14 Feb 2008 1211H

Exotic occidentalia

It’s interesting to note that places like Chinatowns, apart from their daily functions as communities of Chinese immigrants, recently arrived and oftentimes, not so recently arrived, historically have touted themselves as internal tourist destinations, exotic gateways to the inscrutable Far East.

But what if you were to take that concept and stand it on its head? You might get something like Huis Ten Bosch, a resort designed as a simulacrum of a 17th-century Dutch town, complete with canals, in Nagasaki, Japan. To be sure there are important differences between a Chinatown and Huis Ten Bosch; the former is organically-grown, the latter is developer-driven. Generally one doesn’t design a Chinatown. So I think it is more telling about the contexts of the Japanese urban dweller, as opposed to any sort of psychological motive around any exotic Other, at least at first glance.

Permanent link to Exotic occidentalia

Filed under Environment, User Experience

Be the first to respond to "Exotic occidentalia"

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

No responses yet.

And now it's your turn.

Fire your weapon, soldier. Just be careful of friendly fire. NAME & EMAIL required.

Your response