Reflections of Society

I actually have a profound interest in sociology (and demography in some extent), and it really fascinates me how a certain group of people would frown upon something that another greatly welcome. I'm willing to bet that this is caused by, and is a manifestation of, my great desire to travel the world and behold its beauty with my own eyes.

Ok, enough of that sentimental wishful thinking mode. What I'm pointing out with this post is the fact that my interest in knowing more about other societies is largely being catered to by the books that I read as well as the movies and Japanese anime I watch.

There's just too much into literature that many people don't just seem to notice (I guess I'm counting Japanese anime and manga as literary). When I digest literature, I also try to learn more about the social norms and cons that are embedded into it. Sure, most of the time writers and animators are focusing on this matter especially when developing characters (it is one of those over-employed tools to make the readers understand what a certain protagonist/antagonist is going through), but there are times when they do not. In such instances, I find great satisfaction in scooping out (and snooping into) the very same society that the writer is in.

Simple examples include 'sneezing' in anime, which denotes that Japs also believe one sneezes when others are talking about him; the curse words that are carefully filtered on every Harry Potter book; the great American pride that is very much apparent in Transformers the movie; and the Filipinos' dedication to education and religion. I think I'll expound more on this some other time, I wanna sleep nao :P