Essay On Dave Barry

In this excerpt of “Dave Barry Does Japan” Dave Barry shows the lack of care American tourists have for the culture and country they are visiting and satirizes stereotypes of both American and Japanese people through his use of repetition, anecdote, and self-deprecating humor. Dave Barry uses repetition throughout his story to add focus to specific ideas. An example of this is in the beginning of the story when he repeats his overexaggerated versions of the Japanese word for thank you, to satirize how the stereotypical American tourist won’t put in the effort to learn even the most basic words and phrases correctly. Another example of Dave Barry’s use of repetition is later on, when he is unable to communicate that he wants ketchup to the people working at Kentucky
Dave Barry and his family go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, something more familiar and recognizable to them, when they could be having traditional Japanese food and experiencing the culture. This same anecdote also satirizes the stereotypical American method of communication with other people, which is to simply talk louder and/or slower, when a better method would be to have planned ahead or learning the language of the country they’re in. Dave Barry also satirizes the American stereotype of taking aspects of other cultures as pop culture by showing how it is confusing when the Japanese do the same thing. In this excerpt Dave is confused by how the Japanese people put English words on t-shirts simply because it is seen as cool, even though the words are random and don’t have any real meaning. This very same thing can be seen in American pop-culture too, with some people even getting tattoos in other languages that end up saying completely different things than they