One thing that I fully internalised only recently - despite learning Asian languages for literally decades. The things western people take for granted as ubiquitous in our culture are often unknown to Asian cultures.
As an example recently talking to a Japanese friend who is the same age as me we realised she had seen less than 10% of the movies that "everyone born in the early 80's has seen". She didn't know who OJ Simpson was, nor is she familiar with Henry VIII and his 6 wives. She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17.
Traveling in China a few years ago I was surprised to see many Hokusai images used on clothing and shop decorations.
The Mona Lisa might be the western world's most famous artwork, but you rarely see it on a T-shirt unless you're meeting a tourist near the Louvre. I suspect that if both were in still trademarked that Hokusai would be making orders of magnitude more on royalties than Da Vinci...
> She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17
Not even Americans are likely to know who Take That and East 17 are. I'm a middle-aged American, university educated, have even lived abroad, and most in my circle of equally educated and well-traveled friends would consider particularly hip to cultural trends of the late 20th century.
I've literally never even heard of East 17, and I am vaguely aware of Take That being a band, but if you hadn't included them in the same sentence as BSB and 1D (whose members I cannot name except for Zane and Harry, plus there's an Irish guy??), I wouldn't have even clocked "oh yeah, that's a band I've heard mentioned a couple times in my life"
> She didn't know who OJ Simpson was, nor is she familiar with Henry VIII and his 6 wives. She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17.
Well, I'm French and it's the same for me. I think what Americans (and the British? I know Henry VIII is a king if England, even if I have no idea how many wives he could have had) greatly overestimate how shared their culture is in the western world.
Though living in Belgium I've noticed the Flemish are much more aware of such American things than we are, so maybe it's just the French who aren't well integrated into the "global western" culture.
As an example recently talking to a Japanese friend who is the same age as me we realised she had seen less than 10% of the movies that "everyone born in the early 80's has seen". She didn't know who OJ Simpson was, nor is she familiar with Henry VIII and his 6 wives. She knew the Backstreet Boys & One Direction, but not Take That nor East 17.
Traveling in China a few years ago I was surprised to see many Hokusai images used on clothing and shop decorations.
The Mona Lisa might be the western world's most famous artwork, but you rarely see it on a T-shirt unless you're meeting a tourist near the Louvre. I suspect that if both were in still trademarked that Hokusai would be making orders of magnitude more on royalties than Da Vinci...