As you walk the lively streets of Nankinmachi, you see some things that seem somewhat authentic. There are small stores for herbal medicine, countless small wagons where different kinds of Chinese food and snacks are sold and small grocery stores where everything needed for Chinese cuisine can be found.
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Termites and Ginseng at a Chinese pharmacy, genuinely Chinese or not?
But there are even more things that makes the place look like a tourist trap, souvenir shops where everything from yellow jumpsuits like the one worn by Bruce Lee to dumpling keyrings and plastic Buddhas. There were also stereotypical symbols for China everywhere, pandas, dragons and Bruce Lees are looking at you from everywhere.
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Coca-Cola: The Chinese version
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Bruce Lee sourrounded by all kinds of not very authentic looking things.
For me it was very interesting to see this representation of another culture in Japan, with things that actually seemed, and in many ways might have been, authentic right next to the cheap looking things part of the constructed image that might give people what they are expecting when they go sightseeing in Chinatown.
This constructed image of China made me think about "The Japanese Version" which we watched in class. But instead of the "longing" for things American described in the movie, I think that the constructed China in Nankinmachi is something that let's the Japanese (or citizens of whatever country a Chinatown might be located in) tourist in their own country.
I think that since there are people who are ethnically Chinese living here, it is bound to be at least some amount of "genuine" Chinese culture to be found. At the same time, if the constructed image of China is what sells, you will see a lot of things like that around.
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