Talk:Culture of Japan

Surely those teenaged girls are not the best representatives of the culture of Japan? --Larry Sanger 02:00, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

Also, with regard to the proliferation of subsections, please see CZ:Article Mechanics. --Larry Sanger 02:02, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

Deletion of 'Nihonjinron' section

I have deleted this section from the end of the article. Definitions of the term I've found (outside Wikipedia!) seem to imply that these theories about Japanese culture may have a racial edge to them. As I'm not familiar with the topic, and since what I've also found from a casual internet search seems pretty controversial, I've got rid of the section. I have other books on Japanese culture which are more factual, and will use these in the future. John Stephenson 09:47, 27 July 2007 (CDT)

Notes on Japanese culture

These should be covered:

• soto 外 / uchi 内 - outsider/insider view of the world
• honne/tatamae - what is intended vs. what is said
• ie 家 - traditional household family structure
• gift-giving

John Stephenson 22:15, 27 July 2007 (CDT)

Moving to Japan (Culture)

I am proposing to move this article to Japan (Culture) in line with our priority page and to make searches more likely to hit. If anyone does not wish me to move this article to the above location (or has a better title or good argument for this article remaining Culture of Japan, please respond here. If I have not had any comments by Wednesday of this week I'll go ahead and move it.

Lee R. Berger 09:29, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

I thought that Culture of Japan was the preferred CZ way of naming articles. Also, Japan (Culture) is vaguer: does it mean Japanese culture in Japan, worldwide, both? Does it include cultures in Japan that are not Japanese? (e.g. there are a lot of South Americans in Japan). Does it refer to the attitude of the Japanese to culture in general? I think 'Culture of Japan' specifies that this is about the culture of the Japanese people within Japan. John Stephenson 05:52, 17 September 2007 (CDT)

Not a problem, I'm just trying to get a feel for how we are going to list all of the articles and this one came up as the test! Anyone -other comments from editors and authors?

Lee R. Berger 05:56, 17 September 2007 (CDT)

I strongly endorse using Japan (Culture) or Japan, culture. The article is about Japan, not about culture in general. Richard Jensen 06:19, 17 September 2007 (CDT)

People who watch anime wrote this article

I am serious!. No one expects to see a picture of a punk, or a black-metal head when an article about the culture of England or Sweden is opened. The culture of Japan is not there youth culture, it can only be there traditional culture. It has to be a representation of a collection of static, slowly changing cultural and artistic expressions. The writer of this article is confusing culture with fad. A fad is temporary, it mimics culture. The young people on this photo are members of something else besides there subculture. This is the culture they hear about in school, see there elders express and will certainly try to emulate when they grow up. A fad does not last longer then a decade.

instead of popular culture which is a word without any solid meaning, lets use the words youth culture, media and pop music. The word populare culture is the same as fad. Micha van den Berg 13:15, 23 November 2007 (CST)

I have to absolutely agree. This article needs heavy revision, or essentially a blank-and-rewrite. --Robert W King 13:22, 23 November 2007 (CST)

We need to remove the idea of popular culture from the encyclopaedia vocabulary. It serves no purpose. Classical music has between 4 - 6 times more listeners then heavy metal, the market for art and paintings is much larger then that for comics. There are more people who paint, then people who make, write and draw comic books. Just like some films do not achieve a high box office when they come out, but are still know 30 or 40 years after they where released. We need to make a distinction between youth culture, fashion statements and culture. The cultural definition of the 80's is the music that people will still listen too 40 years later. The Beatles made a culture statement because they are still loved by many (young) people, and influence temporary society. But while they (the Beatles) are a cultural statement there fashion movement was not. Micha van den Berg 16:16, 23 November 2007 (CST)

Blank and rewrite would be the best solution. I also suggest we increase the amount of workgroups to six with: Sociology, Anthropology, Literature, Music, Visual arts and Sports so that we have enough different angels to cover Japanese society broadly enough. Micha van den Berg 16:16, 23 November 2007 (CST)

I think that the principle author of this article, User:John_Stephenson, is probably better positioned than anyone currently on the wiki to write on this topic. Stephen Ewen 00:03, 27 December 2007 (CST)