It appears to be part of a longer series of stories about the popularity of Japanese dogs in the world.
Yes, the dogs of war have become the dogs of culture wars. And the dogs of failed international political manipulation, according to this BBC article about Japan’s attempt to ingratiate itself with Putin by giving him a second dog ahead of his visit and talks about finally signing a peace treaty and the Japanese pipe dream of getting Russia to “return” four northern islands.īefore going any further, it’s worth noting that, in English, the title, “Animal peace!!” would be properly punctuated, “Animals, ‘Peace!’” In other words, it’s basically, “Hey animals, say ‘Cheese!’” The subtitle is “Super-cute images one after another!” Television is learning, and plagiarizing, from YouTube.Īnyway, the segment in question was one of several on the program that’s a story rather than a glorified YouTube video.
The segment I saw recently on TV Aichi’s どうぶつピース!! (Dōbutsu Pīsu!!) about Japanese dogs shows how far this goes.
gaijin) love those same Japanese people, culture, and businesses In recent years, Japanese television has embraced a role as cheerleader for “Cool Japan,” producing a mess of self-congratulatory paeans to Japan in the form of shows about:Ī) Japanese people, culture, and businesses succeeding in the world, orī) how much foreigners (especially, but not exclusively Westerners, i.e. And that came in the form of a long message from Nathan Hopson, which I quote here: The underlying question that prompted me to write this post is when to use which. In the case of 犬 ("dog"), the former is ken and the latter is inu. I will begin with some basic phonological and etymological information, then move to an elaboration of the immediate cause for the writing of this post, observations from colleagues, and a brief conclusion.įor those who are unfamiliar with Japanese, most kanji (Sinograms) have at least two quite different pronunciations, an on 音 (Sino-Japanese reading) and a kun 訓 (native reading). This post intends to take a deep look at the words for "dog" in Japanese, "inu" and "ken", both written with the same kanji (sinogram Chinese character): 犬.