Lateral view

i just finished the reading, it was long. i'm not sure what to comment on, he pretty much talked about the differences between the east and west. i felt he was pretty dead on for the most part, such as the gestures, b/c i alrdy knew them from the little anime i have watched, though i've yet to see a real japanese person do these, they all seem pretty stoic. i couldn't help but feel like this guy is another one of those people who have fallen in love with the east and have rejected the west. also, he talks a lot about how superious things are, but then goes on to note how things are changing. if the east is so great then why are they taking all these "inferior" ideas from the west? i feel like there are other contradictions made, such as he points out the architectual diversity and how its sorta like disneyworld, but later he goes on to talk about how a spanish style house doesn't always mean its a spanish style store. Tokyo is a pretty remarkable city, i think thats something all could agree on, but i felt his judgement of the west a little harsh. if America was all one race it would certainly make things a lot easier, plus like i mentioned earlier, if the east is "superior" then why is it taking so many ideas from the west? perhaps the point he was trying to make, especially since he mentioned it so much, was that the japanese are constantly tearing down stuff to build new and this is why they borrow so much, but I, as an artist, have become obsessed with originality and it seems like Japan may lack this, they take the best of other cultures and internalize, and this makes me wonder how they became so nationalistic at one point, when the have no national ideas. Japan and its people are overly modest and i feel what will ultimately hold them back.

ok i'm done ranting, i'm not sure if that'll make sense to anyone. to sum up, i liked the read and much of it was accurate, but Japan in its constant search for the new and best has failed to provide the world with something new and better, besides its collage style collection; sorta like college kids downloading music off the net, they have a great collection, but they haven't given anthing back.

i'm sort of a socialist, so all this capitalism makes me a bit sick at times and perhaps thats the reason for my lashing out...in other news my computer is still a piece of shit.

][_ove ][_oomis