15 abr 2007

Amor x lo Kawaii / Love Kawaii


+Una de mis actuales obsesiones es lo cuchi, por ello me puse a investigar un poco sobre esto. Siempre he estado conectada a mi niño interior, en el colegio todos recibíamos clases de análisis transaccional y te enseñaban a valorar este aspecto de tu personalidad, pero para mi gran sorpresa encontré que la cultura asiática es devota a todas las manifestaciones tiernas. Les resumo lo que leí: en Japón desde los años setenta lo cuchi (kawaii, 可愛い) es un aspecto que juega un papel predominante en todas las áreas: comida, juguetes y comportamiento, incluso en situaciones que en Occidente encontraríamos incongruente, como en publicaciones gubernamentales, en oficinas, en anuncios militares, etcétera. Tanto así que lo cuchi es considerado parte de la identidad nacional (fuente: Wikipedia).
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+One of my current obssesions is cuteness. I investigated a bit and found out that I´m not so nuts as I thought. I´m o.k. being in touch with my inner child, furthermore, in my school I was taught to treasure this aspect, but for my great surprise there is a country in love with cuteness. This is what I found out at Wikipedia: “Since 1979, cuteness (可愛さ, kawaisa?) has become a prominent aspect of Japanese Culture in entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, behavior, and mannerisms. Western observers often find this cuteness intriguing and sometimes strange because the Japanese employ it in a vast array of situations and demographics where, in Western culture, it would be considered incongruously juvenile or frivolous (for example, in government publications, public service warnings, office environments, military advertisements, and commercial airliners, among many others). Cute elements can be found almost everywhere in Japan, from big business to corner markets, national government to ward and town offices.[1][2] Many companies, large and small, use cute mascots to present their wares and services to the public. For example: Pikachu, a character from Pokémon, adorns the side of three All Nippon Airways passenger jets, Asahi Bank used Miffy, a character from a Dutch series of children's picture books, on some of its ATM cards, Monkichi, a cute monkey character, can be found on the packaging for one line of condoms[3], All 47 prefectures have cute mascot characters, The Japan Post "Yū-Pack" mascot is a stylized mailbox.[4], The Japan Post also uses other cute mascot characters, for example on stamps, Each police force in Japan have their own moe mascots, many of which adorn the front of koban (police boxes).”