From Bunraku to Big Man Japan

So NJ Kpopper is thinking more about the earlier Japan post after finishing a cycle of Japanese film with Gan (Wild Geese).  It is true that for those far from Japan, what is Japanese to them consists of some kind of abstract representation of selected ideals.  That is quite far from what the lived experience for someone saturated in the reality of the place would see (e.g., Big Man Japan - half-joking :) ).

But do not cultures do this to themselves by holding up their own ideal but restrictive representations? - ukiyo, no, bunraku, kabuki in Japan, or list your favorite culture's examples here...[idealized history in Independence Day, День Победы, Navroʻz, Наадам].  At least the individual has the option of selecting their own personalized combination of ideal representations that mean something to them. Then later, if they encounter the reality, they can recast their impressions into a new fusion that hopefully balances bitter reality against some hopeful ideals.  Tashkent, Moscow... but that seems to be another idea for another post...