I'll start. Fahrenheit is the superior temperature system for weather reporting. We should use metric for literally everything else, even Celsius for cooking, but I'll be dead in the cold ground before I abandon a system in which you actually get to experience both 0 degrees and 100 degrees. Freezing being 32 instead of 0 is literally the only downside, and it's not a hard number to remember. I'm prepared to die on this hill in the comments.
A lot of Westerners who admire Japanese culture (beyond anime) just enjoy the thought of a country where everyone is polite to them and never confronts them over anything. They don't mind sacrificing deeper human connection as long as they can secure a comfortable air of civility, and many of them also have raw consumption as a hobby in the form of new restaurants or tourist marketing novelties.
Redditors seem to fit this bill when they enjoy stuff like Japanese bus drivers working for free as protest, which doesn't inconvenience anyone except the protestors and is thus seen as good.
Nine times out of ten when I meet someone who gushes about Japan, I can already predict how every interaction with them is going to be.
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They have no doubt. When I first arrived in Japan I walked into a fast-food restaurant thinking it was empty, and when I walked upstairs with my food I saw it jam-packed. Everyone was sitting quietly, nobody talking, staring down and eating like clockwork. A few nights prior I'd gotten drunk with a Korean and watched him jump off a table on a bar in Busan, so I've always had an affinity for Korea that I don't hold for Japan as I've seen streaks of exuberance and brutal honesty in the culture.
These qualities are of course neither good or bad, save for your personal feelings on them. But I think a reticent culture attracts Westerners who enjoy not having their bubble popped or their knees scraped ideologically.
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If I admire a quality of someone who grew up in an East Asian culture it's that they're typically modest about their endeavors in comparison to Americans, including me. I've regularly hung out with friends for months and never knew they did stuff on the side like machine learning and highly-intensive hobbies unless you directly ask them about it. They just do it, they don't advertise.
One should take care to avoid stereotypes when discussing this stuff, but I think it's apt to say that different cultures encourage different qualities on average.
Some of us just really like the trains though
have you heard of china
The trains? Listen, jack, the trains are good.
hell yeah
I also think the cities look cool, although I've never been.
I tend to like a lot of japanese punk and alt music. i'll watch anime no more or less than western media. I want to learn some of the language just to find music easier. I'm constantly afraid of being seen as a weeb because having an equivalent interest in say spanish, german, or russian music wouldn't be seen as so odd.
I'd like to visit japan some day, but I don't want to sit around jerkin it in a pokemon store.
Please disregard my username, chapochat came online when I just finished a rewatch of eva.
If I had a thing for any country it would be Russia. I've studied the language, visited with plans to return, and I'm aware of the stereotypes associated with that. When you think of the average white American male who enjoys Russian culture, I'm sure you can conjure up a somewhat-specific image of him.
I don't think it's weird or wrong to be attracted to a certain culture, but I believe a reserved and polite culture can sometimes draw a certain type of person for reasons that annoy me. It could definitely be an unpopular opinion.
I have an on and off hobby of fixing watches and my favorite type are the old soviet watches, which gets weird looks at times. Its not even a "oh me commie, me do commie watch", I just think that they're really interesting and have different design philosophies that are so much more simple, yet work just as well, if not better.
i guess I like things from all over?
oh god please tell me the stereotype because I'm a major Russophile and I'm not shy about it.
Either ultra left-wing or ultra right-wing is I guess how I'd be perceived depending on the person. But I've been perceived as extremely right-wing in the past because I'm white, middle-class, am RBF as fuck and I dress conservatively (jeans, button-up, no piercings or tattoos, short hair, etc.). The irony is usually those who find me too right-wing think Bernie was too extreme, whereas I found Bernie not left enough.
ah well I guess the stereotype holds lol. I'm a dude with longish hair so I think I avoid looking like fash. I don't do myself any favors in that department with my love of olive drab though lol.
Eh, I don't know much about Japan but the first stereotypes that come to mind are discipline, a sense of honour and duty people have to their work and the fact that it's a culture that is weird to a westerner despite being a first world nation. It's not surprising that those things appeal to a certain kind of personality, shall I say more categorising than empathising, the kind of personality many nerds have.
Also, is the whole "lack of personal connections" thing fair? That just sounds like a harmful stereotype.
Not to be argumentative, but how? Immediately calling it a harmful stereotype and dismissing it is to me more of a thought-terminating cliche. That's an easy out instead of making further observation. To me it's basic logic: A Westerner who doesn't know Japanese isn't going to go to Japan and have close-knit connections as easily with a culture known for its polite but distant mannerisms.
I've lived in Korea for years; while the country has its great qualities, foreigners -- particularly Westerners -- overestimate the bonds they forge. Japanese and to an extent Korean culture isn't about direct confrontation and typically I've observed that if a negative comment can be framed in a more positive manner, it will be attempted. If a woman doesn't like a beard on a Western man, she may repeatedly make seemingly-nonchalant comments about, "Oh, so much hair." I myself have bad RBF and always get comments about how little I smile while they backpedal how little they like it when I ask what they mean.
Part of Korean culture also is its hospitality. I can't find this, but there were conflict models I once saw mapped for various countries and one Korea's stages during interpersonal dynamics was "Tell the other person what you think they want to hear". This echoes in what friends have told me about their Korean co-workers complimenting how good their Korean is. The thing is, their Korean sucks. But they don't always grasp the difference between someone being sincere and someone simply mollifying them.
When you throw in the fact that many long-term travelers in East Asia inevitably come from places of social and financial privilege, you've got a perfect recipe for -- I don't know how to label it succinctly -- a Karen personality. Someone who wants the world to be one giant customer service desk for them.
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You said "a lot" as opposed to "all", so maybe I shouldn't feel the need to disagree. But I'm a Japanophile and this doesn't ring true for me at all. (I don't think I'm a "weeb", I consume some anime/jRPGs, but it's a minority of the things I'm interested in.) I enjoy the sound of the Japanese language, Japanese music, the taste and style of Japanese food, the Japanese approach to religion and spirituality, philosophies of simplicity, asceticism, and everyone taking care of each other, the architecture and atmosphere of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, the creativity of modern Japanese art that's Westernized and yet still unique...
Where I would criticize my Japanophilia (and at least that of some others) is that it is "raw consumption", I'm not interested in becoming Japanese and know that Japanese media and cultural products aren't a true reflection of Japanese society. (Billions of people around the world are the same way with American culture - love Batman and McDonalds, have no idea what it's like to be American.) So it's a bit of a fantasy world - Japan's projection of itself is appealing. But saying it's just politeness, or anime, or ramen or whatever is caricaturing the many different things you can enjoy about Japanese culture.
I can't make blanket statements but I've met too many suburbanite liberals who think of the world as a travel resort and Japan is always high on their list since they never feel any hardship there. The privilege gateway of travel filters them through I guess.