Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Anyone been using Xitter recently? The algorithm change is causing a lot of Japanese posts to show up on my feed. Further, the autotranslate has allowed for some of the most frictionless communication between Japanese and American users ever. This is the most fun I have ever had on Xitter. I urge everyone to try it while we're still in the honeymoon phase and before it gets changed.
Update: It seems that a lot of Japanese users have been getting annoyed because American Evangelicals have been proselytizing toward Japanese Twitter users. Theological debates have broken out. It seems that many Japanese people are annoyed with the holier-than-thou tone of the Evangelicals.
Be the American the Japanese imagine you to be.
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How do the Japanese imagine Americans to be?
I have extended family that live on the far east coast of the US. Whenever we talk, they can always recount stories of people there asking what it's like being from and living in California and they always reply, "... Uh. Normal?," but when they get into it they usually find out what they're really asking. A lot of Americans think people from California bleach their hair blonde, all own surfboards and talk in one of those "duuuude...," type vernaculars that come right out of a 1980's B movie. It's actually quite shocking to them when they find out that isn't 'at all' how Californians sound like. There's even a big cultural divide among different parts of California. When I go back home to where I'm from, people I know can detect certain changes in me and they ask if that's what people in the Bay Area do. So I still have to code switch a few different ways depending on where in California I am. There are things I see people do in the Bay that would definitely get your ass kicked if you did them where I'm from, or at least would have everyone stop and look at you. But it's normal and acceptable there. And there are things I've done in the Bay that had people call the cops on me because of behaviors you're taught in provincial areas of the state that you're not supposed to do. They've been to and travel through the Bay on a regular basis, but not enough to learn the minute, personal idiosyncrasies of the people that live there. When I once saw Eliezer, I remember someone remarking that he sounds like a "male valley girl." It made me burst out laughing because "you're not supposed to talk like that."
America is actually a lot of different subcultures in a way. There's this weak idea of what we are as a national culture but it's nowhere near as strong as a national culture of somewhere like Russia. Not even close. Russians are 'extremely' nationalistic and patriotic. America isn't culturally all that unified. If you just look at football teams for instance, I know several people in California who love the 49ers and hate the Raiders. The other half love the Raiders and hate the 49ers. Why? Because the 49ers are from San Francisco, that's the Mecca of "faggot land," or weak effeminate men to them. Why do they love the Raiders? Because back in their heyday, the Raiders were the bad boys of the NFL. They were truly out to injure and hurt people. They were hyper-masculine and played like gangbangers. They had a live fast die young attitude. I know places and people where that mindset still persists.
Examples?
Where I grew up:
You don’t interject over people in conversation at all. You speak when spoken to. I’ve seen people openly yelled at and be told to “shut the fuck up,” in front of massive crowds of people for doing that. Precision of language was something I always remember. People hated dealing with others who could never be held to anything they ever said. I remember getting into an argument with someone in the Bay Area over something he said and at one point he goes, “… look if you want to take a fine tooth comb to everything I’ve said then go ahead but…,” and I remember replying, “… so what are you saying then? That I shouldn’t listen to you or take anything you say seriously?… Do you just talk out of your ass everytime you open your mouth or something?…” I was replying to exactly what this guy was saying. If he doesn’t mean what he’s saying, then I don’t even know what this exercise is.
You eat at the dinner table with the rest of your family. Not doing so would get you grounded at the very least. When it’s time to eat you come and you come now. You were told in advance when dinner was ready.
You’d walk to work or school with a black eye if you talked back to your parents. You obey those above you. Complete independence was not a thing. Whether you’re 13 or 35, you live with your parents or spouse, you’re under curfew. This one I can remember being somewhat malleable. There were kids when I was 12-14 walking back from parties with their friends at midnight, back home. Provided you could only prove you were being responsible to the fullest, you had a lot of latitude. And most ‘definitely’ in contrast to the Bay Area, the kids of the region I’m from were far more mature and respectable than the kids there, by a long shot.
You don’t associate with the other gender freely except within narrow limits. I saw ass kickings regularly over this kind of thing.
You show respect to everyone. No matter who they are, what they look like or where they come from and people were obliged to return the favor in kind. The way people behave around here would earn them black eyes, bruised cheeks and bloody noses visible to everyone when they step outside.
You ‘always’ make good on your promises and obligations, regardless if that means having to burn down your own house to achieve it. You always deliver on your promises to others. If you owe money or a debt to someone, you pay it absolutely, in full ahead of time and go far out of your way to take care of things for them if they need it.
Just a handful among many.
I find it somehow thrilling that somewhere in the American heartland there's an honor culture that's halfway between me and the Taliban.
I read an analysis a few years ago that did the political demographic split of the region I’m from and we’re almost ‘perfectly’ split between Republican and Democrat, something like 50.x% - 49.x%. But even so, red and blue mean different things in different places. In the Bay Area I’d be considered blood red if I openly expressed my views, even though I’m far from Republican. In the Midwest I’d be considered solid blue even though I’m far from them too. The kind of “right-wing” I am you’d find in a place like Russia or the People’s Action Party in Singapore. “Authoritarianism” and “collectivism” are not pejorative terms in my political vocabulary. It was core to the functioning culture we had growing up. You can have it in a both good ways and bad. But they exist all over the place.
There are pockets that develop their own unique subcultures all across the US. The bonds are no longer as strong as they used to be due to technology and at the time I was growing up, lots of changes were taking place as well, but I was definitely raised with the old guard mentality and so were my peers. The way it was once put to me was our locale was a group of cultured thugs. It made me smirk at the time but in retrospect it was accurate. Our community produced a lot of very intelligent young kids who had to grow up in an area that was tough to live in, especially with the changes that were happening at that time. They weren’t just street smart, I met a lot of IQ smart people there who had this… edge about them. The only thing I know how to liken it to is someone like Bane. Although he wasn’t represented entirely accurately in the later film based on the comics, Nolan nevertheless did a good job getting Tom Hardy to play the part. Bane was a gangster who was a genius. He wore lab coats, contributed to various scientific fields and moonlighted as a gangbanger. If you crossed a geek with a gangbanger, you’d get a lot of the kids we had. They could talk physics with you, how to fix a car, British history, etc., and they’d bang and play rap music with the people they grew up around. It was normal to us, but I can see how people in the Bay Area would find it strange.
But your characterization is actually very accurate.
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