[hpg23]

^hahahaah

ayumixfan, sorry if I gave that impression with my post, but it was not my intention at all to sound rude. I was just saying that actually, if you see someone with asian features and you don´t know from which country he/she is, call him/her asian then, since that´s how they should be called, but don´t call them chinese or korean or whatever, since that person could get offended (I say this from my personal opinion and based on my personal experience). The example I listed was because those people I mentioned already know that I listening to Japanese music and they still name it chinese just because they think they are chinese. I mean, if I were from Japan I would get offended, cause no one likes to be called something that they aren´t (not saying that Japan is superior to China, I think that all countries are equal, just in case you are going to attack me for this comment, too). You have your own cultural identity already, so stop cheaply switching other people´s. And I agree totally with what emiko said.

Back to topic, I was just saying that in the modern music world, marketing has a lot to do with people liking something. Not all people are going to play Kingdom Hearts or watch some anime series and get hooked on the theme song, and find J-Pop that way. Really, people just don´t even bother.

Anyway, I think that people talk so much about being all one world, every culture is equal, and all that, but in the end there´s still some social taboos and differences that people have not changed yet. I understand perfectly that you can dislike Ayumi´s music or Japanese music in general, since music is a matter of taste, but I think that some people just close themselves the moment they hear: hey, Ayu is japanese. And specially with Japan, I think there´s this kind of "stigma" (don´t know how to express this, stigma is too strong) of being nerd or freak or whatever just for liking things that come from there. Fortunately, I think that all this will gradually change over time... I mean you can´t pretend people to change after many years of cultural imperialism.

And I´m not saying any of this with the intention of being rude, politically incorrect or old fashioned, I´m just voicing my opinion and I think that people from every country should have the same chances, and really, since we are lucky enough to live in such a diverse planet with so many different cultures... why don´t we make use of all that?