ABSTRACT
With the possible exception of the Hollywood movie and the television crime series exported from America, rarely do the popular cultural products of a country-those most widely diffused among the people and most characteristic at home-become the ones by which foreigners come to know that country. Later (in Chap. 11), certain aspects of the remarkable Japan boom in the United States are touched on, perhaps all too lightly. Here it is sufficient to say that there is a real danger that outsiders (encouraged by well-meaning Japanese) will continue to judge Japan by Mt. Fuji, cherry blossoms, and the rightly worldfamous Grand Kabuki dance-theatre; by the maiko, apprentice entertainers of Kyoto; by hostesses in kimono on the Japan Air Lines; and by the motion picture Rashomon. In doing so, they will see Japan only through the eyes of traditionalists who strive earnestly to conserve high culture.
