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Intercultural Interface
Using an interactive blog format, Chanpon.org is creating an online culture that intermixes Japanese and American characteristics.

by Ryoji Yamada

Chanpon.org's bilingual intersection of a logo.
Rachellucas.com

Chanpon.org, an online junction connecting Japan and the United States, is promoting cross-cultural exchange through an open dialogue facilitated by its weblog format. Created by the Momoko Ito Foundation to foster Japanese/American relations through the use of new information technology, Chanpon uses blogging to serve the site's expressed intent of "encouraging a worldview that embraces multiple perspectives and transcends cultural boundaries."

Chanpon's creators dismissed the conventional webzine design, in which conversation is linear between reader and writer (restricted to private e-mail communication). Instead the site utilized the more interactive blog format, which thrives upon open dialogue.

"Blogs combine the free-for-all nature of talk radio with the forbidden-fruit angle of reading someone's diary," says Martin Wong, editor and co-founder of Giant Robot, an Asian/Asian-American pop culture 'zine.

Justin Hall sporting a bowtie while covering a news conference.

Previously, Chanpon was updated bimonthly, but "that was too formal, too stiff," said site editor and webmaster Justin Hall. Now updated on a near daily basis, Hall says, "It's more fun." Articles are posted to the website immediately; a response button allows readers to log their responses directly below the article.

An example of the cross-cultural repartee that characterizes Chanpon conversation, recounts a scolding Hall received from his Japanese neighbors for being a loud 'gai-jin' ("foreigner"). Referencing a scene from The Karate Kid, in which Mr. Miyagi imparts his aged, Eastern wisdom to his naïve Italian-American student, a member named Howard wrote, "He's your guru, Justin. You've [been] elevated to a new level of consciousness... Walking with superhuman quietude is that kind of awareness exercise for you."

A Volkswagen Bug collides artistically with a bonsai tree.

True to its name, a Japanese word meaning "a mixture of disparate things," Chanpon addresses a variety of topics. "Janglish Panglish" is an article about the integration of English phonetics into fundamental Japanese language like "sekushii," meaning "sexy"; accounts of the expatriate experience in Japan including an article entitled "Cultures That Bathe Together," about a pending lawsuit to force the allowance of non-Japanese into exclusively Japanese mineral baths; recipes for "Maggot Salad," made of uncooked instant ramen noodles; and a profile of a "Crash-Bonsai" site devoted to the work of an unconventional artist who fashions toy cars "dented perfectly for placement in your bonsai arrangement."

Mimi Ito thinks away.

Although weighty topics are available, Mimi Ito, one of Chanpon's founders, says intense academic analysis of cultural topics is "not what is immediately appealing to most people."

After reviewing the Chanpon site, Eric Nakamura, Publisher of Giant Robot magazine, criticizes this elemental draw of pop-culture sociability. He says they are soapboxes for little more than "personal angst. At best, he says, "they're for a ring of friends to read about each other."

Ito strongly disagrees. Chanpon, she says, is a "cultural home base" for the "diasporic identity." She believes that blogs strike a balance between "public outreach" and "community space," "between content production and community-building," "bulletin board and journalism."

Chanpon is a hybrid online community--neither Japanese nor American--encompassing what Justin calls "a proliferation of voices," as opposed to merely disseminating Japanese culture. The people at Chanpon are "determined to show that 'Japanese' is not a monolithic race, culture or state of mind," says Hall.

Related Links:
Happa Issues Forum
Celebrate Asian American Culture
Cornell Hapa Student Association
Eurasian Nation
Culture and Community in International Politics by Professor John Kirton, University of Toronto

— Ryoji Yamada, student writer, Senior in C.A.S.'s Journalism Dpt.

Launched: 12.12.01. Reproduction of material from any ReadMe pages without written permission strictly prohibited. ReadMe © 2002 New York University, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003-6636, (212) 998-7912, e-mail: readme@journalism.fas.nyu.edu