I often hear that Westerners' typical image of a Japanese person is "buckteethed, wears glasses and always have a camera in his hand". You know, you don't really see such guys around.
Now where the hell did this image come from?
So I surfed on the web looking for the reason for such terrible preconception and this is what I found out:
In the beginning of Meiji Period (that's late 19C) there was this comic magazine called Japan Ponch issued in Tokyo, and in the August edition of this magazine an English artist Charles Wirgman drew a Japanese with buckteeth and glasses. It all spread out from this magazine, which was quite a popular souvenir for Westerners visiting Japan to take home.
Since then the image of Japanese being buckteethed and wearing glasses rooted quite firmly in Western society, and together with the cameras hanging from tourists' necks, such ridiculous image spread out to laugh at Japanese people.
OK, it might be true that Japanese tend to take pictures everywhere...
But then, I think this "typical image" needs to be updated to people taking out mobile phones with cameras on them, instead of analog cameras hanging from the neck, lol.
Oh, but I couldn't really figure out why Charles had to draw a Japanese figure with buckteeth and glasses.
Anyone out there know why???
Well, you know technology is evolving every second and information is spread faster and more accurately (accurately...? maybe not all the time) so I dear hope this typical image of Japanese people is changing... or at least will change soon.
What's your image of a typical Japanese?
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