Similarly,
in a once-recent post by Stupid Ugly Foreigner, he laments the
disconnect from English-language popular culture he suffers while
living in China. This phenomenon is exemplified in Pharrell's
“Happy,” of which he was utterly unware until long after it had
already become entrenched in our cultural constitution. Now that I'm
back in Canada, I'm facing kind of the opposite problem, and when
I get back I'm going to have to relearn everything.
An
example: The first time I heard Kyari Pyamu Pyamu's seminal "Pon
Pon Pon," it had already been popular for months. In fact it's
almost strange to me now to think that there ever was
a time when I'd never heard it – it's so clearly ingrained in the
cultural landscape of its era. To not know at least that much was to
have no idea what a certain type of Japanese person was listening to
at the time, and that shit was important to me.
I leaped aboard that particular ship as soon as I saw it, and then
throughout the rest of the year I managed to catch everything new as
it bubbled up into the cultural consciousness of Japanese young
people. Unfortunately I've now effectively lost all knowledge of
what's trending back there, and it's going to take time to get back
up to speed.
I
can use the Internet to keep abreast of the latest vicissitudes in
television and idol gossip, but that's a poor substitute for everday
immersion because it's all through my own filter - limited, not "off
the street," not necessarily bearing any relation to what's
actually popular. Metroid, for example, is more popular outside Japan
than within it. In the Korean's account of his tour of the South by
Southwest music show in Austin, I read that he saw a relatively new
Japanese loli group called Starmarie, who were supposedly the most
popular Japanese singers going. Except that my immediate reaction was
“Who the hell are Starmarie?” Sure enough, it turns out that they
are indeed a popular Japanese idol group – in
America.
So
what, you may say. It's just movies and music and other meaningless
bullshit. You might have a point. A mild de-syncing with cultural
developments that will no longer be relevant a year from now might
seem like a fairly minor loss. But remember that anime and music and
dramas and everything else are all things I have a certain dependency
on, because they're my primary means of studying the language. I am
constantly on the hunt for new material to consume, integrating its
knowledge into my biomass, mining it for not only new vocabulary and
grammar but cultural tidbits and talking points. Without the
constant, effortless exposure you get in Japan, I am forced to
subsist on what I can scavenge from YouTube or d-Addicts.
Access
to this stuff also affects my studying habits. I've always been a
proponent of self-motivation – that is, if you really
want to learn another language, you just do it, every day, or else
adjust your expectations. That means that on a day when you come home
from work or school, exhausted, depressed, and without the slightest
desire to study, you clench your teeth and do it anyway. So it'd be
idiotic to say that lack of access to Japanese pop culture adversely
affects my study regimen, but easy access to it does positively
affect it. You should always be able to force yourself to study, but
a spoonful of heroin makes the medicine go down.
Also,
though I have no pedagogical training, I feel like all the studying I
do while in this “engaged” state is more effective. Perhaps I am
simply more receptive at such times, and thus better able to absorb
new vocabulary and constructions. Or perhaps even more simply, I just
pay closer attention when I'm interested. Or maybe it's just my
imagination. Anyway I'm not going to stop.
Finally,
a big part of a country's contemporary cultural identity either stems
from or is resolved in its media trends. I don't think that's too
grandiose a statement. The plot twists in big TV shows get people
talking. Artists use their media to communicate a deeper message.
People will resort to the refrain of “relax, it's just a movie”
for as long as movies continue to be made, but that's utterly and
obviously wrong. Our art, even our for-profit art, is both informed
by our shared cultural experience, and adds to it. It's important.
It's not World War II-level historical significance, but you can't
just discount it.
And
again, for me, soft culture is a part of how I connect with Japanese
people - knowledge of what's trending in their
pop music and television is often a good ice-breaker. And how many
friendships are born from mutual interests? The early conversation of
practically any first encounter is spent searching out common ground.
Obviously don't hinge your identities on what anime you like, because
if you want to be interesting you have to be interesting in and of
yourself. But I can't count the number of times I've inspired shock
and delight for merely having heard
of something Japanese. If nothing else it shows that you're
receptive.
On
the other hand, I guess if not being quite up on the latest moves and
grooves is my greatest concern, as compared to somebody arriving with
no knowledge of Japan or Japanese, maybe I'm doing all right.
There'll be a brief period of adjustment, but in no time I'll be
slinging timely observations and relevant pop culture references like
anybody else. Now all I have to do is find a job, win the lottery, or
earn the favour of the yakuza, and I'll be good to go.
