Saturday, June 23, 2012
Nominal Individuation in Japanese Kindergatens
Maybe because I have been looking at traditional Japanese sightseeing maps (名所図会 Named-place-collection-Pictures, shown top right; Imao, 2005 ) which show views with names popping up out of them, at this mornings' open day, my son's kindergarten classroom looked rather the same: a space covered in the names, of the children.
Allison (2000) points out that Japanese children have to take a lot of kit to school, of a certain type, and she sees this as an example of the extent to which Japanese kindergarten's (over) exercise control of their charges and even their mothers. At the same time however she may not have mentioned that this kit is displayed around the classroom labelled with the child's name. In my son's class there were
1) Named, individual registers of attendance, into which the children themselves affix a sticker (like a stamp) into a calendar on the days they attend.
2) A birthday poster showing who has a birthday on what day of which month.
3) Individually named shoe rack to store out-door shoes and slippers.
4) Individually named smock hook rack.
5) Individually named "lockers" without doors for the obligatory satchel. The satchel is the only uniform part of the children's attire.
6) A chart showing four class subgroups showing the insect themed groups, their members colour coded according the sex.
7) Named Children's artwork on the walls. This of course is common to UK classrooms.
8) A individually named change of clothes rack.
9) Individually named towel hook rack.
10) Individually named swimwear bag hook rack.
11) A rack containing the named individual drink flasks of all the children (I could imagine that all things that UK children bring to school are named, but then perhaps we might share the same source of drink. I have omitted this one from the collage.)
I can not remember my kindergarten classroom too well but I think that of these the artworks would have had names on them, lockers might have been numbered. I am not sure that my name would have been anywhere else on the walls or furniture of my kindergarten class. It seems Japanese children are encouraged to individuate themselves, their property, their hook, their lockers, using their name.
Names are very important in Japan (Plutschow, 1995), unlike words in general (have quotes), and are commonly included in self-descriptive Twenty Statements Test responses often near the top. Lacan (2007) argues that we (Westerners at least) should attempt to have as far as possible a symbolic, narrative awareness of self, but also argues that identification with body-image is a minimal essential, the lack of which leads to psychosis. I get the feeling that names are equivalent in an Nacalian culture to the image of a body in Lacanian culture: that minimal self-representation in the other channel required for completing the 'Möbius strip' -- a feedback loop which is twisted in the sense that self-perception is not quite possible within either channel -- of self-identity.
Bibliography
Allison, A. (2000). Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan (1st ed.). University of California Press.
Lacan, J. (2002). The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience. In B. Fink (Trans.), Ecrits (pp. 75–81). WW Norton & Company.
Lacan, Jacques. (2007). Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. (B. Fink, Trans.) (1st ed.). W W Norton & Co Inc.
Plutschow, H. (1995). Japan’s name culture: the significance of names in a religious, political and social context. Japan Library Kent, CT. Retrieved from www.getcited.org/pub/100168851
Imao, K. 恵介今尾. (2005). 日本地図のたのしみ. 角川学芸出版.
I have blurred all the names in the pictures other than those of my son. 息子以外に名前は全てぼこしています。
Allison (2000) points out that Japanese children have to take a lot of kit to school, of a certain type, and she sees this as an example of the extent to which Japanese kindergarten's (over) exercise control of their charges and even their mothers. At the same time however she may not have mentioned that this kit is displayed around the classroom labelled with the child's name. In my son's class there were
1) Named, individual registers of attendance, into which the children themselves affix a sticker (like a stamp) into a calendar on the days they attend.
2) A birthday poster showing who has a birthday on what day of which month.
3) Individually named shoe rack to store out-door shoes and slippers.
4) Individually named smock hook rack.
5) Individually named "lockers" without doors for the obligatory satchel. The satchel is the only uniform part of the children's attire.
6) A chart showing four class subgroups showing the insect themed groups, their members colour coded according the sex.
7) Named Children's artwork on the walls. This of course is common to UK classrooms.
8) A individually named change of clothes rack.
9) Individually named towel hook rack.
10) Individually named swimwear bag hook rack.
11) A rack containing the named individual drink flasks of all the children (I could imagine that all things that UK children bring to school are named, but then perhaps we might share the same source of drink. I have omitted this one from the collage.)
I can not remember my kindergarten classroom too well but I think that of these the artworks would have had names on them, lockers might have been numbered. I am not sure that my name would have been anywhere else on the walls or furniture of my kindergarten class. It seems Japanese children are encouraged to individuate themselves, their property, their hook, their lockers, using their name.
Names are very important in Japan (Plutschow, 1995), unlike words in general (have quotes), and are commonly included in self-descriptive Twenty Statements Test responses often near the top. Lacan (2007) argues that we (Westerners at least) should attempt to have as far as possible a symbolic, narrative awareness of self, but also argues that identification with body-image is a minimal essential, the lack of which leads to psychosis. I get the feeling that names are equivalent in an Nacalian culture to the image of a body in Lacanian culture: that minimal self-representation in the other channel required for completing the 'Möbius strip' -- a feedback loop which is twisted in the sense that self-perception is not quite possible within either channel -- of self-identity.
Bibliography
Allison, A. (2000). Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan (1st ed.). University of California Press.
Lacan, J. (2002). The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience. In B. Fink (Trans.), Ecrits (pp. 75–81). WW Norton & Company.
Lacan, Jacques. (2007). Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. (B. Fink, Trans.) (1st ed.). W W Norton & Co Inc.
Plutschow, H. (1995). Japan’s name culture: the significance of names in a religious, political and social context. Japan Library Kent, CT. Retrieved from www.getcited.org/pub/100168851
Imao, K. 恵介今尾. (2005). 日本地図のたのしみ. 角川学芸出版.
I have blurred all the names in the pictures other than those of my son. 息子以外に名前は全てぼこしています。
Labels: collectivism, individualism, Jaques Lacan, nihonbunka, 個人主義, 日本文化, 集団主義
This blog represents the opinions of the author, Timothy Takemoto, and not the opinions of his employer.