Caveat: Easy Japan

I won’t say that I like Japan more than Korea. But in a lot of ways, I find Japan easier to like than Korea. I spent a long time yesterday trying to figure out why that is. It might be something as simple as the fact that the Japanese character includes a level of cultural self-confidence that is comforting after constantly coping with the myriad minor insecurities embedded in contemporary South Korean cultural discourse: the petty nationalisms, the linguistic deference … these things are mostly absent in my interactions with random Japanese and in my observations of cultural output, here.

Maybe if I spent more time in Japan, these perceptions would become more nuanced. But superficial impressions count for a lot. Still, there remain many reasons why I’m sticking with Korea, despite my fascination with (and liking for) Japan.

A picture.

picture
picture

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