changing impression

     Through this class, I could reconsider Japanese culture. Some of Japanese cultures taught in this class were unexpected topics for me. For example, I did not regard misushobai (night work in Japan) as one of Japanese culture. Because it seems to be normal for Japanese, we often see many hosts around cities. However, although I know host boys exist only in Japan and it is one of uniqueness of Japan, I avoided regarding it as Japanese culture. I realized that I have had stereotype of Japanese culture that these should be Japanese traditional things such as geisha or sushi through this class. Also, I was a little ashamed that misushobai or otaku culture are becoming one of aspect of Japanese culture because it seems that we Japanese are losing our traditional things. But in this class, temple or bushido which seem to be traditional culture were also introduced, so now I understand that Japanese do not lose our culture but increase new unique aspect of it. Thus, this class gave me a chance to reconsider what Japanese culture is. It also told me how foreigners see our culture. It was interesting to be able to see our own culture from the different perspective.

     Moreover, before taking this class, I had no idea about Visual Anthropology, even I was not interested in it. However as I learn it, I found it interesting that I could analyze Japanese culture visually. Analyzing it visually made me possible to see our own culture objectively and reconsider about it.