Intercultural Communication Ideology by Adrian Holliday

Author:Adrian Holliday [Holliday, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847873866
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2010-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

I was always struck by how ‘American’ lots of young ‘cool’ Japanese students and friends seemed to dress! Bandanas and lots of denim – very ‘Bon Jovi’ if that means anything to you?! And just the way that they would ‘hang out’ together in the city – groups of skateboarders, or people roaming around with guitars slung over their shoulders, like you might imagine the cover of a Bob Dylan album or something! But then I would often think to myself, is this ‘American’? Or would I be as likely to see these sorts of styles/fashions back in London? Did it appear so much more ‘American’ because I was in Japan, and I hadn’t expected to see that sort of thing in Japan? But then, what is ‘modernity’? Is it about dressing to fashions, or having the latest gadgets and gizmos? Or is it about a way of thinking? Someone who dresses in ‘traditional’ styles may not necessarily have ‘traditional’ or ‘old fashioned’ views on family, religion, politics, education. ... Perhaps modernity is a cultural thing – or simply an individual thing even – differing perceptions of what is ‘modern’? (Helen)

Like Caroline’s impression of latte cafés above, she does not immediately associate the ‘Western’ traits she observes among Japanese youth with herself, but with ‘America’; but she adjusts her views as she writes, and again returns to ‘modernity’ in opposition to ‘tradition’. However, while she acknowledges its underlying universality, the tendency is still there for ‘modern’ to be more associated with ‘Western’.

The major question, which is central to the entire thesis of this book, is therefore: is it possible to be modern without being Western? The possible answers revolve around the break between essentialism and cosmopolitanism as expressed in Table 6, which summarizes the key observations of this chapter so far. In the left-hand column is a summary of instances seen so far in the chapter. In the other two columns are what I view as essentialist and critical cosmopolitan views, largely as expressed by Zhang and Ming in the latte café narrative. The critical cosmopolitan view is also supported by Beck and Sznaider’s (2006: 9) concept of ‘divergent modernities’ rather than a single Western model, in which the potential for individualism and self-determination is therefore also present in these non-Western cultural realities.

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