I think people everywhere are not interested into the "real"foreign culture but into the ideal of it.

And that is why i do not overly worrie about it.

Yes, Japan does a lot of stuff that is "american"but they do it in an Japanese way.

Fashion, art and so on, if you look at it, if it is inspired by the american culture it is Japanised!

The strong part of the American culture is that it collects all around the world ideas, mixes them up and comes out with something new.

Jazz.

It is an mixture of europe, african, added some side dish of caribean music, cooked up and you got something new!

But it did not end with "American Jazz"

Other countries imported it and it changed, now there is Japanese Jazz, British Jazz and so on.

The USA is culturally an hub where ideas around the world mix, something new comes out and it is redistributed, and then other cultures add there own flavour to it and it becomes something unique to this culture again.

Do i like McDonalds? Hell NO

I do not really like most of what comes out of the US, too loud and gaudy for my taste, but i like a lot what other cultures make out of it, what the french did with Jazz alone by adding there own ideas !

I think what most people really fear is not the CULTURE but the american way to run an economie, the US still acts as if there was a lot of land in the west everyone who needs to can go to, and that is an dangerous thing to do.

Cultures do change over time, today faster than before there was something like world wide communication and easier ways to travel, but they change what they pick up from other cultures too.

As long we do not have the worldwide stepping disk systhem the chance of an worldwide homogenous culture is nil for my opinion.

I forgot to add...

Nearly everything i know about Japan i learned form non Japanese sources.

Most countries you can learn about from people native to its culture writing for foreigners, but if you want to learn about Japan there are nearly exclusive foreigners living in Japan reporting.

Add the different way to write and that Japanese is an language you only learn if you want to visit the country, that it is on the other side of the world for europeans and americans and that the main export is manga, anime and techologie, it is very hard for foreigners to learn much about its culture or interact with the culture, learn about it.

Japanese tourists are hard to catch too for questioning, they move to fast, you blink and they are gone!

As long you do not have the patience to learn basic Japanese and spend a lot of money to travel there it is very hard to learn a lot about it, Japan is still rather walled in regarding the culture.

My interest started professional, i learned Cabinet maker and one of our teachers showed the class an Japanese saw who is better constructed than the european counterpart, otherwise Japan would have remained an country on the other side of the globe for me.

It is common around the world, and specifically in Asia. I hate to see the success rate of American Cultural Imperialism. I am an American and can admit that it is Cultural Imperialism (Hello North Korea).

Luckily, many things I have seen blow over, over the years. I am most worried though about us spreading our brand of corruption to developing SE Asia. This is an area our politicians are placing alot of effort into influencing. Sometimes it seems that all of our success has only been the result of monopolizing the resources of others and our media outlets serve an important stake in this process. (speaking of result, not of conspiracy).

At the rate we are going though, perhaps soon all those American influences will be memories or collectors items. Asia has outpaced us and it is only a matter of time before those ignorant to this start to see Asian cultures as the hip new trends to follow. I know Korea is having alot of success in this.

A few times though I have been reassured when I ask people why they are listening to a certain song (which has unacceptable content or meaning) and I find out that they haven't even thought about what the words mean. They just like the sound.

Sex sells so we load our images with it. The natural compulsion glues us to them and create an emotional (chemical) response. However, Japan and Korea do just as well at this if not better. That may give you some re-assurance.

[Personally, I can't wait until Japanese lesbian porn completely pushes everything else of the shelves (figurative shelves) in the US. My god it is perfect! Forget Hollywood]