Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

thesocietypages.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 147 posts

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#71

Post by Poiesis »

patio11 wrote: post #47
slantyyz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a funny story a professor told me. Back in the days of apartheid, someone told a Japanese friend of his that in South Africa, that he'd have the same status as a "white", to which he retorted "Why would I want to be white?"

Relatedly, "Asian" is a category which exists in America a heck of a lot more than it exists in Asia. (I was helping one of my friends with a grad school application. He got to race, asked me why a school would need to know this -- silly Japanese person, how would we run our racial discrimination departments without sorting you first -- and couldn't find Japanese on the menu so he picked Other. Quote, "The closest I…

This reminds me of the trouble I have with "African-American". I often have no idea where someone's cultural, racial, or national background is, and I believe it would be rude of me to presuppose a particular country. Anyway, the problem usually comes up when I'm trying to describe someone to someone else (physically, I mean). I mean, if I work with three people who are black and 50 who are not, there is an obvious way to narrow down the description. Same as of they had another distinguishing characteristic. If I (a rather white guy) were the odd skin tone out I'd fully expect to be described by it.

I understand the idea that a person is not defined by their skin color. But, really, I'm generally not talking about someone else's background as much as I'm asking a third party if they know them.

More on topic, it would seem that a good artist specifies a particular cultural background for a character if it enhances a story. Otherwise, it is often the case that any cultural baggage is brought by the viewer/reader.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#72

Post by mambodog »

brazzy wrote: post #21
byoung2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see a lot of that in the Philippines especially. Everyone wants to be as white as possible, so they carry umbrellas to block the sun, and use whitening lotions and soaps. Contrast that with the US, where people want to be tan, to the point of using tanning salons and spray-on tans.

Up to about 100 years ago, this was common in Europe (and probably America) as well: when 90%+ of the populace were poor agriculture workers, white skin was a status symbol. This eventually reversed when most work moved indoors, and a tan became something acquired on vacations. The open question is why Japan, as dominated by clerical work as any other fully industrialized country, still retains the ideal of white ski…

Some examples of the extreme fake tan style that peaked around 2000 (ganguro): http://www.yopress.com/japanese/japanese-style-extreme-tanni...

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#74

Post by dgabriel »

powrtoch wrote: post #48
dgabriel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a non-sequitur. In the context of racial appearance of drawn characters, and the incorrect attribution of race based on the viewers biases, it's an appropriate, if somewhat incendiary, term. If someone counters that Japanese definitely draw white people because Japanese people think Americans are awesome (and there are some arguments of this type floating around out there), then it's a culturally myopic, borde…

Sigh. Alright, last try, then I'm done with this time-sink discussion. Forget racism. I said nothing about whether "racist" was an appropriate term for the kinds of people he has in mind. The problem is in equating "the people I have in mind" with "everyone who could possibly think I'm wrong". The problem is that he has assumed, before anyone has even had the chance to argue with him, that any arguments he gets will…

Thanks for the condescension.

The author states in the last paragraph that he is referring to the Americans who make that argument. Perhaps that was not clear to you, but it was clear to me.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#75

Post by jimbokun »

Jun8 wrote: post #66
jimbokun wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why are the characters in traditional Japanese paintings look very Japanese (slanted eyes, hairdo, etc.)." So modern anime characters should look more like traditional Japanese paintings? "How can you explain that a lot of Japanese women go through cosmetic surgery to get rid of the slant in their eyes to make them look more Western?" Citation? How many is "many"? "Why is baseball so popular in Japan?" Because they'…

Here's ( http://www.bellasugar.com/Jessica-Simpson-Eyelid-Surgery-Pri... ) a recent link on how popular double eyelid surgery is in Korea and Japan. I don't have the hard figures but I would guess that this procedure would be much more common in Korea and Japan then in China since these populations are more affluent and were heavily affected by US presence. As for baseball, most everyone agrees this is a quintessenti…

Baseball is more popular throughout the Caribbean and Latin America than it is in the U.S., and many of the best major leaguers come from there. During the World Baseball Classic, most of the biggest names were playing for countries other than the U.S.

And Japan won the tournament, both of the times it has been played so far. The best U.S. finish is fourth.

I see the U.S. relationship with baseball becoming similar to that of England with soccer. We may have invented the sport, but that doesn't mean we're the best at it any more.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#76

Post by dgabriel »

moby_duck wrote: post #63
c00ki3s wrote: post #5

This "article" seems to be very light on basically anything. Especially facts. How much karma does it take on HN to vote things down?

Agree. The basic premise is that we're all sort of racists, and therefore we think any other generic-looking person is just like us. I don't see much data to support his conclusion. Also, is this question the same as why do British singers sound like Americans in their songs? Just asking...

The assumption of whiteness does NOT make you a racist, any more than the assumption of Japanese-ness makes a person living in Japan a racist. This is not the behavior the author is calling out as racist.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#77

Post by edanm »

senki wrote: post #55
shaunfs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at this: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&... What's the point. I bet there are a million bigots, immature kids, and ignorant people asking questions on Yahoo Answers. Unfortunately every country has people like this, it's not exclusive to one area. Let's just all read this and decide collectively that Yahoo Answers should never again be used as debate source material: http://answers.yahoo.com…

You are right. edanm asked for some evidence that there are idiots who think Japanese worship white people. It seems there are many, so the article really targets an existing problem. That's the point.

I was specifically looking for evidence that scholars believe this. I don't doubt there are idiots who believe all kinds of things!

And by the way, what's up with the people posting that Yahoo! question? If it's not a joke, I'm seriously worried about the state of humanity.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#78

Post by philwelch »

coliveira wrote: post #39

I think it depends on what you consider white. If you are just talking about the color of skin, Japanese are as white as Europeans. In fact, my personal view is that they are closer to white, European's skin color has a pink tone that you can't see on Japanese people.

Europeans have more pheomelanin than Japanese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheomelanin#Pheomelanin). A clear indicator of this is to check the softer skin tissues, like the lips and nipples. Europeans tend to be pinker in these places, not browner like most humans.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#79

Post by edanm »

Jun8 wrote: post #52

I have always pondered this question so I quickly went to the link and was confronted with a really weak and half-baked argument. First, this is not a question of American audiences; I'm not American and love anime but they don't look Japanese to me either. "The Other has to be marked. If there are no stereotyped markings of otherness, then white is assumed." This may be true but it has very little to do with anime.…

Honestly, Japanese anime characters do not look western to me. They look Japanese, but that's probably because I'm used to seeing them in anime! I don't see how classic Japanese drawings have anything to do with it; different styles of drawing grew up in different cultures, I expect, and not just because of the different look of people from those culture.

As for the baseball question, I don't think it makes much sense. Soccer is popular almost everywhere in the world except in the United States, so it's obviously not a Western thing, and there are other sports highly popular in some countries and not in others. It has more to do with history than with any fascination. For example, cricket and snooker are extremely popular in countries that used to be parts of Great Britain, but that's just history, not any "worship" of England.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#80

Post by edanm »

Sukotto wrote: post #13
BobbyH wrote: post #4

The post makes a good point, but it does overlook the fact that the "Godfather of Anime", Osamu Tezuka ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka ) was heavily influenced by Walt Disney and American animation. For instance, the Wikipedia article notes: "The distinctive "large eyes" style of Japanese animation was invented by Tezuka, drawing inspirations on cartoons of the time such as Betty Boop and Walt Disney's Ba…

Those characters have big eyes and foreheads for two reasons. Firstly, to make them cuter... like babies. All baby humans have proportionally big heads/eyes to the rest of their bodies and we're hardwired to think of those characteristics as simpler, cuter, and deserving of our attention. Secondly, to give the animator a face that is both simpler and larger which makes it much easier to draw expressions These two thi…

I once took a Psychology course which had another explanation for the large eyes. Apparently, when humans are sexually aroused, their pupils get larger. This makes people with larger pupils more sexually appealing, leading to all kinds of tricks to making your pupils larger (for example, candlelit dinners; also, in some older civilizations, women used to use eyedrops to make their pupils larger).

All of this leads to people thinking larger pupils look better, and in the case of small cartoon characters, look cuter.

Post reply on HN