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lol... the US's political culture is naturally isolationist and xenophobic. However, the experience of WWII basically convinced us that the only way to maintain our prosperity was to crush foreign opposition before it became a real problem and use economic force to take over the world. It doesn't change the fact that our society is naturally isolationist at its core... at present, our nation's political culture is split (on a dimension that still manages to cross the lines between parties) between internationalists and xenophobes... and the xenophobes are the vocal minority and a silent majority. Of course, as the nation moves rapidly toward edging the Caucasians out of their majority, some of that xenophobia will be relieved, but it doesn't change the realities at this point. Edit: I should clarify this point... interventionism is not necessarily in opposition to isolationism, due to the miracles of double-think. Interventionism is a tool of isolationism, at this point, though it wasn't so much so during the Cold War, ironically.

To be fair, "nationalization" can be a euphemism for "theft" in some circumstances.

I don't think the rest of the world would characterize the US as """isolationist""". Especially those who don't like the US.

I don't necessarily like Japanese culture. I like the Japanese *counter* culture as expressed in the otaku subculture. It's key to distinguish the craziness you see in anime and eroge from what it's actually like to live, study, and work in Japan. Otaku culture is no more representative of Japanese culture as a whole than Hollywood movies are representative of American culture.

Just because you failed doesn't mean others can't do it. I'm reading untranslated stuff quite well after a year of learning.

I think you're forgetting about a certain gondola ride...

I hear what you're saying, Deep Blue, but I think if you're going to translate/edit a work into English, you need to do so primarily with native English speakers in mind. Otherwise, you end up cutting yourself off from a huge swath of idiom and poetics just because the non-native speaker might not have been exposed to them. The resulting prose would be functional yet totally flavorless. Anyway, I don't think I'd call the entirely of the native English-speaking world "a very narrow audience." This particular slang usage of "pearl necklace" can be found in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia. I don't know about New Zealand, but I'd have to imagine that if the Aussies are on board, then so are the Kiwis. All that said, I honestly feel bad that non-native speakers like yourself might be (literally) left out on the joke. So you have my apologies for that. If you ever find yourself in New York, I'll buy you a beer as a make-good. ​