Japanese Books On The Fourth Of July

[aadroma]

To keep with the theme of Japanese things on an American holiday:

This book on eBay, the 西洋新書, Seiyou Shinsou, is a book that apparently chronicles American history, customs, etc., written in 1872. What gets really fascinating is how blatantly racist the books are :: laugh :: Scroll down and admire how very frightening the foreigners' looks and

Comments

[zurcherart]

Yeah ... cause I'm sure American textbooks and pop culture were paragons of multi-cultural understanding. ;-> Like today!

[perlcub]

You know, I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Your knowledge and appreciation of languages amazes and inspires me. Not to go on a tangent, and you've probably answered this einhunderttausend times, but how the hell did you start?

[aadroma]

I've been this way since i was a little kid. UHF Channel 26 in Chicago used to be the "whatever language you speak we've got a two-hour block of programming for it" station, and especially on the weekends you'd see Polish, Chinese, Korean -- all sorts of languages.

... and there was this instinct in me. I HAD to understand what was going on in these shows (ESPECIALLY the over-the-top Chinese period dramas that were subtitled in Chinese!!), and decode what I was hearing/seeing. It fascinated me BECAUSE I felt that the "code" had to be broken, somehow.

... and now, twenty-five years later I'm exactly the same way. :: laugh ::