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Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

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Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#121

Post by jimbokun »

Locke1689 wrote: post #106
ahi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the number of players imported from Latin America, I think the US only has enough players for a half-dozen MLB-level teams.

As I said in a cousin comment, the nationality of the players is irrelevant. I would count non-Japanese citizens playing in the NPB as members of Japanese professional baseball, just as I count Mo as a member of the MLB.

As I noted in another comment, we can compare MLB with the English Premier League. MLB and the EPL are considered the best leagues in the world for their respective sports, but that does not mean that the U.S. and England produce the best players.

Comparing the two leagues, MLB has placed a greater emphasis on the home run (probably because Japanese players are smaller on average than many U.S. and Latin American players). However, that does not necessarily make the Japanese style worse when it comes to winning games. The World Baseball Classic is the only serious competition we've had to compare national styles at the highest level, and so far the Japanese system has won out. Granted, a sample size of two is probably not significant, but it seems all we have to go by.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#122

Post by nandemo »

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…

I don't understand how your anecdote illustrates your point. He looked for Japanese first, then Asian. The problem was the "Asian-American". I assume if there was an "Asian" option he would have picked it.

(Yes, I know that in Japan "Asian" almost always mean "Asia - Japan", but I think a college student wouldn't fail to realize that outside Japan, "Asia" does include Japan.)

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#123

Post by po »

This is a nice thought-provoking article.

Pale white skin has a history here in Japan much longer than anime. Look at geisha for example. On the other end of the spectrum, there were Gangaru walking all around tokyo at one point too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganguro

Japanese women especially are well aware of their skin's natural ability to change color and often treat it as a fashion decision.

A heavily tanned caucasian can be much darker than an asian, latino, african american, etc... I think many westerners would be surprised that caucasians don't always have "white" skin if they actually looked around the world with a critical eye.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#124

Post by po »

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…

They say Blepharoplasty is the most popular surgery in Japan and South Korea but plastic surgery in general is still considered quite abnormal here. Most popular doesn't mean common.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#125

Post by lotusleaf1987 »

Qu4Z wrote: post #116
lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought, but how is drawing them white ethnically neutral? It seems like something more beige/brown would be, seeing as how most of the world as tan-skinned.

I think it's largely because the page is white. How do you color someone beige/brown in a black-and-white medium? Specifically black and white, not grayscale. A question to you: What is it that makes them drawn specifically white, other than eyes? Is it only the fact that they're on a white background, or is there more there that I am missing.

No that explains it. I guess I was assuming they were drawing them in color to begin with and that they were scanned into b&w.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#126

Post by jimbokun »

mbubb wrote: post #119
Jun8 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, it's hard to agree with this. I think you're equating success in world tournaments with professional level of play, which may not be the case. As a case in point, consider the recent FIBA World Campionship: Turkey played the final with US and gave it a run for its money (at least at the start of the game). Serbia was awesome, too. The US Team didn't even make it to the final in the previous three times ( http://…

US has the best players at every position in basketball, hands down. Not quite the same in baseball but you could produce a dominant American team. But might not have the best team always. I think there has been a decline in US baseball and basketball as team sports. I am not sure I could empirically prove it though. I find it hard to sit through an actual game in any major US sport, though I find myself still follow…

"US has the best players at every position in basketball, hands down."

I'd take Pau Gasol over any U.S. big man. That's probably it, though.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#127

Post by hugh3 »

brc wrote: post #110
edanm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sens…

Small correction : Great Britain refers to the group of islands also referred to as the British Isles. Great Britain is a geographical reference. The full name of the UK is 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. Hence 'British' is a generic term for anyone from the British Isles, although it tends to be used to describe English people, though technically Welsh and Scottish people are also British…

If we're going to be nitpicky and irrelevant, "Great Britain" != "The British Isles".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isle...

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#128

Post by adlep »

I know for sure that all of the Manga style drawings DO NOT look asian, so there was a marketing element to it. Seems like Japanese creators wanted to make Manga universal and appealing to everybody - and of course they were successful at it. So, rather than drawing asian looking characters, they have created a "universally appealing" characters. This is equal to "bigger audience".

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#129

Post by DannoHung »

I am seriously disappointed with how the skin tone issue was blown off in about half a sentence. I understand that there is great variability in Japanese ethnic skin tone, but it seems like the majority of Japanese have a dusky skin tone while the majority of anime characters have a very pale skin tone.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#130

Post by harisenbon »

Poiesis wrote: post #71
patio11 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

This reminds me of a story that my friend told me from when she was at college.

The daughter of the ambassador from Jamaica was a student at the college, and she was being interviewed by the student newspaper as an interest piece.

The interviewer apparently asked her how she felt being an African-American at the (predominantly white) college.

The interviewer could not fathom why the daughter (being neither African nor American) was upset by the question.

That, and living in a foreign country has pretty much made me give up on the PC-ness that American creates. I'm as white as the Whitey-white white, and I feel that no one could be faulted for telling me otherwise.

Interestingly enough, when I tease my wife about our (half-hungarian, half-japanese) daughter about being part of "Team Whitey," she always responds by saying that our daughter is part of "Team Yellow."

While horribly non-PC in America, it brings into light the amount of power that words like that have, and how they have almost no power if there's no history or culture backing them.

Thinking about it further, I find it interesting that "Team Whitey" sounds perfectly fine and dandy in an English context, while "Team Yellow" seems racially insensitive.

Strange what a single color-change can make.

-- END Random rambling

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