A Question for the Natives

[KyleGoetz]

A few years ago, I remember reading about a book or a fad of books or some sort of cultural thing that was a bit popular in Japan. I'm wondering if maybe you can help me (details are a bit sketchy, but it's about a book written in Japanese).

So what I remember is a book came out, and it was capitalizing on something Japanese people allegedly "love." The book had something to do with pointing out stereotypes of people from different parts of Japan. Like it was a whole book of these type of "Tokyo people talk so coldly" and "Iwata people sound like hicks" or whatever.

That's honestly all I remember about it, but for years I've wanted to track down either this book, or what this phenomenon or term for "Japanese people liking to swap stories of stereotypes of regions of Japan" might be. If I knew, I could track down a book or something about it and read it. I could get some closure.

Do you have any idea what I might be talking about?

Thanks!

[masaegu]

Did the term sound like 県民性?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by masaegu

Did the term sound like 県民性?

I don't remember, but Googling it, it looks an awful lot like what I'm talking about! The term sure looks right. My American brain parses this as "traits of people based on prefecture [they live in]." Thanks.

Now if I can just wade through various books on Amazon.co.jp to see if I can find one that looks like what I remember (which is basically that it was a sort of funny book, or at least was supposed to make people say "oh man that's SO TRUE ABOUT THOSE HOKKAIDO PEOPLE!"

This is the first link I found, and it looks like something worth wading through and struggling with the kanji I don't know or barely know: http://www2k.biglobe.ne.jp/~yano/KENMIN.html

Thank you.