Re: [tlug] [OT] What's up with online Japanese<->Japanese dictionaries?

[Martin Killmann <martin@example.com>]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:45:40 +0900 
Darren Cook <darren@example.com> wrote:

> Wandering even more off-topic, do you think modern Japanese people like
> traditional Japanese aesthetics?
> I have my doubts, or they wouldn't have been able to create Tokyo,
> pachinko or a Bic Camera store.

The big unanswered question... "Why is modern Japan so ugly?"

The sentiment you'll hear most often is "We'll rebuild it in a nicer way
after the next big earthquake." Tokyo was burned to the ground not once,
but twice in the 20th century. And after that, during the period of high
economic growth, everybody was striving for modern convenience, nobody
cared about what the result looks like.

Only very recently there is a movement that maybe we don't need to cover
every available square meter in concrete, and maybe we could also put
these ugly power lines underground, and uh, maybe build a house that we
don't need to tear down after 30 years, and have a park that's more than
a public toilet next to a tree...

I do think modern Japanese people appreciate traditional Japanese
aesthetics a lot, it's just that it has been confined to old temples,
gardens, or ryokan, or traditional crafts. Nobody expected them in city
planning, or website design...

Which leads us back to topic somewhat, because Japanese software
interfaces are just as crappy as their websites.
(Counterexamples welcome)

Martin