Japanland Headache

Today, I typed Nihonjinron into Google Search and my blog was the third result, after Wikipedia and the Japan Times review of Hegemony of Homogeneity. Whoa...

And:

Today was supposed to be rather relaxing. I got to sleep in, after all, and had a solid 4 hour block between my two classes. Instead, it's 3:20 and I'm in the library with a bad headache. It's not just that I've read about 200 pages in 2 hours. Most of it was pleasant enough, even though I was hunched over the book in a not very vertebra-friendly manner. Even though I'm calling it research for my Anthro-paper, I thought Japanland would be 300 pages of Japan worship. After all, the subtitle is "A Year in the Search of Wa." Surely this was another Bakagaijin travels to the land of geisha, samurai, and matsuri and finds herself somehow. Part of it - a lot of it - is. But Karin also has a host family, in particular a host mother, and their falling our is oddly and painfully familiar, down to certain words and specifics. And this, even though Karin is older, more mature, more patient, and more experienced than I am.

"But I asked if it was okay - twice! You didn't say anything."
I should have known by her expression.
"Maybe it's a cultural misunderstanding -"
"Not culture. Manners. You have none."
- Page 187

I have a headache. Remember the feelings of shame, sadness, guilt, anger, confusion, desperation, and a thousand more that there are probably only words for in Japanese. And the feeling that a weight had been permanently affixed to the word culture, that I could never be so naive and silly and optimistic about it again. Such a headache...