Why is Japan obsessed with how overseas people see it?

[nagoid 4]

I often find this mad. Just on the news now about sumo and one of the first things they said was that it was being picked up by foreign media and people overseas are finding out about it.

 

Same with the World Cup. Tons of coverage on "what people overseas" think of Japan, or what overseas media are saying about the Japan team.

 

I often hear stuff like that.

 

What's with this obsession?

[bobby12 0]

Its like how small town media reprint/rebroadcast footage of when their small town appeared in the mainstream news. We exist!!!

[BagOfCrisps 24]

Is there some pride, or inferiority, of superiority thoughts going on?

[scouser 4]

Don't know but they do seem obsessed with it.

[Go Native 70]

Not sure but lets face it Japan is one of the most insular countries on the planet, at least for a modern industrialised nation. Most take very little interest in what's going on in the world outside of Japan so I guess it really surprises them when the world takes an interest in what's going on within it.

[gerard 6]

Inferiority/superiority complex. Japan is obsessed with ideas of 'Japaneseness'. On the subject of nihonjiron (the quazi-academic genre of theories of Japaneseness):

 

Originally Posted By: wikipedia

The term Nihonjinron (日本人論) literally means theories/discussions about the Japanese. The term refers to a genre of texts that focuses on issues of Japanese national and cultural identity. The literature is vast, ranging over such varied fields as sociology, psychology, history, linguistics, philosophy, and even science. Though published predominantly in Japan by Japanese, noted examples of the genre have also been penned by foreign scholars, journalists and residents.

 

The term itself came into vogue after World War II to describe books and articles that aim to analyze, explain, or divagate on the putative peculiarities of Japanese culture and mentality, above all by comparison with foreign countries, especially Europe and the United States. However Asian countries increasingly figure in recent works. Such texts share a general vision of what constitutes the uniqueness of Japan, and the term nihonjinron can be employed to refer to this outlook.

On a more critical note:

Originally Posted By: wikipedia

Scholars such as Peter N. Dale (1986), Harumi Befu (1987), and Kosaku Yoshino (1992) view nihonjinron more critically, identifying it as a tool for enforcing social and political conformity. Dale, for example, characterizes nihonjinron as follows:

 

"First, they implicitly assume that the Japanese constitute a culturally and socially homogeneous racial entity, whose essence is virtually unchanged from prehistoric times down to the present day. Secondly, they presuppose that the Japanese differ radically from all other known peoples. Thirdly, they are conspicuously nationalistic, displaying a conceptual and procedural hostility to any mode of analysis which might be seen to derive from external, non-Japanese sources. In a general sense then, nihonjinron may be defined as works of cultural nationalism concerned with ostensible 'uniqueness' of Japan in any aspect, and which are hostile to both individual experience and the notion of internal socio-historical diversity."

[pie-eater 207]

The obsession is quaintly amusing at times, until you read what ger put.

[Jynxx 4]

Understandable when faced with the American Aryan principles in cahoot with christian missionaries, and historically learning from the fate of those that suffered most. Americans Indians, Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines.

At least Islam and Japanese have somethings in common dealing with Aryan foreign policy.

 

This Nikonjin-Ron is not something new.

You can go back to the 4 A.D to Kojiki, Nikonshoki and learn that the Japanese mythology had been created by the china-descended emperor to justify rulership claiming god of the heavenly fighting 800 odd gods of the land, etc .. establishing civilization ...

What I see is the motive, reaction to facing different values, which undermines the essence of what people considers their moral social fabric, and status quo.

[brit-gob 9]

Whats that in English Jynxx?

 

[thursday 1]

better put it in babelfish.

[Jynxx 4]

 

Yeah, I said I can understand it, but loads of crap including that of the critics.

I'll tell you something from 30 years ago "Nikonjin-Ron"

They were debating whether the Japanese should take active leadership within the non-white, non-wasp societies or maintain the token honorary aryan position- extending the definition of Japanese to those 3rd GEn Japanese-Americans.

Tell that to them, they will laugh at that or be offended for sure.

The point was that USA was a racist society back then, and that the japanese should aspire to be the leader of the minority race.

There has always been a racial inferiority complex for sure.

(and to do with the size of the dick cos they pride about the hardness, and laugh about french).

[ShinyDiscoBall 2]

Originally Posted By: Jynxx

There has always been a racial inferiority complex for sure.
(and to do with the size of the dick cos they pride about the hardness, and laugh about french).

?!

[thursday 1]

OK Jynxx, how you know about French dicks?