Japanowama
Oct. 25th, 2006 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusOscar Wilde, who was right about almost everything, once said: "In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people."
He was certainly almost right about that. And, in the absence of an objective Japan, half the world (including the Japanese) expends a great deal of effort inventing versions of the place, then trying to convince the other half that the place they're creating really exists.
Let's say you're an anglophone and you want to understand Japan. Who do you turn to? Who do you trust? Who can put it all into English for you? Forget me (I don't speak the language), forget Marxy (he thought those silly Zuiikin Japanese calisthenics language learning videos were real). No, here's your man:
The name's Woss, Jonathan Woss, and he's a British television presenter. Actually, his name is Ross, but, as he self-deprecatingly points out in Japanorama, his two-series survey of Japanese pop culture for the BBC, the Japanese are not the only ones who have trouble pronouncing their Rs. Be aware, as you YouTube through this stuff in 6 minute slices, that Woss' speech impediment once made him say (in Asian Invasion, his gory survey of Asian film) that one of his interviewees "wanks amongst the best of his genewation".
I can't bring myself to dislike Woss. As a Bowiephile and Japanophile, he's obviously a man of my own stwipe. And, by some odd quirk (mainly because I was dating a Smash Hits journalist who got free tickets) I happened to be in the studio audience for his very first television show, The Last Resort, back in 198 -- well, the date is iwwelevant, weally. Series 1 of Japanorama was made back in 2002. Series 2 is currently screening, and you can find clips here.
What interests me is just how British Japanorama's Japanophilia is. Here, the UK looks at Japan and sees its own future; gadget-driven, marketing-crazy, sex-mad, ultra-violent.
Another BBC documentary series, Sex in Japan, reminds us that there aren't just two parties involved in admiring British examinations of Japan, though. At least, not when you watch them on YouTube. YouTube, you see, is an American service. And although you can watch Part 1 of the BBC documentary -- learning, for instance, that in Japan "sex and the naked body are seen as something beautiful and to be openly enjoyed" -- you can't watch Part 2, because "the second part was rejected (content inappropriate) by YouTube". You'll also search in vain for Episode 3 of the first series of Japanorama; the Sex Episode. Although the BBC considered it appropriate to show its viewers, YouTube didn't. "Japanorama approaches the subject of Japanese sexuality in a way that only the frank British media could expose," says Pulsing Cinema in its episode guide.
This isn't, then, a simple matter of two nations admiring (and constructing) each other. A third is present, mediating the relationship, watching, listening... and, when it disapproves, silencing.
He was certainly almost right about that. And, in the absence of an objective Japan, half the world (including the Japanese) expends a great deal of effort inventing versions of the place, then trying to convince the other half that the place they're creating really exists.
Let's say you're an anglophone and you want to understand Japan. Who do you turn to? Who do you trust? Who can put it all into English for you? Forget me (I don't speak the language), forget Marxy (he thought those silly Zuiikin Japanese calisthenics language learning videos were real). No, here's your man:
The name's Woss, Jonathan Woss, and he's a British television presenter. Actually, his name is Ross, but, as he self-deprecatingly points out in Japanorama, his two-series survey of Japanese pop culture for the BBC, the Japanese are not the only ones who have trouble pronouncing their Rs. Be aware, as you YouTube through this stuff in 6 minute slices, that Woss' speech impediment once made him say (in Asian Invasion, his gory survey of Asian film) that one of his interviewees "wanks amongst the best of his genewation".
I can't bring myself to dislike Woss. As a Bowiephile and Japanophile, he's obviously a man of my own stwipe. And, by some odd quirk (mainly because I was dating a Smash Hits journalist who got free tickets) I happened to be in the studio audience for his very first television show, The Last Resort, back in 198 -- well, the date is iwwelevant, weally. Series 1 of Japanorama was made back in 2002. Series 2 is currently screening, and you can find clips here.
What interests me is just how British Japanorama's Japanophilia is. Here, the UK looks at Japan and sees its own future; gadget-driven, marketing-crazy, sex-mad, ultra-violent.
Another BBC documentary series, Sex in Japan, reminds us that there aren't just two parties involved in admiring British examinations of Japan, though. At least, not when you watch them on YouTube. YouTube, you see, is an American service. And although you can watch Part 1 of the BBC documentary -- learning, for instance, that in Japan "sex and the naked body are seen as something beautiful and to be openly enjoyed" -- you can't watch Part 2, because "the second part was rejected (content inappropriate) by YouTube". You'll also search in vain for Episode 3 of the first series of Japanorama; the Sex Episode. Although the BBC considered it appropriate to show its viewers, YouTube didn't. "Japanorama approaches the subject of Japanese sexuality in a way that only the frank British media could expose," says Pulsing Cinema in its episode guide.
This isn't, then, a simple matter of two nations admiring (and constructing) each other. A third is present, mediating the relationship, watching, listening... and, when it disapproves, silencing.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 04:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-10-24 04:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 04:40 pm (UTC)Is my country really doing that? I guess so. Japan is linked to the United States in many ways. The process you describe happens in video games, also. The game is developed and released in Japan, then the American version is produced. The European version is designed from the American. Because of localization, every game released in Europe passes through an American cultural filter, first.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 04:51 pm (UTC)Wilde was making the point that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life"--in other words, it is artists who invent life:
The Japanese people are the deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual artists. If you set a picture by Hokusai, or Hokkei, or any of the great native painters, beside a real Japanese gentleman or lady, you will see that there is not the slightest resemblance between them. The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them. In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.... And so, if you desire to see a Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and go to Tokio. On the contrary, you will stay at home and steep yourself in the work of certain Japanese artists, and then, when you have absorbed the spirit of their style, and caught their imaginative manner of vision, you will go some afternoon and sit in the Park or stroll down Piccadilly, and if you cannot see an absolutely Japanese effect there, you will not see it anywhere.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 08:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 11:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 05:19 pm (UTC)paris syndrome
Date: 2006-10-24 05:32 pm (UTC)msnbc.msn.com/id/15391010/?GT1=8618
it's a story about the so-called "paris syndrome," where japanese tourists who've had such an ideal image of the french capital finally travel there only to find rude citizens, forboding customer service and the like... consequently they suffer nervous breakdowns of sorts and require psychiatric care back in japan.
have you ever heard of such a thing in your travels?
Re: paris syndrome
Date: 2006-10-24 08:24 pm (UTC)Re: paris syndrome
Date: 2006-10-24 10:20 pm (UTC)Re: paris syndrome
Date: 2006-10-24 10:58 pm (UTC)Re: paris syndrome
Date: 2006-10-25 07:42 pm (UTC)"Bridge and tunnel", indeed.
When I was in London everyone thought I was his wife Jane Goldman
Date: 2006-10-24 05:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 07:29 pm (UTC)Good thing, though, because otherwise I couldn't spend two hours laughing at it and embarrassing my roommate.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-10-24 08:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 09:12 pm (UTC)But only on YouTube.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 09:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-10-25 03:56 am (UTC)Obviously the "other" Japanarama DVDs represent the BBC not being able to or not wanting to bother enforcing against trademark violations.
As to Americans and Rs and Ws, that speech impediment is intertwined with over 60 years of Elmer Fudd and his other Warner friends, most of which have one of their own.
As for the show, I've seen all 6 of the original ones before youtube. Clearly the point is a "mondo" look at Japanese pop culture and I think he does an appreciable job doing that. I'm sure I learned some odds and ends and didn't expect and didn't find anything profound in them. I appreciated them much more than those shallow but seemingly promising you something companion shows like "Sex in Japan" or even worse "Music in Japan" with it's explanation of how Hiki might just be the future of Japanese music.
nick
technopop.info
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 07:00 am (UTC)Best thing I've heard for yonks.
sing a ching a ling
Date: 2006-10-25 07:38 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih2OmajWfNE
yrs
www.psouper.co.uk
Re: sing a ching a ling/Bowie Triv.
Date: 2006-10-25 12:32 pm (UTC)Ching-a-ling I recall from a bootleg I owned at one stage.
Interesting that it has the same backing vocal as Saviour Machine.
Also interesting that Move On from Lodger has the b. vocals from All The Young Dudes played backwards.
Hermione Farthingale wasn't much in the face.
Re: sing a ching a ling/Bowie Triv.
Date: 2006-10-25 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 03:31 pm (UTC)I feel the need to mention Alex Cox for no particular reason.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 06:18 pm (UTC)