-------- Original Message --------
Dear List,
Thank you for all the help regarding VN on Japan. I
also found a letter commenting on "gemuetlich little
Japan" on Page 90 of VN: American Years.
After reading these comments by Western intellectuals,
I take some solace in the result of a recent
international poll
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/168.php?nid=&id=&pnt=168&lb=hmpg1
which found that "Japan is the country most widely
viewed as having a positive influence."
The dream of the Japanese "Running Man"
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0606&L=nabokv-l&T=0&P=5915
was apparently transformed into a scene (already
mentioned by Mr. Nikita Danilov) in Ada, Page 548:
"... as if arriving at my own funeral, the brilliantly
lighted windows of Counterstone Hall and the small
figure of a Japanese student who, being also late,
overtook me at a wild scurry, and disappeared in the
doorway long before I reached its semicircular steps."
The image of the Japanese "running man" who is in a
hurry in vain is something the Japanese themselves
often make fun of. An example of this is the
decades-old haiku-like slogan: "Semai Nippon (nihon),
sonnani isoide doko-ni (doko-e) iku?"
(In this small Japan, where are you (we) going in such
a hurry [while driving]?)
I think Japan is actually bigger than the UK.
My favorite essayist Juzo Itami wrote a short satire
entitled Hashiru Otoko (The Running Man), poking fun
at a man's behavior during air travel, and also at
himself. The "running man" is the quintessential
embarrassing Japanese tourist: he can't help running
to his plane in an airport. Itami's film Tampopo
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048/ contains a
Running man, but this man is in a hurry for a good
reason.
If VN could see Tampopo, or read Maruya, his opinion
about contribution from "little Japan" may have been
slightly higher.
Henry.Hanada
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