Honors tokyo 2017
A Guide to Getting Lost in Tokyo
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This first week of studying abroad in Japan has been both exhilarating and exhausting as I’ve been trying to adjust to navigating the subway and metro systems, and living by myself. Almost every day, we leave in the morning to go explore an entirely new area. Between class excursions and the traveling that I’ve been doing independently for research and for fun, I’ve covered almost every major corner of Tokyo already. Throughout all this traveling, I’ve come to realize how important communication is, and what a crucial role technology plays in all our lives. I’ve found myself relying on my smartphone for almost everything now; it’s the only link between me and all my loved ones while I’m on the other side of the globe, and it’s also my main source of information. . .
Shin-Okubo is commonly known as “Koreatown”, but after walking through it today, it’s clear that there’s way more than Korean bits in the city. On one hand, the main street is like wannabe Korea on steroids, but if you go even a couple feet into the smaller streets, immediately the setting changes to that of a suburban place rather than the urban street that Shin-Okubo is likely known for. As soon as I exited Shin-Okubo station, there were crowds of teenage girls, most still in their school uniforms, crowding toward the shops crammed with all features of stereotypical markers of Korean culture and products. Almost every shop had some aspect of Kpop (Korean pop music), whether it be playing music in the background, shamelessly blasting it at the front door, racks of merchandise, or even cardboard cutouts of idols advertising products. Alongside Kpop, there were also many shops with Korean beauty products, like face masks, or even combinations of these staples of pop culture. All this is to be expected, but it was very interesting to observe the community-ness and tightness of this mini-Korea. After squeezing my way through about a mile along this crowded road, I immediately noticed when the main portion of ‘Koreatown’ ended since people on the street became sparse. It wasn’t a gradual fading out of the bustle, but a very stark contrast, which signals a very defined space for the community of fans of the Hallyu wave (Korean media, i.e. Kpop, Kdrama). . . A week ago, I had decided to pursue research about the influences of Japanese media, specifically anime culture, on younger generations. After having explored Japan for a few days, I’ve realized that this topic is way too broad, especially since there are so many forms of anime media. In addition to simply the anime shows, there’re cosplay events, which basically bring anime into real life, and there are also various products that are marketed relating to anime. Now, I’m interested in digging deeper into how anime merchandise is marketed, and to what demographics anime targets in Japan. In addition, I want to analyze how anime is used to market other products, such as when they are in advertisements, or in street art. Thanks to my check-in with Julie, I’ve managed to narrow down this vast topic, and I hope to later discover a more specific aspect of anime marketing and advertisements that I want to tackle. For now, I’m planning to visit Akihabara, the anime capital of Japan, and see what details catch my eye. 😊
Reflection on :
● Jeff Kingston, Japan’s Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil Society in the Twenty-First Century (2004), pp. 225-256. ● Watch Spirited Away (2001) ● Andrew Yang, "The Two Japans of 'Spirited Away'," International Journal of Comic Art (2010), pp. 435-452. After reading all the articles assigned thus far, one message has become clear: national identity is fluid and constantly affected in many different aspects. For instance, in Precarious Japan, Anne Allison stresses the impact that familial structures and the current Japanese work ethic has on shaping the identity of people both within the home, and outside with what ‘Japaneseness’ means. In addition to family, Kingston mentions in Japan’s Quiet Transformation that events like the World Cup in 2002 also contributed to changes in Japan’s views on international affairs due to its somewhat controversial collaboration with South Korea. Along with shifting viewpoints, Japan’s unexpected favorable participation in the 2002 World Cup created feelings of “shared exuberance, pride, and community” among the Japanese, which pulled together a more cohesive identity within the nation (Kingston 249). Due to the effect that this type of pop cultural event evidently had on forming identity, I am interested in researching more deeply into how Japan’s usage of media and pop culture influence the creation and changing of ‘national identity’ and what it means to be Japanese as a whole. Specifically, I’m drawn to the effects of Japanese anime and manga due to the ever-expanding anime pop culture. As Andrew Yang states in the beginning of “The Two Japans of ‘Spirited Away’”, anime has even become a global franchise and has the potential to (or maybe has already) altered perceptions of national identity not only regarding what it means to be Japanese, but what ‘Japaneseness’ means to foreigners... Reflection on:
In Precarious Japan, Allison stresses the influence of family on the changing of Japan’s national identity in 20th century, even up until the present. Within Japan’s familial structures, Allison mentions the ‘traditional’ gendered roles, with successful families having men being “sarariman” and women managing the household, along with taking care of the children that represented “hope” and “the future” (24). However, the separate spheres ideology that Allison describes is not unique to Japan. The United States also had such family structures in play for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. The largest distinguishing factor thus appears to be Japan’s unique version of “capitalism”, in which after World War II, Japanese working men were usually committed to their company for a lifetime in a family-like setting (Allison 25). Apart from this, family structures do not seem too different from America’s during ‘America’s Industrial Revolution” after the Civil War in the late 19th century. Then, why is Japan’s state so much more “precarious” than America’s now (in terms of declining birth rates, rising suicide and depression rates…)? I argue that in addition to what Allison argues about the lifetime work commitment, immigration also plays a large role in the difference between America and Japan’s progress... Reflection on:
As Anderson argues, one of the most important reasons why print capitalism played such a large role in the ‘imagined community’ is due to simultaneity; that is, the community is formed when groups of people can imagine the other people with which they are involved due to the sharing of current events through the print. Hence, a “horizontal comradeship” is formed, creating the idea of commonality in the group of people mutually acknowledged as a “nation” (Anderson 50). Likewise, I argue that holidays/festivals also contribute to the feeling of community that defines a nation. Most notably in the American setting are holidays like Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, etc., where all Americans can celebrate a significant part of American history at the same time... |
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