First, it must be said that I’ve met far fewer people who find living here annoying than I found in, for example, Spain. What I am wondering about instead how books that start off quite interesting and coherent but then just turn into an unconnected list of true and made up negatives about Japan like “Dogs and Demons” and “Shutting Out the Sun” get made: Read the rest of this entry »
Why do some people find Japan so annoying?
March 1, 2008 at 1:34 pm (Dogs and demons, Gaijin/ gaikokujin/ foreigners in Japan, Japan bashing, Japan FAQs and SAQs, Japan links, Shutting Out the Sun)
Why did the WWII Japanese caricature always have bucked teeth?
January 18, 2008 at 11:52 pm (Japan and China, Japan and the USA, Japan bashing, Japan FAQs and SAQs, Japanese physical appearance, Japanese stereotypes, Japanese teeth, WWII- The Second World War)
This is an odd one, because although Japanese teeth are just as bad as British teeth, bucked teeth doesn’t particularly stand out as a problem. I’m sure someone could write/ has written a whole PhD thesis on this, but here are my theories: That classic Eastern racist anti-hero Fu Man Chu was always portrayed with bucked teeth long before Japan became the biggest yellow peril, so it could have been transferred straight from the Chinese as the Japanese became the biggest threat both in California and in the Pacific. Alternatively, it could have started as a caricature of one particular person that then spread. The whole fact that teeth was such a factor could be due to the caricature coming from America, home of the good teeth obsession.
