Saturday, March 28, 2009

Wakaranai*

"China and Japan may both be in Asia but have totally different mentalities when it comes to art," says [Art Fair Tokyo Executive Director Misa] Shin. "Japanese art has been much cheaper but the quality of the art is the most important priority."

Assuming that this is translated correctly---if it is a translation---what does that mean? Japanese art is cheaper, but the quality is higher? How does one objectively measure the quality of art? Could there be just a wee bit of arrogance here?

*I should be slapped silly for using Japanese when it is not needed (to provide original context for a translation etc), but I just had to do it since such things are all the rage now. I guess. My colleague from Colorado who admires Japan's unique four seasons (bakero) cannot utter a number in English, but instead says such things as "Yea, I paid go-man-en, dude." The use of the word "dude" tells one all he/she needs to know, but I still get a bit confused---should I reply in English or Japanese or a combination of both? If I combine the languages, which words should be in Japanese, and which should be in English? And what's the point? It's the new Latin? It's to show that I know some phrasebook Japanese? Is that impressive or what, dude? End of rant.

No comments:

Post a Comment