Obsession with Japanese culture?

[DanieMarie]

Re: Obsession with Japanese culture?

German = beer.

Nuf said.

LOL it's not entirely untrue!

[Rhaethe]

Re: Obsession with Japanese culture?

I meet people allllll the time here who have absolutely no connection to German culture but are fascinated with it. Not so much people who come here to live, but definitely people who visit. I also experience it quite a bit when I go back to Canada to visit my family. If I tell people I don't know that I live in Germany, there's usually someone who is just AMAZED and tells me all about how much they love German silent films, or whatever their German obsession is. A lot of people want to learn German as well. I know it's a practical language, but it's more than that. Germans are happy to speak English in a business context and if you learn German, you'll probably have trouble actually getting chances to speak it unless you live here. People still learn it though, even when they don't plan on moving here.

Then there's the constant obsession with French culture. People here get really into that. I got into that for a while, and I have no connections to France whatsoever. I'm still a bit of a closet francophile. I'm kind of excited to be moving closer to France (and just on the border to French-speaking Belgium).

It's not just limited Japanese culture.

I think Canada is hard to generalize as well in terms of history and influence. On the coast, we're a lot more international. I know far more people with Ukrainian or Polish roots than English. Almost everyone I know with British roots is Scottish, not English. In the cities, people come from absolutely everywhere and there are a ton of more recent immigrants. I think Toronto is similar as well. Their history is part of our history in a lot of ways. Their culture bleeds into our culture (I kind of feel like "culture" on the west coast is sort of a flexible term that always changes). I'm used to being in a melting pot, I guess. It doesn't seem weird to me to pick up an interest in a different culture.

I will admit to being an open anglophile and francophile and whatever Denmark/Norway-phile would be.

I guess just europhile?

It is far more of a slightly obsessive fascination with European history rather than culture, as I think about it though. The closest I get to that is when I attempt to teach myself a language (French, Welsh, and Norwegian, thus far in varying degrees of success). Which goes okay as far as being able to read it ... I cannot speak it or hear it for squat though.

[Heka]

LOL it's not entirely untrue!

No but its my favourite thing about Germany. That and pretzels...