>>509153779From what I understand from Japanese history, they'd been humbled by the westerners in mid-19th century and worked hard to catch up and prove to be within the same league. Then they got buckbroken into being American vassals. Hell, they even started playing baseball of all things, how much of a wannabe can one get?
That's kind of embarrassing of them, yes. I'm still surprised so few of them speak English in spite of all this. They'd be better off focusing on their traditions instead.
Afaik there's also some animosity between Chinese and Japanese, not just due to WW2, unit 731 etc, but centuries old. It makes sense for them to try and appear distinct.
Attempting to appear white is something common to most Asians, is it not? Living in Europe I'd often see Chinese girls walking with parasols on sunny days to avoid getting tan.
Coming back home, I had to pass my luggage through an x-ray machine in subway. The lady operating the machine commented on the amount of bottles I was bringing and asked if I came from Cuba. A somewhat better reception than I'd received in China but got me thinking. I dislike China so much because in it I see too much of Russia. Particularly the parts I dislike. The surveillance. The security (in our defense, we do have a problem with mudslime bombers and are also at war, but they're smarter than that). The dystopian model of cashless (as opposed to anonymous suika/icoca). The glorious leader. I really don't want any of that here but that's where we're headed.
Also, regarding the freedoms of expressing oneself in China, I wouldn't imagine that talking loudly about Tienanmen massacre, yugur mistreatment, calling mao names or waving a picture of xi spliced with winnie the pooh, while passing through one of those police checkpoints, wouldn't be well-received. I could be wrong though. I was under the impression that these are kind of taboo, and whereas in Japan you'd get silently judged by autismos the Chinese would be more hands-on.
