Do you love Japan?

[Tendou Souji]

I've always been fascinated with Japan and it's culture, even before I went there on my past holiday. There's just this feeling that attracts me to it, and I hope I could go there again someday.

[Amyral]

They have had an interesting history, but most every country has an interesting history if you really want to look. The only difference with Japan was that they tend to have not had a major cultural affect on western countries until relatively late, so they look exotic. However, China and other east Asian countries are also rather exotic, they're just not as "sexy" as Japan is. I think, from a purely historical perspective, that China and the Middle East intrigue me more than Japan.

However, I do find it interesting to look to see how things really were there as opposed to the stereotypes people peg with it. A lot of people, even people who have studied it some, have a lot of misconceptions about how things really were, ranging from minor misconceptions about their contact with the rest of the world (they didn't become isolationalist until the mid-1600's) to a over-estimation of what the katana really was used for (samurai actually commonly used spears and bows, even integrating the matchlock rifles fairly rapidly when they were introduced to Japan. The katana as solely a dueling weapon or weapon of last resort.) Also, Japan embraced firearms fully when they gained access to them in the mid-1500's) Part of me finds it intriguing to measure up reality versus the common perceptions.

I must say that I think they had the second coolest looking clothing in their "medieval" history. Some of the more elaborate Japanese outfits looked incredibly cool, even better than the Chinese clothing. However, I would say that I think the Middle East possessed the most awesome looking outfits in history.

[Splendid Monkey]

[Tron Bonne]

I'm fascinated by their culture, though i have not been there yet. I'm going there Next June for two weeks though a program at my school. Its supposed to take care of some of my language credits. I might even become an exchange student later on that school year. the thought of that kind of scares me, but I definitely want to do it.
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[SwissStopwatch]

The martial arts fraud peddlers are hardly just a Japanese thing, though... although the form that takes differs depending on whatever popular reputation the art may have. Ninja scammers pretend to teach you ubercool assassin tricks, Kung fu scammers pretend to teach you to kill a man with one touch, and so on, but sometimes it's just a matter of a guy who barely knows what he's doing buying a nice uniform and belt and arriving in another country with them.

At any rate, I kind of think Japan is really strange... which does give it some appeal, because it's strange in a goofy way, and some of the less-strange things can still be interesting. Like the martial arts, if you look past the myths... I particularly like Judo. Some of the cuisine is also quite good, and, like I said, some of the bizarre/goofy pop culture is good. It does veer over to being a bit scary creepy sometimes, though.

I like Korea a bit more, for whatever reason. Although a lot of things are really quite similar about the two.

[Splendid Monkey]

[Amyral]

[Watari]

I would really like to go there just say that I have been there.
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Sti?rth?ir le Machaire B?iteach

[Dragonstar13]

I've never been to Japan before, but I've studied the language in highschool, and read about it's history in college.
I think it's an interesting country, and from what I've heard, it's very clean and technological. So it sounds like my kind of place to visit. I'd love to visit Japan some time.
To live, I'm not really sure. I love the country I'm currently in, and wouldn't want to move unless there is a huge reason to.
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[Jia]

Anime is of course from Japan, so there is always that curiousness within Japanese culture. I do a lot of CG art, so I was interested in Anime for it's graphics value, as well as it's plots and whatnot :)


I am interested in Japanese language, as I am interested in other cultures.

I love learning about many cultures, and I want to visit India someday.
I want to master Japanese as a fourth language. After that, I would like to invest my time in learning some Danish, and Mandarin.

I'm just not a Japanophile. *Shudders*
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[Splendid Monkey]

[Creepr]

I like things that come from Japan, and thats about it. I don't know much about Japanese culture, but that's because I have never been all that interested in researching. All I know is because of a friend who is hooked on their culture. I'm like this because I think that it's ok to like another culture, but we should keep our own cultures.

But hey, I do love thei GAMES!!! XP
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A name is just a name, simply because it stands for you, it doesn't define who you are...

[UCPesmerga]

I took Japanese during College, as well as spent 2.5 years of being a Computer Science/East Asian Studies Double Major (dropped the EAS because 90% of the classes conflicted with my Computer Science classes).

The language is facinating to me, mainly because I see it as extremely complex and simple at the same time. Part of that most likely comes from being a native English speaker.

Their culture facinates me because of how little it has changed. (in the grand scheme of things that is. All things change over time. I'm generalizing in this case.) Life is still goverened by this sense of Giri versus Ninjou (man, I hope I spelled those correctly).

What ruins the reputation of people who like the culture are the people who try (and fail) to live the culture in the form of Otaku. I had two different girls in my Japanese class who so wanted to be Japanese that it was mentally painful to deal with them on a casual basis. These are same two girls who managed to confound my mild-temepered Japanese teacher so much that he once blurted out in how happy he was they were both absent.

I seemed to have gotten off on a tangent. To summarize:

I like Japan. I do not LOVE Japan. I do not want to be Japanese, I want to be me. The culture and language are both very interesting and engaging. And Michizane (Sugawara no Michizane) was a very fascinating fellow as well.

[HarmonianHiccup]

[Jia]