Afro Samurai's Adventures In Japan

What is culture and how does one go about defining his or her own culture? When you live in a culture seldom do you even stop to think about what actually defines it. This a couple of Japanese students were briefly interviewed by me to figure out how they define their culture. To start off the interview, I asked the students a question that seems simple, but when its your turn to answer it gets extremely confusing. I asked the Japanese students to define Japanese culture. At first they thought it would be easy, but then they realized that they didn’t actually know how to explain their culture. Eventually, every single student expressed a different view or side on what Japanese culture actually was, but none of these sides where things that I had even thought of. After they gave me the definition of culture, I asked them top elaborate on it and give me some specific examples of the phrase or word they picked to describe their culture. As they began to elaborate on what the phrase they used to describe Japanese culture, I began to understand their views. The more they began to talk about their culture and finally understand how they felt, the more emotions poured out onto the camera. I asked the students what they thought were negative and positive aspects of Japanese culture. I asked them if there were certain things about the culture that they would like to change. Then finally, I asked them if them what things they really liked about the culture that they really like and would want other cultures to pick up on. In the end, the students gave their own view of Japanese culture and I finally got a different perspective of Japanese culture. Watching the videos that are linked below, will make you realize that culture is very difficult to understand and brings out a ton of emotions in people.

Hiromi\’s Interview