Well, a lot has happened in the past months and I really didn't have the time or energy to update my blog.. On the positive side, in my consulting company I have been very busy teaching company executives transferring to Japan about intercultural communication and Japanese business.
But I have been wanting to discuss and follow up on the cosplay and Japanese culture event at the National Museum of Denmark.
It was a very successful event and I was surprised to see the appeal of Japanese culture on such a number of very young people. I wonder what it is that triggers their initial interest for Japan. (For me it was Kendo and the Japanese aesthetics).
First, some pictures from the event discussion:
National Museum of Denmark, Discussing Purikura and beauty ideals with Martin Petersen, curator of the Japanese photography exhibition (that I loved and blogged about before) and Line, Danish K-pop blogger.
(And I spent some more time searching for the cosplay pictures or the name of the event's official photographer but I cannot find them, sorry next time!)
But what I really wanted to discuss here was the question directed during the talk and the one I usually get when I discuss Japanese women and beauty: "Do the Japanese do this/ that makeup/ make these changes on Purikura, because they want to look Western, like us?"
While there is some global consensus on certain beauty ideals, local, cultural or ideal differences (of what is beautiful) exist and are strong, even inside Europe.. One example, the different beauty and gender ideals I encountered between Sweden and Greece.
Some people asked during the discussion at the Museum, if the changes Purikura machines make on the pictures is the result of the Japanese women's desire to look Western. Even if there is some partial truth to it (because of the globalisation of beauty that applies to all countries) and some of the characteristics that are considered to be Western are sought after in Japan, this doesn't mean that they (characteristics) are sought after because they are Western but because they objectively satisfy the Japanese beauty ideals and aesthetic. In previous academic research (see for list of references my MSc research), it was discussed how the Japanese think of whiteness as a characteristic of Japaneseness, and regard it as the true Japanese colour.
White skin is regarded as the original Japanese skin. Big eyes are also considered beautiful. I did not focus on discussing eyes with my informants during my research but I was told that "foreigners have beautiful eyes because they are big, with long eyelashes". So the focus is not on looking like foreigner, but looking like the Japanese idea of beautiful, which includes big eyes. Also, in Japanese manga, "good" characters are drawn with big eyes usually, while the "bad" guys have small "linear" eyes, that express their evil thinking and anger. It's not at all that in Manga the good guys are european and the bad guys are asian! The eyes are merely expressing the characters. In that case, the big eyes symbolize the good and pure character probably. Maybe, this explains the preference for big eyes.
Purikura machines also cater to the Japanese ideal and importance of youth. The face shall have big eyes, small mouth, soft skin, like all babies have. Purikura machines usually enlarge the upper part of head so that the lower part looks smaller (or vice versa). It looks pretty weird (like a baby) on the result, but I've noticed most purikura machines the last years give this result. How is THAT beauty ideal Western?
This ideal is in sharp contrast with the Mediterranean countries that I can speak of, for example. I know in Greece and Italy, the ideal is to have a fuller, big mouth and the naturally round eyes are made to look almond shaped with smoky eye makeup. Also, we are supposed to have a TAN, not be white. Baby faces are desexualised, so that men might be heard saying: "look at her, her face changed and she's finally become a woman". And if one has a baby face, they're trying to look older with make up or clothes.
...... And I can think of many more examples of why we should not think that "they want to look like us"....
It's a Eurocentric opinion to think that big eyes and white skin symbolise "western" or "us".. Instead we should look at it from the Japanese (or Asian) perspective. It doesn't have to be that everyone has an obsession with looking Western.
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