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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

If you want to discover Japanese culture via photography, I would suggest Daido Moriyama[1], [2], [3]. All NSFW-ish. He has a great look into what lies beyond the surface in Japanese culture. For more night culture, Kohei Yoshiyuki[4]

[1]http://fotoroom.co/daido-moriyama/

[2]http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/10/asx-tv-daido-moriyama...

[3]https://www.moriyamadaido.com/en/

[4]https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/photography/kohei-yoshiyukis-t...

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For any fans of Moriyama I'd also like to recommend Ko-Ji Yamasaki, who's been documenting his life in Osaka for more than twelve years now and publishing everything online: http://www.yamasakiko-ji.com/

The book "Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers" (Aperture 2005) is excellent and contains essays and photos by many of the greats (including Moriyama): http://aperture.org/shop/setting-sun-books/ -- however it's out of print now and used copies seem to be quite expensive, but libraries might have it.

> what lies beyond the surface

The disconnect I find as a westerner in Japan is that while we fetishize counter culture, there's so much codified "surface". We're obsessed with individualism, but that's a distorted lens to view Japan and much of Asia through. Universal conformity was the most unnerving attribute for me.

I dunno. It's part of their identity. It's just different.

It may be uncomfortable for foreigners to know how to navigate the different aspects of their society, but it's theirs and when I'm there, I adjust to them, while keeping my own. It's a balance and for me it depends on how much time you want to spend over there and in what manner.

If you're on assignment for a year or two, sure, make friends with other ex-pats, make superficial friendships with the locals. But if you're going to stay a while, forget the ex-pats, get engrossed in the local culture and adapt to it, make local friends, learn the language and culture. Not saying go native, if you were to have children there, that would be for them to do (as much as they can fit-in), but don't stick out like a sore thumb out of spite.

I couldn't agree more about ditching the expats. The flip side of "conformity" (a loaded word) is the overwhelming sense that you're in good hands and will be wherever you go, because people adhere to and enforce a high standard from the bottom up. When I return to America, I feel like the country has no footing, and gets more unwieldy by the minute. The important point is that all decisions are trade-offs, and neither East nor West has the standing or authority to really judge the other.

In my opinion, there's a lot of talk about how Japan or Asia is different, perhaps with truth and perhaps also with the idea of orientalism. In my view, the different cultures have different expressions of the individual, and likewise their expressions of conformity differ too. I also think that we may have trouble seeing this because it's all we have experienced, perhaps also the bias of categorising as conformity when there are many non-conformists.

The truth is that I've heard the line about conformity a lot, and it's made me think about how conformity exhibits itself in the West, and I think that fails at least partially because "the West" is such a big mass of different cultures, and of course the same applies to the East. You may deny this, but could that be a bias of assuming conformity when thre is little at play?

I don't mean to be attacking or even disputing your point, but personally it's an issue I have struggled with. Many humans desire to be the same, to be around the same people, so where might I fit in if I want to be accepted? To be either a perpetual foreigner treated well for being a foreigner, or a perpetual foreigner treated poorly for being a foreigner. These options are greatly saddening to me. Is it a matter of accepting my condition that I cannot conform by no fault of my own, or to attempt to steer society away from the pressure of conformity which drives many people to such sadness and suffering? Am I, as you say, obsessed with individualism to say this?

Sorry for the rambling post.

Not the person you were replying to, but just chiming in- I (white guy) spent my childhood in SE Asia, as my Dad was a US diplomat.

If I were to distill the entirety of my experiences down to a single, most-salient point, it was and is that people are stunningly similar across the globe. Sure, there are cultural differences. But for the most part, once you learn the base value structure of your new environment, the way people act is pretty much exactly like you would expect them to, given the variables and 'givens' in play. Yes, Japan, China, Korea etc are all different than the West. But it only takes a few months of effort before you figure out the basics, and it is just as easy to do as an adult as a child. You just have to be open to new experiences.

Well worth it, in my opinion.

That chimes with my experience travelling in China a lot in the late 80s and early 90s. I was travelling on business sometimes as much as two months at a time and working closely with local people installing and debugging machinery in factories. One of the most interesting places was Jiexi in south China four hours on a dirt road from the nearest airport. Most of the houses were rammed earth but the place had a lively market (it was a 'small' town of about 30k people) and a substantial concrete multi-story overseas Chinese hotel where we stayed. The hotel lobby was one of the few places in town that had a television so it was always crowded with locals watching it. In conversations with people there (mostly through our interpreter) it was clear that the ambitions of most people there were much the same as where I come from (UK but living in Norway); they want a house to live in, a fridge, a washing machine, a television, a decent income, and a better life for their children.

I'd include the late 90s books Fruits, and Fresh Fruits...

For images there are great finds in Pinterest and Instagram, but I'd start with this Gimages link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=fruits+harajuku&ved=0ahUKEwj...:

I will say from personal experience that Japan is one of the few places in the world I have seen many male fashion victims. To be clear, I enjoy expressive fashion, and I don't mean people who have an expensive or even outrageous or ovewrought sense of taste, instead I refer to those people who read multiple fashion magazines and wear ALL of the things.

Yes, definitely. Pick up the early FRUiTS books by Phaidon for a great, enlivening and colorful overview of 90s street fashion and youth. These images of creativity are what first got me really interested in traveling to JP.

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