More than meets the eye

Interesting article pointing out the seeming naivete of Japanese bloggers:

Nearly 63 percent of Japanese who keep blogs consider corporate press releases to be trustworthy sources of information, compared with fewer than five percent of English-speaking Americans, Canadians and Europeans, it said.

How naive, you say? Well the premise behind the Japanese faith in official reports is simple, really. If companies provide distorted information and their lies are exposed, those companies are sure to lose their client and customer bases — and face staggering losses. Surely, the 63% of Japanese bloggers reason, the level of risk would be too great for even the most audacious of managers to afford. What they fail to see of course is that some firms will engage in duplicity when the gains to be reaped from flexing their creative muscle outweigh the risk of being incriminated.

The article also claims that most Japanese are content with using their blog as a public journal, to which I can fully attest:

Only 4.7 percent of Japanese say their primary reason to blog was to “raise visibility as an authority in my field” — the top motivation of English-language bloggers, with nearly 34 percent citing it as their primary reason.

For Japanese bloggers, the top motivation to blog was to “create a record of my thoughts,” with 28.2 percent listing it as their primary reason.

For all I know, this blog too could evolve into one of those specialist types after I’ve gained enough expertise. I suppose I could already make a decent stab at covering whisk(e)y or awamori..

Literary sojourns — and bad choices

Over at salon they’ve launched a series of articles under the grand title of “The Literary Guide to the World”. Each article in the series features a specific location along with a select few of its household authors, novelists and poets. Here you have it for Japan, though I have to say I’m less than impressed with Ms. Mori’s selection. As immensely moving, and accessible, as Kazuo Ishiguro’s works are, I find it patently absurd that Ms. Mori chose someone who can barely speak (much less write) Japanese as our literary icon in lieu of other brilliant, native writers: what about Tanizaki, or Kawabata, or Soseki? Nor can I fathom why a comparative nobody like Yuko Tsushima is featured; if for the sake of pc Ms. Mori had to introduce a female author, she could easily have pointed to the works of Ichiyo Higuchi or Akiko Yosano, to name but two acclaimed writers.