Why do nerds love East Asia so much?

[Tonguez]

It is striking that Japan especially generates much more interest than any other non-Western culture. Partly it's the strength of their cultural industry. Hong Kong cinema was popular too, whereas eg Thai or Vietnamese culture don't generate the same interest. Why Japan is seen as cool, and India with its own massive cultural industry is not seen as cool, is a complicated question of psychology I think*.

theres also the fact that the Pacific War meant the US had much more focus on Japan than other parts of Asia (India and China were British concerns). Then post 1945 you had the defacto colonisation of Okinawa and the Americanisation of Japanese culture which eventually developed into the modern Otaku kuru culture. As well as the entry of Martial Arts into Hollywood via Bruce Lee, Ninja and Samurai.

That Otaku influence is now expanding out to Korea (Music and drama) and due to its shear size Chinese drama. There are some great Thai and Malaysian dramas out there though but whether they and Bollywood ever reach the international popularity of Japanese anime or Korean Drama is anyones guess

 

[S'mon]

theres also the fact that the Pacific War meant the US had much more focus on Japan than other parts of Asia (India and China were British concerns). Then post 1945 you had the defacto colonisation of Okinawa and the Americanisation of Japanese culture which eventually developed into the modern Otaku kuru culture. As well as the entry of Martial Arts into Hollywood via Bruce Lee, Ninja and Samurai.

That Otaku influence is now expanding out to Korea (Music and drama) and due to its shear size Chinese drama. There are some great Thai and Malaysian dramas out there though but whether they and Bollywood ever reach the international popularity of Japanese anime or Korean Drama is anyones guess

I'd note that Japan is much cooler than India in modern UK, too. I think defeated enemies often get a big coolness bump, if they fit a 'proud warrior race' stereotype and were hard to beat. French culture was huge in 19th century post-Napoleonic Wars Britain. The ancient Romans thought the Gauls & Germans were cool - but not the Britons, too easy. Interestingly, victorious enemies (eg Vietnam for USA) absolutely do NOT get such a bump! Not unless they totally crushed your side & occupied/transformed your society. American culture is/was huge in post-WW2 Europe.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think that there's a number of reasons.

As alluded to above, there was a flow of culture (both ways) after WW2- this is why, for example, Japan began to eat Ramen (wheat flour was given to Japan to aid in recovery) and there was a lot of cultural borrowing, including borrowing from our Hollywood animation and Hollywood cinema. Then we borrowed back, especially in the 70s.

Put another way, people often say that the Samurai movie is based off of the Western. But then the Westerns were based off of Samurai movies. Or, less pithily, Kurosawa ripped off Ford and Heisler, but then Leone said, "Thank u very much Akira!"

Most importantly, we were often seeing something that reflected an essential aspect of ourselves back to us, but differently enough that we could accept it. It's the same reason that nerds love science fiction.


....or maybe it's the giant robots. Yeah, it's the giant robots.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Put another way, people often say that the Samurai movie is based off of the Western. But then the Westerns were based off of Samurai movies. Or, less pithily, Kurosawa ripped off Ford and Heisler, but then Leone said, "Thank u very much Akira!"

And a lot of the 70s wuxia and kung fu, like Chang Cheh's movies, took inspiration from Kurosawa and Leone. But they are all making something new through those influences

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And a lot of the 70s wuxia and kung fu, like Chang Cheh's movies, took inspiration from Kurosawa and Leone. But they are all making something new through those influences

I agree.

Which is why I think that the questions and issues of, inter alia, cultural appropriation are a lot more complex and nuanced than we will see discussed on the internet.

But I'm not touching that issue with my 1e Monk's 10' pole.

 

[MGibster]

It is striking that Japan especially generates much more interest than any other non-Western culture. Partly it's the strength of their cultural industry. Hong Kong cinema was popular too, whereas eg Thai or Vietnamese culture don't generate the same interest. Why Japan is seen as cool, and India with its own massive cultural industry is not seen as cool, is a complicated question of psychology I think*.

I don't know if it's psychological so much as some things just don't translate very well across cultures. During the 1930s, Marlboro cigarettes was a failing brand marketed to woman, and after the Second World War they decided to shift gears and market the cigarette to men. In their advertising campaigns they uses images of sea captains, construction workers, cowboys, and other manly men before finally dropping them all except the familiar Marlboro Man cowboy in the early 1960s. By the 1990s, Marlboro was also one of the most popular brands in China. However, while the cowboy represents rugged individualism and is associated with positive traits of masculinity to Americans, to the Chinese, a cowboy was just a common laborer and those advertisements went over like a lead balloon. To gain market share in China, Marlboro had to abandon their iconic cowboy in that market and go with something else. What I'm getting at is that ideas that work in one country might not translate so well to another. There's a reason big budget action movies from the United States do rather well overseas while dialogue heavy dramas or comedies don't do as well.

While we certainly have musicals here in the United States, most Bollywood movies have 2-3 songs, and let's face it, it looks silly to a wide swath of American audiences. I would hazard a guess that there have been attempts by Bollywood to export their movies to America, but I can't say how successful they've been. I thought Slumdog Millionaire was an Indian movie but it's British.

 

[S'mon]

Korea definitely seems to be rising in cultural influence, there's a fast food place called K-Pop by my work. I think China was rising until Coronavirus. Japan seems stable, with Anime still huge, I think aided by a decline in Western genre fiction.

 

[Umbran]

I think you're missing that I'm not talking about "people," I'm talking about "nerds."

So, in a basic, broad definition, "nerds" (or "geeks") are "people who really like stuff".

Part of the answer of "Why do nerds like this?" is that nerds like things!

So what's going on? Why are nerds more into Japan and East Asia than everyone else? I'm not sure I buy that it's about Teddy Roosevelt and vases.

Exoticism is a thing. We can identify several American cultural biases against some groups of cultures - like, say the ugly historical biases we have against African cultures - that leave the field narrowed a bit so that Japanophilia becomes more likely.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

It depends, and I think it's hard to pinpoint a single reason. What I can say about my personal experience as a nerd who likes East Asian nerd stuff, it was definitely video-games. At the 90s all the major consoles were Japanese. My first contact with RPG concepts was through Japanese games like Final Fantasy and Zelda. The Japanese media have an incredible power of absorbing western nerd stuff and presenting it under a new light, making it both familiar and fresh.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It depends, and I think it's hard to pinpoint a single reason. What I can say about my personal experience as a nerd who likes East Asian nerd stuff, it was definitely video-games. At the 90s all the major consoles were Japanese. My first contact with RPG concepts was through Japanese games like Final Fantasy and Zelda. The Japanese media have an incredible power of absorbing western nerd stuff and presenting it under a new light, making it both familiar and fresh.

I think this sort of thing has a huge impact and it isn't just limited to nerds. There is a whole subculture in the US around kung fu movies that isn't nerd based at all. I think a lot of different things contributed to it. It would be hard to pin down to one thing, but having a lot of films made from places like Hong Kong and Taiwan and showing in theaters in the US (especially in cities), available in video stores, sold in bootleg, and aired on TV had a big impact.

And if you are young and every piece of media from something you like, comes from a place, you are naturally going to develop a greater interest in that place. I watched a lot of hong kong action movies and it is hard to watch something like that, and not develop an interest in some of the other things you keep seeing on screen (for example food or music).