My drivel about Culture and East Asia, you should see my drivel over Europe and popculture

This is a text I wrote and then made quite a lot of cutting in the text. May threats of thinking I had to give up. It is still mostly drivel, even after I killed the darlings

Speaking as a bookstore worker. I remember I years ago read the novel Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara about a self destructive teenage girl in Tokyo and thought it was a dangerous book to put in the hands of teanagers. I remember it since I thought it was a grown up thought. To worry about what culture kids consume is one thing grown ups do. About the self destructive thing, the worst part is that the girl in the novel started dating a psychopath. So I thought teen girls who read Snakes and earrings should start dating psychopaths. Just like teen girls in my generation started dating psychopaths after seeing Healthers there Winona Ryder dates a psychopath. Ok, the real problem, I saw was simply that the girl was self destructive and not a good role model.

The writer Hitomi Kanehara, is a Japanese woman born 1983, that makes me remember that one member of 2ne1 is born 1984. Of course I know Japan and Korea is two different countries. And the reason I checked the ages of the members of 2ne1, was that I had posted the video to Come back home on my blog and wondered if it was creepy to be an older, white guy who post a video with young east asian girls. Born 1984 isn’t that young. However I don’t really have a point about the creepiness thing. Instead, as a bookstore worker, I know that Italian writer Elena Ferrante (pen name) wasn’t popular before she became successful in the US. The same thing is likely true about 2ne1. If they didn’t had a fanbase in the US, I wouldn’t have heard about them. Now for the record, I’m not listening to K-pop. I have actually, been listen a little to Kraftwerk lately and that was because Robert mentioned it. So that doesn’t have anything to do with the US. Or it’s possible Kraftwerk had a fan base in the US before Sweden.

Things I found intresting

Thing I heard today. Apparently it has been said that when the United kingdom leaves and the Brits aren’t here to correct us the rest of EU will develop an Euro English. Like if we want to say “on top of the law” instead of “above the law”*, there won’t be anyone to correct us anymore. At least that how I understood the Euro English theory.

 

Unrelated, I saw that Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita was on Netflix, so now I’m going to see it. Mostly to have seen it. The only Fellini film I have seen before is Amarcord. But La Dolce Vita is the movie that gave the world the word “Paparazzo” and at least here the scene there Anita Ekberg bath in  Fontana di Trevi, Rome, is famous. 
 

* Example from Daniel Lehmussaari’s crappy horror movie The House of Orphans.