the currency of little stories (pt 1)

Following on from earlier post, processing the notion of stories like Gegege no Kitaro and Nurarihyon no Mago led me to considering the theory that Japan is nearly unrivaled in its ability to self-market. I don't mean simply "sell itself", either; I mean an astute ability to take how it's been marketed by others, and adapt/adopt that other-created perspective as a sort of model of how to market itself. From japanoiserie to ninjas to wabi-sabi, on a economic-cultural level, Japan is undeniably a master of figuring out how other cultures see it, and then turning around and using that perspective to sell to other cultures exactly what they want. It's like a form of ultimate self-exoticization.

With that as a backdrop, and in consideration of yokai-stories like Gegege no Kitaro and similar, it occurred to me that one of the very first introductions westerners have to any culture (including their own) is in the form of children's tales: just-so stories, fables, myths, and fairy tales. I wouldn't know half of the anglo-saxon, celtic, and teutonic lore if not for collections like the Brothers Grimm, or my battered childhood book of "Fairy Tales of the World," wherein I was first introduced to Stupid Youngest Brother or the land that's East of the Sun, West of the Moon (both of slavic origin).

I'm not saying that any culture sets out to create such tales specifically for external production (though Japan's self-marketing can sometimes appear to come awfully close, but only if you discount that it's also selling such perceptions to itself, as well). Just that the fairy tales and myths are an easy way to relate these little stories, and being generally small-ish in terms of comprehension required, the entire package makes for an easier translation. Readers don't need to know the entire history of the Jomon period, or why the Yuan Dynasty was such a radical change, but the little stories bound up in myth and fairy tale often incorporate assumptions about those histories (or the cultures who hold those histories) and before you know it, the reader has incorporated these additional little stories into their personal pantheon.

We always absorb stuff as we read, and children do it with far less discrimination. When a sponge is dry, it soaks up everything; adults are damp to sopping sponges in comparison.

( The more one culture's tales can overwhelm or dominate or impress, the greater that culture's currency when it comes to the embedded little stories... and other meanderings on meta-economics, casinos in Mississippi, and the market-distortion of imperialism. )

[had to break into two, so... continued in part two.]

the currency of little stories (pt 2)

[continued from part one]

Another recollection: I remember when, as a child, my family visited Britain. We must've stopped at every blooming castle we passed (though in my parents' defense this was because most castles also stored an incredible array of needlework, and as a textile artist, my mother was drawn like magnet to any large collection of embroidery). At one of the castles, I recall there being a family of Americans in our tour-group, and while the children ran around touching everything and chewing gum like cows and sitting on chairs marked with polite notes of "please do not sit", the mother was complaining loudly to anyone who'd listen about the fact that she'd had yet to visit a "real" English pub.

I had no idea what her deal was, since we'd already been to a number of them (and they were all pretty boring from the point of view of a young kid, seeing how women and children were immediately shuffled off to a back room and forgotten, as if in punishment for intruding on a male domain). My mother had that Southern-smile pasted on her face, the kind that any wise Southern child knows means someone is gonna get it, probably pretty soon, so you had to straighten up and fly right if you didn't want that glazed-over gaze to land on you. But on and on that American tourist went, such a stereotype in her own right, petulantly complaining that "all she wanted" was to see a "real" pub.

( Stereotypes, cultural currency, more meta-economics, and how to make an honest purchase of someone else's tales. )