good post. i wish i could form my words in japanese so i can post how i feel to them too. anyways, here's my culture rant:
first off, a little about my background; i am 1/2 japanese, 1/4 irish, 1/4 german, an all american mutt more or less. the japanese side of my family pretty much raised me. also a warning, there is a case in which language might be offend by some readers. if you are easily offended, please take heed to my warning.
Americans as a whole, typically have to be the first in everything. if there is no first, then we have to be the best. majority of the time, many of us cannot stand to be the average joe. this translate into games like these in us striving for the best gear to have at our lvls. so, most of the higher end game gear like Scorpion Harness for example, would typically be achieved sooner on average than most.
the best of the best mentaily is not the only one going on here also. if you look at the typical American, we are strong in the individual sense, in that, the single is greater than the whole. we can see this in the fact that many player tend to do their own thing and get offensive when one suggest a differnt way of doing something to better help the player. this strong sense of the one out weighing the whole is strickly enforced by images and ideas propergated by the media.
not all Americans are like this, but on average, we typically act this way. and for the "being an *** for the sake of being an ***" all you have to do is look at the media, in particular, shows like "Viva la Bam!" the show is popular amongst the teen/young adult market, which is the market that has the biggest population in FFXI.
warning possible strong lanuage; skip over this paragraph if you are easily offended, i make no quams about not self censoring this part due to my personal belief that inorder to deminish the power of a word, we gotta take it away from those to whom we give the power to. i highly suggest you read the book "******" for more on this line thought
i also tend to notice that many Americans feel that once a word has lost meaning to the "mainstream" ie fallen out of use, that it's meaning and weight have deminished greatly. a prime example of this is the term "***." not going to get into a big arguement over this, but look at it from the Japanese point of veiw. the war has been over for over 50 years now, but the impact that it had still lingers. many Japanese-Americans, one of whom was my grandfather, were interned in camps during WWII by the USA government, despite 'Kormatsu.' the term "***" is just as bad as the term "******," it is just not as known since it's use has fallen out of favor since the 1950's. while the term may not have such an impact by those in the suburbs, or by those who were never affected by the word, it still rings hard today due to the vast amounts of propaganda and over all hate for the Japanese during that time. this is at odds though with the modern thought process that if it offends you, speak up as loudly as possible. for examples of this, you only need to look at TV, movies and music. "Dogma" was hounded by many church groups b/c of how offensive it is to them, yet i bet none of them would bother with the term "***." not only that, but TV shows that depict a homosexual relation, wheather it is full on sex as potrayed in the same manner as movie potray heterosexual sex, or kissing, and over the top violence. even odder still, most of the issues that many of the religious right would find offensive are in the book that they so well tout.
you can see the proof of this in that the N word is censored, but "***' isn't, by the auto censor.
end of warning
Japanese players aren't gods by any means. i've ran into quite a few in my days; both in the dunes and out even in the tree or the cape. they make the same mistakes we do, say the same stupid stuff we do, laugh at the the same as us (though they use "w" instead of "lol"), and, they are just as n00by as the rest of us. can in point, i know of at least 5 single JP players whom did not know that a BST pet, if conn'ed EM or below to the highest party member, does not steal party EXP. oh, and they were lvl60+.
mostly, i posted this for us to take a look at ourselves and see the root cause for the majority of our actions. in order to become a better person, both in life and in game, we must understand who we are, how we became who we are, and where we might be going.
