(author)Takashi Hayasaka 2006, Chuo Koron
He explains Japan’s image abroad from many perspectives: a country of advanced technology, wealthy, expensive, corporate people, fond of group activities, diligent, weakly assertive, punctual, submissive women, a country of earthquakes, sumo and karate, baseball, manga and anime, and so on.
Let me quote one joke.” What do you want to do?”
If you want to learn, go to London.
If you want to eat, go to Paris.
If you want to wear clothes, go to Milan.
If you want to listen, go to Vienna.
If you want to dance, go to Rio de Janeiro.
If you want to make money, go to Tokyo.
If you want to die, go to Baghdad.
If more Japanese people had a foreign point of view like this author, Japan would become more interesting.
However, Japan is no longer a wealthy or expensive country. That has become a joke. Also, if you want to die, you are no longer in Baghdad.
Jokes change with the times. It is the same as the Salaryman’s willow.
