Let`s enjoy mixing cultures!

Well, my camera chord is still lost over the foggy horizon. So here`s some more text for your mental mastication.

The election helped to bring to the fore some of the things that one always notices while living here, only more so. One that`s pretty hard to miss is the Japanese tendency to whole-heartedly and whole-sale adopt images and conventions from other cultures, without assimilating much (if any) of the original meaning or context. Every culture does this, no doubt (ever been to an "Asian restaurant" in America?), but Japan imports so much American culture that the sheer volume increases the odds of things going strange exponentially. Let`s enjoy this photo, for instance (that a friend thoughtfully posted on facebook for me):

mo sukoshi Obama-san da

This is a pretty impressive degree of devotion, considering all he has to do with the town is a common name (post-transliteration, although if the town were smaller it would be buraku Obama, which is pretty awesome). It`s also impressive considering towns in America that even supported Obama by a majority didn`t quite pull a stunt like this one (to my knowledge).

While I`m at it, there`s also the bizarre hortatory injunction "let`s enjoy (name of activity here)." It`s just one of those useages that, while technically correct, leaves a strange ring in the ear- particularly when used with certain "ing" verbs, as in "let`s enjoy eating." As Japan gradually becomes an English-fluent nation, perhaps constructions like this will enter the lexicon as "Japanese English" much as we have American and British English now, but I`m not holding my breath.

As far as the actual election itself went, the staff at my schools were good about humoring my enthusiasm, and I got to try to explain the electoral college in Japanese (the word "chigaii"- different- made a lot of appearances, but comprehension never showed. It might be easier if it could even be comfortably explained in English, after all). Needless to say I`m pleased with the turn-out of the election, although I thought McCain`s concession speech was artfuly done as well. I don`t know whether the ballat I sent whizzing over the Pacific made much of a dent, but it was still kindof exciting to send it whizzing anyhow.

Finally, a tidbit for wrapping up-
McCain`s name sounds to the Japanese ear like "makanai"- or "don`t lose." The race between don`t lose-san and small-town-in-Kyushu-san was, I think, monitered with a fair ammount of interest here. I`ll be curious to see how people react to Obama-san as his presidency begins to unfurl.