Japan — The Strange Country (with a strange way to say it)

By Dyske    April 1st, 2010

This is an interesting video about Japan. The most interesting part of it is that the author took down the English version of it. I’d like to know more about his decision to do so, because I suspect that there is a deeper story in it than the story of the video itself.

When we first watch this, we assume that the author is being self-critical, but he says this video represents a “foreigner’s point of view”. This is rather confusing. What he ends up telling is what he thinks is a foreigner’s point of view, so we are not sure who is telling the story. If this is indeed a foreigner’s point of view, it’s not being self-critical. It would be a foreigner pointing his finger at another nation. If we were to view it that way, the story is highly skewed and biased, verging on racism, because it does not put all the issues in a proper International perspective. So, we can accept his arguments only as self-criticism. If the video is being self-critical, stating that this is a “foreigner’s point of view” is a cop out. As one commenter pointed out on Vimeo; he is trying to avoid taking responsibility for his own opinions (which is typically Japanese).

This is why it would be interesting to know why he took down the English version. If the video is meant to be self-critical, then the only people he needs to reach are the Japanese. The idea would be to change their own ways through being self-critical. Foreigners wouldn’t need to see it, so taking down the English version would make sense.

This type of video comes across to me as insincere or even dishonest, because the author puts himself above the target of his criticism. The assumption here is that he is somehow above all the blame and guilt. By pointing fingers at everyone around him, he makes himself feel superior to them. I believe this is why he sees himself as a “foreigner” so that he is absolved of all the crimes he accuses of others. In essence, he is telling everyone else to be self-critical, but he thinks he does not have to be self-critical himself.

8 Responses

  1. Nic says:

    April 1st, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    Interesting. I enjoyed watching this video very much.
    I’m Japanese. My opinion: This is Japanese self-“teasing”, not self-“criticizing”.
    There are something you are okay if you say by your own but you don’t like if you are told by others … Example: you could criticize your sister (for whatever) but if you see somebody else criticize her in front of you you may not like it … And this video is it.
    This video is (to me) clearly aiming at Japanese audiences. We are teasing ourselves, making fun of our own, and can enjoy this video only because this video was made by our own people – Japanese.
    For those non-Japanese who watch this video, I want them to notice (not only that Japan is indeed the strange country but also) that we could have this type of wit to tease ourselves in the way this video reveals 🙂
    Thank you very much for posting this video.

  2. Biquiba says:

    April 10th, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    I watched the english version via this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgsbIfI0uIg . I personally think that: he really wanted to promote self-criticism among the Japaneses, he also wanted to tease themselves, wanted some fun. Maybe, in order to increase the good reception of his video, he purposely made the video funny. Well, the video was made based in facts, but…he was gross. I don’t liked the way that he used to promote the quarrel. He used a funny way to represent the Christian figure of dying and going to the Heaven. If exist something that we have to be extremely careful to talk about, it is religion. Specially when the quarrel involves people of many different beliefs. I also was surprised how he could make fun about the nuclear bombings. I was a bit shocked because it(I’m reading a book called “Enola Gay” that my father showed me since I were a kid).
    Thankfully T. Biquiba

  3. Biquiba says:

    April 10th, 2010 at 5:31 pm

    If you can notice, the name of the video is “Japan — ‘The’ Strange Country” and not “Japan — ‘A’ Strange Country”. It help us to see how strange the Japan is, in his point of view(I don’t believe that he just displayed a “foreigner’s point-of-view”). You can see that he really “lived or lives” abroad in his profile on Vimeo: “I attended art colleges both in Japan and in the U.S. (Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Art and Music, California College of the Arts)”. It also helps us to see how he could make such video, well based on a “foreigner’s point-of -view”.
    Thankfully again T. Biquiba

  4. Dyske says:

    April 10th, 2010 at 9:08 pm

    Hi Biquiba

    Another reason why I don’t like this video is because none of the ideas or facts are his own. He simply pulled those facts from other sources. It’s not like he did the research himself and presented some facts that nobody knew about. It’s like picking on someone by pointing out all his flaws. Sure, everyone has flaws. Even if the creator of this video pointed out all of his own personal flaws, how interesting would it be?

    My guess is that he just wanted to create a cool looking motion graphics piece. He wanted the content to appear smart and profound, so he picked a noble sounding topic for it. It wasn’t coming from this sincere need to actually say something of his own, which is a typical problem that graphic design students have because in commercial arts, you are always delivering someone else’s message. It’s an appropriate field for someone who has nothing original of his own to say, but has a lot of means and talent to say something.

  5. y says:

    April 11th, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    i think you have missed the point regarding this problematic passive aggressive piece.
    Japan is presented as reckoning its own image as portrayed by foreigners. It is delighting in a narrow-minded preoccupied and fascinated presentation of a lot of different people living in the same area of land;
    and calling this a foreign perspective. Instead of saying this is what some people think about Japan, and actually they are wrong, it is assuming that foreigners only hold these table cloth views.

    I think it is a very destructive video in two ways. If we nod and agree as a foreigner then that is a shame- any country is more complicated than portrayed here.

    If you nod and agree as a Japanese person you are saying that Japan’s image is entirely constrained, generally facile and diminutive and at the mercy of gossiping foreigners. It is not.

    It would appear that the director wishes to be the master of his own punishment. I will not allow this.

  6. awm says:

    May 29th, 2010 at 2:49 am

    This is all objective information and statistics. I do not see why it would be racist even if it was made by a foreigner. Please explain to me why statistics are a form of criticism?

    I am half Japanese and have lived here almost forever and I must say this IS Japan. The feeling of criticism that people feel is a result of their acknowledgment of the reality portrayed in the video.

  7. Bryan says:

    May 29th, 2010 at 3:49 am

    I think that the thing to keep in mind is that the maker of the video is first and foremost a graphic artist and was making a video to display his talent. So that necessitates that the design and art aspects are the main priority, not the content. It does seem he was picking a pithy subject matter to add to the art piece.

    However, I kind of backfired on him, he was using poignant content that got away from him. First of all, he didn’t provide any context, if all of the things shown are ‘strange’ then an either explicit or implicit reference is needed to evaluate it. If he were making for a Japanese audience then they all have to take his word that these facts about Japan are somehow strange when really they fall into a spectrum along with many other OECD countries.

    I think that’s where he originally thought of it as from a foreigners perspective, it requires the viewer to take their knowledge of their own country and apply it to what he presents. However, even still it lacks context.

    I really appreciated the visual design work though. I thought it was engaging and very strong visually. Its certainly not outstanding work, indeed the style he used seems to be more common these days.

  8. Lana says:

    August 4th, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    Well I suppose this is really his own personal way of nit-picking at his own country (Japan) and stated what is wrong with it – in his opinion –

    My Japanese is not great. And half of that I didnt understand. But I think taking the english version down was not a good idea, pointless infact, because the imagery kind of gave it away. I obviously didnt get the entire story, but the general gist of it. I would like to see the translated version though..