日本如何復制美國文化并讓它變得更好

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

日本人Yoshio Sadasue在紐約的麥迪遜大道上經營著這家“鐮倉襯衫”

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

幾年前，我坐在位于東京中心區域，代代木的一家地下酒吧喝著滿是泡沫的札幌啤酒，旁邊的一個工薪族正對著一臺播放著盜版，失真的鮑勃迪倫早期演唱會的電視舉杯。這家酒吧的名字叫做“我的過去”，這是鮑勃迪倫一首歌的名字。事實上，鮑勃正是這家酒吧得以存在的原因：日本的粉絲們聚在這里看他的演唱會，聽他的唱片，重溫美國60年代的生活，一段他們并沒有親自體驗過的生活。接著我聽到有酒醉的日本粉絲跟著喇叭里喧鬧的另外一個版本的“Mr. Tambourine Man”合唱，我覺得這個場景真的好奇怪。