At that time, the panpan was perhaps the most obvious symbol of a new phenomenon in intercultural relations: the “horizontal” westernization of Japan. Previously, such influences had penetrated the country vertically, almost invariably introduced by the elites. Even seeming exceptions like the spread of flapper culture in the 1920s, with its “modern boys” and “Clara Bow girls,” tended to involve only the comfortable bourgeoisie, while ordinary people remained relatively unaffected. The lower-class panpan represented an unprecedented phenomenon—a popular westernization “from the side.”
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