[Project] Perception of Foreigners in Japan through Hetalia

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Hello again! I posted here a few days ago with this project, and I wanted to let everyone know that I finished and handed in my essay!

Here is the essay and here are the pictures that go with it.

Finally, I wanted to extend a big thank you to all of the people who contributed. If your idea didn't make it into my final draft, it's almost certainly due to space and time constraints; a lot of you had a lot of wonderful ideas. So many, in fact, that I had to cut out the second half of my essay, which was supposed to be on the Hetalia fandom! 

Thank you all so much for your support. I hope my essay isn't totally pathetic; I'm pretty much entirely burnt out. 

Wow. I just turned in my very last undergrad essay. Um. I think I need some time to wrap my head around that...

EDIT: Someone just sent me a link to this, where people are anonymously commenting on my essay! I replied to this PM, and the other party posted my response in the thread at #35509. I didn't want it posted there; I wanted people to be able to post honestly, without wondering whether I'd seen it. It's fun to complain, and I don't mind anything they've said. Therefore, I commented at #35511 to clarify that I hadn't intentionally posted there.

All in all, I have to say that I'm pretty surprised people felt that they had to post anonymously. For future commenters, I'd like to state that you can say all of this directly to me. This essay is easily one of the weakest papers I've done. The teacher said that we could discuss literally any topic, and I, utterly burnt out by my serious classes, decided to take it easy and have some fun writing about Hetalia. That's all. I just shared it so that interested parties could read it.

I'm glad that people seem to be having so much fun ranting about it! I assure you that it wasn't a serious, intense research project. I wrote it in two days after handing in my senior thesis, and I just need to not get an F on it to pass the class. Maybe other people would have taken it seriously, as it was the last undergrad essay I had to do--however, I intentionally structured my senior course load so that I could focus on my thesis. I'm really quite surprised that people are taking it so seriously.

 

Still, thank you all for taking the time to read it! I'm impressed. (And I just tried to link you all back to this reply with my comment here at #35543. I hope that was okay.)

Comments

[misty-rain.livejournal.com]

XD Don't worry; anyone who's been at the end of a semester of college knows the burnt out feeling.
Interesting read; not pathetic at all. Nice to see the Hetalia community being able to help out on something like this. It's why I like this fandom so much~.
And congratulations on the last undergrad essay!

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad that it was an interesting read; I can't bear to look at it any more. Haha. I'm so ready for summer, but grad school starts in June, so I only get a brief respite. Oh well.

I really did appreciate the help of the community. A few of the points that came up in the comments really hadn't occurred to me, so it was really helpful in the end. This fandom is pretty incredible.

And thank you for the congrats! All I have left is my Japanese final on Wednesday, and I'm free! (Free to finish my help_japan stuff, I mean. Haha.)

[artemis10002000]

Congratulations on finishing this essay in particular and undergrad essays in general.

I won't have the time to read it today, but I'm going to download it and read it later. I've been looking forward to it.

Good luck with the Japanese final :)

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I hope that it's not a disappointment; it's one of my weakest essays, and I didn't take it as seriously as perhaps I should have, but I did have fun asking for people's thoughts in my other post. Also, I'm totally brain dead right now.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'll understand if you tell me it sucks. n_n I do hope that you enjoy it, though.

Thank you also for the well wishes! I'm going to finish studying soon, I think. Japanese is my real passion, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.

[fayore.livejournal.com]

Well, first of all, I'd like to congratulate you on finishing your undergrad!

I don't actually watch this community anymore, so I did see your essay through the comments on the anonymous confessional. I haven't made any of the comments on there, but I would recommend you take them seriously; a good number of them highlight some serious problems with your paper.

If you're interested, I can explain some of the things you might want to watch out for next time.

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Well, I didn't see anything in the comments that specifically addressed problems, except some vague things about my citations and conclusion. So more specific criticism would be welcome. Which comments, specifically, do you think I should take seriously?

For the record, I'm not going into a research focused field. Just in case that matters. I'm going to a graduate school of education to be an elementary school teacher. Which probably disgusts a lot of people even more, but I really mean it when I say that this essay isn't my usual standard. I'm a serious student who's just a bit burnt out this week.

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

I went through it all again, and the only potentially useful comment I found was on my pacing, lack of backup sources, and so forth. (I'm never going to write a fandom essay again, so many other points just won't be relevant in the future...)

I wasn't even required to have outside sources, and I knowingly neglected them. It wasn't a research paper, after all. I also recognize that the overall organization was not up to par, were it a four hundred level class--which it wasn't. I didn't put any effort into that, really.

The conclusion was weak because the essay was, as I said, not something I took seriously. I took the class to fulfill a credit and have fun. That's it.

What I'd really like to know, though, is what everyone meant by saying I had messed up my citations. This is precisely the way I've learned to do parenthetical citations, ever since freshman year of high school. The full ones were checked online using seventh edition MLA formatting as the guide. What was wrong with them?

[fayore.livejournal.com]

Well, for starters, #35489 is probably the best at offering an overall summary of the problems.

Your citations are fine insofar as structure is concerned. It's what you're doing with them - you're not using them in a way that validates your argument.

Your paper has a lot of non sequiturs. You make a lot of statements, but they are often not well-backed by proof. You need to make sure that you have enough proof that a reader will not question the veracity of the statement you're making.

In your introductory paragraph, you said: "Himaruya's time abroad in New
York was critical to Hetalia's development, as it gave him the perspective to really look at stereotypes of foreigners by contrasting his own assumptions with both actual foreigners and the stereotypes held by those foreigners."

Is that true? Did he say so himself? How do I know you're not making that up? You did make it up, didn't you. <-- that's exactly the response you want to avoid creating in people, which is why you need relevant proof (such as an interview citation, in this case).

You quoted Russel as saying that black characters don't often show up in Japanese fiction, but then connected that to Seychelles not having dark skin. It doesn't follow; just because black characters are not common in Japanese fiction doesn't mean that Seychelles has to be light skinned.

You also mentioned that some other people quote Russel extensively, but that point has no bearing on your argument and should be omitted. It's also not a valid reason to give weight to his argument and therefore not a valid reason to give weight to your own argument - which is what citations are supposed to do; they're supposed to give your argument external validation.

You also bring up some other points that don't help your argument. The content on dialects isn't helpful because you haven't explained what they do for the characters. It's also misleading, since some of the verbal "tics" you've mentioned aren't all that pertinent. One could say that America's use of "ore" + casual sentence finals is hyper-masculine when compared to Japanese "watashi"/"desu" etc, but it's a pronoun that's ubiquitous in Japanese society anyway, and not all that odd.

When you make arguments, you should predict the "but wait! what about ~" responses the reader might have and properly address them in your paper.

[fayore.livejournal.com]

Here are a few other general things that should be noted when writing papers:

-when introducing the name of a person, you should include both their first and last names.

-when referencing a time period, you should include the dates of it, ie. "Tokugawa period (1603-1868)". For this example specifically, you should also mention that this period is also known as the Edo period.

-when writing a title in Japanese, you should always have a translation of the title.

-following that, you should always translate or define any foreign words you use. You have to assume that the reader has no knowledge of Japanese whatsoever, even if you already know that yes, yes your prof speaks it fluently. Some of them are misleading, too: "...paints Japan as a nation of ganbari, a nation of humility..." Because you didn't explicitly explain what ganbari is, a reader will assume it means humility, which isn't what the word means at all.

-speaking of words, you have to be careful about what words and phrases you use. "delis" is more slang; it should be "delicatessens". "Read the atmosphere" doesn't mean anything to people; rather than using a standard phrase like that, you should be describing it. "Japan can read the atmosphere" -> "Japan has the ability to assess particular details of his immediate surroundings and respond in a manner deemed socially appropriate."

-if you're using a common English word as a specific term (such as your use of the word "Other"), make sure you explain what the term is supposed to mean. I don't know what that means. I can infer what it means contextually, but I shouldn't have to. Also, if it's a term created by another person, you should mention that as well.

-don't quote verbatim unless the actual wording of the quote is important to what you're arguing; you should be paraphrasing and embedding the content of what you want to quote into your own arguments.

And yes, I know you feel like some of the points may not be relevant, but trust me - they are. They all have to do with how well you can communicate your ideas. A lot of the problems cropping up are because you're leaving the reader in the dark re: what you're talking about.

I know you're probably a little hurt because the commentary in the confessional can get harsh, especially if you're not used to criticism, but you may wish to check what you're saying.

What you're saying now is a perfect example of problems with your paper: okay, you're stressed out, so your paper isn't all that good. You've admitted to that. But why are you telling me this? What do you aim to accomplish by telling me this? Why is this information pertinent to me? It's not. Nor does it change the fact that it's still a poorly-constructed paper.

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your lengthy reply.

Ahh, is that what they were getting at? Thank you very much for clarifying that matter for me. I usually follow a totally different organizational procedure than I did for this essay, one that requires at least a week of standing outlines and fleshing them out so that I logically build on the point and incorporate quotes in a logical fashion to prove whatever point I chose in my thesis.

Unfortunately, I only had about two days once I actually sat down with this paper, which wasn't enough for this approach. Instead, I ran through my sources, picked out what looked like relevant enough quotes, and wrote a basic, messy outline that turned into frantic paragraphs. After I finished, I returned to throw in quotes.

I'm not proud of it. It's the second time I've written an essay like that in my life. I mistakenly assumed that no one would care, since it's just an essay I wrote in the hopes of enjoying myself. (The first such essay was an eight page paper on a cookbook, which I had to write the week prior. I had to work in quotes about cannibalism and other irrelevant things to suit the professor. That was the worst paper I've ever written, I think. I was basically brain dead after I handed in that and my thesis.)

Thank you for your feedback. I do appreciate the time it must have taken, and I'm sorry that you had to slog through something so unpleasant for you.

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Oh, most of those terms were ones that we specifically discussed in class, and the professor hates having things she already knows explained over again. Just to clarify.

Um, I would hardly say that I'm hurt. I'm trying to explain to you why I don't think this is a big deal, and why I'm not taking it seriously. I'm not trying to justify my paper. As long as it isn't an F, I'll get a B or better. It isn't a class or a paper that matter to my future, and I only shared it for the enjoyment of others, not my own edification. I'm not going to edit it. I probably won't open the file ever again. I just had to have something to hand in.

I don't understand what you think I'm trying to do here.

[fayore.livejournal.com]

NP. It wasn't particularly unpleasant for me, I mean. Your writing style is very easy to read and most of your arguments probably would have been fine if you'd managed to find proper proof to back them up.

And no, I understand perfectly well that it's a paper that you didn't care about. But regardless of that, you should be taking the advice to heart anyway because even if it doesn't have any bearing on this class/its grade, it's important that you properly build your communication skill set (especially if you want to be a teacher). I pump out shit papers at 3AM with no guidelines or notes all the time; every student does it. But all the points I brought up are second nature to me - I don't even have to think about including them. Even if it's a crappy paper, they're all still there. And they should be there for your crap papers, too.

[artemis10002000]

I hope you have recovered a bit and are feeling less brain dead by now :)

I did enjoy the essay! The way the differences between Japan and America are portrayed in Hetalia are an interesting topic. I think it'll make me pay more attention in the future to the exact way the stereotypes are presented, especially from Japan's view.

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Thank you! A bit, yes. I'm still sort of recovering. I got an A in the film class that this paper was for, though, so I'm greatly relieved by that. I've been working hard all semester, so I think she forgave my final paper, since she knows my usual quality of work.

I'm glad that you enjoyed the essay! I thought it was an interesting topic, though I didn't get to spend as much time on it as I'd hoped to... Ah well. I had to prioritize the classes that actually mattered.

Thank you for reading!

[artemis10002000]

Hey, it's great that you got an A!

*nods* Yeah, prioritizing is important. I live by the Pareto principle, which says that 80% of the results are created by 20% of the work you do, so you know it's important to know ahead of time what will truly matter.

[moyakite.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm rather relieved.

Huh, I've never heard of that principle, but it really does sound about right. You have to work smarter, not harder--that's what I'm always being told.

[artemis10002000]

Funnily enough, I learned about the pareto principle from a teacher. Go figure! XD