Talk:Culture of Japan
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Title of Article
Why did you move to Japanese Culture? Either "culture of Japan" or "Japanese Culture" seems fine. So there seems no need to move. -- Taku 02:04 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
"Culture" is too vague a first word and "Culture of Japan" is not a preferred English construction. Direct, not indirect, phrases are preferred. In English, "the son of John" is considered weak writing, while "John's son" is considered strong (See Microsoft Word grammar check, for additional examples.)
I understand what you are saying about Japanese culture are more proper English grammer. But then how about Culture of Chilna or Culture of the United States? I don't know actually much. I am just afraid If we started renaming Culture of Japan to Japanese culture then consequently we need to rename History of Japan to Japanese history too. Yeah, maybe we should do, but I am not sure. Tell me your idea. -- Taku
I'm confused why you would put individual names of Japanese dishes on the main page, "Japanese Culture." There's already a link to japanese food, "Japanese Cuisine" on that page. I suggest we not dirty up a main page with trivia, don't you agree? (It's not that i do'nt like those entries. In fact, I wrote the dashi and agedashi tofu entries myself. I just think they don't belong there.)
I think some food or ingredients such as sushi or soy beans are necessary to discuss Japanese culture. The principle about the article on Wikipedia is every artcile should be complete, in other words, if similar explanations are somewhere around, one should put everything that is relevant. Maybe we need sections about Japanese food (or Japanese cuisine). Apparently the current article is worse than even good stub. Japanese culture should not just list up the links -- Taku 02:37 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
Taku,
"Japanese cuisine" already implies "Sushi, Agedashi Tofu, Dashi, Soy sauce." Don't you think that you will defeat the purpose of your own "main page" on Japanese culture if you put all of this minutia on it? Will you list every Japanese dish known? Thousands? No. It's better to refer the reader to the Japanese Cuisine page, don't you think? If you put details all over this page, one day someone is likely to just redirect it to the "Japan" page. I like the "japanese culture" overview page, but it will become redundant or meaningless if you include too many details. "Japanese cuisine" is a part of "Japanese culture", but "agedashi tofu" is a part of "Japanese cuisine."
As far as "Culture of Japan" vs. "Japanse Culture"--yes! We should rename every "culture of XXXXX" to "XXXXXX's Culture." That's how good English is written.
(I'm enjoying this interaction with you. I hope are too.)
Your friend, Arthur Jan 11 02:42 UTC
I don't think sushi or soy bean is a miniture. When I think of Japanese culture, I quickly imagine sushi or soy beans. They are good example of Japanese culture, so they should be here. Yeah, maybe agedashi tofu is too detailed so it should not be covered. (I love it, though, haha)
I agree with foo's culture. Then, how about History of Japan? Should it be Japanese history? Anyway, I am happy too to know there are some peoeple who care about Japanese culture as well as me. -- Taku 02:59 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
Forgive me, but I'll say this only one more time. There are many levels in any topic of interest. If you list every Japanese Dynasty on your "Japanese Culture" page, it will be clear to everyone that these dynasties are "relevant to Japanese Culture." If you list every edible plant in Japan, it will be clear to everyone that those are "relevant to Japanese Culture." If you list every childhood story (say, about Kappa), it will be clear to everyone that those are "relevant to Japanese Culture." If you list every form of Japanese dress (kimono, for example) it will be clear to everyone that those are "relevant to Japanese Culture." If you list every Island of Japan, it will be clear to everyone that those are "relevant to Japanese Culture."
Where will this one page end? The "completeness" desired by wikipedia.org does not mean that they want all information on one page. From a College Professor to a College Student, I ask you--wouldn't it be better to have more than one page?
Your friend,
Arthur, 11 jan, 03:13 UTC
Yes, the article should not list up all but should list up some good examples of Japanese culture. But also think that wikipedia is a little different than ordinaly WWW site page. There is not a page, but an article. Imagine ordinary encyclopedia artcile. When you talk about Japanese culture, you should mention some famous stuff such as sushi, soy beans, kimono, samurai. Anyway this debate is a kind of lame because the current artcile, Japanese culture is almost nothing but just a list of links. We can talk later when the artcile grows up to an encyclopedia article. So just do what you want to do. -- Taku 03:21 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
okay. i messed up. this should not have been renamed to Japanese Culture. While my logic was okay, I didn't understand the standard Country reference style set forth for wikipedia. Now, however, I'm for some reason unable to name it back.
Arthur
Semi-Reversion in Initial 'Graph
I am about to revert about the first half of the first 'graph to the state it had before the edit at 09:58, 2003 Dec 14 by 67.41.92.108. (Nothing else is lost in this process: as the appropriate diff (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Culture_of_Japan&diff=0&oldid=2173893) shows, no one has edited that portion since.) This IP user's immediately previous 2 edits (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Ruth_Benedict&dummy=1&diff=3164443&oldid=1956068) (20 minutes before) were to Ruth Benedict and reflected possibly a misunderstanding, but more likely a fringe PoV (and perhaps even an idiosyncratic PoV); they have been [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Ruth_Benedict&dummy=1&diff=0&oldid=3164443 NPoVed (but this diff will reflect edits after my own as well)], with the addition of contrary evidence.
The material removed from Culture of Japan to below in this talk is unsupported, and IMO is suspect in view of the combination of
- the anonymity of the editor,
- the demonstrated erroneousness of the edit of their article on Ruth Benedict,
- the overlap of the subject matter between this and her, and
- the closeness in time of the edits.
I have moved it here to assist others in seeking documentation to justify any part of the removed material, which i consider necessary if any part of it is to be restored.
Removed Text:
- Japan endured intermittent periods of relative isolation from external influences, ending at the arrival of the "Black Ships" and the Meiji era; and with economic, cultural and religious influences from neighboring Asian states, produced a unique culture of its own. Ruth Benedict asserted in her now-discredited study "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword," that Japan has a shame culture (external reference standard) rather than the guilt culture (internal reference standard) that is more familiar in the West.
--Jerzy(t) 21:36, 2004 Apr 12 (UTC)
Japanese: "a humorless people"???
Is it true that the Japanese are generally considered to be humorless? I could see it being true at some point in the distant past, but surely the overseas success of anime and programs like Takeshi's Castle has eliminated this ridiculous stereotype? -- Tlotoxl 03:40, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
- But few, if any Japanese comedians are known outside Japan, are they? List of Japanese people has no entries for "Comedian" and they are grouped under "Entrepreneurs" and "Other Notables". Anime and Takeshi's Castle give only nameless individuals and that's not really same. Revth 03:19, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- If you just watch the TV in Japan, you will find a number of comedians. Besides, how could you claim Japanese are hurmorless based on the a number of known comedians outside Japan? I am much more interested in how this myth has developed. -- Taku 05:40, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
Pop Culture as Export
Surely it is worth noting that Japanese pop culture items, such as anime, manga, video games, etc., are incredibly popular exports, probably second only to the United States as far as international reach. Frankly, I've heard there's people who believe it to be a devious practice. --Feitclub 06:01, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
The Presentation Of Kanji
Since kanji are the culture of Japan this article needs to present a lot of kanji, right up front. And it certainly needs to be written by people who know kanji as well as en. One wouldn't read a fiber optics article or gas chromatography article by a non-science person. And one wouldn't read a Shakespeare article that included no mention of the word Hamlet. That long list of items is very good and needs to be expanded. But seriously, the kanji is where this starts. I would recommend spending a lot of time on AOL Japan or Chinese Yahoo. Its a more or less gigantic project. McDogm--64.12.116.69 14:08, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
- I don't see how just sticking a bunch of kanji in this article would improve it. And Chinese Yahoo is, well, Chinese. Japan is not China. — Gwalla | Talk 01:22, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's the thing. Kanji aren't easily stickable. The article of course is perfectly good. I don't really know how to start with the kanji.
- In re: Chinese Yahoo questions, it might just be a matter of looking at Europe in comparison. I don't really know how to answer that but something along the lines of thinking of the alphabet as a unifier since it was first produced, and its history and its similarities and dissimilarities between different peoples. I usually benefit by thinking of Americans as predominantly 'European-American' in order to get perspective, but that is a relatively new idea that isn't really as mainstream as it ought to be. I think that eventually the ability will develop to integrate kanji into this article and articles like it. There is a theory that kanji are read by a different part of the brain, the face perception center, but that is another deep thought that might be a tad difficult to broach into a culture article. Change will happen gradually vis a vis culture and pop culture pages. There is definitely no need to rush kanji into articles because one should have the same poise and definitivity that one has with initial basic en portions of articles. McDogm--172.141.51.243 05:52, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- I'd like to point out that there already is a kanji article, and most detail on the subject should go there. Culture of Japan is more or less an overview. Also, just out of curiosity, if you've got a username, why aren't you logging in? — Gwalla | Talk 07:13, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- I have found a page that could help: CJK, which stands for China Japan Korea. It is a page about fonts and it is a little technical but the basic idea might be sound vis a vis negotiating the cultural politics involved; I am positive that the actual governments involved such as MITI et al have a grand project, on the scale of Wiki, for associating the different character sets together in a new way. And, I have a cookie switch problem of some sort and at times I log out after I log in. Thanks for asking.McDogm--McDogm 08:17, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- In re the overview nature of this article, the lists of material involved are going to get down to a quite detailed level someday. Shrimp Chips, the names of the Sailor Moon girls, and all the various individual cultural items of Japan are really good for talking about kanji, especially insofar as kanji are actually essential for explaining how and why they are famous. Its the overview percolating down to interesting descriptions of items in lists within the overview that is the basic structural parameter here; this site will connect directly to all the items in the list. I think that organizational concept is the very idea that got me to start writing here: The direct connection between Culture of Japan and the various incredibly interesting items on various lists. It is 'Culture of Japan' as a portal. I really think this is an important article.McDogm--McDogm 08:27, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- Umm, I'm not really actually campaigning for anything here; I just thought it was a nice suggestion and the offer of some support for the gradual kanjification of this and other articles. It really is an overview at this point and using kanji is difficult to do and maintain any sort of Wiki standard at the same time. Sorry if you thought I was trying to be politically heavy in my suggestion. Kanji/Nihongo-English issues are difficult politically. Again, I'm not trying to affect the editorial content at this page at all. Sorry again if you were worried that I was.McDogm--McDogm 08:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- Again Umm, I am relatively new to Wikipedia and I am trying to find my way to pages that I can help with. I think this one was on the Community Portal and I used the opportunity to share something about my knowlege of Asia. I hope I didn't interrupt. Kanji Dozo!! Gambatte!! Thanks for reading.McDogm--McDogm 08:40, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- I've started compiling lists of pop culture items in the article.McDogm--McDogm 03:42, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
Shingeki
What about Shingeki? It's not mentioned in the section theatre at all. Does anybody know more about it? Does it deserve a separate article? Ben T/C 13:20, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)