Japanese animation, more commonly known to us as Anime has made itself known to the better part of the population around the world. As a result, many of us find our curiousity piqued where japanese culture is concerned. Recently, even movies have been made based on various animes, some examples of such movies include Dragon Ball, Astro boy and Guyver. The result of making anime-based movies into box office hits is akin to plunging the western population into a deep facination of japanese culture.
As such, westerners begin forming their perceptions on japanese culture based on what they have seen in these movies and anime. Just as how Australians viewed japanese negatively based on past prejudices such as the World War II (Smith,E.). Many such misconceptions have also cropped up from people who view anime, for example, people believe that japan still has samurai and geishas. Some of the more outrageous ones include japanese having big,round eyes as portrayed in anime (Johnson, S.)
When I was first introduced to anime 7 years ago, embarrassing as it is, I made similar assumtions only to find myself horribly wrong about japanese culture. The age we view anime is also the age in which we form many assumptions based on what we perceive.These misconceptions of japanese culture could be potentially problematic. A scenario to consider would be bringing up some assumptions we have about japanese culture to a friend or business partner who happens to be japanese. What we perceive may not be what is right.
What are your views on the various misconceptions that stem from our tendencies of perception?
Misconceptions usually comes from ignorance. As long as we are willing to change our perception of others, that is not harmful.
ReplyDeleteMisconceptions come about when we do not know enough about the thing we are talking about, we should find out the full details before misjudging.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Those who have not been exposed to the cutlures of other nations tend to form perceptions of them based on what they view from the media. Just as how people still think bollywood movies are about two lovers running around a coconut tree.
ReplyDeleteWe should instead prevent oursselves from absorbing everything that we view from the media and find information to enhance our knowlege of different cultures.
Misconceptions happen from time to time due to our different perception and cultural difference. However, most of the times we will judge or form perception on others based on what we know know and might not be true.
ReplyDeleteIt's like we judge a person based on the first impression, which is unfair to him/her and should at least get to know the person before we made any judgement against them.
Derrick
Indeed, ignorance plays a critical role in this rising trend of misconceptions. People always believe that what they know (they think they know) is right. It takes a lot of time to change these misconceptions and we clearly do not see any sign(s) of positive progress. It is only getting worse with the added exposure of such misconceptions from the media, allowing another controversy to surface: How the media distorts our individual perceptions.
ReplyDelete