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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3125 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 24, 2023

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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I suppose "place vs place, japan" is a common enough meme. Just have a look at the meme, it's easier than me having to type out an explanation.

I don't really relate to the main idea that people are overly enthusiastic about Japanese things, just because they are Japanese. I do think Japan has uniquely beautiful places, I like JDM cars for reasons other than the J, I actually think sushi tastes good, etc.

The meme generalizes to <thing/place> vs <coveted thing/place>.

For example this instance of the meme. The bottom location doesn't exist. But Ushuaia, Argentina is actually real. Both its landscape and cityscape are very similar to Scandinavia. The crazy part is, that my eyes know what's real, but my brain is tricking me, despite knowing otherwise. When I see the bottom picture from "Norway", I think along the lines of "wow that's a beautiful place, I wish I could visit one day", whilst I see the exact place in Argentina and think "It's alright I guess?". Of course, the context aids the preference, wine from the more expensive bottle tastes better even if it was switched with boxed wine, you get the idea. But I'm surprised that I would fall for it, post revelation. I thought those wine tasters were lizard-brained simpletons.

So what are your lesser known examples of Place vs Place,Japan?

One of my gotos are Swiss Alps vs Kashmir, Pakistan/India. Equally beautiful, and order of magnitude cheaper and less well known. (There are many alpine resorts all over Central Asia in Pakistan, Kazakhstan and other stans, and they are all dirt cheap relative to similar locations in EU and NA.)

I was a digital nomad for over a year. I grew a bit desensitized to the place vs place, Japan thing. One of the first things I noticed was that when I was walking around a foreign country, everything seemed magical just because I knew I was in a foreign place, but eventually I started to realize that things aren't always super special just because it's foreign. Sometimes the small things are just small differences and don't really have any meaning. When I started traveling I was really annoyed with the US so every difference I would see I would make up some story to myself about how it's so much better than in America. Eventually I developed a better and more keen sense of where things lie and I can appreciate differences in culture and aesthetics while understanding the downsides to differences as well. I still enjoy traveling overseas and exploring new cultures but I think the most important thing I learned is to respect whatever I see everywhere I go, whether that's a foreign country or my small hometown.

Exploring more of Asia also brought greater perspective on the Japan thing as well, having been to Thailand and South Korea I feel like I understand Japan better and can see it more for what it is. I was always a total weeaboo for a long time and visited Japan a few times growing up but stayed there for three months recently and it was great to live there while working from my computer but having been to Seoul it's easy to see how the stagnating economy has been hurting Japan, compared to the up to date and high tech vibe of South Korea which Japan used to have a few decades ago.

Speaking as a designer I will say that Japanese aesthetics and design are objectively better than in most of the world though. There is something different about the sense of space in Japan and attention to detail that I find really attractive to the country.

To directly address the question you posed, what are some lesser known examples of place vs place, Japan?

I think the Appalachian mountains are ridiculously beautiful and extremely underrated. Every time I drive through West Virginia I'm impressed by the scenery. I would consider moving to the region.

The Detroit Rule

Detroit pizza is probably my favorite pizza style.

Would you have thought that if you were just hearing about it for the first time? Because to me it sounds like a euphemism for a manhole cover, or a circular piece of cardboard covered in bandaids, gum and used condoms.

It reminds me of that part of the movie Stripes where Bill Murray brings home a pizza that fell topping side down onto the street.

So what are your lesser known examples of Place vs Place,Japan?

My toilet vs "Toilet", Japan. Indian toilets come with bidets as standard, and believe me you don't need them to come with all the bells and whistles the Japanese ones do if your primary concern is getting your butthole squeaky clean.

I live in Dubai, I know how useful those hand canons are lol.

I like that you gave the example of India. It is filled with instances of "place vs place". If anything, Kashmir is the more recognized version of 'place vs place' within India. Kashmir is well known, but the political instability around the region has made it difficult to recommend as a tourist place.

Kolikkumalai India vs NaPali Hawaii.

The western ghats, eastern 7-sisters and Himalayan areas are seriously underexplored.

I especially see the 'place vs place' phenomenon with food.

Pate, Escargots, Foie Gras & Caviar are all seen as delicacies. On the other hand, goat brain (bheja), frogs legs, tripe, gizzards, etc. are all seen as disgusting offal eaten by barbarians.

I see a similar trend in American Carnival food vs east-asian street food. Indulgent street food vs shitty gas station food. Korean street food gets praised to high heaven, while the exact same stuff in the USA gets made fun of for being hill-billy food.

I'm going to leap to the defense of frog legs. I've had them in America and in China and they were good both times. If you like eating chicken meat off the bone, it's the same thing.

I am much less enthused about the pig kidneys and intestines that I ate. No thank you. That should be fed to dogs.

Fully agree on frogs legs.

Objectively a better chicken and wont be convinced otherwise.

Dunno about pig offal, but chicken liver takes amazing. It's my home town delicacy. I also cook really great gizzards, but theyre admitedly work.

Haggis is the mosy disgusting thing in planet earth and i really did give it a fair try.

Chicken liver mousse is great. I can't recommend it enough.

I was quite surprised years ago to find what we used to call corn dogs at the local (Japanese) convenience store, just up the aisle from the riceballs and sushi.

They're called American Dogs here.

The cheesy (meaning, made of mostly cheese) Korean Hattogu is a bizarre twist I would expect from the shittiest of the state fairs of my youth. But there people are, eating them for Instagram likes (or BeReal likes, that seems to be the newer thing.)

India is kind of like a mini US in the fact that it contains so many biomes ranging from deserts to rainforests to alpine tundra all within its borders.

The mountainous regions of South India are especially overlooked relative to the beauty of the landscapes and how much people pay to travel to similar or worse destinations elsewhere in the world. Kodaikanal looks like its a different planet.

Hardly any good beaches I'm afraid, and I've been to most. In contrast, my recent trip to Thailand had me blown away by how picturesque the beach and emerald waves were, it's like they threw a photoshop filter on reality there. The closest could be the beaches on the Andaman islands, but they're within spitting distance of Thailand anyway.

That's entirely ignoring the maintenance of most beaches, they're not usually clean.

I've seen enough nature documentaries to reflexively avoid all water features in the tropical Indo-Pacific. I like not having to worry about if that pretty seashell on the beach will kill me thank you very much.

To be fair, Thailand seems to have some of the best beaches in the world. The part that surprises me most about India is how many beaches we have, and how almost all of them are heavily 'used' (abused?). (to put it politely).

1.4 people and nature do not go well together.

In Thailand I’m always surprised how, even in tourist shitholes full of drunk Russians in Phuket, the beaches are pristine. They’ve made a real effort and it’s paid off in spades, to have such beautiful and clean beaches even in cheap tourist destinations in a country much poorer than, say, the Greek islands or Florida (where authorities can brute force things by using huge tourism revenue to hire huge numbers of staff to keep things clean-ish) is impressive.

I'm starting to think you have a story to tell us about Phuket, given that you bring up multitudes of drunk Russians every time the topic of Thailand comes up.

I love Phuket and go almost every year for a few days on the back half of a roadshow we do in Asia. And, really, the drunk Russians are unavoidable (but often very charming). Less loutish than the Brits, typically.

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