Japanese culture is much less anti-intellectual and anti-geek
if you are including these 'Otaku' (shut-ins), then I would have to disagree with you completely. I have been living in Japan the last 11 months and every Japanese person who I have broached the topic with say they dislike 'otaku'. Might it be because there was a famous 'otaku' serial-killer?
As for your second point I would not call it racism at all, more of fascination. The Japanese citizens without 100% Japanese heritage is less than 1%. How many American's can claim they have 100% Native American blood? When you come from an immigrant country (read: USA) it may seem like racism, but some of these people have never had a conversation with a foreigner before in their life. Think about it, the total yearly immigrants into Japan is about 11k, whereas the USA is reaching 450K
Seems most people do not know why the word 'Otaku' (and shut-ins) has such a negative imagine in Japan. Seems there was a guy with a lot of sex anime in his apartment that went on a killing spree. Kind of hard to forget those kind of things.
I am not sure where you live, but in Japan many of the cellphones contain this functionality. The IR LED used to transfer contact information with other phones (similiar to exchanging business cards) can also be used as a remote for a TV using the preinstalled applets. The first time you use the applet you select which brand of TV you are using and the phone figures out the rest (and saves your preference for next use). I currently use a DoCoMo F900i (Fujitsu) phone, and I know for a fact that the N900i (NEC) phones have the same functionality. I assuming the newer models will continue this contain this functionality as well.
Vodafone is in on this game somewhat, and AU is starting to produce phones with IR LEDs as well, so I would say it will not be long before all phones have them.
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You might have to be kind of careful when you say
Japanese culture is much less anti-intellectual and anti-geek
if you are including these 'Otaku' (shut-ins), then I would have to disagree with you completely. I have been living in Japan the last 11 months and every Japanese person who I have broached the topic with say they dislike 'otaku'. Might it be because there was a famous 'otaku' serial-killer?
As for your second point I would not call it racism at all, more of fascination. The Japanese citizens without 100% Japanese heritage is less than 1%. How many American's can claim they have 100% Native American blood? When you come from an immigrant country (read: USA) it may seem like racism, but some of these people have never had a conversation with a foreigner before in their life. Think about it, the total yearly immigrants into Japan is about 11k, whereas the USA is reaching 450K
Seems most people do not know why the word 'Otaku' (and shut-ins) has such a negative imagine in Japan. Seems there was a guy with a lot of sex anime in his apartment that went on a killing spree. Kind of hard to forget those kind of things.
I am not sure where you live, but in Japan many of the cellphones contain this functionality. The IR LED used to transfer contact information with other phones (similiar to exchanging business cards) can also be used as a remote for a TV using the preinstalled applets. The first time you use the applet you select which brand of TV you are using and the phone figures out the rest (and saves your preference for next use). I currently use a DoCoMo F900i (Fujitsu) phone, and I know for a fact that the N900i (NEC) phones have the same functionality. I assuming the newer models will continue this contain this functionality as well. Vodafone is in on this game somewhat, and AU is starting to produce phones with IR LEDs as well, so I would say it will not be long before all phones have them.