Japan and France

This week J-List's own Tomo, the employee who keeps our site well stocked with interesting DVDs, Hello Kitty shoulder massagers and microwave potato chip makers, is taking a week off and heading to Paris, France. It's his honeymoon, and he wanted to take his new wife (who happens to be from near the now-famous Japanese city of Obama) someplace special. While the Japanese all study English and enjoy traveling to the U.S. and U.K., no place can match France for raw je ne sais quoi. Japan may be famous for its creative "Engrish" on T-shirts and shop signs, but French is also a popular language of decoration here, messed-up grammar and all. Japan's love affair with France can be seen in anime, starting with the famous Rose of Versailles which galvanized a generation of girls with the drama of Oscar François de Jarjayes and Marie Antoinette. There are several anime characters who have hilarious parodies of French names, too, like Louise Françoise De La Bamue Le Blanc De La Vallièr from Zero no Tsukaima. My theory is that the more distant a place is culturally and linguistically, the more exotic it will seem, and since many Japanese visit places like Hawaii or Los Angeles all the time, the U.S. doesn't have the same pure mystique as France, which seems "farther away." Anyway, if you've got a J-List T-shirt and live in Paris, why not wear it this week? I told Tomo to keep his eyes open and say hi to any customers he runs into.

This is the image that comes up when Japanese think of France.