A Japanese original?

A favorite thing to do among Korea bashers is to complain incessantly about how many knockoffs there are in Korea. That's fine, because it's true, particularly among older products and things like amusement parks, before Korea became a major player on the world stage and could no longer get away with it so easily. Of course, some of the supposed knockoffs—especially food products—are actually licensed goods of Japanese products, especially by the prolific Otsuka Pharmaceuticals and similar companies that do loads of business in Korea.

One of the highest profile examples is the geodesic sphere, below, at Seoul Grand Park's SeoulLand amusement park in the Seoul suburb of Kwach'ŏn [Gwacheon], which is actually a fun place to take the kids. (There's a pretty good zoo nearby.) The dome in the distance bears a striking (and certainly not coincidental resemblance to Spaceship Earth at Disney World's Epcot Center.

I have never been to Disney World, so I have no idea if the iconic Epcot sphere includes a path of internationally themed shops and restaurants like SeoulLand does, but the intent to evoke a Disney theme within this theme park is obvious. A fair point for anyone to complain about or make fun of, I suppose.

Now, another favorite thing among the Korea bashers is to bitch incessantly about how bad Korea is compared to Japan. The implication being that whatever the topic of the day is, Korea will always be worse or will never be as good as Japan in that area. 

To be fair, many Koreans themselves invite comparison with Japan, with Japan having been the goal to reach for and the one to beat since the early 1960s when Korean leadership at the time started seriously setting their sights on real economic progress. In areas where Korea is lacking, vis-à-vis Japan, it's fair game to point that out, just as it's fair game to point out successes. 

But Korea bashing goes way beyond that, to the point of being shrill and irrational, and often flat-out wrong. Koreans are more racist than the Japanese, we are told, but only if one ignores things like the widespread housing discrimination (No gaijin!) that is apparently rampant in Japan. 

[And one of the problems with defending Korea against unwarranted attacks like this is that: (a) it becomes dangerously close to a tu quoque argument where one is saying, "Yeah, well those guys are also bad!" and (b) it forces people to come close to bashing Japan by pointing out its faults, when in fact I happen to like Japan about as much as I like Korea.]

So back to that meme that Koreans are hopelessly derivative, especially compared to the innovative Japanese. Something like the SeoulLand sphere wouldn't happen in Japan, we are led to believe. But of course I know that isn't true, and while searching today for photos of Nara Station, which IIRC preserved the old station while building a new one, I ran across a photo stream of this quite Disney-esque amusement park in Nara called Nara Dreamland. 

Now, I'm an Orange County boy, so images of Disneyland are etched in the back of my retina. Plus, I even worked there. So that image right there screams Disneyland's iconic Main Street Station. Just like SeoulLand's Epcot ball is an obvious rip-off, so is Nara Dreamland's train station.

The visitor is then led through what is a poorly reworked Main Street (another homage to Disney?). But, hey, what's that off in the distance? Is it Sleeping Kitty's Hello Castle? Goodness gracious, another homage!

To be fair, I'm not so sure Sleeping Beauty's Castle should be counted as a ripoff. After all, the castle's look wasn't exactly created by Disney's Imagineers: It was modeled after Neuschwanstein, a real castle in Bavaria, Germany.

But the Bavarian castle is perched high on a hill, but Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle is on flatter ground and arranged in a unique pattern, which Nara Dreamland clearly copied. 

Along with the Matterhorn...

Now, I'm not saying any of this to bash the Japanese in general (and really, should all Japanese take the blame for this homage?), and I don't even fault the proprietors of Nara Dreamland, which opened in 1961, six years after Disneyland got started. In fact, I'm sad to say that I missed this when I was in Nara in 2005, since the place closed in 2006. Our rainy day in Nara was instead spent feeding the deer, visiting Hōryū-ji Temple to see its Korean characteristics, and crawling through the hole at Tōdai-ji Temple. (Nara is a very nice place to visit, by the way.)

But lest you think that this is something that isn't done in Japan anymore, I direct you to none other than Nintendo, which includes a blatant ripoff homage to Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle in the Link's archery game that comes with the Wii Zapper. (And I'm not bashing Wii, either; Kushibo loves his Wii.)

Picture of that (screen capture, actually) forthcoming.

This, by the way, is the old Nara Station:

And I was inspired to look for it after reading this post at Marmot's Hole about how the old Shinch'on Station [신촌역, Sinchon] has been preserved but cordoned off in a similar way.