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DAISHI Wrote:I have had a big attitude change towered the Japanese. While once I really had a deep love and almost fascination with their culture, my general encounters with many if them in conjunction with many of their political and ecological decisions has made me wary. Not that you can put an entire people in a bottle but I guess I just have a more realist - or perhaps pessimitic - view of them.
Eh... and what encounters with them are you referring to? Interactions in FFXI or more? Because if you are talking about interactions within a video game, you have to realize that you are dealing with a microcosm of the population... not a good representative sample of the population. I hardly think that the american players of ffxi really would serve as a good sample portion for us, either. A lot is lost over text and l think many of us english speakers wouldn't want to be grouped with a lot of jerks that play ffxi.
As someone who has lived in japan and speaks japanese, the people are incredibly polite overall, but they do handle foreigners in an odd way. They won't try to talk to you unless you try to speak japanese to them, which many americans perceive as rude, although how often do you approach someone to talk to them on this side of the world when you can't make out what they are saying? But if you speak japanese to them, their face lights up, and they will chat like crazy. They are this way in ffxi too, tons of JPs friend me because to find an american they can communicate with is so rare. My first linkshell invite was actually to a jp linkshell, in fact. They really do love it when you learn their language, makes them feel honored lol. I hope ffxiv will let me type in japanese...
As for their politcal and economical policies... well, the western world trashes the environment far more than the japanese do... their justice system could use some work though.
But yeah, just be conscious of the lens through which you see the world.
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