A somewhat-reverse case is a bizzare phenominon I read about (can’t claim I know the truth about it, but it seemed well-documented) of a popular subject at one time in Japan of - believing in the worst European stereotypes concerning Jews (of whom there are few in Japan), but with a twist: finding those stereotypes admirable.
Apparently, at one time, there were articles in Japan with titles like “what we can learn from those clever Jews”, and citing all sorts of stereotypes about how the Jews secretly controlled everything.
There are lots of Germans who are fanatics about Native American Indians. When I was first in Germany I was very surprised and distracted to see cliche Native Indian stuff everywhere on a daily basis (like replica headdresses for sale at country kiosks, or records with titles like “Horst Meissner sings Native Indian Love Songs” in shop windows), but apparently this is so familiar as to be beneath comment.
It’s not so much that the Japanese admired the stereotypical Jew as that they figured that if the Jews controlled the Western economies, were plotting to secretly take over the world, etc., then it would be wise for Japan to stay on their good side. This was back before and during WWII, and it was particularly hoped that American Jews would be able to use their influence to help Japan.
There are a lot of Thailand-o-philes out there. And they’re usually annoying gits when they come here.
When I lived in Albuquerque, it often seemed to me like you could not swing a cat by the tail anywhere in the Southwest without hitting a German. They love it there.
Reread what I wrote, they have this over-idealized version of France, and discover that it’s completely wrong.
The US Geological Survey (my link) is wrong and you are right? Why don’t you drop them an email, I’m sure they would love to be corrected by some random guy on the Internet.
The is simply BS. The number of people crazy about Japan is an extremely small part of the population. “Tsunami” really started to be used after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
I think so. At the least, it’s derogatory where “Japanophilies” is neutral.
I didn’t explain it well, but this is close. It has to do with the people’s extreme disappointment with the French people and culture. I actually dated a woman who was like that. She was an artist and loved French art, so she went over to study French for six months, thinking that she was going off to live in some sort of fantasy land.
I agree with this mostly, but I think that most people who are completely into Japanese culture aren’t really that well informed. They’re not in lala land like some, but they really haven’t lived there, and have not experienced it day in and day out. I don’t know if I ever knew anyone who had lived in Japan for more than a few months who still had stars in their eyes.
The reverse is also true. Japanese get an image of the US from movies and such, and you don’t get the entire picture until you experience a culture yourself.
Many, if not most people don’t realize how many negative parts there are about a culture which are intrinsically connected to the good parts. The Japanese love for quality is wonderful, until you’re an American manufacturer trying to sell into that market. Asian “family values” means that there are a hell of a lot of daughter-in-laws biting their tongues. You can say that for any culture.
Reading various bits in Wikipedia, it seems a complex mix: some Japanese conspiracy-theory authors admired the Jews (even going so far as to claim Jewish ancestry for the Japanese), others were more typical anti-Semites.
The Japanese invented a very appropriate name for this form of literature:
In a great coincidence, there was a segment on the local (Japan) television tonight about Japanese who are over-the-top crazy about other cultures. It was variety television so there was no deep insight to be had, but it did feature some of the more stereotypical obsessions. Dreadlocked reggae dudes. The young housewife obsessed with Italy. The baby-boomer dandy with the Union Jack umbrella. The baby-boomer couple that styled their house like a 1950s diner. The baby-boomer cowboy. The baby-boomer western guy…
It’s the agreed upon scientific term for that particular phenomenon, with “tidal wave” being more of a pop-culture term, and “seismic sea wave” being a more recent term to describe the same thing.
I may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure I heard of tsunamis when I lived in Hawaii. Earlier there had been a big one that had hit the Big Island, called the April Fool’s Day tsunami of 1946.
Good points. Scottish culture as celebrated in the US among people with some Scottish heritage often tends to be stereotyped to some degree. Many “Scottish” events in the US expect most men to show up in kilts. In Scotland today, kilts are not commonly worn in most venues. A wedding yes, going to a football game or hanging out at the pub with your buddies, no.
What I meant was that in say… 2001, the term “tidal wave” was almost exclusively used in a pop-culture sense, because real scientists and in-the-know people were using the term tsunami, in much the same way that the “Richter Scale” is only used by news drones and other popular sources, since real seismologists and geologists use the Moment magnitude scale (a 1970s replacement for the 1930s era Richter scale).
Thing is, both terms are somewhat misleading. “Tidal waves” have nothing to do with tides (although they often resemble tides) and “tsumamis” are not generated by, or only appear in, harbours (although they often damage harbours). Similarly, the term “seismic sea wave” isn’t always accurate, because they can be caused by things other than seismic activity.
Though the term “tsunami” appears to be winning in the vocabulary battle, it isn’t any more or less inherently ‘correct’ than “tidal wave”; it is just an arbitrary choice that has gained favour, I suspect mostly because it sounds more “correct” in English (as English-speakers may typically not be aware it means “harbour wave”).
The term was used in Japan because of the large number of Japanese and Japanese Americans living there. My father was in Hawaii around 1950, and had heard about that April Fool’s tsunami.
This is factually incorrect.
See the link in bump’s post:
While the Japanese word does come from “harbor” and “wave” it was never limited to waves in harbors. Rather, that is where the damage would be seen. Japanese geography is highly mountainous, so pretty much the only place people lived by the sea was in harbors in fishing villages.
As noted above, tsunami is the term adopted by the scientific community, and is such “inherently ‘correct’.”
I actually only recently learned that wearing the headdresses as a fashion thing is rather insulting to American Indians. It’s something you have to earn, not something you can just wear.
I mean, I knew the stereotype was offensive, but not just the headdress by itself. I viewed it more like wearing lederhosen to seem German or something.
My introductory oceanography textbook (Gross, 4th ed, pub 1987) contains a glossary listing for Tide Wave (long-period gravity wave that has its origin in the tide-producing force and that manifests itself in the rising and falling of the tide) and one for tsunami or seismic sea wave (long period sea wave produced by a submarine earthquake or volcanic explosion). I’ve read texts that note that “Tidal Wave” is an inappropriate term but AFAICT Gross doesn’t even bother to acknowledge that it exists. So no I don’t think tidal wave was dropped due to trendiness.
