日本如何复制美国文化并让它变得更好

Kamakura Shirts owner Yoshio Sadasue opened a New York store on Madison Avenue. (Raymond Patrick)

日本人Yoshio Sadasue在纽约的麦迪逊大道上经营着这家“镰仓衬衫”

Acouple of years ago I found myself in a basement bar in Yoyogi, a central precinct of Tokyo, drinking cold Sapporo beers with big foamy heads while the salarymen next to me raised their glasses to a TV displaying a fuzzy, obviously bootlegged video of an old Bob Dylan concert. The name of the bar, My Back Pages, is the title of a Dylan song. Dylan is, in fact, the bar’s reason for being: Japanese fans come here to watch his concert videos, listen to his tapes and relive the ’60s in America, a time and place almost none of them witnessed firsthand. As I heard yet another version of Mr. Tambourine Man roaring over the speakers, with some drunk Japanese fans now singing along, I thought how strange this phenomenon was

几年前，我坐在位于东京中心区域，代代木的一家地下酒吧喝着满是泡沫的札幌啤酒，旁边的一个工薪族正对着一台播放着盗版，失真的鲍勃迪伦早期演唱会的电视举杯。这家酒吧的名字叫做“我的过去”，这是鲍勃迪伦一首歌的名字。事实上，鲍勃正是这家酒吧得以存在的原因：日本的粉丝们聚在这里看他的演唱会，听他的唱片，重温美国60年代的生活，一段他们并没有亲自体验过的生活。接着我听到有酒醉的日本粉丝跟着喇叭里喧闹的另外一个版本的“Mr. Tambourine Man”合唱，我觉得这个场景真的好奇怪。