I had a slalesman who would say that, but not really seriously. I had never heard of that either.
Obama is actually the name of a town in Japan. Perhaps I should mention this in the “Obama Country” location thread, because they’d go nuts if someone started posting from the real town.
Interesting point. The longer this election goes on, the more obsessive and silly this fixation on race looks. Yes, some people are never going to look past the fact that Obama is black. But every other day it seems like every other day, the news stations will drum up a new reason to read through their list of race-related “controversies” and do the “Is America Ready for a Black President?” thing. It’s only becoming more moronic.
Funny, especially since the first time I heard the term was as the name of the Japanese rock band.
“Yellow cab” is another matter entirely.
Damn, it’s been years since I heard that. Probably more urban legend than actual use, but it enjoyed its day in the sun (or the land of the rising).
Goddamn I wish I was Japanese. They’re so delightfully weird to me.
I think I heard it once from another foreigner, and other than that it’s only been in reference to the big talent agency that all the swimsuit models work through.
I’m with you. I didn’t even know about the monkey=black person thing until after high school. When I was about 16, I was watching Jerry Springer one day and this lady was complaining about racist white people and how she was shopping one day and a little girl-about 4 or 5-saw her and said “Mommy! Look at that monkey…”
I didn’t understand what the hell she was bitching about. This woman really DID look like a gorilla. Big head, flat nose, hair style, everything. She really looked like a gorilla even to me! I just kept thinking to myself “how was this racist? rude? sure. racist???”
Anyway, it was sometime after that when I learned about the rasist term and for some reason I immediately thought of that Springer episode. I think of it to this day. Because it shows exactly what Argent Towers is describing.
Was the little girl actually repeating racial slurs she hears from her parents? Or was she really surprised to see a gorilla at the store???
If I were to weigh in with a counterbalancing statement, it would be that Japan has an extremely robust “culture industry” (what in US-shorthand would be Hollywood and Madison Avenue), so that while US culture definitely influences Japan, there’s never any fretful hand-wringing over the prospect of it swamping Japan, as there seems to be in Canada and Europe. Because there are relatively few non-native speakers of Japanese (compared to English), however, the cultural exchange is predominantly one-way*: the morning news frequently includes important (or simply offbeat) news from the US, English music is popular (often making the weekly top 100, though rarely seeming to crack the top 5), and American movies are side-by-side with J-movies at the theaters. On the other hand when something from Japan becomes big in the West (besides things intended for export), it often sparks confused amazement. I think a result of this is that while many elements of American culture (politics, movies, music, controversies, etc.) enter the general Japanese public consciousness, not much consideration is given to what filters out.
*It’s not entirely one-way, though, and becoming more bilateral with time. Consider how much Japanese pop culture, especially in the form of video games and anime, has influenced the under-50 generation in the West. There’s also a fair bit of over-dramatizing going the other way as well: if you ask random people to name things they associate with Japan, how frequently do you think you’d hear sushi, ninjas, samurai, geisha, Pokemon or Godzilla?
ne’er mind.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi was often compared to a monkey, and he ruled most of Japan. At worst it would have connotations of foolishness, ne?