Japan in the Foreign Imagination
This project is based on a course taught at Keio University and Saitama University. It analyzes the often distorted image of Japan given in English language media. The period covered is primarily the post bubble (1989 and after) era otherwise known as “the lost decades.”
Among the themes of this research are the following:
“Americans ain’t got no culture.” English writing on Japan typically explains issues in Japan such as suicide or corporate malfeasance in terms of culture. For the same issues in the US case, there is no mention of culture. This leads to the conclusion that “Americans ain’t got not culture.”
English language writing about Japan often appears to be intended to make the reader feel good or superior because he or she is not Japanese rather than to actually inform about Japan.
Stories pertaining to sex are a disproportionate of all English language writing about Japan and are typically wildly exaggerate or even completely without factual basis.
Issues such as an ageing population or a low fertility rate are presented as peculiar to Japan when in fact the pattern is widespread among advanced countries.
Other topics and examples of the sources on which it is based can be found by consulting the teaching materials for my course “Japan in the Foreign Imagination.”