Recently I’ve been watching Japanese reality shows on Netflix to practice my Japanese, as well as other reasons which I'll share in a second.
For most of my life I wouldn’t touch this kind of thing with a ten foot pole. I always thought of them as garbage which takes advantage of our most primitive instincts, turning us into addicts and influencing the way we think.
While that may not be far from the truth, Recently I am less judgmental of many things, among them reality TV shows. I don’t feel threatened like I used to feel. I can accept that if nothing else, these types of cultural relics are an indicator of what is going on in the collective conscious and I enjoy watching them from an anthropological perspective, without initial judgements, just as an observer.
After trying to be as objective as possible, I look at myself again to see what kind of tension may or may not be building and what kind of “culture shock” I experience (culture shock being any behavior or way of thinking which doesn't really fit into my life or my way of thinking).
After the initial non-judgemental observation, I remain an observer but allow myself to become less objective and then try to observe my own subjectivity as obvjectively as I can.
It’s actually an incredibly eye-opening process.
Even if these shows are staged or more goes on than we see, what they show is a reflection and an influence on what people in the culture consider normal.
A few months ago I tried a few western reality shows, just to see how I’d feel about them. I realized “Love is Blind” has an American Brazilian and Japanese version, which was a great chance to see how acceptable culture norms vary across cultures, and people who don't mind being on TV in different cultures act differently.
My first main takeaway was that I already relate much more with the “Asian” perspectives than Western ones. That could be cause I’ve lives in Asia for 15 years but I think I’ve always been like this. I used to be incredibly anxious and introverted because I don't like who I become when I'm aggressive. I feel dumb.
Put bluntly.....Americans and Brazillians feel dumb to me (hahaha no offense!). Obviously these are just a few random people and not a clear indication of a regular person but I've lived in America for 20 years so I can attest that people are much more likely to be reckless with their words and make absurd statements than Japanese people.
Many people think of Japanese people as being shy, reserved or conservative, and that may be true but a lot of it comes from a massive sense of responsibility that is ingrained from a young age, very subtly through what is emphasized in media like this and through social approval and disapproval. (It's not like some other traditional culture where shame is spoken outright, it's often spoken through silence).
Japanese people are very very careful with their words and after teaching for 15 years I’ve come to find its one of the major reasons so few speak English well. It’s hard to communicate in general when you are always choosing your words carefully, let alone in another language...but the sense of responsibility translates into a feeling of respect which creates a much more harmonious atmosphere.
These are some subtle points that people look over when looking at Japanese culture.
The people in Love is Blind Japan felt way more realistic to me. It's important to note that they all knew they were on TV and could have just been acting good for the cameras and social clout, but that didn't stop the American and Brazillian participants from becoming over-emotional and exaggerating everything they said.
After three days of chatting behind a wall this is what each version of the show felt like...
Love is Blind Japan: "We really get along well, I'm kind of into you. This is really amazing".
Love is Blind America: "You are the most amazing person in the whole world! I've waited my whole life to meet you! I can't want to grab you and kiss you! "
Love is Blind Brazil: Rubbing body against the wall, crying "I WANT TO MERGE WITH YOU AND LET THE WORLD BURN AS WE MELT INTO EACH OTHER!"
For me, I felt the Japanese participants were much more mature.
But just for fun (and to dig deeper into the culture differences) I checked online to see rumors and interviews about what might be going on behind the scenes, and there was an equal amount of drama in both the US and Japanese versions.
This is consistent with what I know about Japan. There may be the same level of emotional immaturity in Japan as in other countries, but there is a much stronger effort made to hide it, partly out of a fear of embarrassment, but also out of a desire to not be a nuisance.
Obviously this manifests differently for different people regardless of the culture, but that sense of social harmony has it's positives and it's negatives. The positive is that you feel pretty good about the world and about people, because they are more predictable and less reckless in your presence. But you also have a sense of distrust all the time because you never know what's REALLY going on.
None of this is really new to anyone who has looked deeply into Japanese or western vs. eastern cultures, but to see it play out on TV is interesting.
Now I'm watching Terrace House, a Japanese version of "The Real World" that used to run on MTV when I was young. 6 young people living together, pitched as a very new and novel idea in Japan in 2012 hahaha, nobody knew The Real World or Big Brother or any of those I guess?
Terrace House (aside from being great for my level of Japanese) has brought up all kinds of other cultural points that I want to talk about, not only with regards to Japan but also to pop culture and fame.
There are tons of cringe moments as I am not a huge fan of pop culture, but I enjoy challenging myself to watch objectively and learn whatever I can.
I am not sure how interesting this is to the friends who usually read this blog but I would love to go into this topic more, either here, on a podcast episode or a vlog. Please let me know what kind of observations you have made while watching a reality show, I would love to know!
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