JК
Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 223 из 270It's because of the existence of such converts that the real troubles in Japans environment, design, architecture, and cinema have never been expressed in the foreign media. For foreign students of Japan, it has been a long and chronic case of the Emperor's New Clothes.
The Japanese woman, however, had a healthy and natural response; she didn't care about tradition: ugly was ugly. Or, at a deeper level, she instinctively understood what the tradition should have been, and could feel without knowing exactly why that these arrangements were all wrong. The Japanese are not so nostalgic about their own culture that they have become blind to its problems. And in this lies the hope for revitalization and change.
One of the most fascinating phenomena of the new Japan is the explosion of wacky youth fashion, which is hugely influencing young people all over East Asia, and drawing a lot of attention in the Western press. The «look» is by now familiar from many a magazine article: spiky dyed hair, face entirely smoothed in heavy makeup to a shiny copper or caramel complexion, shaved and painted eyebrows, and high clunky shoes-plus lots of cute Hello Kitty accessories. The impact on East Asia is, in a sense, a healthy one, in that Asians are finally discovering their own identities, and the new styles coming out of Japan are in many ways better suited to their local cultures. Terry McCarthy writes: «Despite the marketing muscle of American record companies and film studios, there is an inevitable cultural shortfall – Asians may watch the American shows, but the bronzed, buffed bodies of Baywatch are not something that most Asian teens could (or even would) aspire to.» Nineteen-year-old fashion student Watanabe Eriko puts it succinctly: «It's stupid for the Japanese to compete with Western designers. . . .We should be selling our own Eastern styles to Asia, because Asians have the fashion sense and bodies to complement Japanese designs. Why must we go to Europe to dress tall blondes? Our aesthetic matches black hair and slimmer bodies better.»
The question is whether the new fashion means a cultural renaissance is on its way, as many of its supporters believe, or whether it is just, well, fashion. Ever since World War II, one of the favorite themes of Western journalism about Japan is the New Youth, and regularly, about once every year or so, Time or Newsweek devotes special articles to this subject. The youth are going to change, they are going to overturn the old order, because they wear miniskirts, or because they sport nose rings and dye their hair. It's a natural inference to make, because in the West free sexual and fashion mores have traditionally been linked to free thinking, viz. Woodstock.
The Japanese woman, however, had a healthy and natural response; she didn't care about tradition: ugly was ugly. Or, at a deeper level, she instinctively understood what the tradition should have been, and could feel without knowing exactly why that these arrangements were all wrong. The Japanese are not so nostalgic about their own culture that they have become blind to its problems. And in this lies the hope for revitalization and change.
One of the most fascinating phenomena of the new Japan is the explosion of wacky youth fashion, which is hugely influencing young people all over East Asia, and drawing a lot of attention in the Western press. The «look» is by now familiar from many a magazine article: spiky dyed hair, face entirely smoothed in heavy makeup to a shiny copper or caramel complexion, shaved and painted eyebrows, and high clunky shoes-plus lots of cute Hello Kitty accessories. The impact on East Asia is, in a sense, a healthy one, in that Asians are finally discovering their own identities, and the new styles coming out of Japan are in many ways better suited to their local cultures. Terry McCarthy writes: «Despite the marketing muscle of American record companies and film studios, there is an inevitable cultural shortfall – Asians may watch the American shows, but the bronzed, buffed bodies of Baywatch are not something that most Asian teens could (or even would) aspire to.» Nineteen-year-old fashion student Watanabe Eriko puts it succinctly: «It's stupid for the Japanese to compete with Western designers. . . .We should be selling our own Eastern styles to Asia, because Asians have the fashion sense and bodies to complement Japanese designs. Why must we go to Europe to dress tall blondes? Our aesthetic matches black hair and slimmer bodies better.»
The question is whether the new fashion means a cultural renaissance is on its way, as many of its supporters believe, or whether it is just, well, fashion. Ever since World War II, one of the favorite themes of Western journalism about Japan is the New Youth, and regularly, about once every year or so, Time or Newsweek devotes special articles to this subject. The youth are going to change, they are going to overturn the old order, because they wear miniskirts, or because they sport nose rings and dye their hair. It's a natural inference to make, because in the West free sexual and fashion mores have traditionally been linked to free thinking, viz. Woodstock.