Japanese culture

The more foreigners I meet, I come to realize that I don't know about Japan well. When people ask me questions like "Do you like this Anime?","What do you recommend for tourist attractions?" and " What is in fashion among high schooI students?", I nearly always answer "I'm sorry but I have no idea". These questions are really difficult for me. In other words, I'm sure that I don't now what is Japan and how is Japan. Maybe it sounds strange to foreigners. "Why? You are Japanese, aren't you??" I'm not really interested in anime, manga, Harajuku-fashion, Shinto shrines and temples…and I'm interested in foreign cultures. But I should learn my country's culture at least enough to understand what foreigners are talking about before I begin to learn foreign ones.


But I think the same situations happen to many Japanese especially young people. I know many young people like anime, but they aren't familiar with Japanese traditional culture. We don't go to shrines and temples expect except some ceremonies. Similarly, we usually don't wear "kimono" and young people cannot even put on "kimono" by yourself themselves. I think what we call "Culture" should be in our daily life. So I feel strange when people say "Kimono is our own culture!". The image of Japan isn't real Japan. It's a natural thing because the era is changing so, many countries are also getting lose losing their own culture. But in Japanese Japan's case, the reason is not only a new era but also luck of patriotism. Japanese people are tend not to treasure our their own culture. What do you think about this topic??