Re: Performative Wokeness
Oct. 2nd, 2020 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingGod, writing all of this reminds me of this time back in 2017 when I was trying to set up a partnership with a Japanese university for a study abroad program, and the officer from the Global Education Office who I was working with was really confused about whether Japan is a European country.
I was like, Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? I mean, for the past two hundred years or so, many prominent Japanese politicians and intellectuals have been arguing that Japan is more European than East Asian, and I suppose it's true that a lot of people in Japan feel more of an affinity with Germany and France than they do with, say, China or Korea. But that's extremely complicated, and I don't think I'm in a position to make an argument one way or the other.
It turned out that the guy just didn't know where Japan was on a map and didn't want to google it.
I was like, Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? I mean, for the past two hundred years or so, many prominent Japanese politicians and intellectuals have been arguing that Japan is more European than East Asian, and I suppose it's true that a lot of people in Japan feel more of an affinity with Germany and France than they do with, say, China or Korea. But that's extremely complicated, and I don't think I'm in a position to make an argument one way or the other.
It turned out that the guy just didn't know where Japan was on a map and didn't want to google it.
