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The
walls between what is “actual” and what
is “virtual” have also always been permeable
in a culture that constructs gardens to recreate (remediate)
actual landscapes in miniature, or that plants cherry
trees on the hillsides in a pattern that makes it appear
that clouds are drifting artfully amongst the foliage
when the cherry blossoms bloom bright white among the
layers of green. Because making large parts of an “outside”
culture part of one’s own culture is an authentically
Japanese thing to do, and because there is a comfortable
acceptance of integrating
the virtual and the actual, it’s easy to see
why networked gaming, virtual reality, and pervasive
computing would quickly become a key part of the culture,
especially when connected to youth and popular culture.
Along with adapting the “markers”
or cultural ghosts from other societies into their own
cultural narratives, modern Japanese society has also
connected this social integration process with the process
of manipulating the mediating technologies as well (Craig).
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