Quote:
Originally Posted by TalnSG
We've been using Anime as the example of an unreasonable basis for a decision (not that I disagree!), but I just thought of other some of the other equally unreasonable routes foreigners take to decide they should move to Japan.
I remember when samurai and ninja movies were the big rage in the U.S. and all the guys wanted to be in Japan so they could learn marital arts and sword play. And older ones to be catered to by geishas. Totally ignoring that the days of the samurai were long gone and even worse, completely misinterpreting what a geisha was.
Maybe I understand it because when I was about 14, I wanted to move to Japan. It was only to study and practice Shinto. And a little bit because people laughed when I insisted on wearing geta instead of flip-flops in the summer. To me that was "Japanese culture". I learned how much a culture really entails before I could do anything like spend my life savings on a less that well thought out plan.
But I think Godwin sees that today younger and younger people are able to make such leaps of faith without a net to catch them when they fall.
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You brought up a good topic for discussion. I think there is nothing wrong with people going to japan to train in martial art, I mean, I am doing the same thing next year for just one week, though I am going for the purpose of training.
Though along the same line, training in hope of acquiring skills thats unheard of in the west is totally unreasonable and retarded.
And yes, you are right, how geisha are being perceived in the western world is wrong, but I think much of it might really be how the Geisha image was tarnished during the war, just as it was portrayed in Memoir of a Geisha, some girls choose to dress like one to seduce man, as such the "Geisha" that the western society were exposed to (At the time) were mainly in the business of sex trade. That said, i think people should also do more research themselves to really understand what a Geisha is before they make judgement.
On that note, people who go to Japan in hopes of getting hitched with sexy porn star like girls also disgust me