A Veritable Cornucopia of Useless Information

…which, if you pay attention to the outside world at all, you’re probably well aware of this already. However, our increasing knowledge of life beyond our horizons crops up in many interesting ways.

Exhibit A: Japan. I started this blog post yesterday about how Japan, a country feared by the U.S. for its economic might in the 1980s, is now generally looked upon by Americans with mild bemusement. How did this happen? Beyond the obvious answer (a 15-year recession), I do think that our collective realization that Japan is one messed-up country also played a part in this. This trend is most obvious in gaming. Twenty years ago, Japanese companies took great pains to Americanize their games. Now, there are several game franchises that are successful because they are so thoroughly Japanese. Of course, this acclimation goes both ways: Newsweek has an excellent article about how Japan is becoming less Japanese. (Listing other aspects of Japanese culture that the U.S. has become more aware of is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Exhibit B: Naming conventions. Historically, the word for a placename in other languages was not the same as the word for that placename used in its native language. Now, however, the usage of native names in other languages is becoming more prevalent; for example, NBC is branding its upcoming Winter Olympics coverage as “Torino 2006″, not “Turin 2006″. It isn’t unusual anymore to see München, Praha, etc. in print; most people know which cities those names refer to.