back the word, after a Canadian police officer said that women would be better off not dressing like sluts if they wished to avoid rape.
Not to say whether those are good or bad, but it’s an interesting set of contrasts.
The Japanese still respect adults since adults are expected to be responsible. In the US, our version of being an adult is looking more and more like a knock off from Hollywood’s dysfunctional family programs and 100% drug addicted and booze addled actors. Children do not respect “adults” like those since children don’t expect those “adults” to be able to keep their promises, be calm under pressure, or anything “cool” or “useful” even. In Japan, adults are supposed to provide guidance to their juniors, thus the point of obeying one’s elders is to benefit from their experience. Well, if one’s elders were from the 60s and they spent their entire life racking up the “wisdom” of the ages through snorting cocaine and whiffing the Bong High, it’s a little bit hard then to say that I should obey them because they are older and wiser than me.
The Japanese like to make jokes about mass media, which sounds like “mass communications”. It’s not much different from what Heartland Americans think of our media.
I mostly learned that the Japanese have an interesting history of producing mighty female warriors in select quantities. They used to do so during the Era of the Samurai, but now they do so utilizing anime and writing. Strangely enough, they still recognize that girls are girls and that boys are boys. With all the weaknesses and strengths inherent in such definitions.
Another thing I learned is that the Japanese writers do epic heroic sagas better than anything I have yet to see in English. Perhaps the original readers of the Illiad and of Beowulf could feel in their blood the pride and power of such heroes, but time has diminished all things of mortal descent. Including human literature and history. The Japanese have taken a fresh, though traditional, view of the hero, and that’s mighty interesting in this modern era of decadence and self-obsessed pleasure seeking.
Correction, they don’t expect “males” to do so. They expect men, “otoko”, to do so in 2. A difference of several meanings.
Correction2: Correct spelling is gasshuu (koku). It’s mighty difficult to phonetically spell out words in a language that doesn’t even have the English alphabet as one of their 3 official alphabets.
Gashu is elegance or artist. Sounds similar to geisha.
Ha, this article is full of win.
Then again, most of the anime in this are pretty watchable.
And to the user above, I guess that learning languages can be confusing and difficult to utilize, but that’s the purpose of learning. I don’t think that people should simply say they can’t speak something because it goes against the grammar rules of their own language. Sure, it might be tough, but don’t most people expect proper grammar if talking to others?
Give this article a whirl. It’s an interesting read. I review other anime as well.
http://aniphiles.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/hana-saku-iroha-episode-6/
I LOVE IT. LOVE IT. And Snoopy was in TWGOK? YESSSSSSsssss! Forget Japan, I still love Snoopy!
Speaking a language and writing in it are two different skill sets.
The harder skill to learn requires more time and dedication, but it doesn’t mean they are unable to speak it. Japanese students are given a comprehensive English learning course starting from relatively early and it is a mandatory subject rather than an elective. Thus their skill level equates, in high school, to that of an American publicly educated (meaning poorly educated in reading and writing). To say that many youth educated recently can only speak Engrish would assume they know Japanese, which they do not. Their only language is English yet it is comparable to the English the Japanese can use in writing. Not Engrish, but close. Given the numerous usage of English words in Japanese katakana, the Japanese do have a good grasp of English vocabulary. That does not automatically confer upon them grammatical rules and comprehension.
As a note, the Japanese are not saying so, I am saying so as a note of objective analysis. The Japanese are aware of this so they tend to keep quiet and avoid long sentences, because they can understand but they cannot replicate it correctly. Recently their Engrish has improved to the point where it isn’t 90% incomprehensible. Which 10 years ago, it was. I surmise that this is due to a greater number of Japanese youths who have been reading English websites and learning how to communicate, on the web, via English. That and earlier maturation processes for English language courses. The Japanese should have figured out a few tricks in getting English rules impressed upon the youth.
I also get a hint that the people they hire to write Engrish, are not their best English writers and speakers. Their best English writers and speakers are doing something that pays more, I would assume. Like corporate negotiation overseas or working overseas.
I also have this sneaking suspicion that they use English not to talk to English speakers, but to other Japanese speakers. Much as we quote literature and Hamlet, it’s not because we want to speak to Old English speakers but because we wish to appear urbane and cultured.
English is a hard language for the Japanese to learn, thus someone that can use English words and make sentences can look rather distinguished to the masses of Japanese who are horrible at English grammar.
It is quite true that the Japanese use regular day English words as a part of their vernacular language in everyday conversation. That’s also true in Sweden, by the way. It is very strange when you first hear it. And it is also a joke. Because a lot of Japanese are bad at English grammar, so correcting them on it is a sort of national joke line.