Turning Japanese? … I really think so
Photo by retinafunk
I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese culture, perhaps because to a young Irish boy it seemed so alien and exotic and eccentric compared to our Western norms. I did a lot of research on Japan for the novel, and my head is still swimming in the invigorating pool of Japanese culture. I don’t think you can ever really fully understand a culture unless you’ve grown up in it. Outsiders just get privileged glimpses of understanding.
However, it was great fun. I think I’m turning Japanese.
To the casual observer I must appear as un-Japanese as possible — a tall Irish Caucasian lug! And yet I feel an affinity with Japan: maybe it’s my love of baths; maybe it’s my love of electronic gadgets; maybe it’s because the road where I grew up was lined with cherry blossoms (or sakura as we Japanese call it!) ; maybe it’s because of my fondness for meditative ways and unobstrusive, demure, polite people.
Or maybe it’s because Ireland is mooted to be following Japan into a prolonged 80’s-style property-induced economic crash!
I think we’re turning Japanese … I really think so.
I just hope we stop before we get this bad:
Add comment October 18th, 2008
