Japanese Culture

Derrida,Différance,Oedipus, Ajase and Japanese Re-collection

2011-12-30T11:19:00.002+09:00

Derrida,Différance,Oedipus, Ajase and Japanese Re-collection, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

All sorts of people from Plato to Mead and beyond, have pointed out that self-speech is important to the Western self. Then Derrida came along and derided (his pun) our experience of "hearing ourselves speak." Why do we do it? What could we ever tell ourselves that we do not already know? One needs a difference for communication to take place, so how can self-speach make any sense?

Derrida noted that self-speech makes sense in the form of a memo. "Buy eggs." We can write memos, and postcards, to ourselves in the future. And that is he said what we are always doing, as we listen to ourselves speak, we are differing, putting something off, waiting for something. To coin Roy orbison, in différance I talk to me.

Crossing Derrida with Lacan and the Oedipus complex, the birth of the self in the Oedipus complex takes place as a promise, or defferal. We realise that we will not get mother, that she sleeps elsewhere, but we enter the Oedipus waiting room because we are promised love in the future.

From the Japanese point of view the Western family is a bit like fagging. Adult men brutalise their children, making them sleep alone, but the children stop crying, and learn to love big daddy and the system, because they are promised that they can do the same in future.

The Japanese are doing something similar in reverse. They sleep with the children in between mother and father. Japanese men sleep in this way because that is how they grew up. There is a great nostalgia, a collective recollection going on in Japan. They are promised nothing but recollect everything.

And, as mentioned in recent posts on combining toys, the Japanese recollect themselves. They create themselves out of the scrap book of images, in mirrors, in photos, in other people's eyes. And when they do so, just as we can only speak to ourselves in différance, a self-image brought to mind is always a re-collection of oneself in the past.

Left, the cover of Keikgo Okonogi's "Edipusu to Ajase" (Oedipus and Ajase)
Top right Derrida by speedypete312

Japanese in the mirror of language: Flaming and the 2ch Cat

2011-12-29T16:17:00.002+09:00

Japanese in the mirror of language: Flaming and the 2ch Cat, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Nowhere do posters go as wild as on "2 channel," the massive Japanese anonymous online forum. The mascot of the forum is the cat (shown above) called "Mona," or fully "Omae Mona" which, as well as being a proper noun, means "same to you too." But posters do not stop at that. Normally polite Japanese become frank. They occasionally engage in extremely hostile interaction called "flaming," even telling each other to "die" (the nastiest thing you can say in Japanese).

Flaming occurs all over the world but nowhere with such abandon as in the anonymous forums serving the Japanese. The "festivities" sometimes reach a such a peak that numerous contributors will act in unison to do something like...vote a child pornographer one of Time magazine's most influence people of the decade. But users of 2ch by no means necessarily act in unison. At times everyone will be disagreeing with everyone else, sometimes, as noted above, to the point of gross insult.

So why is it that hostile interaction occurs with such vigor in Japan? Is it because the Japanese are usually so repressed that given the chance to lash out, they do so with all the more force?

Research on self disclosure (Matheson & Zanna,1988 see Sugimoto,2009) in online communication has suggested that the reason for greater self-disclosure on internet forums is due to a decrease in public self awareness (less awareness of the censure of others) and a greater private self awareness. Joinson (2001, again in Sugimoto, 2009) found that only when private self-awareness was high did anonymity, lack of public self-awareness, lack of censure result in increased self disclosure. In other words it is not enough to be be free to insult people. People have to be encouraged to feel their own attitudes and emotions more strongly for them to want to lash out.

So returning to the question, why do the Japanese especially go wild on internet forums? As per the previous research I think that it is because not only does the anonymity free them from the eyes of others, but also because the experience of typing on an Internet forum is especially likely to encourage them to have increased private self awareness, of their attitudes, values and feelings on a particular topic.

In Joinson's research above, private self awareness of the American subjects had to be manipulated visually. Those in a high private self awareness condition were presented with a picture of themselves. Since of course the Japanese are not sitting infront of pictures of themselves at their computers (and my research has shown that they are always in front of a mirror, because they have simulated a mirror in their heads), it must be the experience of typing their thoughts that increases their private self-awareness. Posting to 2ch is like standing in front of a linguistic mirror, a big sound box where ones thoughts echo around and bounce back to you. It is in this situation, combined with the anonymity, that the Japanese really go dylan, off the wall, and radical because usually they do not have a linguistic mirror in their head (unlike the Other found in most anglophones).

Incidentellly, the method used to decrease private self-awareness was to display a cartoon character on the screen. Perhaps this is why Japanese people are so fond of carrying chartoon characters around with themselves -- to decrease their private self awareness. I think that the "same to you too" cat of 2ch may have a calming (private-self-awareness decreasing) influence upon its viewers. Let us look upon Mona and feel calm:-)

The above thanks to Goto Hayabusa's graduation thesis (2011) and the research of Sugitani (2009) as referenced below in Japanese.
杉谷陽子（2009）「インターネットにおける自己呈示、自己開示（第3章）」三浦麻子・森尾博昭・川浦康至編「インターネット心理学フロンティア」誠信書房, Pp.59-85.

Mophing Transforming Lego Scorpion and the Japanese Self

2011-12-28T09:13:00.002+09:00

Mophing Transforming Lego Scorpion and the Japanese Self, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Jurat by Toyda is a kind of Lego for morphing robot makers.

I am not sure why Japanese children especially, and anyone who likes the movie series Transformers, are keen on transforming or morphing.

There is often a morph between something inanimate and something animate, between a something used, a tool or vechicle and a using thing living robot.

The above is a scorpion which morphs from/into a sword made by my son from Jurat morphin lego by Toyda.

I would like to suggest that Japanese children (and anyone fond of Transformers, which is most children everyhwere) but especially Japanese children because they remain in a "mirror stage," may be more aware of the Lacanian dictum that the ego or self, which originates in the self-image, is external, dead, a mere tool, and yet at the same time the only self we have. We see, we are, dead people: at best robots, at worst inanimate tools.

This dual nature of the self, (1) as a mere tool or representation to grasp a centre-less consiciousness, and (2) as the best -- though "robotic" or prosthetic -- self that we have, may be being played out in the morphining animation movies, and toys such as the one above.

Mugenbine vs the Hommelette

2011-12-26T12:39:00.008+09:00

Mugenbine, which means "infinite combination", is type of building block set wherein the pieces are made of robots and parts of robots: extension arms and legs, wheels and weapons of robots. It is like other building block toys for children except that it is specifically designed to create robots, and each of the pieces, or many of them, are themselves robots.

Children who play with Mugenbine make giant robots out of a selection of smaller robots and robot parts. The robots have faces. They are felt to be alive. Mugenbine is Lego for animists.

My son started out having a fascination for combinatory toys such as the combining power rangers toys where two to 12 robots combine to make a larger "Mega Zord." He has moved on towards a preference for infinite combination but remains fascinated with the same trope: animate parts combining to make a giant animate whole.

Jacques Lacan says that young humans generally gain an idea of themselves in two ways. Firstly by looking at themselves directly and in mirrors and secondly by talking about themselves to themselves. He argues that the former, visual representations of self are more primitive. Lacan refers to the self as representated visually as "hommelette" which is on homme (man) with a diminutive ending meaning "little (as in primitive) man" and omelette with homme merged as a prefex suggesting "man-ommlette:" all jumbled up generally a mess like an ommlette.

Lacan argues that the visual self is something that we must grow out of because it made up of a jumble of things without any cohesion. Our self views are still external and worse, incomplete, views of this and that hand. The view of ourselves that we see in the mirror presents a whole body but it is out there in the mirror. Added to that we have many views of self, a scrapbook of self views, that never add up to any sort of coherent unity, unless we can call an omlette coherent, and Lacan suggests that we can't.

As my son makes more and more combinatory toys of made of parts which are like mirror fragments of the whole, mini-robots combining to make a bigger robot, I wonder if this play helps him to combine his self-views each semi-animate part-him, part-robotic, into a coherent self a mega robot that has more coherence and more humanity than an omlette.

Green Communication Apprehension

2011-12-25T12:19:00.001+09:00

Green Communication Apprehension, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

It has been made illegal, by green regional ordinance, to give away free plastic bags at supermarket cash registers.

Anyone who has taught English in Japan knows how difficult it is to get Japanese students to speak. Is it because they are ashamed of their poor English, or suffer from "evaluation anxiety" (Cultrone, 2009)? No, it appears not. Communication research (McCroskey, Gundykunst, Nishida, 1985) has found that Japanese are just as anxious speaking in Japanese as they are in English. In other words the Japanese suffer from a fundamental Language-Communication-Anxiety, rather than any Foreign Language Communication Anxiety, or classroom Evaluation Anxiety.

The Japanese tendency to wish to avoid linguistic communication is shown in their propensity to wish to avoid having to speaking to the staff at supermarket cash registers. Rather than saying "and two polythene bags please" they put two of these green cardboard symbols into their shopping basket to indicate the same thing. The Japanese are happy to communicate with symbols such as these. Perhaps they'd be good at English sign language. I find it works quite well to take a whiteboard to class and have learners translate my Japanese writing into English speech.

So far research (e.g. Kondo, Ying-Ling, 2004) has failed to find the reason for, or strategies to prevent, Japanese communication apprehension. I theorise that it is equivalent to Objective Self Awareness in the linguistic dimension. Westerners feel uncomfortable if they are put infront of mirrors and required to see their visual self representations. Japanese feel uncomfortable if they are required to hear their linguistic self representations. There is no need for any physical mirror, or sound box, forto be reflected to its speaker, but I guess that speech for the speakers sake (as spoken in a conversation class), rather than the listeners sake, is likely to be more 'reflective'.

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

2011-12-09T10:57:00.002+09:00

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Ruth Benedict's Chrysanthemum and the Sword is probably still the most famous book about Japan. The theory that Japan is a shame culture, whereas Western countries have a culture of shame is still the most widely used framework for understanding the Japanese. Shame, it is argued, is a non-moral ethic where people behave in such a way as to conform with the expecations and evaluations of their peers. This is precisely the opposite of the definition of a moral man as given for example by Plato in The Republic (someone who appears bad but does good), or as exemplified in the life of Jesus who was crucified amongst thieves. Guilt, we are told, on the other hand is a moral sentiment that derives from within the person, from internal standards, from personally held and idenfifiable notions of good and bad. The theory that Westerners have such things inside them, whereas Japanese are only concerend with keeping up appearances, maintaining face, pleases Westerners and is continued in cultural psychological theories to this day.

It is clear that the Japanese feel a lot of shame. I think that the shame-culture, guilt-culture framework is meaningful, but that Benedict misrepresented Japanese shame. Japanese have private shame (Sakuta, 1967). "But," you may point out, that "if shame too is private then it is indistinguisable from guilt." I claim that the difference is in the medium. Guilt is when ones internal self-narrative sounds bad. Shame is when ones internal self-cinema looks awful.

It is easy to self narrate, and when we do we hear the words that speak or think. Self-speach has a built in mirror. Sound bounced back and around in the sound box of the mind.

That the Japanese can gaze at themselves, on the other hand, is a more remarkable feat. Like most westerners, I can't do it unless I have a mirror. Mead claimed it is impossible to see oneselve without a mirror. Some performers, such as Zeami and Nijinsky, claimed to be able to see themselves from the point of view of their audience. And my research it may be argued that the average Japanese man and woman in the street have a mirror in their head.

Herbert Morris (1976) "On guilt and innocence: essays in legal philosophy and moral psychology" p 62

"In guilt the "voice of conscience" speaks and we forumulate in words what is do be done and not to be done, words that are spoken and heard. With shame, the disposition is to hide, to vanish; with shame we want to sink into the ground, we cannot stand the *sight* of ourselves. With guilt the urge is to communicate, to be listened to, to confess."

It seems to be a minor change but, transposing the shame guilt divide from external-internal to vision-voice means that Japan ceases to be a lack, a nothing, a collective. Japan becomes something. It because something that is qualitively different. The Japanese moral behaviour, and self is not just lost, submerged, controlled, colletivistic but *a different kind of self*.

Everyone is Watching: Manner Up

2011-12-03T10:24:00.003+09:00

Everyone is Watching: Manner Up, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

This Japanese subway train is encouraging passengers to mind their manners and not stand or sit in front of the doors, by telling that "Everyone is watching." The fear of being seen doing something ill-mannered is real and motivating to Japanese.

Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus & Suzuki (2004) demonstrate that Japanese need only to be confronted with a poster showing various approving or disapproving gazes (inste top) to change their behaviour.

The change observed in Kitayama's experiment was however, to become more self-enhancing, as measured by a spread of alternatives pre and post being given something. In front of the poster, Japanese (like Westerners with or without poster) became more inclined to up their rating of something that they now posses.

The strange thing about this result is that the standards theory of Japanese manners is that Japanese should be self-deprocating rather than self serving.

So why do the Japanese self-enhance (brag) in when made aware of an evaluating gaze?

I argue that Kitayama's poster encourages self-evaluation, and that in the visual domain, Japanese do have a need for positive self-regard, hence the extreme positivity, and posing, found in Japanese autophotography (puri-kura, peace symbols, etc.)

A Theory about Japanese Mikoshi Festivals

2011-11-28T17:57:00.007+09:00

Many or most Japanese festivals feature "O'Mikoshi," but there are few theories as to why the Japanese (and not only the Japanese) are into carrying their gods around on stretchers. The theories I have seen, and agree with, stress unity, solidarity and cohesion (Takezawa, 1998) and prestige (there is a pecking order in who gets to carry the god, before whom: see Kalland, 1995). I respect both theories but here is my take, with thanks to my trainspotting son.
Normally the geographical fixed-ness of the Shinto sacred anchors the word view and society (c.f. theories that Japanese society is spacially organised: Bachnik & Quinn, 1994, Pilgrim 1995, and Nakane, 1970), so when the sacred starts to move on its mikoshi (beir, litter or palanquin) this signals the arrival of a topsy turvy, "liminality" (Turner, 1967) big-time. I suggest in this video that the mikoshi have the same attraction as trains. My son used to really love trains. Trains, with their moving frames of reference, teach us that movement is relative, nothing is stationary, unless something is sacred.

In Search of the Japanese Self

2011-11-17T19:03:00.001+09:00

In Search of the Japanese Self, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Partly as a result of wondering how it is that Japanese can see their relationships with others, including the world, as being internal to themselves, I asked 20 Japanese to rate the extent to which certain things and phenomena are so much you that "If it were changed you would cease to be yourself," and "Not public, or anyone else's." I am not sure if I asked the right questions but I was trying to get to what my subjects thought themselves to be.
I was particularly interested in whether they would deem their view / visual sense percepi as being themselves or out there in the world, as well as the relative selfness (?) of body, self, speech and voice.

I had predicted a greater importance afforded voice since it always seems that in shows featuring suited representations of Japanese cartoon and maskted tokusatsu characters, they have to mime to the voice of the standards voice actor for them to be felt to be the real thing.

The results, shown above, show that Japanese identify most strongly with their head, foollwed by theif feelings, internal self speech, dreams, body, voice, and finally vision. Vision was felt to be way down the list, below the mid point of the scale (1-5) where 5 meant entirely essential and private, whereas 1 meant inessential and public. All the same they were half way to avowing that their vision might be private and that the wold they see might not be shared with anyone else.

I should have included some other, but less, self phenomena such as clothes, name, possessions, home, self-facts (such as being from Saga obviously a 1 on the "not public" part of the scale, but perhaps important to ones identity.)

I think that I should also make the scale a little longer 1-7 perhaps to allow for more variation between the top (head?) and bottom (possessions?) of the scale.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the above graph is the reversal of the relative heights of the blue and red lines for the three items on the right. It is clear that my two questions are different. In the case of dreams for instance, one might imagine oneself continuing to exist as oneself without dreaming, and yet feel it very strange if anyone else saw, or could see ones dreams. It was interesting however that both voice and vision should be evaluated in the same way. Would I be more surprised if I suddenly had another voice, or if someone else had the same voice as me? I (incorrectly) feel that I have quite a neutral accent, so I am not sure I would be all that surprised to meet someone with my voice.

Finally, I am tempted to think that other people see the same colours as I do, and share the same visual field as I, but I would find it very strange if my experience went dark, if I were to become a philosophical Zombie. Perhaps my subjects' lack of surprise refered to the possibility that they should go blind.

Kasulis' Internal and External Relationships

2011-11-11T07:46:00.001+09:00

Kasulis Internal and External Relationships, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

I just read Kasulis' chapter on Zen and Japanese Artistry in "The Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice."

Kasulis argues that the essence of Zen artistry can be found in the Shinto tradition. He points to three things. First he suggests that contra other forms of Buddhism, the plain, undecorated, inornate nature of Zen artistry is shared with Shinto. More boldly he claims that the "ordinariness" of Zen, which not only shuns being fettered by Buddhist scripture, but sees the philosophy of the Buddha written in all things, mirrors Shinto animism. Finally he argues that Shinto purity of heart (magogoro) is closely related to the state of mind, or no-mind, attained in Zen.

I am one of those people that thinks everything Japanese is Shinto, even if it claims to be Buddhist, I look forward to reading Kasulis' book "Shinto: The way home."

In his introduction to the Japanese section of the book, Kasulis talks about "interior and external relationship" using this diagram above. Kasulis' diagram could be argued to be a detail from Markus and Kitayama's famous diagram which itself has precident in Kimura Bin, Eshun Hamaguchi and Wasuji Tetsuro among others.

Keeping his eye on the relationships however, Kasuli argues that in the West they are seen as being exterior to the person, something that each of the related can objectify, whereas in Japan they are seen as being interior to each and both of the related, consituting them. This means that, he argues, while a Japanese garden may appear "unnatural" in the way that it is cut and pruned into a "surnatural" shape, the gardner is part of nature and nature would loose something of its naturalness if its relationship with the gardner were to be removed.

The interiority of Japanese relationships is part of the cultural psychological cannon (I wonder if cultural psych has become a religion for me) that I ascribe to, and I do not doubt it at all. I can't doubt it because I ask my students, "do you see your relationships as occuring within you", "do you think that in a way others occur within yourself?" and they say "yes." "Other people are inside you?!" I ask them to confirm, and as they nod, I have trouble understanding their reply.

Do they mean that they are simulating intra-psychic others - co called imaginary friends? They may feel very real, as Cathy says, "I am my Heathcliff,"and Celine Dion says "You're here in my heart."

But, I was wondering yesterday whether, if having a mirror in ones head means that one is more inclined to affirm "the veil of perception." The veil of perception is the notion that all that we percieve is internal, our own perceptions, upon a mental screen, no the real world so, as Nietzche quips, we can only ever point to ourselves.

While I am susceptible to this view, generally speaking I do not look at the world in that way and generally feel I am looking at the world and not myself. When I asked my (Japanese) wife, she was quick to affirm the veil of perception, so I wonder if this is part of the origin of the feeling of interiority. Maybe I will be able to do a survey. I have been meaning to for a while but I used to think that the veil would be on us not them.

Heine, S. J., Takemoto, T., *Moskalenko, S., *Lasaleta, J., & Henrich, J. (2008). Mirrors in the head: Cultural variation in objective self-awareness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 879-887.
Kasulis (1998) "The Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice" p 338.
Markus. H. & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the Self: Implications for cognition, emotion and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253. Downloaded from http://www.biu.ac.il/PS/docs/diesendruck/2.pdf on 2011/11/11

The Geography of Thought

2011-10-31T09:11:00.001+09:00

May and The Geography of Thought, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Richard Nisbett's opus, "The Geography of Thought" is already a classic in the field of Cultural Psychology.

Backed up with lot of experimental data, such as the fact when shown a picture of a fish tank Japanese are more likely to talk about the tank than the fish in it, Professor Nisbett demonstrates that Americans analyze the central features of their environment, whereas East Asians are more likely to see the world wholistically, taking in the context.

This tendency to emphasise context among East Asians is, Nisbett argues, due to differences in Argricultural system. Wet rice farming in East Asia encouraged East Asians to cooperate in irrigation systems, and being dependent upon social systems themselves, see the world as being composed of things also dependent upon their environment. Westerners were however able to do argiculture which did not require such high levels of cooperation and cosequently saw themselves and their environment as composed of discrete, independent monads.

The work in the differences in conception is being continued by Takahiro Masuda and the data is now so extensive as to make cognitive difference irrefutable.

I have two problems with the explanation of the origins of the difference that Nisbett provides. Firstly, I don't think that it is true that rice farming is more cooperative than the cows wheat fallow rotation system used in Europe. According to Bray's "The Rice Economies," wet rice farmers, who often use small private ponds for irrigation, were able to be more independent of their peers than wheat farmers who, due to the requirement for cooperation with cattle farming, developed specialisations, and being less isolated and less intensive achieved economies of scale. Secondly, while I agree that agricultural systems do have had some impact on psychology, this explanation is too one-sidely Asian and contextual for me. Such explanations (Watsuji's Monsoon Rice Farming Culture, Tamaki's The Philosophy of Water etc) are tremendously populare in Japan, precisely because Nisbett is right to point out that East Asians see behaviour as a result of contextual factors. The Japanese love environmental interpretaions of cultura and human behaviour. Perhaps Professor Nisbett will one day write another book called, "The Thought of Geography."

Former Encyclopedia Britannica Salesman Tells Japanese How to Have moreConfidence

2011-10-04T10:13:00.006+09:00

Former Encyclopedia Britannica Salesman Tells Japanese How to Have more Confidence, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Just as post-war Japanese admire Western looks, they also attempt to import Western psychology. As a result, Japanese today consider themselves ugly if they have traditional Japanese looks(Knowner, 2004). The results of importing Western popular psychology, without the religio-cultural framework, may be even more disasterous.

"Put all negative thoughts out of your mind" the author urges. What of the beauty of reflecting upon ones mistakes (hansei) in order to achieve self improvement (kaizen)? "Praise yourself when you achieve your goals", he says. In the traditional view of things in Japan, the important praise is the gratitude that one gets from others, and self-praise is just "self-satisfaction" (jikomanzoku, a derogatory term). "Setting your goals too high will result in loss of self image" he says. Indeed Westerners are inclined to give up at things that they fail at, and seek tasks that suit their 'individual' aptitudes, wereas Japanese are more inclined to believe that human potential has no limits (Heine et al, 2001).

Sadly, the Japanese feel that they need more confidence, so the book has sold 110,000 copies. Perhaps this book is the intellectual equivalent of hair dye, or eyelid glue. If I were Japanese I would read it with a pinch of Soy Sauce.

Image copyright Hitoshi Aoki (2009)"Jishin no Tsukurikata (How to make self-Confidence)"

Money-Wiring Fraud

2011-09-23T09:39:00.001+09:00

Money-Wiring Fraud, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Fraudsters in Japan phone up old people, and not so old people, and persuade them to wire them money.

Fraudesters targetting people in the USA and the UK, also attempt to have their victims wire them money. They often attempt to do this by telling us anglophones that we are very lucky and can come into a massive fortune if we just pay a few thousand dollars/pounds to smooth over the paper work.

Japanese "Furikomi" fraudsterson the other hand, phone up saying "its me, I have had a car crash, please help." The fraudster waits till the person on the other end of the line guesses a name ("Is that you Ichirou?"), says yes, says that he needs some money urgently and to go the bank to wire it straight away. Hence the warnings on Japanese automatically telling machines warning the user against"Its me, me" Fraud.

There in Japan the fraudesters are playing on the assumption that the victims think that they or their relatives are unlucky and that other people depend upon them.

Westerners over estimate their luckiness, chosen-ness, uniqueness, where as Japanese over estimate the extent to which they are embedded in their social networks and that other people depend upon them.

The Origin of Japanese Third Person Toys

2011-08-16T08:41:00.001+09:00

The Origin of Japanese Third Person Toys, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

The Japanese are into "3rd person toys," such as dolls, rather than 1st person toys, such as suits and guns (with exceptions).

This is Majinga-Z was a Japanese manga and anime super-hero created in 1972. Majinga-Z was the first giant robot into which the human gets in and controls, a style subsequently followed by most Super-Sentai (power rangers) Series, as well as the robot suit series, Gundam and Evangelion. Majinga-Z was preceded by Tetsujin 28Gou where a young boy remote controls a robot which debuted in 1956. These Japanese human controlled robots were preceded however by my schoolboy favourite, General Jumbo, a comic strip which appeared in the UK weekly, the Beano from 1953. Bearing in mind the timing, it may be that Tetsujin 28 Gou was based upon General Jumbo.

Difference between the two genres may be interpretted to centre on the relative importance of the robot and human controller. The "hero" of "General Jumbo," after which the series is named, is the human controller, whereas the hero of the eponimous Japanese series are the robots, Majinga-Z, Tetsujin 28, Gundam. In the English comic General Jumbo controlls a plurality of nameless robots, whereas in early Super Sentai series, and at least potentially in Gundam, a plurality of humans did, or could, control a single named robot. Finally General Jumbo is "Jumbo" in name only, because he controls an army of miniature remote control robots, whereas the robots that are controlled in Japanese manga and animation are almost universally enourmous, mega-robots.

Even if the Japanese did get their idea from the UK, they developed the idea, making it bigger and better. General Jumbo can not compare in complexity, human psychology or art to even one of the subsequent Japanese series such as Gundam.

The main exception to the Japanese preference for 3rd person toys, such as dolls and "figures", is the transformation belt (henshin Beruto) which enables its wearer to transform into a suit, into a third person figure in a sense.

My interpretation of the difference in emphasis revealed in English and Japanese human/robot series relates to a difference in emphasis upon the self as narrative or image. Westerners identify with their self-narrative that seems to control the body. Japanese identify with their bodies. If this results in a paradox, regarding how the Japanese could feel that their control is not their own, out of their control, then this may be resolved by consideration of appraisals of control and autonomy, its boundedness and even reality.

The term "third person" is not correct.

Our son Ray was named, in part, after the hero of Gundam, Amuro Ray.

Perseverance Pays

2011-08-01T18:12:00.001+09:00

Perseverance Pays, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

This picture shows a large Japanese cram school or juku in which school students spend their evenings cramming facts that they anticipate will be asked in examinations, particularly university entrance examinations. The catch copy of this particular cram school is "doryoku ha minoru" or "perseverance pays."

The Japanese are incremental theorists (Dweck, 1999) believing that individual potential is limited only by how much one tries (Heine et al. 2001). The Japanese are therefore very much into persevering. While Westerners try hard too, they also tend to be entity theorists believing that the self is not infinately maleable so rather than banging ones head against a brick wall (or cram school), people are advised to find their forte, the area of human endeavour that matches their inate potential, in which they will be able to excell without out excessive perseverance.

Sur-naturalism

2011-07-07T11:09:00.005+09:00

Sur-naturalism, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Sur-naturalism is the Japanese tendency to attempt to make nature even more natural than nature itself. Here the branches of trees in our garden have been pruned in such a way as to make them more wiggly, by cutting off the main branch and allowing the branch to continue to grow along alternating sub-branches.

The same tendency to reduce the "human" "geometrical" and increase the persceived, natural majesty of plants may be present in the art of Bonsai and the way that garden conifers are cut into bobbly pagodas. In each case a smaller plant is made to emulate a larger one. Garden layouts also deliberate eschew lines and pursue "sur-random" pairings of plants and rocks.

Ruth Benedict pointed out this tendency to attempt to arrange nature to conform with human notions of what nature should be. Quoting from a "A Duahgter of the Samurai" Benedict writes, “every morning Jiya wiped off the stepping stones, and after sweeping beneath the pine trees, carefully scattered fresh pine needles gathered from the forest." (Benedict, 1946) Lummis (2007) points out that it was sur-naturalism that Benedict assumed the Japanese would be glad to be free of. Benedict could not have known how beautiful the Japanese thought it.

Obake by Kyosai

2011-06-30T22:43:00.002+09:00

Obake by Kyosai, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Another Japanese monster comes out of the image from here. For others click on ringu.

I believe that Japanese are identified with their bodies, or self image from the perspective of their universalised eye of the other (e.g. secularly "Seken no me" or religiously, the sungoddess' mirror). Images of people are therefore, as well as being anthropomorphised to a far greater extent (consider Japanese virtual idols, such as Hajime Miku), inherently problematic in that they give the lie to the imaginary Japanese self. When in a horror morive an image becomes real, it promotes the realisation that the viewer is also an image, and "already dead" (Lacan, and Sixth Sense:-).

How quickly can I explain my understand of Lacan and Japanese culture?!

The internalisation of an other is essential for self. Humans gain their sense of self by internalising the perspectives of others, first their parents, and then more generally and learning to see themselves, and identify with these internalised-external perspectives. These "selves" give individuality just as they take it away. Self is gained at the price of internalising others, or the other. Self is gained at the price of morality.

Most Western theorists, such as George Herbert Mead, argue that the internalisation of the other is fully or effectively achieved only in Language. They assume this to be the case based on the fact that phonetic speech *only needs to be said to be heard*, it bends around, it does not need a mirror, they point out. The self therefore is found in the experience of hearing oneself speak (Derrida's s'entred parle?).

What these Western theorist fail to note is that
1) As a mental experience, self representations in language are no more inherently reflected than self-representations in images. One only needs to think "I" as to experience the thought, true. But one only needs to imagine oneself as to experience that imagining.
2) There is no necessity entailed in speech, vocal or mental, that requires the vocaliser or thinker to identify with self speach. This identification is cultural. We Westerners are taught to identify with ourselves as meanings. And people can be taught to identify with themselves as imaginings, as I argue they are in Japan.

In either case there needs to be cultural encouragement to agregate and care about the aggregation of either linguistic or imagined views upon self.

Lacan was a obscurantist, and I understand little of what he had to say but he says things that (alas!) I can't find in any other author.

1) That both linguistic and imagined self-representations are possible.
2) That the self is believed in due to the percieved intersection of these two forms of self-representation.

We ignore the fact that sound never comes from vision, that there is no essential difference between speech and miming (see the tragedy of those watching mimed songs in David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Mullholland Drive).

Even so, Lacan, like other Western theorists, decry the imagined. Lacan says that the imaginary world lacks the possibility of universalisation.

A person that lives in the imaginary is always trapped in binary relationships between themselves and a viewer. He is right in a way, but he did not take into account the skill with which Japanese people layer so many different imaginary self perspectives, so many eyes, to achieve as much autonomy, or almost as much autonomy, as those that aggregate the ear of the other.

In both Japanese and Western culture there is a drive towards purifying the self of either the linguistic or imaginary. Westerners "should" be purely worded. Japanese should be purely un-worded and imagined.

But in both cultures, the absence of the other-style of self-recognition is self-destroying; both are needed to maintain the illusion of self.

The Japanese are far happier with the realisation of truth. Their greatest and finest look the void in the eye. But for the rank and file, for anyone, loss of self is terrifying. To realise that ones self is only a self-represtantion, a dead thing, an externality, is both liberating, and the
greatest horror.

And here, in the above image, is that horror. The image comes to life, and tells us that the, our image, is only an image.

When the words stop, when the telephone is just a recording (chakushin ari), or noise (ringu), and the image comes to life (above), one is faced with the lie and the terrifying truth.

Another cool thing about Lacan is that he associated the visual with the motherly and language with the fatherly. We live in our mothers eye, and our father's ear. "Fathers" are a social linguistic construct and "mothers" are the people that looked at us, reared us. It is for that reason that the superego is dad, and the Lacanian Other is the topos of name of the father, and that the monsters that come out of the image in Japanese horror are women. I think that this ghost, in the above image, is a woman.

The Mind of Manufacturers

2011-06-28T18:24:00.001+09:00

The Mind of Manufacturers, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is a book intending to encourage university graduates to go into the "thing-making, " manufacturing industry, introducing the mindset of those in the industry. Manufacturing as a profession is popular in Japan, not considered back stage and a little dirty as it may be in the UK.

Japanese people that work in manufacturing are proud to wear their manufacturing workers uniforms, as shown on the image on this cover. Those that take pride in expressing themselves, their apititutes, their creations, and their affiliations visually, as the Japanese do, are good at making-things as the Japanese are.

While I love Brian McVeigh's book "Wearing Ideology" it tends to over-emphasise the external source and oppressiveness of the "ideology," (though he does talk about negotiation) rather than "wearing" as authentic, creative self-expression. If an American Lawyer or Computer programer were to say "I am (proud of being) a computer programmer," then this would be seen as an autonomous belief rather than a engendered ideology, because we logocentricists see words as spring from the mind. Images too spring from the mind, and find expression in Japanese manufactured goods, and uniforms.

This cover image is copyright of Recruit a Japanese recruiting company that edited and published this book.

Externalized-Self-Gaze in Japanese Martial Arts

2011-06-21T15:07:00.002+09:00

Externalized-Self-Gaze in Japanese Martial Arts, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Noh Master Zeami points out that to master the art of Noh drama one must, through repeated attention to mimicry and form, cultivate a "Riken no Ken" (離見の見, see Yusa, 1987), a sort of out of body experience of Self.

Miayamoto Musashi in The Book of Five Rings (五輪書）says that the swordsman must learn to become and thus see himself from the point of view of his enemy (敵になると云ハ、我身を敵になり替りておもふべきと云所也).

And in kyuudo (the Japanese art of archery), as demostrated by my seminar Student Ikki Yamamoto (2009) in this graduation thesis, nothing is more correlated with kyuudo performance than the ability to see oneself from the outside.

To achieve this end practioners of kyuudo practice form incessently, in front of mirros, using a sort of catapult device before they are even allowed to pick up a bow, and with a sort of brace to ensure that their feet are in the right position.

Through minute attention to form, and repeated mimicry of set positions, they gradually become so aware of their form　that they are able to see it from what might be called a "third person perspective," or equally, an externalised self gaze. This ability to see oneself from what Mc Veigh aptly calls the poisition of an "invisible spook" (Wearing Ideaology, 2000) correlates most highly - more than frequency of psychical training or psychological skills and traits such as power of concentration, or desire to succeed, with the ability to do, and win at kyuudo.

I liken the Japanese martial, and Noh, "Path" (michi, 道, dou, do) to a 'different kind of trancendental dialetic." There are those such as Hegel, Plato and Lacan in the Western tradition that one can discourse ones way to a sort of higher plane. By stepping further and further back from the subjective position, one can, they claim, achieve a depersonalised, truer, transcendental. A similar thing may be going on in the Japanese martial arts.

Yamamoto, I. (2009) "Mental Training: Self Image in kyuudo." Unpublished Gradutation Thesis, The department of Tourism Studies, Faculty of Economics, Yamaguchi University.
山本一輝(2009)「メンタルトレーニング～弓道を通じた自己イメージのあり方～」未発表卒論。山口大学経済学部可能政策学科

Remember that Failure is Always Your Own Fault

2011-06-14T18:12:00.002+09:00

Remember that Failure is Always Your Own Fault, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Harsh sports philosophy from the country of "Hansei." There is no word for hansei (or "kaizen", other than "kaizen") in English. This T-shirt entitled "The Mind Set of Victors" encourages its wears to face up to their failings because it is only by facing up to them that one can improve.

Weiner, an American social psychologists on the other hand, encouraged people to pass the buck and believe that defeat was bad luck (or someone else's) fault. Martin Seligman's "Positive Psychology" encourages those that fail to blame someoone else, to pass the buck. The more that one learns to pass the buck, the more pumped and full of it one will feel, and the more that one can maintain self-esteem in the face of failiure. The more self-esteem one has the more motivated one will be, to try harded to win and improve.

The Japanese sportsman however, blames himself for his failings and thinks about how he can improve himself so that he can win next time. The most important thing is not how he sees himself (otherwise blaming himself would be painful) but winning itself, and perhaps the accolation that the winner receives from others.

These days (or perhaps for some time, for instance in the case of Naoko Takahashi's couch Koide), it is become more and more fashionable to use praise, and buck passing in Japan too. The new youth of today are not encouraged to think about their faults but are lavished with praise.

It seems to me that Japanese Educational theorists are washing Japanese culture down the toilet.

失敗の原因は常に自分の中にあると認識するべし
Shippai no genin ha tsune-ni jibun no naka ni aru to ninshiki suru beshi

"Cut their Hands" & "Always Be Cutting": The Purity, and Ruthlessness of Miyamoto Musashi

2011-06-09T14:50:00.005+09:00

Delicious!, a photo by Ikayama on Flickr.

Miyamoto Musashi remains Japan's most famous swordsman. He wrote"The Book of Five Rings," available freely on the net. Reading this excellent work, I was intrigued by its use of flexible, inductive reasoning (compare DiGrassi's five rules, which are deductive, almost laws of Physics and thus supremely intransient), and by its use of almost totemistic metaphor. Musashi recommends that swordsmen become running water, and a short-armed monkey. Above all I was struck by the by the purity, or sheer ruthlessness, of its author.

At least three (1, 3,4, and probably 5 which is a mirror of 4) of Musashi's five fundamental stances used in sword fighting, mention that their objective is to cut the hands of the opponent: no grandiose beheadings, and torso slashings for Musashi. Musashi's technique, contra that of the sports of foil and sabre, recommends "go for the corners" (extremities), particularly cutting into an opponents arms and hands.

After explaining the fundamental five stances of sword fighting, in typical Zen influenced style, Musashi recommends the "stanceless-stance" because he says, it is not about the stance. No, on the contrary, do not think about parrying, hitting, or knocking but to paraphrase the "A.B.C" espoused by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, Always Be Cutting.

Musashi writes, "whenever you cross swords with an enemy you must not think of cutting him either strongly or weakly; just think of cutting and killing him. Be intent solely upon killing the enemy."

All very good advice in a swordfight, I have no doubt.

Totem badges Old and New

2011-06-07T07:07:00.002+09:00

Totem badges Old and New, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

Top row: Shinto shrine amulets (omamori)
Bottom row: Kamen Rider OOO medals, Kamen Rider W Gaia Memories
Please see also an even longer history of totem badges from Australian bull roarers, through shrine amulets, seals (mitokoumon's inro) to the seal of the Shinkenja- Super sentai.

My son plays with various totem badges that are said to transmit the spirit of a supernatural entity to a person allowing them to transform into a superman of sorts. These "totem badges" seem to have much in common with the good luck amulets (omamori) available at shrines.

The seem to contain some information (written - omamori, in an RFID chip - OOO's medals, in a USB memory - gaiai memory), connected with a super-human spirit (in the case of the omamori a shinto spirit or kami, in the case of OOO's medals and gaiai memory a super animal or 'ancestral' kamen rider). This information acts as a vector between the super-being and the holder, endowing the latter with power to conquer foes, such as exams diseases and enraged aliens. They often make a noise. Rattles are popular totem badges in North America (Levi-Strauss has a page of rattles in one of his books on totemism). Bull-roarers or Churinga roar when waved around ones head. Omamori are often fitted with bells. OOO's medals, and various transformatory cards make a noise when read with a special purpose reader. Gaiai memory (and engine souls) make a noise when a button is pushed or when inserted into a sort of reader.

Do amulets change (henshin!) people? Surely not?

They all contain a message, information, or symbols, representing a supernatural entity as noted above. They are also the double of their owners. Masked Rider OOO is the double of Hino Seiji. Shoutaro Hidari uses two Gaiai memory to transform into Kamen Rider "W" (double), his double, in more ways than one. Omamori are said to work as a self-replacement (migawari), taking on the bad luck that might otherwise befall their owner.

Shintoists believed that getting a totem badge from their shrine, the sacred space of their religion, gave them a life or self or spirit. The spirit was themselves and also it was the spirit of the shrine. About 70 years after they die, the spirit merged with the spirit of the shrine, or now Buddhist temple since the cycle of spirit has been broken.

Christians have "Christian names." My name is "Timothy", which is a name from the Bible. It is primarily a phoneme. I get it from the sacred space of my ancestor's religion, and I apply it to myself, thereby perhaps taking on board bit of the God, maybe. Does having a name change me? Does it give me anything, such as a self or life (no way, surely?).

The symbols, in all cases, come from the supernatural to give something special to their recipients.

One of the first Japanese superheroes that appeared on TV, was Mirror Man (Mira-man, 1971). Appearing at the same time as the original Ultraman, he shared many of the typical characteristics of Japanese superheroes, and with Shinto. He used a Transormatory item (henshin aitem) to transformed (henshin). Mirror man use a Shinto shrine amulet (omamori). He could only transform when in front of a reflective surface, usually a mirror. He was possessed, as it were, not by a giant from outer space, but his super-human father who lives in the world of two dimensions. (Thank you James)

Image top row far left: 貝で作られたお守り :) by kozika and far right: ハローキティのお守り :) by kozika

Baby Snot Sucker

2011-06-01T09:40:00.013+09:00

Japanese mothers tend to be even more dedicated to the cleanliness of their children, bathing *with* them, cutting their nails, cleaning out their ears at a frequency that suggests that these acts go beyond a concern purely for physical hygene, pointing to a culture of hygene and motherly pruning to achieve it. One aspect of this mothering, is in the way that Japanese mother's remove their children's nasal mucus.

Devices to remove nasal mucus from the noses of babies with colds do exist in Europe and the USA, such as "Nosefrida The Snotsucker Nasal Aspirator" "the "Bulb Syringe Aspirator" which uses a bulb rather than oral sucking and the "Graco Nasal Clear Nasal Aspirator" which uses a battery powered vacuum pump. They are more likely to be powered by means other than oral aspiration - sucking -and those that do use the suck to clear the nasal mucus may be called "bizarre" by commentators in the US for instance. Bodily secretions, especially faeces but nasal mucus as well I believe, tend to be more taboo in the West, compared to Japan, as previously noted.

Please note that the snot does not go into the mouth of the mother but into a vial which can be washed out. In the old days, however, I am informed that Japanese mothers used to suck their baby's snot directly into their mouths.

Many animals engage in social grooming as a way of reinforcing social bonds. The grooming that is lavished upon Japanese children reminds me of the affectionate pruning that Western mothers may give to their husbands. Some Western mothers have a tendency to clean and scrape their husbands hands, nails and feet. It seems to me that in parallel with Richard Schweder's observations regarding "Who Sleeps by Whom," the recipient of maternal grooming is generally children in Japan, and more likely to be romantic partners, particularly male partners in romantic relationships in the West.

Refs
Schweder, R. (1995) "Who Sleeps by Whom Revisited: A Method for Extracting the Moral Goods Implicit in Practice."
Nelson and Geher (2007) "Mutual Grooming in Human Dyadic Relationships: An Ethological Perspective." URL

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Takahiko Masuda and Matsuo Basho

2011-05-11T15:11:00.012+09:00

The Great Wave off Kanagawa , a by Katsushika Hokusai on Flickr.

Katsushika Hokusai's waves are really good, so beautiful that they remind some people of Khalil Gibran's poem "Beauty", which ends:
Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
(Bang on, Gibran!)

The commentary next to this painting in a local museum, however, seem to me to miss the mark. It claimed that The Great Wave was painted from the viewpoint of someone in another, a fourth, boat.

As Takahiko Masuda points out many of Hokusai's paintings of the floating world, and as is a common trope in Japanese art and even in the artworks of contemporary Japanese, The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a view from nowhere. Borrowing Gibran's words again, this "is an image which you see though you close your eyes." The Great Wave is, and it forces us to realise that it is, and image in the mind. "Pictures of the floating wold" are floating, in all their ephemeral-immobility (see below), cynical-romantic, valorous-vainglory, and because they are 'seen' as if from the point of view of someone floating a few metres in the air.

I also think that it is important that, in the above picture, Mount Fuji looks like a wave at first glance. Hokusai seems to conceal Mount Fuji in several of the pictures in this series so that some of them are almost a little like "Where's Wally." But this is no joke.

The wave is so striking, the peril of the people in the boat so great, and the similarity between the wave in the foreground with Mount Fuji so confusing, that one can lose site of Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, even though it is almost bang in the centre of the picture. So at first glance, for a split second, everything is in motion. The image is filled with splashing waves, flung spray, blown spume and frantic seamen. And then whammy, right in the centre, a rock (no, wait!) a mountain so large that it makes a ripple of the wave that is, towering above (no, wait!), frothing far below it.

This picture invovles for me a return (as pointed out by Ezra Pound) like that experienced when reading Haiku, most famously in that of Matsuo Basho:
An old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of the water
For me this poem describes Matsuo Basho, and vicariously, ourselves coming accross a pond, and seeing, a visual scene from a distance. We then presume (probably quite correctly) that a frog jumped into the pond, but then, whammy Basho points out that there was no frog, no movement, the scene did not change at all. All there is is the big old pond, and the sound of the water.

In both Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa and in Matsuo Basho's poem we are reminded that, despite our presumption of rapid change, there is something big and unmoving right in front of us! But what? I think Gibran answers that question, above, far better than I could.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is part of this series. My choice of post processing is probably a bit too blue.

The Deaf and The Japanese

2011-03-29T17:34:00.019+09:00

If there is any truth in the assertion that there is something visual rather than verbal, about the way that the Japanese sign, i.e. that Japanese culture leans toward the right hand side of the diagram of Dual Coding Theory, then one might expect them to share some similarities with those deaf that use visual sign systems (ASL and JSL). To investigate this hypothesis I read Oliver Sacks’ “Seeing Voices” an excellent, and even moving, introduction to the world of the deaf, and particularly their ability to communicate using sign language, from the perspective of a neurologist.

First of all, Sacks points out that deaf signers are better at interpreting Chinese characters signed in the air, and it is clear that Japanese people are far better at signing and reading characters in the air (p78) but that maybe the single case in point. Deaf people use Sign (ASL, JSL) which, though visual, has meaning. Japanese use Chinese characters which, though visual, have meaning.

Oliver Sacks points out that there are those that deny even this similarity, since there are those (including Roland Barthes) who deny that the visual can have meaning at all. But even accepting the premise of Sacks’ book, that language can be seen, perhaps the similarity between the deaf and the Japanese starts and ends with a trivial resemblance between Sign and Kanji.

Cutting to the chase, Sacks' book being a book about deaf, rather than a book about the deaf and the Japanese, does little to demonstrate similarities between deaf and Japanese culture. "Seeing Voices" does however, point to some possibilities and perhaps the most tantilising of these lies in Sacks observation that Sign language is not only a language for communicating with others, but also for thinking and for communicating with oneself. He provides clear evidence that the deaf Sign to themselves, and sign in their dreams. I have also noted that Japanese have a tendency to sign to themselves, such as Ichiro's famous baseball bat point, or more particularly the safety oriented pointing checks performed by those working on the Japanese railway system, for example. Sack's goes on assert, as a footnote (26) to page 59, given on page 161 of my version of the book, the use of sign as thought, not only to others but to and about oneself, by application of the Sapir-Whorph hyphotesis, may result in a "hypervisual cognitive style". I believe that this phrase may be appropriate to use about the Japanese as well.

Sacks claims that users of Sign, adept as they are at reading, and making (or is that speaking) visual meaning, often become “visual experts,” adept not just at “a visual language but [having] a special visual sensibility and intelligence as well.” (p84) Alas Sacks does not go into concrete cultural details of deaf visual expertise. Sacks does not mention that the deaf are good at anime, manga, computer games, architecture, manufacturing, visually stunning food preparation, becoming highly attractive idols, or many of the other things at which the Japanese may be argued to excel.

Sacks points out that deaf understanding of facial expressions may be better than that of the hearing. Alas research about Japanese interpretation of gesture is mixed. David Matsumoto points out Japanese inability to read “universal” emotions. Keiko Ishii demonstrates that Japanese can be more sensitive to the degree to which people smile (or at least when smiles disappear).

Most surprisingly, the neurological evidence that Sacks presents seems almost to directly contradict any assertion of similarities between the Japanese and the deaf. Sacks points out that deaf process Sign with their left brain, the same hemisphere that the hearing use to understand speec. He shows that deaf signers pull some seemingly non-linguistic (among hearers) processing, such as the processing of facial expressions, into their left/linguistic brain. Sacks further suggests that the left brain is well adapted to language and argues that there are deficiencies in right brain language. Research on neurological differences between Japanese and Westerners, is still fairly new or controversial, but, it is claimed that Japanese visual signs (Kanji) are processed at least in part by the right brain (E.g. Nakagawa 1993) and that Japanese pull the procession of phonic information (such as the sound of insect noises and music) into their linguistic left brain. If this is the case then, it would suggest that Kanji, processed as they are by the side of the brain not well suited to language, would have a deleterious affect upon Japanese language processing. And even that the Japanese are hyper-phonic, as oppose to hyper visual (like the deaf), since it is sounds that the Japanese process with the ‘linguistically superior,’ left hand side of the brain.

In order to achieve the sort of revolution that Sacks describes, being achieved by the deaf: that they, their visual culture, their Sign is not just a pantomime, but equally meaningful, one would have to go further even that Sacks avows. Sacks demonstrates that the visual and the deaf can be just as good as the oral/hearing, just that they do what they do in a different way. How much more difficult would it be to argue that the right brain is just as good at processing the world, but in a different way? This is not a path that Sacks, a Western neurologist, attempts to follow in this book at least (but see his "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat").

Sacks’ description of the revolution underway in the world of the deaf, of how they are achieving a hard-won cultural autonomy, a reappraisal such that they are now different, rather than diseased was particularly moving. Perhaps I am romanticising Japanese culture too much, but it was in the description of the revolution, or the potential for one, that I found the greatest potential similarity between the deaf and the Japanese. It seems to me that being Japanese is not yet “depathologized” (p120), with commentators and educators in Japan still tending to present the West as being advanced, a model that Japan should still (after all these years) be aiming towards.

Sacks argues that deaf were initially non-receptive to the idea that Sign could be a language, or that it could be analysed, and were self-deprecating with regard to their visual culture (p114-115). I find that mystifying, empty-centred, self-deprecating theories of Japanese culture are still fairly mainstream, at least in academe. Will there one day be a Japanese cultural revolution, such as being experienced by the deaf or will Japan Westernise itself out of existence first? Or is this endeavour itself bogus, the product of another white male mind (my own), since the right brain, or where ever Japanese cultural excellence is situated may have no need of affirmative analysis.

Finally, Sacks makes the point that the deaf are not dumb, both in the sense that they are not stupid and in the sense that they can speak. In other words Sacks saves the deaf from perjorative appraisal, by pointing out that the deaf can in fact speak, in their own language, so they are not dumb -- in any sense but-- but rather different. Sacks writes "..for it is only through language that we enter fully into our human estate and culture, communicate freely with our fellows, aquire and share information. If we cannot do this....we may be so little able to realise our intellectual capabilities as to appear mentally defective. It was for this reason that the congenitally deaf, or "deaf and dumb" were considered "dumb" (stupid) for thousands of years...p8" This all sounds very brave and stirring, and it is, because Sacks succeeds in releasing the deaf from this derogatory appelation. But what of the "dumb"? People who can not speak, who are aphaisic, who do not have language remain in Sacks' view, unable to realise their intellectual capabilities. According to Sacks the dumb remain dumb; those without speech are intellectually impaired because speech is required for intellectual functioning.

This is a shame, and I believe unfair. in Sack's earlier book "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" in the essay "The Presidents' Speech" Sacks describes how even aphaisics, who do not have the ability to understand language, where nevertheless able to understand most of what is going on around them, even a presidential speech, perhaps even more than those that can hear and understand the words. What happened to the possibility that the ability to use language is just another one of many human abilities? Is the mastery of language essential to enter "our human estate" (whatever that may be) and culture? Is the use of a media of interpersonal communication for thought ("self-communication" as if it were not-an oxymoron) an essential prerequisite for thinking? Even assuming that that symbols are necessecessary for thought, is it a given that symbols that are good to think with, are also those that are good to communicate with. If the deaf can manage to think and communicate among themselves using sign and to communicate with the hearing using speech, then perhaps it is possible that the Japanese may be thinking in symbols that the are not using for speaking.

It seems that in the West at least, linguistic ability is considered to be a prerequisite, thinking is regarded as being self-communication using the same linguistic symbols that we use to speak to others, and thus those that can not speak are, even by Oliver Sacks, considered to be unable to think effectively. When reappraising a group that hithertoo been considered inferior, advocates posit the existance of another language (this work), a different voice (Gilligan, 1972 on women), their own words (Meltzer, 1987, on American Blacks) which, when we the outgroup understand it, will allow us to understand their excellence. But perhaps the Japanese do not have another language. Perhaps Japanese excellence is not to be found in any language. All the same the Japanese may be affirmative enough as they are. They just don't talk about it. The may not talk the talk, but they do walk the walk and always have.

The above image containts a cropped version of the cover design of Oliver Sacks' book "Seeing Voices" by Chipp Kidd

Enma's Mirror and How to Pull People into the Two Dimensional

2011-03-27T20:54:00.001+09:00

Enma's Mirror and How to Pull People into the Two Dimensional, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

I feel a slight similarity between Enma and Sadako, from Ringu, and other Japanese horrors.

Sadako and her ilk often come out of the two dimensional world of image. Kayako in Juon appears out of mirrors, developing photographs (or a pool of developer), various nasties come out of scrolls (or are trappped in them) and Yotsuyakaidan's horrific woman, Oiwa, is thrown into water strapped to a fusuma or shouji (made two dimensional) but comes back. The Korean film "Mirrors," remade in the US, also has nasties come out of mirrors, in spades.

It seems to me that several of theses monsters pull their victims into the image. The freeze frame as Sanada Hiroyuki's character is killed by Sadako's stare suggests that to me. Perhaps Barutan Seijin's freezing gaze does the same thing. Kayako pulls people into the mirror and developer. Oiwa strapped to two dimensionality and put into water, pulls her lover into the watery (reflecting?) depths.

Enma too in a way pulls people into their mirror, even if/though he does not come out of it. He may come out of the mirror, since Buddhas are mirrors according to some.

Enma is also known for collecting tongues, of children that lie and for hooking those that fail the mirror test up by their tongue.

It seems to me that the "collecting of tongues," relates to the fact that just before Sadako kills (Sanada Hiroyuki's character and others) she seems to telephone them. But the telephone call is of only white noise.

And I wondered whether this telephone call, in Ringu is related to tongue collection. The horror first destroys language, and then sucks us, or us Japanese(d), into the two dimensional. Sadako telephones people with silence. Her phone call marks the end of language. Silencing the, she call her victims into her deathly two dimensional image world.

Sometimes I feel that a Japanese lady I love, does or attempts to do that, to me, with good reason of course. Something vaguely along the lines of "Oh, Excuses, cuses, oooses, booses, bubu, bubu" and then fixes me with her Sadakorical stare that says wordlessly, "see yourself!" Or perhaps as the ghost of Rokujouno-Miyasu-Dokoro says to Aoi, in a Noh play of the tale of Genji. Stamping her foot she says, "Omoishire!" Think and know. Reflect and know.

Lacan says that the self is the intersection between the real, language and image. Or that both linguistic and imaginary representations of self are essential to keep the self game going. Destroy one and the self collapses. Mute the voice or realise the otherness of the image, and one can achieve englightenment, madness, or hell, depending upon how one feels about it.

(The above, thanks to Shiensumisu's comment)

Dual Coding Theory and Japanese Culture

2011-03-26T12:35:00.004+09:00

Dual Coding Theory, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

The above diagram (click image to see Japanese translation) is Paivio's Dual Coding Theory, of meaningful images and sounds.

It is interesting that scholars like Unger, Barthes, Saussure and Plato believe that only the sounds can have meaning (I think).

It seems to me that Japanese culture emphasises the right hand side of this diagram, whereas Western culture emphasises the left, to the point of claiming that only logogens exist, and that characters do not really mean anything without being translated or read into phonetic, logogens.

Positive Present

2011-03-23T12:45:00.002+09:00

Positive Present a photo by timtak on Flickr.

This wall hanging is a sort of poem or sooth which explains why Japanese people may not need to set concrete goals. It reads:

If we try our hardest today, then a little happiness will surely, surely be waiting for us tomorrow.

Many Japnaese people prefer to use this philosophy of effort in the present and leaving the future to itself. They anticipate that their future will be happy - a desirable future - due to the way in which they involve themselves the present to create what Naoko Sonoda calls a "Positive Present (mae muki na genzai)."

Due to the influence of Western culture, Japanese are being encouraged to set goals. This has advantages in that it allows for more control, but the excercise of control will enevitably result in some reduction in ability to make the most of the present. Very few Japanese seem to be aware of the downside of importing Western "goal-orientend" styles of management, education, or human behaviour.

This philosophy is not the same as "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." It often involves a lot of hard work. This philosophy is perhaps more similar to "keep the ball rolling," recommending an ongoing attempt to keep ones life in motion towards unplanned, yet desirable events.

The theory was partly inspired by the management theory of Misumi Juuji who suggested that managers have two fundamental roles: to set goals and measure and reward goal achievement (performance), to create a positive working environment (maintenance). The above image would motto of the latter, environmentally focused "maintenence" managed workplace.

The wall hanging above was found in the toilet of a Japanese restaurant perhaps to encourage cleanly toilet behaviour.

Complaint Advert: We Are Hansei-ing

2011-03-22T10:08:00.001+09:00

Complaint Advert: We Are Hansei-ing a photo by timtak on Flickr.

In this Fuji-Xerox advert, the catch-copy is from the words of a complaint from a customer. "Do you even know how we use your copiers?"

The advert goes onto explain how all the employees of Fuji-Xerox continually look into how customers use their copiers, paying *grateful* attention to customers complaints, thoughts and advice.

The copy also reads "we do not stand around holding buckets of water even for one second", which refers to the fact that the staff of Fuji-Zerox do not see complaints, or "being told off" by their customers as a punishment at all, even for one second. This metaphor works because being told to hold buckets of water is a traditional Japanese corporal punishment.

Even if there were a US/UK advert that proclaimed the fact that the company recieved comlaint, which is itself unlikely, then perhaps they would have been standing with books on their heads.

Fuji-Xerox are proud of the fact and advertise the fact that they recieve complaints and see them as a way to critically self-reflect (hansei) and self-improve.

This Japanese (?) philosophy of energetic self-critisism is also found in the cultural psychology of Steven Heine, the manufacturing philosophy of Kaizen, the managment philosophy of Yanai Tadashi (chairman of the First Retailing - Uniqlo - group), the way that Ichiro maintains his game, and the Japanese psychonanalysis called "Naikan."

Why is the Japanese Minister of Defence Wearing Overalls?

2011-03-20T22:23:00.003+09:00

Spot the Japanese Culture a photo by timtak on Flickr.

In addtion to the subtitles to what the speaker is saying, and in addition to the fact that they both read from a written speech rather than pretend to extemporize, both these leaders (one the minister for defence, the other a prefectural representative) are wearing overalls. Do they think, do we think, does anyone think that they will or should be doing manual labour? No.

All three Japanes cultural phenomena, or non-book-religion, non-logocentric phenomena, attestify to the fact that in Japan visual signs, be they subtitles on what someone is saying, the script that the person is reading, or the clothes that they are wearing, are more important than the phonemes. And this in spite of the fact that there are many Westerners that say only phonemes have meaning.

But to show their solidarity with those that are engaged in manual labour at this time of crisis, Japanese leaders choose to wear overalls.

C.f. the fact that, Japanese sports persons, no mater how much of a novice or not they are will get the right gear. Japanese sports persons some times have all the gear and no idea? What is an "idea" and how does one express it?

My heartfelt sympathy is with the victims of the Japanese earthquake.

Earthquakes in Japanese Religion

2011-03-14T17:47:00.001+09:00

Earthquakes in Japanese Religion a photo by timtak on Flickr.

[Originally posted to my Shinto Blog] Earthquakes - more horrifying than lightening and typhoons - were thought to be caused by the movements of a giant catfish.

While Typhoons and Lightening have patron gods (Fuujin and Raijin respectively) who are respected enough to be appeased, so cataclismic is the history of Japanese earthquake disasters perhaps, that they are not deified, but attributed to the maleficence of a big black fish.

Japanese catfish, or namazu, are or were thought to be, large lazy, bottom-dwelling fish with little culinary value who, for their part feel jealous of the admiration humans have for other fish species. Earthquakes were thought to be caused by the movements, or jealous malisciousness of giant catfish at the bottom of the sea, or beaneath the ground.

These catfish were held in place however by the god Takemikazuchi who is enshrined at two shrines in Ibaraki prefecture, including Kashima Jinguu (Imperial Shrine) in Kamisu City.

The Shinto deity uses an enourmous rock (whose tip can be seen in the shrine grounds - most of the rock is buried), his sword, or a giant gourd to prevent the catfish from moving.

The rock, the most famous means of keeping the catfish in places, is called a Kanameishi or keystone.

However, in moments of lapse, or while on holiday to Izumo in October - which is called the Godless-Month since all Shinto Kami are said to make the trip to Izumo.

In the 6th century book of poems, the Manyoshu (book of ten thousand verses) there is a poem which reads

"The keystone may wobble but it will not become unstuck so long as the Kami of Kashima Shrine is with us."

Reading this poem three times was believed to result in protection from earthquakes by 19th century dwellers in Edo (Tokyo).

The Giant Catfish was depicted in many Ukiyoe. The genre is known as Catfish-pictures but only 300 survive since they were banned by the Edo government.

As well as depicting the subjugation of the giant catfish by the God and the Key stone rock, they all so showed (as in the picture above) house builders taking a different attitude to the catfish. In the above picture the group of construction workers top left do not participate in subjugating the Catfish. In another picture they are shown worshiping or thanking the catfish for the profits that they earned.

After the great Tokyo earthquake of 1855 the catfish is also depicted as being responsible for redistributing wealth from rich to poor, and became regarded as a world repairing deity (Yonaoshi Daimyoujin).

So in the end it is probably true to say that Japanese religion, particularly Shinto, can be trusted to see a positive side to nature, even the most horrific, even in the face of great human loss and tragedy.

The above image is believed to be in the public domain. The above text is my interpretation of internet recsources such as Japanese wikipedia and these two blog posts (in english)
historyofgeology.blogspot.com/2011/01/namazu-earthshaker....
historyofgeology.blogspot.com/2011/03/historic-earthquake...
And the source of the above photo (in Japanese)
www.jcsw-lib.net/namazu/html/namazu/lime/006.html

Holy Mirrors!

2011-03-01T14:42:00.004+09:00

Holy Mirrors!
Originally uploaded by timtak

Mirrors have been regarded as sacred at least since the Han Dynasty in China. Many of these mirrors and from the subsequent Wei dynasty. They bore images of gods and sacred animals particularly the Chinese dragon (1,2) on their reverse. They were very popular in, probably later manufactured, in Kofun period Japan.

Bronze mirrors are found in great number in ancient (kofun period) burial mounds in Japan.

In the biggest find of 33 mirrors, the mirrors were placed surrounding the coffin such that their reflective surface faced the deceased.

The Han mirrors were magic mirrors in the sense that while they reflected they were also able to project an image (usually of the deities and animals on the back). It is not known whether the mirrors popular Japan were also able to project, but later during the Nara period mirrors were found to concel magic Buddhist images, and during the Edo period, conceal Christians (Kurishitan) concealed images of the cross or the holy mary within their bronze mirrors.

Unlike the ancient Korean mirror top right (3), the ancient Han and Japanese mirrors were made to be rotated, displaying images in the four directions of the compas.

The reason for the holes in the central "breast" (or nipple) is unclear but it is found to be pierced with a hole (of varying shape depending upon the manufacture) from which the mirror was suspended by a rope. It might have enabled the mirrors to be spun.

Mirrors are popular in the transformational items used by Japanese superheros. The early 1970's Mirror Man transformed using a Shinto amulet infront of any mirror or reflecting surface. Shinkenja, a group of Super Sentai or Power Rangers, that transforms thanks to their ability to write and then spin Chinese characters in the air, also transforms with the aid of an Inro Maru (4) upon which is affixed a inscribed disk. When the disk is attactched to the mirror the super hero inside the mirror is displayed. Transformation (henshin) by means of a mirror is popular too among Japanese femail super heros notably Himitsu no Akko Chan (Secret Akko), who could change into many things that were displayed in her mirror, sailor moon, and OshareMajo (6). The female super heroes mirrors usually make noises rather than contain inscriptions.

The latest greatest Kamen Rider OOO sometimes transforms by means of his Taja-Spina which spins three of his totem-badge "coins" inside a mirror (video).
In this ancient tradition we see recurrence of the following themes
1) Mirrors being of great benefit to the bearer enabling him to transform.
2) Mirrors containing hidden deities
3) Mirrors being associated with symbols: iconic marks, and incantations.
4) Mirrors being made to be rotated or spun.

Child Abduction, the Hague Convention and Japanese Culture 2

2011-02-08T23:10:00.007+09:00

An estranged non-Japanese father, whose children have been 'abducted' by a Japanese mother, expressed the opinion that while he believes in and respects justice, law, and rights of children, the Japanese, or the Japanese legal system does not.

This issue is massive, and massively tragic. The agony and the outrage are palpable.

I beileve that if I were in the position of a parent whose child were 'abducted,' I would be feeling the same way, reacting in the same way, decrying, petitioning, lobbying and doing all that is in my power to affect change, in the same way, in any way, with all my heart and all my strength.

At the same time, I ask myself, do the Japanese believe in justice, law and the rights of their chidlren? I am sure that the Japanese do. And yet, there is a real tragedy.

I think there are important, equally massive, cultural differences.

If I were to put this opinion - that there are 'cultural differences' - to a Western estranged parent, I would expect them to say, "Oh cutural differences! What bull! Another name, another excuse for gross injustice."

So, I am not suggesting that nothing should change. But there are two ways of making change, two types of change that one might hope for:

1) That change be made at the national/cultural boundary.
If one believes that there are cultural differences, then one may strive for change at the boundary between cultures, such that parents from other nations be given rights under Japanese law that are not given to Japanese parents, due to the fact that the marriages were based in more than one culture, in more than one law.

2) That changes should be made universaly, applying in Japan too.
If one believes that the Japanese, as they stand, do not respect justice, law, and the rights of their children (as is argued by many estranged Western parents) then the change that needs to be made is of type (2): All parents, be they non-Japanese or Japanese, should be allowed dual custody because the present Japanese system is just bad, patently and universally bad.

I think that (1) is the answer, because it will be more likely to succeed, because the Japanese family system works, and because change at the former level will not destroy Japanese society. Change as an exception, for predominantly Western fathers, is more likey to succeed because it will not devastate Japanese culture. I think that dual custody if made law in Japan would have enourmously adverse effects.

It seems to me that in Japan people get married primarily in order to have custody of, that is to say to have relationships with, children. If dual custody were enforced, and the realisation of its enforcement were to sink in, to become a commonplace, become accepted from the outset, then that would be the end of the Japanese family. Kaput.

I suspect that the legitimization of dual custody in Japan would be akin to the legitimization of marital infidelity in the West. It would make the critical family bond in each culture meaningless. The concept of family would be negated.

The Centres of their World: Bureaucrats and Caregivers

2011-01-17T20:57:00.007+09:00

Today a Mr. Takehara failed to get elected as a major of a small Japanese town under a baner of reducing the power of public administrators.

Why is it that the Japanese are so tolerant of the power of bureaucrats, civil servants? Why is that so many young people want to become a bureaucrat, and do not feel shame about taking home a higher level of pay than their private-sector constituents, for doing less work?

Many young people (my students) are quite frank about wanting to avoid the world of private-sector, competitive work, to obtain a higher level of pay and job security (so they think at least) in the public sector, and go home earlier.

One reason is that the world of non-civil-servant, private-sector work is so hard in Japan. I guess that people can see the private sector, as being unacceptably harsh, and that it is therefore morally acceptable to go to work in the public sector where people to work acceptable hours for acceptable pay.

Another is that since the public sector is so desirable the public sector can take only the best (academic-hensachi-wise) so those that enter the public sector feel that they are the top of the heap, and therefore more deserving of a high salary.

And after all, someone has to be a bureaucrat, so 'why shouldn't it be me (especially if I have the best grades, can pass the strictest, public employee exams)?'

But more than that, there is little notion of public sector employees being "civil-*servants*;" people who exist to support the profit-making activities of the private sector. It seems to be felt that the public sector is rather the centre of society, or the centre of the economy, and the profit-making private sector is there to support those that perform the 'central role' of bureaucratic administration. I feel this to be the case in the macroscopic world of Japanese society, in the Japanese company, and in microscopic world of the Japanese family.

The (from a Western point of view) reversed view of the public and private sectors of the economy, may relate to the position of men and women, or rather their roles, in the Japanese family. The division between the public-administrative vs. private-profit-making sectors of the Japanese economy, map onto the care-giving (administrative?) vs. wage-earning roles in the Japanese family.

In the West wage earners tend to be seen as the central, respected, prime-movers of the family. Thus people, of both sexes, hanker after taking this role, whereas the caregiver is seen as merely a supporter, a servant. In Japan, I think that the situation is reversed. The caregiver, usually the mother, is the center of the Japanese family, and the wage earner is that beast of burden. If the Japanese family is a steam locomotive, the caregiver is the driver and the wage-earner is the 'fireman' who shovels the coal. Young people respect the central, administrative, rent-taking, role of their primary care giver and see the wage earner as an appendage that does that necessary, but rather tiresome and dirty, money-making-sarari-man-thing.

There is probably nothing objectively "central" about the private or public sectors, the "rent-taking" administrators, or the "profit making" labourers, each need each other, as do caregivers and wage earners. Without the latter there would be no one to pay the taxes, and without the former there would be to social structure to allow people to make a profit in the first place. In the family, there is nothing more central to being a care-giver, nor being a wage-earner. It all depends upon the cultural lens from which you look at it.

There are problems though:

First of all, of course, reversals can take some getting used to. It will take me all my life to get used to! I still try and break the rules (sorry folks!) Or perhaps I attempt to reach a compromise. Ahem.

Secondly, things can get extreme. A society can become over infatuated with the profit making side of things, and over infatuated with administration. I am not sure if that is what is happening in Japan, but the level of public debt makes me worry.

Thirdly, strange edge-effects can happen when rerversed cultures mingle, especially when one of them has a louder voice, and there is incomplete understanding of the situtations pertaining in each culture. For example, the Western feminist notion that Japanese caregivers are downtrodden, that they deserve even more, or the notion that the Japanese private sector is unduly harsh, find favour even among the elites, and may tip the balance in an unhealthy extreme directions.

Solutions? Japan may once have had a stronger Confucian-style sense of noblesse oblige amongst its central, administrators and caregivers. If I knew Confucius better I would be able to point to the sooth where Confucius recommends that leaders put their subjects welfare first. And are there still any supporters of dansonjohi(“honor men and belittle women.”)? The idea that a society should honor men and belittle women is abhorent to Western ears, because it is not understood as noblesse oblige. It is in fact no worse, nor better, nor different to "Ladies First."

Ric O'Barry Saves Dolphins

2010-11-06T20:59:00.002+09:00

Ric O'Barry Saves Dolphins
Originally uploaded by timtak

This is a picture copyright

I am strongly opposed to the opposition to Japanese dolphin hunting.

I think that dolphins are more intelligent than cows and pigs, and am sad about their death.

However,
1) I think that cows and pigs are intelligent,

2) I do not think that intelligence is an acid test of what should be killed. Sensitivity to suffering might be equally valid. I think that cows are very sensitive to their suffering.

3) I think that cows and pigs have a far, far, far worse life in and bred for, captivity, especially when boxed all their lives.

I think that slaughtering dolphins in coves appears appaling, because

1) It is

2) One can view it .
Essentially, hunting takes place in the place that the animals live, so it is viewable. Abbattoir slaughter takes place in closed environments controlled by the meat eaters.
The scenes from "The Cove" are unlike the scenes in abattoirs in many ways. But I believe that equally gruesome things are going on in abbatoirs, at vastly greater scale, especially after having visited one.

3) There is a contrast between the freedom of the animals and their death.
If an animal has been bred for food, and especially has lived all its life in a cage, the the horror of its demise may appear deminished. However this lack of contrast hides the true horror, that of living ones life in a box bound for slaughter. Battery farming of cattle, pigs and chickens is, in my view, so much more unpleasant than killing wild animals that it is difficult to compare. The slaughter of battery farmed animals is infinately more disgusting than the slaughter of wild species due to the hellishness of the life that the animals have lead prior to their death.

The slaughter of the hunt appears appalling from a third person perspective, because the third person sees the contrast between freedom and the death. But from the first person/animal perspective (which should be? what counts) the un-hunted, bred to die animal is vastly more miserable.

Ric O'Barry guy goes to Japanese supermarkets to lament the death of his "friends." Does he have no friends who are cows bred in cages for beefburgers? Does he not care for their thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times, more miserable existance?

I deeply opposed to his group, bearing in mind the vastly, enourmously, grotesquely (I lack adverbs) greater suffering going on in other means of human protein production, compared to the yet tragic slaugher of dolpins.

It seems to me that this movement is a cultural defense mechanism. The movement is in part, I feel, an attempt to allow those that participate in the movement, or have sympathy with the movement, to forget the infinitely more profound horror of slaughtering animals bred and living in small cages, to die by a slightly quicker means.

Would you rather have been born a dolpin that died in Taji, or a cow that lived and died in a battery farm?

Is there even a question? The answer is no. There is no question. The horror of the "beef" (cow) that became a burger is so far worse, that there is no question, no viable comparison. The dolpin was hunted and killed, in pain. The cow's whole life was hell.

Weep by all means for the dolphins that die in Taji. And do not eat them. And do not go to dolphin shows in aquaria. And if you feel this sadness, or even if you don't, go wild, wild, wild with grief, and rage, for the life of the animal that made up your protein in the food that you will eat today.

Take out the plank in your own eye Mr. O'Barry. Take out the redwood tree in the eyes of your peers, before you point out the splinter in the eyes of others.

Disgusting. Ric O'Barry and his movement disgusts me.

Taji and the dolpin slaughter

2010-10-29T03:44:00.004+09:00

I have been in Japan a long time. It is my country now (whatever everyone else may think). So, I get upset when Japan is insulted. And I find this advert for "The Cove" or its agenda really insulting.

I am not keen on making animals suffer. I have lived and worked in the proximity of sheep, cows and pigs. They strike me as being very intelligent. They all seem "aware" in one way or another. Sheep have friends, even human friends. They ball their guts out when they loose their children. Cows have character. They are certainly sensitive. Pigs, well they are as intelligent at least as dogs. They almost seem to have a sense of humour. And yet I eat them, my friends. Many of the people who appear in the video above also eat the bodies of "my friends".

Hell, indeed, we are all watching the Internet when children are dying. Human children are dying, for the lack of an injection, a bowl of rice. And snakes are eating mice. And spiders are eating flies. What am I getting at?

I am all for those that point out and do something about suffering. But when a bunch of cow-eaters come to the other side of the world to 'expose' and talk about the suffering caused by an out-group, an other, a victimisable, demonisable other, that gets my goat.

I posted the following to an English language news website below an article about the dolphin hunt in Taji, where, above my comment anglophones had called for questions to be asked of at the forthcoming Taji council meeting, and had expressed distress about the hacking to death of dolphins. Here are the questions I would like asked.

What is wrong with blood and hacking? Is it the colour? The arm movements? Or the suffering? Are animals being brought up in coffin sized cages for *all their lives* and then being shipped, herded, and finally electrocuted, squealing, suffering any less? Or perhaps infinitely more? Which would you prefer, what would anyone, any animal prefer: freedom while being hunted, or a a whole life in coffin-sized enclosure with a 'quick' bolt to the brain waiting at the end? Do you now what percentage of 'humanely slaughtered cows' are alive as they are turned into steak? Don't you feel inclined to take the moat out your compatriot's eyes first?
Does having saved a human represent any acid test of inedibleness? Does eating dogs t herefore represent bararity? Don't many creatures live in harmony with each other, helping each other? Do we therefore not eat all the helpers? Is it only helpers of humans that should not be eaten? What is it about dolphins that you find so inedible?
What is it about cows and pigs and chickens that makes them so low, so infinately low, that one can torture them and slaughter them for so much longer in so vastly greater a quantity? For the sake of reducing animal suffering, don't you wish that all the animal protien in the world was obtained by the hunt of wild species, rather than life-long-box-tortured animals? Are you or your supporters using this movement, their interest in this movement, as an excuse, a way of forgetting the vastly more grotesque, torturous slaughter of enourmous proportion going on in your own countries? Do you realise that your dolphin lovin' cow-torturin' cultural hypocracy turns some folks' stomachs? Does demonising the killing of animals in another country help to reduce animal suffering, or encourage people to forget the torture going on in their kitchen? Are you for real? Do you have no shame?

The English language media outlet in question immediately censored my post above as being irrelevant. So I post it here.

I don't approve of hacking, bludgeoning, electocuting, captiuve-bolt-pistolling anything to death, and even less doing after keeping that thing, that animal in a cage all its life. I approve even less of the "projection" in freudian terms, going on the above video because I think that it lets the suffering continue. By presenting the suffering as something that takes place elsewhere, upon animals that oneself does not slaughter, it enables these fine celebrities, and their fans, to ignore what is going on around them.

Social Loafing in Japan

2010-10-18T18:53:00.001+09:00

Social Loafing in Japan
Originally uploaded by timtak

Social Loafing is the name of "the first" social psychological phenomina, wherein those working as a member of a team, such as pulling a rope, are less likely to put their back into it as when they are pulling the rope on their own. There is research to show that in Asian countries (but not this photograph!) reverse social loafing or 'social trying' is also found (Karau & Williams 1993). Other Japanese research (Kugihara, N., 1998) shows that Japanese men are inclined to engage in Social Loafing but Japanese women are not. And finally Yamagishi's extensive research (e.g. Yamagishi 1998, The structure of Trust) shows that Japanese are likely to engage in social loafing if they are not keeping check on each other, but in a face to face situation where they can censure each other, then they are likely to engage in social loafing (or at least subjects made distribution choices in a game experiment based, apparently, upon these assumptions).
If it is the case that, at least in face to face group situations, Japanese are more inclined to try harder when in a group, then I presume that this has big implications for management and education theory where social loafing theory encourages the individualisation of tasks, reward and responsibility so as to maximise individual pride in outcomes, and gains in self-esteem, and to minimise social loafing.

Change as Till Reciept Papaerweight

2010-10-18T14:01:00.001+09:00

Change as Till Reciept Papaerweight
Originally uploaded by timtak

I thought it was only me that got pissed off with the way that all till operators use ones change as a paper weight for the receipt that few people want. If you are holdilng your purchase in your other hand it is difficult to throw the reciept away without dropping your change.

I found out recently that a Japanese 'comic folk band' Briefs and Trunks complained about this in their hit song Konbini (Convenience Store). But still the tellers keep doing it, at every store in Japan.

The main reasons for this beahviour is, that if you are going to give someone a reciept into their single outstretched hand, there is very little option. If the teller were to put the reciept on to of the change, it would probably fall off. The issue is not so much where their put the reciept, but that they give it to you at all. Do I look like I want a reciept for my ice lolly?

The cultural issue focuses on the importance of reciepts and the reasons for them are more complex. So many people, especially housewives keep detailed accounts of all their expenditure so treasure their reciepts, Japanese like visual signs and a visual record of a transaction, Japanese people like to exchange so even though there is a transaction of money for goods the reciept is another thing that the buyer gets in return for their money, even though Japan is one of the safest most crime free places in the world (and one of the reasons why it so) the Japanese like to avoid conflict at all costs and the existence of a receipt reduces potential conflict over the amount tendered, the Japanese like little pieces of paper (which is a homonym for God), the Japanese like wrapping (see "Wrapping Culture" by Joy Hendry) and perhaps the reciept wraps the deal.

Japanese Arabic Numerals

2010-09-30T20:12:00.004+09:00

Japanese Arabic Numerals
Originally uploaded by timtak

Japanese Arabic Numerals

Japanese style roman numerals, or “Japanese Arabic Numerals” (hereafter JAN) are different to their US/European counterparts.

Native speakers of English should be especially careful when writing one, five, six, and seven, paying attention to the differences shown in the image.

1) JAN one should be written in a single stroke without the tick at the top, as in the above left, lest it be confused with JAN seven (also in the above diagram, far right).

5) JAN five should be written with the bottom part written first, followed by a bar to form. If it is written with the top bar first, and the top and bottom do not quite join then it could be confused with a JAN three. Having said tat, the JAN three is preferably written with a curved top. Incidentally JAN 5 is written in the same way as bottom of the character, “kangaeru”考, meaning “to think”.

6) JAN six should be written so that no part of the horizontal line sticks out to the left of the vertical as in the above diagram, lest it be confused with a sloppy JAN 4, which may be written with a single stroke, such that it ends up looking very much like a 6.

7) JAN seven should be written in the same way as the katakana, “wa” ヮ, with (compared to the US/UK character) an extra downward tick written first. Sevens written with a single stroke like this 7, and French style sevens are unacceptable.

0) While it has nothing to do with JAN, care should be taken to make sure that zeros meeting at the top since otherwise zeros with a line at the top may be mistaken for a “6”.

A word version of this explanation, with annotations can be downloaded here.

Situated Meaning in the Empire of the Indexes

2010-08-19T17:39:00.001+09:00

Situated Meaning in the Empire of the Indexes
Originally uploaded by timtak

I have been claiming that while the Westerners tend to be very "logocentric" or linguistic, Japanese are more inclined to concentrate on visual information, especially when it involves themselves. Hence Westerners care about linguistic self-expression, and carry around with them an "Other" or "Superaddressee" that reflects their speech acts upon themselves. And Japanese care about visual self expression (clothes items, things, pointing) and carry around with them, a "mirror in their head" (Heine and Takemoto, et. al).

However, lately I have been forced to realise that Jane Bachnik is right and I was wrong: It is not that the West is linguistic and Japan is "occular," nor even that Western signs are sounds rather than images, but rather it the difference is in the way that Japanese and Westerners use signs, or the type of signs that they use.

Jane Bachnik claims that Japan is (to paraphrase Barthes) "the empire of the *indexes*".

What are indexes? Indexes are a type of sign, in American linguist Pierce's taxonomy of signs. Their most famous subgroup are icons, such as on your computer screen. Icons are strictly speaking, indexes that have a resemblance to that which they represent, such as the famous trashcan which represents the deletion of computer files and thus has a likeness to its meaning. More purely indexical is the Nike logo, called a "swoosh," which gets to mean "Nike" by virtue of the fact that it is printed on all their products and displayed at the end of their adverts, rather than by its similarity to a running shoe. Indexes get their meaning by their "contiguous relationship" with the thing that they refer to. That means that they are often displayed at the same time in the same place, or immediately before or afterwards in time and space. Many of the typical examples of indexes are natural phenomena related causally, hence smoke is an index for fire, thunder an index for lightening (and vice versa), and the mercury in a thermometer is an index for the temperature. Perhaps the important thing about indexes is that they have a direct, one-to-one relationship with that which they represent. As mentioned in my previous post, indexical thought may have a lot in common with "savage thought" as defined by Levi-Strauss. Indexes are one part of the word, used as a sign for another part.

What other types of signs are there? That a sign has a direct one to one relationship with that which it represents may seem pretty much the way that all signs are. But Saussure, and even ancient Buddhists have pointed out that linguistic signs (at least in the West!) are defined by their relationship to other signs, "cat" is understood by its relationship to "bat," and "dog." Phonemic words (at least) mean, have meaning, by virtue of not being other words.

Returning to indexes, another famous example of an index is a pointing finger. It has meaning because you can see what it is pointing at. Jane Bachnik proposed the theory that indexes are important to the Japanese from consideration of the importance of such words such as inner and outer ("uchi" and "soto") or front and back ("omote" and "ura"), which are used extensively to describe social interactions. Like pointing fingers however, these spacio-metaphorical words have meaning in contextual locations, and shift their meaning depending upon who is saying them. Inner (uchi) e.g. my family, for me will be outer (soto) for you and vice versa. Bachnik struggles with this shifting aspect of indexes, and I believe emphasises their shiftiness more that I do. Indeed, I think that is were Bachnik and I differ. For Bachnik indexes are inherently shifty and subjective, but for me, I think it depends upon the culture from which one looks upon them. I will come back to this point but first I will introduce some examples of where Bachnik's theory of Japan as the empire of the indexes is useful.

A few days ago I was out in a river bay on my kayak and at 6 o’clock, or one or two minutes before or after came the sound of the tannoy sound system that announce this time (and perhaps that it is time for dinner, time to go home from the rice fields) to the local inhabitants. Some of the 6-oclock-sounds were simply sirens, others were the melodies from folk songs (often Scottish, for reasons unknown) and there was one sound of someone ringing a temple bell. Since they localities around the bay were slightly out of sync, the continued for about 5 minutes, before the bay returned to silence. These sounds can be heard at least twice a day, also at noon. In some rural prefectures the local town hall will make announcements such as "the primary school children have all safely returned from their school trip." Sticking to the noon and 6pm sirens, it is clear that that they are phonic not visual signs, so bang goes my theory that the Japanese are into their visuals. This is a very Japanese, very phonic sound. It is also an index. The sounds get their meanings (certain times of day) by occurring at those times of day, contiguously with the little hand of the clock pointing at six.

More importantly, it would be very untrue to suggest that the Japanese do not place considerable significance on language, but the way that they do it is different. It is easy to point to areas in which, from a Western, logocentric point of view, the Japanese do not seem to place a great deal of importance upon language. "Japan is a society without dialogue" as Nakajima points out, (Taiwa no Nai Shakai), in which university students never ask questions, decisions are made before committees deliberate (and debate) on the issues, political debate tends toward the grey with the manifestos of all parties being very much the same, rules are often reinterpreted in surprising ways (e.g. "scientific whaling"), there is a lot of flattery ("oseiji"), and there are books extolling the vagueness of the Japanese. At the same time however, there are some instances in which it is clear that Japanese take words *really* seriously.

Today there was a tragic story in the only English language "Japan Today" news site. An eight year old Japanese girl committed suicide apparently because she had been the victim of bullying. And the bullying consisted (perhaps solely, since the culprit remains unknown) in finding the word "die" written on her pencil case and books. As the father of a daughter my heart goes out to the parents. At the same time, as a Westerner I find myself confused. In Anglophone countries it has become vogue (and the subject of pop song lyrics) to tell people to go away and die in far more offensive language, but I doubt that many or any of the "victims" feel as traumaticised as this 8 year old did. It is clear that some words can be very offensive in Japan, and that the Japanese can take them very seriously with tragic results.

That Japanese take bad words seriously is supported by the fact that there are few expletives in Japanese. Instead of accusing someone you intensely dislike of being incestuously involved with their mother, one claims that their mothers belly button sticks out. The word for the female sex organs is felt to be so rude that it can not be used, so that Japanese sex educators have had to experiment with the use of "girl willy."

A Japanese teacher of debating skills bewails the aforementioned lack of debate in Japan, ascribing it to the belief in the spirit of words. He argues that debate requires that one examine the pros and cons, the positive and negative outcomes of an act. Japanese do not like to talk about negative outcomes, lest they come true as a result, so debate is often avoided. Hence it is precisely the belief in *the power of words* motivates the avoidance of dialogue.

This phenomena again relates to the theory of indexes. Indexes have meaning by their direct relationship with that which they mean, rather than by their position in a language or discourse. Thus the word death may conjure up the state and event of death far more strongly among Japanese (who avoid even homonyms of the word), than among Anglophones for whom death is associated with life and birth. Speaking the word "death" to an indexical thinker may even bring death upon them, but speaking the word death to a linguistic dialogic thinker may bring them to life.

That Japanese see words as being particularly disturbing is often related to their belief in "word-spirits" (kotodama, shinko). This is the ancient belief that words hare imbued with spirit such that their utterance can make the word come true. Hence for this reason, certain words weakly related to the concept of divorce (such as "go home") are avoided at Japanese weddings lest they encourage the bride to "go home to her parents" and divorce the groom.

Finally, returning to Bachniks feeling that indexes shift more than other types (our types) of sign, I can not agree. Words in western society, even those that underpin our society, such as freedom and justice, good and bad, are interpreted in many ways. That they share particular interpretations, and remain important to us, is the result of a cultural practice of internalising language via the "Other" "Generalised Other" or "Superaddressee" of language. This linguifying of the psyche does not have to be done, and the Japanese do not do it. On the other hand, that Japanese identify far more greatly with the visual self representations, theire face, and with "lococentric" (Lebra) clasifications of society such as inner and outer (uchi and soto) does not imply that Japanese society is more shifting, but rather that they have learnt to internalise a co-experiencer, a mirror in their head (Heine and Takemoto et al.), something with which to nail the context down, to sew the subjective worlds of experience, these fish-bowls together.

Savage Thought and Myth in the Structure of Japanese

2010-08-17T11:19:00.006+09:00

Denotation and Connotation in the Structure of Japanese
Originally uploaded by timtak

This post layers Suzuki Takao's layered theory of Japanese, onto Roland Barthes theory of "myth" and Levi-Straus's theorey of "the savage mind."

Levi Strauss argued that "savages" are "bricoleurs" (people that use the tools and materials to hand to get a job done), in that they use things, usually found in the natural world, to categorise and organise their societies.

Thus *savages* in totemistic societies may have "Black Hawk" and "White Hawk" groups, and be called by names like "Sitting Bull." They use species of bird and animal as names for clans, families and individuals, because these things are useful to get the job of social categorisation done, and thus "good to think."

Had Levi-Strauss been more rigorous (I jest) he would have noted that some totemist use mythical and corporeal, artificial signs. There are "Water Flask" and "Dragon" tribes. Concentrating on these man-made signs Levi-Straus' definition of "the savage as bricoleur" starts to become rather vague. If the savage can make up entities (such as dragons) to use as names then how is the savage different from "Levi" named after some ancient Jews Straus? If the savage can use man made objects as names, then why not use patterns, and write his name "LEVI" and be done with it. And if he did, would he still be a savage? The problem with Levi-Strauss for me is that I can't find the place where he compares savages to himself, or where he explains what we are doing, and whether and in what way what they are doing is different. (As far as I am aware, I am a bricoleur too. My name is Timothy, the name of a semi-mythical 'beast' found in the Bible.)

Then Roland Barthes comes to the rescue with his theory of "Mythological" signs. I think that despite the fact Barthes analyses magazine covers and pasta advertisements,he uses the word "Mythologiges" because he is harking back to Levi-Strauss above, and providing a semiotic distinction between us and them, between anthropologist and the mythologist, the scientist and the bricoleur. The distinction of myth, mythological thought, and the savage mind is that it uses signs in combination at a two teired level of "denotation" and "connotation." The briocoleur/mythologists uses second level, connotative signs, that is to say signs in combination that are already signs for other things (see diagram, inset bottom right).

Hence, the black boy and the saluting (a flag) shown on the cover of Paris Match, are in themselves signs. We recognise them and their meanings, of respect, youth, and Africa etc. The cover becomes mythic because it combines these signs to present a new meaning: imperialism is good, all of France's colonial subjects respect the French flag.

Suzuki Takao argues that the Japanese language is appropriate for use as an International Language. I happen to agree. The principle reason he gives is interesting, one that I had not grasped, and relates to the discussion of myth, or savage thought above. Suzuki argues that the advantage of Japanese is in the two-teired way that it is "agglutinative". A simple definition of aggluntinative is that, in ancient greek (soci-ology) and modern German (auto-bahn) one can form words by joining other words together. In Japanese however, the situation is a little more mythological, the process of agglutination often involves an extra layer. In Japanese, while there are cases in which one simply joins words together (e.g. torihiki, pull-push meaning negotiations), one can form complex words by combining the signs, or Kanji, for everyday words.

This layering of Japanese can be discussed at two levels.

At the level of discussion of the merits of the Japanese language, or German and Japanese respectively, the layered nature of Japanese makes it a lot more compact. Complex German words are formed by joining shorter simple, everyday words together, resulting in some very long compound words. Japanese on the other hand uses the signs, or Kanji, for the everyday words and joins these together instead. Since the Kanji have shorter (kun yomi) names of their own, long compounds can be said using far fewer syllables. In Suzuki Takao's example the round lighting devise used above operating tables in hospitals is "Schattenfreie Lampe" (Shadow-Free-Lamp) in German, and "mu-kei-tou"（無影灯）in Japanese. It gets to be a lot shorter in Japanese because mu, kei and tou are the names for the signs that represents "no shadow lamp" (nai, kage, akari). So while learners of Japanese may think it a pain in the neck that Japanese not only has Kanji, but also has more than one name for each, Suzuki argues, quite successfully in my view, that it is this layered structure that makes Japanese so successful in expressing complicated meanings, using few simple buildings blocks, without resulting in some very long words.

At another level, it seems to mean that Japanese are always being "mythologists" or "bricoleuers" as defined by Roland Barthes and Levi-Strauss in that they are using the denotive signs for every-day things in combination to connote new meanings. They are still engaging in "savage thought."

And so what? I am not sure, but I think that it relates to:

Roland Barthes claim that Japan is "The Empire of the Signs"

Jane M. Bachnik's discussion of the prevalance and importance of "indexes" in Japan, in her opening chapter of "Situated Meaning." (Would Barthes have written "The empire of the indexes" had he been more precise? Are totems indexes? Are indexes always dual, dennotive and connotive?)

My claim that Shinto is a form of totemism that stopped using stones and branches and grass (as related in detail by Kunio Yanagita, back in the days when "everything used to talk") as their totemic badges, and started to use Kanji for their names (when, thanks to the ordered rule of the emperoro "everything stopped talking")

The fact that Japanese superheros are totemists.

Channels of Communication in the US and Japan

2010-07-22T01:09:00.007+09:00

Channels of Communication in the US and Japan
Originally uploaded by timtak

Red is language, blue is gesture.

The upper arrow represents Western language and gesture, with the upper part, language dominant, and the gesture supporting, emphasising and clarifying the linguistic meaning to convey the same message. Kendon (Gesture: Visual Action as Utterance) seems to espouse the view that gestures is generally, or universally bound up with language, as shown by the red-blue arrow.

The lower two arrows represent my feeling about Japanese gesture and language. In Japanese culture which emphasises the split between real meaning (honne本音) and social pleasantry (tatemae　建前), and has lots of essentially non-linguistic fawning (amae 甘え) and ESP (ishindenshi 以心伝心）, or extolls people to "read the air (or non-verbal cues?)" (KY, kuuki wo yomu, kuuki ga yomenai空気を読め、空気が読めない), it seems to me that the two channels, gesture and language can mean different things (hence two arrows), the non-verbal blue arrow can be the true/real/main channel, and the language can be phatic or supurfluous and ignored (hence the bar).

I used to get the feeling (real or imagined) that Japanese verbal and non-verbal communication was tearing me in two like Bateson's schizo producing "double bind," because while I was attempting to attend to the verbal message. It felt like the sender was sending, and other recievers were reading, correctly, the sender's non-verbal communication that meant something else entirely.

I feel that Britons do the same thing, when they are being sarcastic. On the other hand Americans especially tend to tell it to you straight, "watch my lips", with the two channels bound together.

It could be argued however, that Japanese real meaning (honne 本音) is transmitted equally in the verbal linguistic domain, and it was just that I was not able to decode these linguistic meanings correctly. Such as when someone says "thats good" (ii desu いいです） or "I'll think about it" (kangaemasu 考えます） then even in the absence of non-verbal cues, a Japanese person would decode these statements correctly to mean "no thank you" and "the answer to your request is no" respectively. Thus Japanese verbal communication may be at one with Japanese non-verbal communication, but that one should interpret certain verbal statements in a non-literal way.

In a series of papers (e.g. this interesting study) by Sotaro Kita, a professor at Birmingham University compared for instance, Japanese, Turkish and English speakers use of gesture to describe a cartoon showing someone on a swing. Dr. Kita points out that there is no verb "to swing" in Japanese or Turkish. He further found that English speakers moved their hands in an arc when saying "swing" but that Japanese and Turks, when using more general movement verbs meaning "go", moved their hands in a linear movement. Hence the lack of a verb "to swing" (to move in an arc) results in a lack of a arc motion, swinging gestures. If it really were the case that Japanese gestures were independent of speech then one would expect them to move their hand in a swinging arc even though they do not have the verb to express that motion. Since this is not the case, it seems to suggest that Japanese gesture is closely integrated with Japanese speech rather than being an fully independent channel. While some information (notably the direction of swing) was gestured but not spoken, suggesting that gesture is to some extent independent of speech, this tendency to encode extra-verbal data in gesture was the same for all languages in the study.

Hence, the diagram above seems to be demostrably wrong.

But I still get the feeling that Western gesture is more integrated with speech, and that language and gesture form a single/merged channel to a greater extent than in Japan.

Stop press. I have just read the final line of the Sotaro Kita paper linked above, which ends "There are initial findings that speech gesture synchrony differs accorss different languages"
referencing in particular research by Dr. Kita's colleague, Asli Özyürek:
Özyürek (2001) What Do Speech-Gesture Mismatches Reveal
about Speech and Gesture Integration? A Comparison of English
and Turkish. I am guessing that Dr. Özyürek found greater integration in English than Turkish and that this patter would also be found between English and Japanese.

The Cultural Psychology Japanese Hachimaki Headbands

2010-07-16T16:39:00.001+09:00

Sakura Matsuri (35)
Originally uploaded by David Clow - Maryland

So why do Japanese people wear these "hachimaki" headbands?

I am thinking in particular about the headbands worn by people studying, rather than the headband worn by the gentleman in this photo, who is taking part in a festival but the following might be applied to anyone wearing a headband with writing on it.

Perhaps those who want to concentrate on studying in a Western,
logo-culture, may make a pledge to others and themselves, and remind themselves of their intention to study using phonological thoughts (that is to say remembered and orally produced but silent phonemes) their mind "I've gotta study. I promised everyong I would study. This test is really important to me." Westerners are said to be able to simulate how they sound to others, that is to say they hear the words that the speak from the others point of view, and internalise the reactions that others would have upon hearing them. This is the essence of logo-centrism: phonetic words are thought to provide "presence," (is that what derrida calls it?) the immediate, insperable, instantaneation of their objective meaning. It all sounds so persuasive. Words just mean. But perhaps to some (to Japanese people) spoken words are communicative - allocentric, *for others*.

Perhaps the Hajimaki headband, which usually has ideograms written on it like "try hardest" "must win" is a bit like these pledges and resolutions. They seem to be more allocentric (is that the word?) in that the signs are all pointing outwards, to others. And to an extent this is the case. The headband is far more like a pledge to others. But I think that the wearer will also be made aware of the fact he or she is signing his or her intention to study hard, so the signs and the headbands, often worn in private, so they are also a message to self. Japanese are thought to be able to simulate how they appear to others, that is to say they see themselves from others' points of view and internalise the reactions that others would have upon hearing them. Hence, and I guess that this is the nub of imago-centrism, signs (visual ones) mean as soon as they are out there, like they are shouting a message, like they are one of those loop tapes that Japanese are so good at ignoring. The fact that signs are so "loud" (from a western point of view) may be why the japanese avoid Japanese writing on their T-Shirts. To have a T-shirt with "Frankie Says War" (this reference is probably way too ancient for you) would be like going around saying "Frankie Says War, Frankie Says War" to everyone they meet. The headband is like that. "I am studying, I am studying, I am studying" it is a sign of and a self-stimulation to persist.

C.f. Finger Pointing Checks (signing to the self)
http://www.burogu.com/2010/03/finger-pointing-and-specular-self-of.html

And my new take on why there is Engrish on T-Shirts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SayQAPhdXMw

Howszat?

Looking on flickr I see that many hachimaki have nothing on them.
In that case I suggest that they may signify a mental, spiritual purity,
singularity of purpose and the absense of phonemes in the mind.

One of the scary things about Japan and the West is that each seems to hate they others signs/symbols. Derrida goes on about how much writing and visual signs are derided (he puns on his name I believe) in the West. I often get the feeling that a lot of the purification ritual in Shinto is aimed at a silence of mind. And Zen Buddhism is quite explicit about it: out out damn language.

Wearing, Wrapping, and Signing Culture

2010-06-29T16:43:00.006+09:00

Wearing, Wrapping, and Signing Culture
Originally uploaded by timtak

Not only does Brian Mc. Veigh (Wearing Ideology: state schooling and self-presentation in Japan, insert top left) have a lot of interesting things to say about uniforms, cuteness, and fashion in Japan, he goes further; he explains how these things can have meaning in and of themselves.

Using a “dramaturgical analysis” originating in Goffman ("The presentation of self in everyday life") McVeigh describes how selves can be constructed on stage, and consisting in and bounded by their presentations. If the self can be constructed on stage, then there is no need of a third term, the actor that with a narrative to grind. Meaning can be brought out onto the stage and be worn. This is wearing ideology.

Roland Barthes and Joy Hendry point out how visual signs and visual exteriors are important in Japan. But both expect there to be something else, a center, a something that is wrapped.

Barthes has already explained in "Mythologies" (inset bottom centre) how visual signs (magazine photos particularly) have the structure of an 'alibi'. "I was not there, I was somewhere else." Barthes does not believe in Mythology. Alibi's and signs, Barthes says, point off, salute a meaning somewhere else.

Then Barthes came to Japan and found that there are lots of signs, but they seem to point nowhere. For example, used to beautiful tasty French food, where the look indicates a different spicy flavour Barthes found Sushi in all its significant visual splendour, and all tasting the same, of wasabi and thick soy sauce. He found an empty space in the center of Tokyo signifying the massive power of an emperor, who does not rule. Japanese signs, Bathes says, have an empty center.

Likewise, Joy Hendry (in "Wrapping Culture" inset top right) points out the Japanese attraction for wrapping. But almost nowhere, except in her discussion of Barthes and towels given as gifts does she examine the possibility that Japanese "wrapping" is not exactly wrapping at all. The surface is not there to contain anything. The towels and the wrapping are consummatory. While the wrapping looks like a vector, or medium, it has meaning. The "wrapping" is the real Mcluhan.

Both Hendry and Barthes do not have a theory for explaining how symbols and surfaces can also be centers and selves. Brian Mc.Veigh however, using the self-on the stage tradition (of Goffman), proposes a mechanism for how the self, and meaning, can be constructed, consist and be bounded by presentation. Wearing is not an alibi for ideology somewhere off stage, but rather ideology is worn, and the visual is meaningful.

In his other great book, "Higher Education as Myth," Mc. Veigh weighs in against the lack of the logos in Japan. So I am not sure how much his revisionism in "Wearing Ideology" is intended. In any event this is the only book of Japanology that I can think of that seriously attempts to bring the center back on stage; the only book watching a mime show that presents a theory of mime, rather than harp on about the lack of a script.

Having said that, the book is not an easy read and feels a bit like a graduation thesis wherein the theory has been added because theses need theory, rather than that the author believes what he is writing. So perhaps, Mc. Veigh is an accidental apologist, a reluctant revisionist of the theory of Japan. Either way, his books are essential Japanology!

Finally, I don’t think that Mc.Veigh, or Goffman, go far enough. They still use the metaphor of a stage with its implied audience, and heteronomy. Actors live on stage, performig for the sake of others off stage, rather than for each other and themselves. As James Mead (Mind Self and Society) argues, actors can can only make visual gestures meaningful for themselves is if they see the faces of their audience or stand in front of a mirror. In my view, the actors in Japan carry their audience, or a mirror with them. The Japanese are wearing ideology, because they have mirrors in their heads.

A review of three of the best books about Japan
Joy Hendry "Wrapping Culture"
Roland Barthes "The Empire of the Signs"
Brian Mc.Veigh "Wearing Ideology"
written on the occasion of giving a lecture on Japanese fashion.

Just one Page of the Book of Television Personalities

2010-06-18T21:31:00.003+09:00

Just one Page of the Book of Television Personalities
Originally uploaded by timtak

In "The Image Factory: Fads and Fashions in Japan," Donald Ritchie points out that Japanese culture pours out images, fads, fashions and famous faces at a rate unknown in any other culture (or at least the West). It is a good book, but I find the tone of his work to be rather belittling.

Donald Ritchie does not mention that his ouvre, and indeed the very book he is writing, forms part of the output of that which might be called "the idea factory."Westerners, western culture pours out ideas, at a rate unknown in any other culture.

Every Japanese woman and her uncle becomes a "talent" (television personalty) if they make the big time. They get to have their face in the thick book of television personalities.

On the other hand, every Western man, or at least academic and his aunt, pump out an ism, that fill bookshelves in Japan.

The Japanese produce almost no ideas. Zen is the idea to end all izms.

Westerners produce surprisingly few fads, compared to Japan.

Donald Ritchie does not, I fear, quite make it into "the fountain of isms" but his theories of Japanese film may have made it into the encyclopedia of Western thought.

Japanese self-identify with their visual self expressions, especially their faces.

Westerners self-identify with their narratives, with their phono centric words, especially their names and the "isms" that they have coined. (You can tell I am a Westerner, trying herein to coin an "ism"). What shall I call it? Takemotoism?

Vuvuzela Advantage for Asia at FIFA WC 2010

2010-06-16T12:58:00.008+09:00

Vuvuzela image copyright Dr. ZVLV.

Complaints about noise of the vuvuzela horns popular with South African soccer fans have been reported by the presss since the start of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Various top players, such as Ronaldo and Messi, and coaches from European and South American teams have stated that they believe the deafening roar of the Vuvuezellas adversely effects their concentration.

But Japan (vs. Cameroon) and North Korea (vs. Brazil) have been playing very well.

According to Heejung Kim's ground breaking research on the relationship between culture, language and thought (2002 see pdf online), "atriculatory supression," or the suppression of human ability to think in phonetic language, has a greater impact on Eurpean Americans than it does upon Asian Americans. Kim claims that Europeans and their decendents have a stronger tendency to think, solve problems, and express themselves in phonetic language than Asians.

Comparing European American and Asian American performance on a problem solving task it was found that:

1) Making subjects talk about the task increased European performance but decreased Asian peformance (in the former case since talking stimulates Europeans' thinking, in the latter case because Asians were effectively being asked to perform two tasks at once)

2) Making subjects repeat the letters of the alphabet, effectively suppressing their ability to think in phonemes, had only a small negative effect upon Asians, but greately decreased (by about 20% more) Europeans' problem solving ability.

It is therefore unsurprising that the deafening roar of Vuvuzela at the 2010 FIFA world cup should adversely affect the concentration of European and South American teams. The surprising thing for some may be that the non-Western (non phono-logocentric) teams may not be adversely effected, or may even play better, concentrate more as a result of the roar.

Repeating the alphabet results a cognative load. The Vuvuzelas on the other hand have the effect of silencing the voice of the mind so I am predicting shockingly good results for Japanese, Korean and North Korean teams.

My advice to European and American teams is, wear ear plugs. The inability to communicate with team members is going to be less importantant than the inability to think.

Graph Copyright Kim, H. S. (2002). We talk, therefore we think? A cultural analysis of the effect of talking on thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 828-842.

Japanese Nutritional Supplement Energy Drinks

2010-05-23T15:44:00.002+09:00

The Japanese drink a lot of nutritional supplement energy drinks, containing royal jelly, ginseng, maka, various vitamins and minerals and their prime effective ingredient: caffine and nicotine. Their effect is I believe, therefore equivalent to the esspresso and cigarette so popular in Italy and France. These drinks are advertised on prime time television, on sale in prime locations even in convenience stores, and can be consumed on the premises of chemists. I think that the Japanese love of energy drinks may be related to the tradition of Eastern medicine and the herbal potions provided by its practioners.

Engrish T-Shirts

2010-05-23T14:26:00.003+09:00

About half of the T-shirts on sale in Japan have lettering on them. Of those that do, 99% have English or rather Engrish printed upon them. It is almost impossible to find T-shirts with Japanese language written on them. Imagine if it were impossible to purchase English language T-shirts in the UK, and that all lettering on them were in Bad Japanese. There would be riots.
Perhaps this is not just the effect of Westernization, but also something to do with the way in which Japanese have always imported languages from other nations? Perhaps even if there were no Western influence upon Japan, the Japanese would not wish to write in Japanese upon their own T-shirts. Be that as may, I find the Engrish T-shirts a little more troubling than many of the locals.

At the same time, lately, I have taken to wearing a T-shirt upon which is emblazen "Do! Something on your own way."

Medicines for Atheletes Foot or Dhobi Itch (Jock Itch)

2010-05-23T14:20:00.006+09:00

Due to the high degree of humidity, particularly during the rainy season, many Japanese are afflicted with athlete's foot and Dohbi Itch (scrot rot, or jock itch) caused by bacteria infecting moist skin. Fortunately there are a lot of excellent medicines available over the counter that are capable of killing the bacteria with one application. Application can be quite painful, but these medicines often also contain painkillers that dumbs the affected region after the first few seconds. One of the reasons that Japanese use small one-use towels after having a bath is perhaps because bacteria can be stored on any towel that is used more than once.

Transformatory sacred items accross the ages

2010-05-21T12:23:00.004+09:00

Transformatory sacred items accross the ages
Originally uploaded by timtak

I noted in a previous post that the history of transofmatory items (変身アイテム) such as used by Ultraman (pens and glasses), Super Sentai (Power Rangers), Sailor Moon, Himitsu no Akko-chan, and Kamen Riders (Masked Riders), has a history in the transformatory symbols of Mitokoumon, Touyama no Kin and Samurai Momotarou. Japanese superheroes are always flashing a special symbol and transforming by means of its use.

The history is much older. I ague that Shinto is a geographical totemism, like that of the Arunda/Arunta/Arenda of Australia. In totemic religions the faithful recieve totemic badges which represent their owners and the ancestral spirits of their ancestors. The Arunda of the central Australia destert are one of many such groups found worldwide. Unlike most totemic religions, but in common with the Japanese, these "most primitive" (Freud, Durkheim) of totemists believed that the totem was associated with a place.

That the japanese recieve totemic badges from Shinto shrines almost goes un-noticed. More visible are the symbolic, soul containing badges that are given to the dead (mitama, Ihai). However, as Yanagita Kunio points out, once upon a time, there were "ikimitama" symbols given to the living. These were originally leaves branches of sacred trees and rocks from sacred mountains. They were believed to give their bearer life and were recieved from the time of first shrine visiting.

However in my view, and as Yanagita hints, the symbols were gradually replaced by kanji ideograms and piece of paper.

Yanagita writes, "in this reigion also the Nusa (gohei, zigzag strips of Shinto paper) were originally I think to be distributed among participants. This is similar to the leaves and branches of Japanese cedar and nagi (a evergreen tree/shrub) that were given to the faifthful from sacred trees on Mount Inari and Mount Ise" (Yanagita Kunio Collection No. 14 p 51, my translation.)

「この地方でも小さい幣を関係者に頒（わか）つのが本当の趣旨であったろうと思う。もししかりとすれば、後に言わんとする稲荷山の杉・伊豆山の梛（なぎ）のごとく、信者が神木の木の枝を追って行く風習と、著しく類似する点があるのである」柳田國夫全集１４p51

These days Japanese still recieve omamori or amulets from shrines that are said to represent a stand-in or self-replacement and protect the bearer from bad luck and impurity.

And as shrines become less significant, Mitokoumon, Ultramen, Masked Riders, Super Sentai (Power rangers) brandish their sacred symbols and transforms with them.

Before we call the Japanese primitive bricoleurs, let us not forget that "in the beginning was the word," and that I have a "Christian name."Am I transformed by it?

Stamp Rally and Geographical Totemism

2010-05-21T10:53:00.002+09:00

Stamp Rally and Geographical Totemism
Originally uploaded by timtak

Shinto is a form of geographical totemism somewhat similar to that of the Arunda (Arunta) aboriginies of Australia except that it has evolved.

Like the aboriginies the Japanese feel themselves to have descended from a sacred land, created by the spirits in the dream time (mythic time of the Kojiki) and recieve their soul, their breath of life less from their father than from the local shrine spirit. In times past the totemic badge, or symbol which allowed Japanese to transform into living humans, whas a branch from a sacred tree, or a stone from a sacred river bed or mountain. Later, like the Churinga of the Australian aboriginal, and even far far more so, the totemic badges, or names of the Japanese evolved to encompas the use of ideographic language. The "primitive" totemists gradually moved with the times, and imported seals (such as shown in this photograph) from China. No longer did they get a sacred stone or branch from their local shrine, instead they got a piece of paper stamped with the seal of the shrine. These totemic badges live on in the form of Ihai for the dead, the tablets or fuda in household shrines, and the omamori that act as "migawari" or self-replacements, that most Japanese purchase at Shrines every new year.

But why do they need their sacred seals at all? Work in progress.

In the television series "Mirror Man," the hero goes into a mirror and comes back with an amulet. The symbols also seen in all the sumper sentai kamen rider (masked rider) and ultaraman tv programs from the land of the mirror are the meaningful images that allow japanese to identify with their mirror image. They are the images that are always the right way around. The images that have a third person perspective built into them as it were.

Transforming Symbols and Mirrors
Kamen Rider Decade's "Imagin" (Image people jin)
Kamen Rider Decade Mirror world where people are judged!
HImitsu no Akko's compact Mirror
Sailor Moon's compact mirror Chrisis Moon
Super Sentai Shinkenja-'s mirror writing
Super Sentain Shinkenja- inrou maru which shows your face until you insert the symbol, when it shows the super form.
Super Sentai Gaorenja- and the mother-like goddess like person that communicates by mobile phone while looking down through a relfecting surface of a pool of water.
Mirror Man's amulet and reflecting surface

Japanese Insecticides

2010-05-21T06:30:00.004+09:00

In addition to the insecticide sprays, there are a variety of automated ways of killing mosquitoes and other insects in Japan such as the insecticide vapourisers, insecticide insense, and insecticide "mats" as shown in this video.
I have long been confused by the name "no mat" or "no-matto" refering to a type of insectide product. In the video above there is a wrist attached device that takes small briquettes of insecticide. I therefore presumed that "no-matto" means "No! mat," a mat, or briquette of insecicide, that says "no!" to mosquitoes.

However, I am reliably informed by my wife that on the contrary, Earth (the company) started using the trademark "No-matto" to refer to the vaporisers containing liquid insecticide, rather than their banner product "Eart Matto" (see photo below) which were indeed little mats soaked in an insectide. Later,as shown in the video, even products which contain briquettes of insecticide are sold under the "No Mat" trademark.

All photos and trademarks copyright Earth chemical co Limited.

Nature in Phallocentric and Uterocentric Cultures

2010-05-18T23:29:00.006+09:00

I often remark on how little the Japanese like to be in nature. If you ask a Japanese person they will all say "we love nature," (and they do) but something strange is going on.

Rural Japan is suffering from a lack of inhabitants because the Japanese prefer to live in cities. Upstart gaijin (foreigners) with only a modicum of income are able to purchase beach side houses.

Beaches are not visited.

City-central riverside parks are - apart from certail ritual times of year (such as hanami) - empty.

Riverside cafes and restaurants almost do not exist. There are mountains near and overlooking cities, without paths to their peaks.

The Japanese that love nature, do not go there, or do they?

Japan is a uterocentric (my term for Japan), not phallocentric (Lacan's term for the West), culture. Maybe the late great Hayao Kawaii's terms "boseigenri" (mother architypical) and fuseigenri (father architypical) are better. Not least because, in "phallocentric" cultures, phalli, are hidden. In uterocentric cultures the uterus and its doings are taboo.

"Phallocentric" refers to a idealisation of the male adult who, "castrated," made gentle, a gentleman, Christ-like, is everyone's friend and idol. The Father. Not allowed to be lewd and laviscious, he sublimates himself, kills dragons, champions causes, makes money, creates, becomes rich, fulfills the American dream, and as his (or her) reward, purchases a house in the "stockbroker belt," in nature, on a river, over-looking the sea.

Uterocentric refers to the idealisation of the female adult who is perfected, removed of any hint of womb or menstrual blood, has no desire to give birth, and is every Japanese persons' idol. The Mother. Not alllowed to be base and cowlike (forgive me) she sublimates herself and attends to her (or his) children. As a reward she surfs the ocean of "childhood animism," she sets sail into the uncharted waters of the less-than-seven-year-old infant who, as the Japanese saying goes, is "among the Gods."

Uterocentrists have no need of a haven. They can live in apartments by the station. But in those apartments, and in nearby parks, the Japanese infant Gods frolic, and there is nature in spades.

Children are Staples (Ko wa Kasugai)

2010-05-12T10:36:00.009+09:00

Child and Child
Originally uploaded by timtak

There is a Japanese saying to the effect that "Children are Staples," ("ko wa kasugai" 子はカスガイ・鎹）.

My son here is seen above holding a staple or "kasugai," shown in close up in photo bottom left, which is used to hold two pieces of wood together, see photo bottom right.

In Japanese culture, the love between men and women is seen as being beautiful and natural, but like most things in nature, not particularly permanent. Love, between women and men does not last forever. There is no bridge across forever, no soulmate, no happy end. Japanese love stories tend, or tended, to end in double suicide: the most romantic outcome that one can hope for, at least far more so than domestic bliss.

The love or at least the relationship between parents and children, between ancestors and their descendants is however seen as being eternal. Parents and offspring are considered to be indivisible. No one is born again. This goes for the relationship between children and both mothers and fathers.

So when a couple have a child, while their own emotions for each other may wax and wane, they will be irretrievable linked forever in the flesh of their flesh, their child.

Hence, just as a staple can be used to join two pieces of wood together, so a children are considered to be like staples that join their parents together forever.

Westerners on the other hand are more likely to believe in the possibility of enduring love between men and women, through the transcendence of sexual difference. This hope, that there can be a bridge across forever, is perhaps dependent upon the repression of sex (much less festivals which celebrate sex), which is taboo, repressed, something to be sublimated into a unisex, shareable, idealised "love". I don't think that I need to refer to any particular cultural phenomenon to persuade Anglophones that Western culture is awash dreams of love. Oh, love.

While the Japanese believe that their view is natural, it may be dependent upon the repression of childbirth (seeing it, the desire for it, expressions of child birth, much less festivals which celebrate childbirth), which is taboo, repressed, and sublimated into a unisex, shareable and idealised "parent-child-love". While ancestor worship, or ancestor veneration, is carried out behind closed doors, the clearest expression of the cult of parent child love in Japan, is in the "monstrous" hegemony of cute found in Japan.

Related there are
Children are the shackles of this world and the next (ko ha sankai no kubikase 子は三界の首枷, こはさんかいのくびかせ) which refers to pretty much the same thing.

Achieving Three Dimensions by Spinning

2010-05-05T12:29:00.000+09:00

If you you have a specular self, permanently in the mirror stage, like mirrorman, and according to me, all Japanese, then being three dimensional can present a conceptual problem, since images only have one dimension. Origami paper folding, so popular in Japan, allows one conceptualisation of the two dimensional becoming three - like cubism.

Another is the ability to spin. Spinning is rife among the heros of young Japanese such as the "Inrou Maru" of Shinkenger and the wheel helmets of Goonger (both types of Power Ranger or super sentai).

And as shown in the video above, young Japanese people like to spin. Later Japanese children perform these ("saka-agari") loops on horizontal steel bars, (tetsubou), provided at Japanese schools. I do not have to ask Ray to spin. At three, he seem to want to do it everyday.

The ability to perform a reverse spin (saka-agari) like this on the inverted U, steel bar (testubou) is a rite of passage, and a requirement of Japanese primary school children. Here is a 5 year old Japaense girl performing serial loops on a horizontal steel pole.

AFAIK we WASPs do not require our children to spin, nor do our children show much inclination to do so. I can't remember there being any spin bars at any of my schools in Britain but perhaps I am mistaken.

Until the Japanese child can, by perspective taking (but in a more literal sense that Mead had in mind), and developing the ability to mirror in the mind, she feels perhaps a sense of lonliness or unease at the back of her neck which she can touch but never see. She can overcome this sense of lack through the games mentioned above.

Japanese Buddhist Chanting

2010-05-05T11:54:00.006+09:00

In the above video, some lay practioners chant Buddhist scripture. None of the people that are chanting know the meaning of what they are chanting, but they know it is meaningful. I am not sure which scripture they are chanting. Often it is Hanya Shinkyou or Lotus Heart Sutra, which is a pretty philosophical exposition about emptiness. I think that they are chanting to achieve a bit of enlightenment, purification.

I think that the fact that they do now know what they are saying is important and effective. They are destroying language. Repeat anything, even ones own name, even the most meaningful phonemes, and they will become meaningless after a while. By repeating, chanting, these Buddhists are entering, the mumbo-jumbo, language-free-land, and freeing themselves, purifying themselves of the symbol, the group, society, and returning to their un-symbolised, un-analysed Buddha nature.

They feel that they are praying to the Buddha enshrined here. I think that the Buddha here enshrined approves of their self-and-language-anihilation. They are generally older people. People who do not want to die with this-worldly-public things on their mind. They shake noise-makers, to remind themselves that the soul has many voices, not only the one that they are destroying in their heads.

If Japan is so occularcentric then wouldn't it be a good idea for these Japanese Buddhists to work on their self image more? To disassociate themselves from the image? This ia weak link in Takemoto Theorey of Japan. A great deal (but not all) Japanese Buddhist spiritual practice (shugyou) focuses upon eradicating language, via silence (Za-zen), chanting (all forms of Japanese Buddhism), and unsayable sayings (Zen Koans). At the present time my only answer is that perhaps language is the weakest link in the borromean knot that ties the Japanese self together.

Japanese Election Posters

2010-05-05T11:03:00.003+09:00

Japanese election posters are the other way (see previous post) in which the electorate gain information about the candidates.

In Japan actions speak louder than words. Indeed, I think that being wordy is viewed in a somewhat negative light. For this reason, none of the election posters contain any detail of policy. Many use the same brief phrases promising action, and at least one stating soley, "Action more than words." Instead, the electorate are provided with the names and large photographs of the candidates striking various positive poses. They were also treated to the greetings broadcast from sound trucks.

Those candidates 45 or so candiates, out of about 55, that were elected recieved only about 1500 votes each.

Bearing in mind the small number of votes required for election, those who were elected may have been successful not because their photo, or name was attractive, or because their sound trucks reached an audience persuadable in this way, but rather because of the votes from those with whom they are connected in one way or another. Thus both the posters, and the sound trucks may be a phatic act, going through the motions of canvassing, whereas the real canvassing may have occured in other ways, not herein described.

Election Sound Trucks, Yoshimichi Nakajima, and Architecture

2010-04-21T12:44:00.006+09:00

I can't blame this politician but I really used to hate these election cars. Twenty years ago, when I was learning Japanese these beasties would come by blaring someone’s name and saying thank you, I would, or did on one occasioning run after the truck shouting "Urusai!" (You are being loud/shut up!) to which the politician replied, with thanks.

These days, I have become used to the election cars. I almost feel fond of them.

The western part of me still feels, however, that these announcements would be okay if the politicians said something, such as what their policies are but in general all they say are greetings, the name of the politician and an appeal to vote for me.

There is also a "mythology"（Barthes） to these announcement in that their speech serves to tell the residents, through whose street the car travels, that the politician cares about that particular street.

This politician, running for office in the Yamaguchi City Town hall. Yamaguchi City is now very large. The politician whose sound truck appears in this video, comes from this particular part of town and has and will, I presume, represent the wishes of this his locality or "constituency." So in a sense it makes sense to vote for the politician whose name one hears blaring out of the most sound trucks. There, I never thought I would say it: election sound trucks make sense. If I had a vote, I might even vote for this politician )I do not have a vote because I am not a naturalised Japanese citizen).

The existence of sound trucks is another demonstration of the fact that Japanese do not care a flip about words, in the sense of what they mean - the locutionary act. The meaning of words is almost only in their illocutionary, performative aspect. The performative meaning of this speech at is loud and clear; "I, Mr. H, the politician am making an announcement in your street because I cares about getting the votes of its residents." The politician could simply repeat his name and some mumbo jumbo. Indeed, that is what the vast majority of Japanese politicians do.

Yoshimichi Nakajima’s Japanology which points out the prevalence of verbal announcements in Japan is very good. Not only does he point out the prevalence of linguistic pollution in Japan but also he goes on to show that words must be public, not private in Japan. The Japanese are very tolerant of all sorts of announcements and endless tapes and motto-signs (e.g. those that encourage road safety, or that we greet each other). At the same time they are very intolerant of the expression of personal opinion in a vocal way. E.g. it is the very worst of form to use a mobile phone in a public area, even if one talks in a low voice and I have to pay my students to ask a question in class.

However, what Nakashima does not point out is the Japanese equivalent of the word, or the Western equivalent of the suppression of private speech.

The latter (Western suppression of individual freedom), is observed, I believe in Western architecture. One is free to express oneself verbally in the UK, because speech is yours, it belongs to the individual. In Japan one can express oneself freely in ones house architecture and Japanese cities bristle with some of the most un-harmonious individualism known to man. But, in the UK, if you change anything about the appearance of your house, even the window sills, then you will be fined by the local council, because appearances are public. The situation is reversed in Japan: the word is public, but appearance belongs to the holder.

Uniqlo Management Theory

2010-04-12T18:01:00.005+09:00

The chairman of Fast Retailing, the power behind the Uniqlo Clothing stores throughout Japan and the world, Yanai Tadashi has written a book called "Forget Your Successes in a Day," about the way that he runs his company: never becoming self satisfied. I mention chairman Yanai's philosophy in cultural psychology classes.

The cultural psychologist, Steven Heine has two interlinked theories about why the Japanese are more likely to engage in self-criticism (rather than pumping up their self-esteem).
1) The Japanese don't care so much about being there (because they are not "entity theorists) as getting there (becuase they are incremental theorists). Hence they don't mind forgetting their current success, an concentrating on their failiures for the purpose of continued self improvement.
2) The Japanese don't care much about being great as being loved. Being "successful" is just an ego trip. But making customers and employees happy, that is what success is really about. So they forget their successes and concentrate on their failiures because love, friendship and social relations is what life is really about.

I have another theory why Japanese do no mind cricising themselves, because if they do it linguistically, words are like is water off a ducks back. If they were to loose face however, to imagine themselves, visually, in a negative light then it is painful.

Generally speaking Western psychologists would be inclined to claim that Yanai's philosophy is very unhealthy and likely to lead to depression (Taylor and Brown). Zelligman, the former head of the American Association of Psychology and founder of "Positive Psychology" encourages passing the buck, blaming others, negating the contributions of others and the effect of chance, and doing pretty much anything to get a buzz out of ones successes.

Here is a man showing that remembering ones successes can work too.

And not all Western Psychologists recommend high self esteem, particularly "Sociemeter Theory" by Rory Baumeister and friends.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pdf/pspi411.pdf

Electronics Graveyard

2010-04-11T15:05:00.002+09:00

These days consumer electronics, such as TV sets and refrigerators, do not find their way into the rubbish (garbage), since they have to be taken to recycle centers, in the form of local electronic supplies stores.

Image and Logos as Sacrificial Supplement

2010-03-26T10:31:00.005+09:00

The "logic of the supplement" is a really bad name for how some things can have an important role as a foil, scapegoat, sacrificee, or supplement, and be both of lesser and central importance at the same time. The “supplement", is a kind of super, saviour, straw man.

Consider a supplement to a book. It is the bit on the end, extraneous to the main part of the book (and thus of lesser importance) but at the same time may complete the book and by completing the book, be of prime importance. Or again, a vitamin "supplement" is something that is an addition to ones normal diet, that may at the same time contain the minerals and ‘vitamins:' the most important things that the makers of the "supplement" claim we should eat. Or again, there are things that are sacrificed, or made into scapegoats that are at once of lesser importance/value and of prime value. Consider the Jews in Nazi Germany. They were treated as animals, far beneath the "Aryans" but at the same time, by making a scapegoat of the Jews, the Nazis were able to rally the Germans together in the face of the common "enemy within." It could be argued that the Jews, as victims and scapegoats, were the scapegoat that made the fantasy of a pure Aryan race possible.

In his commentary on Plato's Pharmacon, Derrida (On Grammatology) claims that writing, or visual symbols, are a supplement in that sense in the West and that Western philosophers often make use of writing (the visually meaningful) as this kind of supplemental sacrificial, purifying scapegoat. Plato uses writing as an example of impure speech, attached as it is to the visual, and compares it to phonemic language in the mind, which by contrast with written language is claimed to be able to apprehend, or frame, ideas in their purity. Plato speaks of writing as supplemental to phonetic language claiming that it is an imperfect record, in being caught up in the visual world. But Derrida points out that writing has in Plato that other function of the supplement: something which completes by its ability to purify.

I find Derrida's writing very opaque and I don’t mean to attempt to paraphrase him. But I do feel that the visually significant, or corporeal, is used as the "supplement" to the symbolic in the Western tradition. Western philosophers since Plato, point to some visual/corporeal instance and say “well it is lucky that we have thought (ephemeral phonemic language in the head), and the meaning that we can trust". The writing, visually symbolic, acts as scapegoat, a victim that purifies the purely linguistic.

Some examples...Austin claims that some linguistic statements are "speech acts," such as "I promise," or "I bet" is not only speech, it is also an act. The speech act is a piece of dirty speech, that involves itself in the world of things. After going on about these "speech acts" for a while, Austin then claims that, but of course, there is some speech which is not an act, is simply referential. Thus he purifies language and its ability to refer to things without acting upon them in any way, by using example of speech which is also an act, caught up in the phenomenal world. In my view, all statements are acts in a sense. All symbols contain a little corporeality. But by setting up an example of an extremely corporeal example Western philosophers can return to their veneration of language.

Descartes likewise, goes on about how easy it would be for all of "res extensio" (that which is extended, that which can be seen) to be a dream and after going on and on about how all this visual stuff could be an illusion, he returns to language and his cogito as if it is purified from being a mirage, despite the fact that he may be dreaming in gibberish. I think therefore I am, may be "flutch brenden under cellophone."

In Lacan too, the mirror image of the self, acts as kind of supplement, an essential lesser part to the self-narrative of the linguistic self. The image of self is essential, and it is only at the intersection of linguistic and visual self reference that we have a self at all. But the image is the lesser part, the part of self which one should not identify, which language saves us from. The image of self is like the twist in the mobius strip. It allows language to return upon itself, refer to something that is the source of the language, refer almost to itself. The self-image is the veneer that proves that truth is going on “inside".

I think that in Japan, it is language that is the abject, scapegoat, accursed share, or supplement that holds the mobius strip of the specula, Japanese self together. Language is not exactly unimportant in Japan. Language is important as a sacrificee, to purify the mirror.

In Japanese religion language is sacrificed in concrete ways. The central Lord's Prayer of Shinto, the great purification rite speaks of writing all the impurities down on pieces of paper and washing them out to sea. And all the white the prayer itself, is almost meaningless to the listeners and even the speaker who, Bataille argues regarding Noh, says the words only as recitation so that we can feel the paper upon which they are written. The fluffy Shinto wands of zig-zag paper strips, the little pieces of paper tied to trees, and certainly the negative affirmations of Zen, encourage Japanese to think about, concentrate on, write, chant, and then get rid of language.

Japanese language, specifically Japanese poetry is good when you can see it, when it calls to mind images so brightly that the words disappear. Japanese poets are deeply respected in so far as they can write language that extinguishes itself. Later, Nakahara Chuuya's language enjoys itself, draws attention to itself, but Chuuya said to be influenced by the West.

In this climate it is not surprising that there should be few Japanese philosophers as word-system-builders in the Post platonic Western tradition, but perhaps Nishida Kitaro comes closest to being a Japanese Descartes, in Descartes as in Nishida, a sacrifice leads us to a noble certainty.

Descartes draws our attention to the deceptive chimera of res-extensa (the extended, the place?) before returning to his logo linguistic saviour. Nishida (influenced by the phenomological school) goes through a processes of bracketing, doubting and contradicting all linguistic postulates, till at last we return to the purity of experience, where the sacrifice of the logos takes “place.” Language is not unimportant in Nishida. Nishida is a writer after all. But the limitations of language, the more ideal and a a-corporeal the better, is used to make the space where they are sacrificed shine all the more brightly. Instead of being the deceptive chimera, the place is the good. Language instead of being our saviour, it is only through the most extensive linguistic denial that we find ourselves.

Notes
Japanese philosophy reminds me of British Punk Rock. Read Nishida while listening to Siouxie and the Banshees' (“Into the Light”) or PIL's “Rise” “I could be wrong. I could be right. I could be black. I could be white….the written word is a lie…Anger is an energy. Anger is an energy.

I need to find more “supplemental” uses of Language in Japan. There was medical doctor in Kurume university who wrote a "theory of civilisation" in which he seem to be saying that Japanese culture (specifically the example of Tenangu) focused on the expulsion of language. I started writing this because I read Jay's "Downturned Eyes", and wanted to make sense of the logo and occular centrism that Jay seems to think European culture flip flops between. And because Japanese superheroes are always flashing symbols at people, while Western heros like to change their clothes.

Not (Show me your) Willy

2010-03-05T00:00:00.023+09:00

Photo originally uploaded by hockadilly.

In English speaking countries the command given to dogs when requiring them to perform this pose is "beg!"

In Japan the same pose is required of dogs with the command "O-chinchin" which is a homonym of "willy."

Etymologists claim that "ochinchin" is from "chinza" which means "seat(ed)".

It seems to me that the motivation for the continued referal of this pose with this phrase, seems to me to be related to the fact, however, that "Ochinchin" it may also be interpreted as "(show me your) Willy" especially bearing in mind that the other commands to dogs are "fuse" (lie) down, "Osuwari" which means "sit", and "O-te" which means, "(put out your) paw/hand". None of the other commands use kanji based expressions (as Chinza would be). And one of them, "ote" similarly uses a part of the body prefixed with the honorific "o" to refer to the presentation of that part of the body.

Furthermore, it appears to be the case that some or many Japanese believe that it refers to the anatomy.

This, like the Japanese word for uvula, illustrates I believe that in Japan, the male sex organ is not as taboo as in the West.

Do not for a minute think that the Japanese are uncivilised but rather that there is a reversal of taboo. Things sexual are not that taboo in Japan, but things related to childbirth and the sexuality of women were traditionally very tabuu. The Japanese would, for instance, never ever call anything a "fanny pack," even if it was associated with female sex organs only in other dialects of their language. No way.

There is no similar word for the felmale sex organ that can be used in polite company (according to the Japanese wikipedia article on chinchin) despite attempts to make one from a neologism using the feminine form of "chinchin."

This photo is "Butch begs for a treat" kindly uploaded with a generous licence by hockadilly.

Finger Pointing and the Specular Self of the Japanese

2010-03-04T16:57:00.000+09:00

The Japanese have a specular self, that is to say that their self consciousness centeres on the awareness or imagination of themselves, reflecting (quite litterally) upon themselves, rather than in talking to themselves.

For this reason, when a Japanese person, like Suzuki Ichiro, wants to reinforce conscious decisions and actions he does so by pointing his bat. Railway workers and bus drivers regularly point at signals and other things when they check them, to reinforce the awareness of having performed the act. These finger pointing checks are only carried out in Japan, Korea and Taiwan (as a result of Japanese influence). In the UK on the other hand, train drivers "call the road" that is to say they call out the colour of signals or other signs along the way. They do not point at them.

The western self, as many many psychologists and philosophers will tell you, is centered upon self speech, it is the monologue that we have with ourselves. The Japanese self centers upon however, the awareness of ones self as an image. You could say that the Japanese are permanently in "the mirror stage."

However, while Lacan and other white men claim that it is only through indentification with the symbolic (language) that one can optain a third person, objective perspective on self, it seems to me that the Japanese are quite able to internalise a mirror, to simulate a mirror in their minds eye and take a third persons perspective of themselves.

While men westerners think that appearance is superficial and external, in Japan voice and speech be viewed as that which one does for others. Speech is external, communicative, transfers information from one person to another, and does not get reflected back to Japanese speakers. While Lacan and James Mead seem to think that speach is always heard, understood and cognised by the speaker, in Japan I believe speech, rolls out of mouths like water off a ducks back; it is said and gone. On the other hand again, Japanese would be surprised to hear that we Westerners can not imagine ourselves unless we have a mirror. They do it all the time. How else could they "refect upon their behaviour" (hansei)? There is not even a word in English for hansei in English.

Henshin Transformation Through The Ages

2010-01-15T13:25:00.010+09:00

Henshin Transformation Through The Ages
Originally uploaded by timtak

When Japanese superheroe transform they do not hide their true identity. They have a human identity but it is often no secret. If there is a secret, then their transformation serves to dispel secrecy, demonstrate a continuity, and reveal their true identity.

The transformation of Japanese superheroes often involves a sort of ritual. Heroes strike a specific pose, say a specific and individual trasnsformatory phrase, and or manipulate a symbol such as brandish a special card, or insert a speaking chip into a slot into their belt. Thus, Japanese superheroes transform, ontologically (please see previous post) after manipulating symbols in a codified way. Irrespective of whether or not there is an ontological change, the pose, invocation of the transformation phrase, and the manipulation of a concrete symbol, are the catalysts for the transformation.

A Typology of the mechanism of Heroic Transformation
The transformation (henshin変身) of Japanese superheroes is precipitated by the first three of the following elements or properies.

1) Transformation Pose
Japanese superheroes strike a pose to transform. Young Japanese boys often imitate these poses. Striking specific poses are popular in Japanese society. Like the "kata" of Noh performers, a "pose" often consists of a specific movement, which freezes, or almost freezes, into a specific bodily position. Japanese strike specified poses when they are having their photographs taken. Japanese baseball players strike specific poses when they come to bat (and not only Ichiro, the one legged stance of Sadaharu Oh is also immediately recognisable). Japanese comedians often have specific poses which draw laughs, such as Beat Takeshi's imitation of the attire of Nadia Comăneci , called the “Komanecchi" pose. Imagine Clark Kent, putting one fist to his chest and his other pointing up into the air.

2) Transformation Phrase
This phrase often designates the process of transformation, so the word "transform" (henshin変身) is commonly heard. Similarly, in the Tomika Rescue Fire series members all say "suits on” (chaku-sou) which is a name for the transformation itself. However, transformatory phrases are often individual and designate the being into which the hero is about to become. Thus the transformatory phrase is often sort of a self-naming. Imagine Clark Kent saying "Transform (me into) Superman."

3) Transformation Symbolic Artefact
Kamen Riders and the Tomika Rescue force used magnetic cards swiped into a reader on their belts. The Tomika Rescue fire heroes use a robot megaphone which on hearing the transformatory command (2) above. Super Sentai Go-Onger heroes insert a small electronic box that speaks certain phrases (called an "engine soul") which are also inserted into their belts. These same devices are used to transform their weapons and vehicles. Ultraman used a pen, spectacles, and even a toothbrush. These objects are signs comprising a physical signifying substrate and a significant, often linguistic, meaning. Taken together, imagine that Clark Kent must take out and present a Superman “S” sign, while performing a Superman salute, while shouting “Transform, Superman.”

4) Putting on a Super Suit
Western superheroes generally don a special costume when they transform. Batman is the "Caped Crusader." Clark Kent would be a strange sort of superhero without his Superman suit. A change in appearance is de rigueur for transformation into a Western style superhero. Japanese superheroes change their suits too but often from one super-suit, to another super equipped one. Further, this super-suiting-up, is the result of the transformation rather than its catalyst. In Japan, symbolic manipulations (posing, shouting, manipulating symbols) give rise to the change in appearance, rather than the change in appearance giving rise to the change to super-hero status.

Precidents
Japanese heroes use of symbols prior to transformation is nothing new. It is also a characteristic of the immensely popular Japanese "period dramas," viewed by adults, such as "Mitokoumon," "Touyama no Kin-san" and "MomoTaroZamurai." In all of these and more, just before the climatic fight or denouement, the heroes undergo a transformation precipitated by the manipulation and presentation of symbols.

Mitokoumon appears to be a harmless old man wandering the country with his companions. At crucial points in the narrative however, one of his companions takes out a badge and points to the seal thereupon, exclaiming “Stand down! Don't you see this seal!" ("Hikaero! konomondokoro ga me ni hairanu ka"控えろ！この紋所が目に入らぬかぁ"). The seal in question is that of the Shogun, indicating that the humble old man is in fact the Shogun's uncle. Mitokoumon and his entourage then proceed to fight, and dispatch a multitude of enemies with their swords.

Momotaro Samurai is similarly unassuming up to immediately prior to the sword-fighting scene where he strikes a pose, and announces his identity with a sort of poem about his origins. It transpires that he is in fact, like Mitokoumon, related to a feudal lord. His enemies quake at his name before Momotaro dispatches them with splendid, seemingly-bloodless, swordsmanship, and heavy handed music (itself another feature of this genre).

Touyama no Kin-san, another wandering would-be-harmless man, but this time a playboy, performs a double transition. Immediately prior to cutting up all but the most powerful of his enemies, he announces himself by showing his tattoos of a cherry blossom snowstorm. At the very end of the same episode however, when the leaders of the baddies kneel to receive judgement from the local feudal lord (?), the feudal lord bears his right shoulder exclaiming "Don't say you don't remember this cherry blossom," (この桜吹雪の刺青に見覚えがねえといわせねえぜ Kono sakura fubuki ni mioboe ga nee to iwasenee ze) at which point the baddies realise that he is none other than the "playboy" that dispatched their minions earlier with his sword, and that their fate is also sealed.

My wife used to wonder why no one attacked these heroes in that moment when they are performing their ritual. It is as if time freezes, all viewers stand agape.

These traditional period drama transformations are of the epistemological type popular in the West. The transformations are not ontological. The samurai are no better swordsmen as a result of their transformation. The transformation of Japanese period play heroes effects only what is known about them. However, in complete opposition to the cape wearing of Batman, the Caped Crusader, and the other super suits of Western superheroes, the transformation Japanese superheroes is always carried out in full view, and the symbols they use serve not to hide a secret identity but to inform enemies of their true identity, and to demonstrate its continuity.

Transformations preceded by Self-Referential Symbols in the Real Word.
Finally, in the real world, Japanese Samurai warriors were required to state their name before attacking their enemies. Before drawing their sword they said something like "I am Tanaka, a warrior retained by the enemy of your leader, Suzuki and I hereby challenge/attack you." While not preceding a transformation Japanese Yakuza were required to go and state their name, in a ritual self naming (knees bent, palm outstretch) to the heads of the Yakuza in the towns through which they pass. The self-naming of “Tora san” at the beginning of the Otoko wa tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, "It's tough being a man") is related to that tradition. While again there is no transformation, Japanese businessmen to this day get down to business after first manipulating their special symbol, their "meishi" or business card.

By Way of Conclusion
I am not at all sure what is going on, but from a structuralist perspective, the differences and similarities with Western heroes and their transformations seem to be systematic. Further in conformance with the Takemoto theory, I suggest that there is a topological shift in the visual-symbolic plane: Japanese superheroes use words and symbols to transform their appearance. Western superheroes use changes of appearance to transform their status and people’s perceptions of who there are.

I also compare the "symbolic transformation" of Japanese superheroes with the way in which Western monsters are outed by symbols, and Western love romances contain a symbolic outing, or declaration of love.

The Ontology and Epistemology of Superhero Transformations

2010-01-14T22:38:00.010+09:00

Superheros transform.

Superheros have a tendency to transform, in some sense, the world over.

The transformation of Japanese superheroes has, in a matter of degreee at least, differences from that of those in the West.

Ontological or Epistemological transformation.

Western superheroes are more likely to transform by virtue of what is know about them, in the epistemological plane. Japanese superheros are more likely to transform in terms of what they are, in the ontological plane.
For example, Clark Kent is always super in his being. His transformation into Superman is an epistemoligical one, motivated only by the desire to protect his "secret identity." Clark Kent's being does not change. He is just as strong, just as super-powered, as Clark Kent as he is when he is Superman. Peter Parker likewise can be said to "transform" into Spiderman, but the change is purlely epstemological, one of cloaking, a change of appearance. Peter Parker is just as strong, just as super-powered, as Peter Parker as he is after he dons his spandex suit. His transformation is to protect the secrecy, the epistemoligical aspect of what people know about him. Bruce Wayne's transformation into Batman is predominantly epistemoligical, to protect his "secret identity" but thanks to the technology he dons, effects a change in his powers. His suit is not merely a charade, but change his ontology, who he is. Bruce Banner's epistemological identity as the Incredible Hulk is known to many in the films, but his being changes. He becomes far stronger. The X-men, such as Wolverine likewise transform in a predominantly ontological way. James Howlett or Logan is *known* by many, but not all, to be Wolverine. He changes predominantly in an ontological way; his body changes, he grows claws.

Japanese superheroes are far more likely to transform on the ontological end of the spectrum. The continuity of their two modes of being are more often not a secret. Epstemologically, the two modes of being are far more likely to be known as one and the same. Far more often, it is only their mode of being that changes. That Hayata is Ultraman is not so much a question of secrecy but of his mode of being. He changes at will to his superhuman form in order to fight, but not in order to keep a secret of who he is from day to day.
Many Japanese superheroes, such as those in the Super Sentai range, such as the Go-Onger five, make no secret of the fact that they are able to transform into their super-powered 'alter ego.' Even while human, they are in costume, they give away their identity completely. And yet they *transform*, ontologically, into a more powerful beings.

Merging and Morphing Toys

2010-01-14T15:15:00.004+09:00

An quick video of some of the merging and morphing toys that are available in my local discount store. I believe them to be evidence of the continuance of Totemism in Japan and that perhaps, the merging may be motivated by the same desire as that which motivates people to create totem poles.

I believe that Shinto is a form of geographical totemism, such as practiced by the Aruda or Arunta of Australia, except that it has been modernised such that the totems in use are ideograms, such as found on tablets for the dead and good luck charms (omamori). For more shinto please see my shinto blog.

Japanese Bug-Eyed-Superheroes Miming Speech

2010-01-13T10:01:00.011+09:00

Japanese Superheroes, Bug-Eyed-Monsters and Miming Speech Originally uploaded by timtak

It has puzzled me for a long time why so many Japanese superheroes (Ultra-man, Kamen riders, Voltron or Golion, Go-Onger, Gao-ranger you name ‘em) have bug eyes, unmoving mouths, or no mouth at all and have a strong connection with mime.

I now have a theory about the connection between Japanese superheroes and mime.

Japanese superheroes make many gestures (see image right), like mime artists. And more, in a sense they also speak. But their mouths are always immovable. Often they do not have mouths at all. And yet they do speak: They mime speech!

Typicaly, a group of young males and one female strike poses, press buttons, or contact someone in heaven on a magical mobile phone, and change ("hensin") into a team of superheroes wearing colour coded wetsuits. Why should then even need to change into a super hero suit? There is no secret made of their identity. They then do stylised battle, reminiscent of badly choreographed pro-wrestling, with one or more wetsuited monsters, often with a conspicuously mobile jaw, in a car park.

As the superheroes fight they 'speak', or shout, encouraging each other. But where does their speech come from? Their mouths can not move, nor even open. They mime speech. They take out their magic mobile phones and put them to their motionless mouths. All eyes are focused toward the miming speaker.

In the mimicry of speech they are much like masked performers in the Noh Play. The body language of the players mimes speech to perfection, but the face does not move at all.

Nowhere is the mime aspect of Japanese superheroism more apparent than in the live stage shows performed for children. Performers in coloured mouthless wetsuits come on stage. Someone somewhere presses a button on a ghetto glaster, and off they go, miming their way through an Ultraman epic, never once saying a word, but all the while making it plain who is speaking.

The Japanese boys love it. They imitate the gestures, like the ultra-man laser beam pose above.

So why is miming speech so important?

According to Lacan the human self exists by virtue of two incomplete feedback loops: those provided by voice and vision.

We can look at ourselves in the mirror, but we can never see the minds eye. We can speak ourselves, but Lacan argues, the enunciated "I am" of self speech, never quite coheres with the self that would be saying it.

However, with two ways back to the self, we play a shell game, or two card monte, always satisfied that when the word does not hit the mark, we can see ourselves in a mirror. And when the mirror seems empty, we can call ourselves by name.

The problem remains however, in convincing ourselves that our speech comes from the same place as our mouth. Ventriloquists mime speech even with their lips. The people that we watch on television appear to be speaking when we know that the sound is coming from the speakers at the side of the box.

Sound and vision never come from the same place, but we get used to thinking that they do, and the scumble that links the two together, that overcomes the contradiction of a picture that is attached to words, is paramount in the production of self.

Japanese boys watch their superheroes mime speech. They know that, on the one hand, their heroes are not speaking. All the people at the show, everyone knows that Ultraman is dumb, that the emperor has no clothes. But the little boys also know that everyone loves and admires the superheroes and that everyone assumes that the superheroes are speaking. They learn that if they take up the mime too, then no one will out them, no one will ever say "Hey, you are only miming." Superheroes and humans mime speech. It is important that they do so.

But why the bug eyes? For me the bug-eyes of Japanese superheroes are seen but unseeing eyes. Their eyes are massive. Sometimes the Japanese superhero's face is all eye. But they have no pupils, no in-eye movement to suggest that they see. Their massive eyes emphasise their visuality, but with their lack of inner eye detail, it is though they can not see at all. These eyes are, I suggest, the eyes that stare at us from out of the mirror. Our eyes as reflected mirrors fascinate us, they draw our gaze, we attempt even to look into them, but we know that they are sightless.

As I have argued elsewhere, the Japanese are permanently in "the mirror stage" in that, by virtue of their training in and ability to take multiple visual perspectives upon themselves, they continue to identify with self as reflected. Growing up in an world of uninterrupted and loving gazes, mirror identification presents little problem for the Japanese. But in order to developed a self they must also integrate the voice, attach those vocal symbols to this reflection, and hence all this heroic speech-miming.

Addendum. Something similar should be going on in the West: there should be some attempt to link phoneme and imago being made. But in the West it is the identification with speech that is less fraught. Someone admirable and heroic should be 'speaking mime' rather than miming speech. Please see this post for an example of a Western hero It has puzzled me for a long time why so many Japanese superheroes (Ultraman, Kamen Riders, Voltron or Golion, Go-Onger, Gao-ranger, you name ‘em) have bug-eyes, unmoving mouths, or no mouth at all and have a strong connection with mime.

I now have a theory about the connection between Japanese superheroes and mime.

Japanese superheroes make many gestures (see image above), like mime artists. And more, in a sense they also speak. But their mouths are always immovable. Often they do not have mouths at all. And yet they do speak: They mime speech!

Typicaly, a group of young males and one female strike poses, press buttons, or contact someone in heaven on a magical mobile phone, and change ("hensin") into a team of superheroes wearing colour coded wetsuits. Why should then even need to change into a super hero suit? There is no secret made of their identity.

They then do stylised battle, reminiscent of badly choreographed pro-wrestling, with one or more wetsuited monsters, often with a conspicuously mobile jaw, in a car park.

As the superheroes fight they 'speak', or shout, encouraging each other. But where does their speech come from? Their mouths can not move, nor even open. They mime speech. They take out their magic mobile phones and put them to their motionless mouths. All eyes are focused toward the miming speaker.

In the mimicry of speech they are much like masked performers in the Noh Play. The body language of the players mimes speech to perfection, but the face does not move at all.

Nowhere is the mime aspect of Japanese superheroism more apparent than in the shows performed for children at Japanese festivals. Performers in bug-eye, multi-coloured mouthless wetsuits come on stage. Someone presses a button on a ghetto blaster, and off they go, miming their way through an ultra-man epic, never once saying a word, but all the while making it plain who is speaking.

The Japanese boys love it. They imitate the gestures, like the Ultraman laser beam pose above.

So why is miming speech so important?

According to Lacan the human self exists by virtue of two incomplete feedback loops: those provided by voice (or phonetic language) and vision.

We can look at ourselves in the mirror, but we can never see the minds eye. We can speak ourselves, but Lacan argues, the enunciated "I am" of my self speech, never quite coheres with the self that would be saying it.

However, with two ways back, two feedback paths, to the self, we play a shell game, or two card monte, always satisfied that when the word does not hit the mark, we can see ourselves in a mirror. And when the mirror seems empty, we can call ourselves by name.

The problem remains however, in convincing ourselves that our speech comes from the same place as our mouth. But we get used to it. Get used to thinking that sound and vision come from the same place. E.g. The people that we watch on television appear to be speaking the sounds, even though we know, if we think about it, that the sound is coming from the speakers at the side of the box.

Sound and vision never come from the same place, but we get used to thinking that they do, and the scumble that links the two together, that overcomes the contradiction of a picture that is attached to words, is paramount in the production of self.

Japanese boys watch their superheroes mime speech. They know that on the one hand their heroes are not speaking. All the people at the show, everyone knows that Ultraman is dumb, that emperor has no clothes. But the little boys also know that everyone loves the superheroes and assumes that the superheroes are speaking. They learn that if they take up the mime too, then no one will 'out them', no one will ever say "Hey, you are only miming." Superheroes and humans mime speech. It is important that they do so, and get away with it.

But why the bug eyes? For me, the bug-eyes of Japanese superheroes are seen but unseeing eyes. Their eyes are massive. Sometimes the Japanese superheroes face is all eye (Kamen rider Faizu/555). But they have no pupils, no in-eye movement to suggest that they see. Their massive eyes emphasise their visuality, but with their lack of inner eye detail, it is though they can not see at all. These eyes are, I suggest, the eyes that stare at us from out of the mirror. Our eyes as reflected mirrors fascinate us, they draw our gaze, we attempt even to look into them, but we know that they are sightless.

As I have argued elsewhere, the Japanese are permanently in "the mirror stage" in that, by virtue of their training in and ability to take multiple visual perspectives upon themselves, they continue to identify with self as reflected. Growing up in an world of uninterrupted and loving gazes, mirror identification presents little problem for the Japanese. But in order to develope a self they must also integrate the voice, attach those vocal symbols to this reflection, and hence all this heroic speech-miming.

Something similar should be going on in the West: there should be some attempt to link phoneme and imago being made. But in the West it is the identification with speech that is less fraught. So someone Western, admirable, and heroic should be 'speaking mime' rather than miming speech. I guess that this has something to do with the secret identities of Western Superheros, but for the time being, I don't know what "speaking mime" is.

Addendum. please see the next photo in my photostream. I think that "speaking mime" (the Western equivalent to the mimed speech we see Japanese superheros perform) is all the thought bubbles that we are able to see in Western superhero comics, and all the "hard boiled," coming-from-no-where, narrative that accompanies Western detective movies especially.　In the West, the narrative pervades, it is the centre, the truth of the secret identityspeaking his mime

I think, therefore I am Batman.

PPS: Just after writing this I saw the trailer for Avatar, where a super-hero kinda guy controls an "Avatar" by remote control and feel like I am chanelling James Cameron.

Gattai! Merge!

2010-01-05T15:18:00.001+09:00

Gattai! Merge!
Originally uploaded by timtak

Our son made his toy trucks "Gattai", or coalesce, coallide, combine, link, merge, or bond in the fashion above.

"Gattai!" the Japanese word for "coalescence", or "merge!" is a common refrain in a number of cartoons/anime for 3 to 7 year old, predominantly male, Japanese children.

Usually, the heroes, or cars, whatever, meet a foe that is too strong for anyone of them to beat, so they shout "Gattai!" and merge together to form a super-unity to vanquish that foe.

My son is into the Tomika Heroes anime called "Rescue Fire," (previously Rescue Force?) in which usually 3 members of a team board vehicles that link together to form one larger, super, powerful vehicle. In fact their cars are stored in trucks, and it is the trucks that then merge to form the Rescue Fire Dragon, I think. There is a detailed article about the series on wikipedia. It seems that the enemy "gattai" too.

The "gattai" phenomina is not limited to this series. In many many children's anime over the years, cars and other vehicles, or even animals I think, link together to form a super unity, a robot, or super-life form. Teams of superheroes merge to form one body, with a clarion call of "Gattai!" In all cases, it really gets the viewers going. Ray's eyes light up, in an extasy of gattai-ing. What is going on?

There is the theory that this is something to do with sex. The trucks look a bit like they are at it, a la canine.

Can a prepubescent realisation of the physical nature of the libido be the root cause of the fascination with "Gattai!"? Is the fascination purely "libidinal"?

I don't think so.

For one thing, in many of these anime the merging beings are often of the same sex. I don't think that the viewers are gay, nor do I think that they are unaware of the sexual (i.e. male-female) nature of much sex. This is not sex. My son is (I am not bragging) one hundred percent hetrosexual, even at three. He has girlfriends. He finds girls attractive.

But the refrain of "Gattai" in this genre of cartoon/anime often or usually occurs when more than one male entity merges.

To cut a long story short, I wonder whether this joyful occurence represents the solidification, or merging of the parts of the self. I am not sure what these parts are. But it seems to me that the self is multi-parted. The games that these youngesters are playing may represent their glee, their desire for and achievement of coalescence. There may still be a libidinal element, but I think that the coalescence is intra-psychic.

That is just a guess. The "Gattai" phenomena is a myth of our times. It is profound.

Do American cartoon characters Gattai?

A list of Japanese Cultural Phenomina

2009-11-25T00:42:00.005+09:00

I had occasion to make a list of things that strike me about Japanese culture.

The onees that I might attempt to explain by the use of my Lacan upside down fallopo-imagocentrism (i.e. the opposite of phallo-logocentrism) theory are marked with a * or a # for more weakly linked, and ? being more problematic or just particularly unclear to me.

Why are the Japanese so good at mathematics, at school at least?

Looking through the list I would like to recommend Nakashima Yoshimichi (Urusai Nihonjin no Watashi) as a great Nihonjin ron, theory of Japaneseness. Kimura Bin and Hamaguchi Eshun are great too.

I have deliberately tried to avoid the use of Japanese language since the list was originally written for Japanese learners of English.

Japanese manequinns (generally with Western features) #
Japanese T-shirts (generally with Western writing)
Plastic food outside of restaurants *
Methods of inputting Japanese characters via the keyboard
The strengths and weaknesses of Japanese software *
The Japanese obsession with having hair #
Japanese dogs, traditionally kept outside
Cute things found in people's cars #
Comic cafe's #
Finger pointing to improve railway safety *
The way in which it is okay to make a noise while eating noodles #
The way in which it is not okay to eat on the street (except ice cream)
The use of seals, instead of signing ones name #
One hundred yen shops
The way in which many students at Japanese universities do not expect to have to study very much #
The use of masks to prevent others from getting ones cold
The existance of yellow number plate small engine cars
The prevalence of mobile phones equipped with the Internet #
The lack of restaurants on the side of Japanese rivers and mountains
The proximity of houses and supermarkets to mountains
The proximity of houses and supermarkets to agricultural land and ditches
The use of "mothers' bicycles" and the relatie absense of bicycles with crossbars
The practice of having plastic surgery
The prevalence of unmarried people
The lack of unemployment
The use of excessive employment, such as flag waivers
The lack of Western goods for sale
The size and expense of Japanese vegetables #
The sweetness or tastlessness of Japanese fruit #
The small size of Japanese chocolates #
The prevalence of thin people *
The number or restaurants where one is allowed to smoke #
The number of politicians associated with corruption #
The existance of registered "violent groups"
The love of dolls and robots but not sculpture *
The use of sexual metaphor to describe parts of the body such as cleft chins and the uvula *
The existances of seminar groups at an undergraduate level
The lack of importance placed on the level of university degree #
Bowing on telephones
Saying "aah" after ones first mouthful of beer
The use of plastic bags for umbrellas
The way in which supermarket staff show customers the way to a particular isle (but taking them there, rather than by giving the number) *
The prevalance of superheroes with large families
The lack of theft and violent crime #
The fear of theft and violetn crime
The prevalence of suicide
The existance of vending machines
The lack of graffitti and vandalism #
The existance of "its me, its me" fraud
The absense of hand signals by bicyclists #
The sex (gender) of cheerleaders
The tendency to practice dancing or voice training in public
The formation of circles by student groups, outside supermarkets #
The prevalance of vocal announcements *
The tabuu on private speech, such as using mobile phones *
The complete lack of achitectural harmony #
The lack of litter #
The lack of litter bins
The existance of rooms for taking commemorative photographs in hotels *
The shouts emmitted by Japanese sportspeople to improve their concentration #
The frequency with with Japanese sportspeople use image training techniques *
The importance placed on caligraphy *
The imporance placed upon set phrases in letters #
The making of piramids at school sports festivals *
The prevalence of school uniforms #
The vast number of idols *
The use of toilet slippers
The removal of shoes in the home
The removal of shoes in computer rooms
The lack of computers in Japanese offices #
The prevalance of robots in Japanese factories *
The lack of dubbed movies/prevalence of subtitling ?
The speed at which cars travel
The absence of central heating in homes
The use of heated coffee tables
The prevalence of refuse seperation
The need to wash uses containers
The size of roads
The lack of road names ?
The system of naming plots of land instead ?
The location of floor numbers between floors ?
The use of smilies that do not smile #
The numbering of tobacco products
The opening hours of ATMs
The prevalence of new cars #
The lack of second hand shops
The love of cleanliness #
The size and shape of japanese baths
The practice of communal bathing
The strength of gender roles
The ability and confidence at singing #
The lack of confidence at dancing #
The number of autophotography machines *
The love of autophotography *
The hesitance towards self agrandisement or linguistic self expression *
The use of the stones, sissors and paper game
The practice of staring games #
The silence on trains #
The carrying of radios (especially by older gentlmen)
The emptiness of beaches
The number of words for I *
Various Japanese gestures, such as nose pointing **
The average TOEIC score
The strength at mathematics ??
The prevalence of dams and other concrete structures #
The cost of motorway/expressway travel
The "firefly tribe"
The recycling rather than reuse of bicycles
The excellence of Japanese service
The lack of menus at the highest level
The prevalance of choosing the same food as ones co-eaters
The practice of going to the toilet in groups
The preference for group vacations
The preference for separate accomodation #
The love of newspapers ?
The sheer volume of comics *
The practice of community ditch cleaning
The use of health potions
The existance of hostess bars *
The love of sportswear *
The love of cameras *
The lack of debate *
The practice of stomach diplomacy *
The practice of persuading people before meetings *
The emphasis on the privacy of information #
The lack of credit cards and use of cash #
The existance of pocket money for wage earners
The number of private universities
The emphasis placed upon university
The length of employment
The lack of meritocracy based wages
The existance of large bonuses
The size of families
The lack of forewarning of death
The ability to compose short poems
The emphasis upon imagery in poetry *
The use of English in pop songs
The popularity of computer games *
The prevalence of 'verticle pinball' as a form of gambling
The lack of choice in Japanese gambling
The use of advertising in children's programs
The use of sign language by children's heros #
The lack of mouths of popular cartoon characters #
The size of the eyes of popular cartoon characters #
The love of white skin
The ability to tell the season from the sound of insects
The number of new religions
The lack of women politicians
The sheer number of Japanese inventions #
The lack of clear policy statements by politicians *
The use of photographs on political posters *
The use of imagery, rather than comparison, in advertising *
The abundance of curtains and tinted glass in cars #
The lack of story/punchline type jokes #
The use of movement and gesture in humour *
The number of scary female monsters *
Their tendency to come out of images *
The use of photographs to remember the dead *
The lack of family photographs in homes and offices *
The emphasis on the exchange of business cards #
The emphasis on politeness
The emphasis on greetings
The fear of inappropriate or negative words ?
The emphasis on right ways of doing things #
The emphasis on time place and occasion #
The use of mirrors in trains and other public places *
The beauty of Japanese people*
The wackiness and originality of Japanese fashion #

And the list could go on.

The Japanese Culture of Kidnapping Children

2009-10-01T16:42:00.006+09:00

The case of Christopher Savoie is as painful as they come. On the face of it, afaik the gentleman married a Japanese lady, had children, relocated to Tenessee, divorced remarried, and hoped that his x-wife would continue to allow him to have dual custody of their children, as is usual under US law. As things became embittered, and Noriko his x-wife homesick, Mr. Savoie attempted to get a restraining order placed on his wife since he was scared that she might take their children back to Japan where, he may never see them again. This is what happed. One morning after a period of custody with the mother, the children did not arrive at school. They were in Japan.
Mr. Savoie went to the courts who immediately declared Noriko in breach of their divorce agreement and guilty of abduction, granted Mr. Savoie sole custody and issued a warrant for Noriko's arrest. Mr. Savoie weeps. He finds silence unbearable because he hears the voices of his children.

This sort of case happens a lot. There are many other crying fathers and one can read their tragic stories here and here. Since, such is Japanese law, it is legal for Japanese mothers to "abduct" their own children, bring them to Japan and deny access to the other foreign parent. Japan is not a signatory to the Hague convention, which upholds "the rights of the child to see both parents" and allows for the repatriation of children abducted in this way. Japan is thinking about becoming a member of the Hague treaty at last one day in the next few years, but until then, it is Goodbye daddy. Can you image? I mean, really?

I want to make it clear that the father's side the story makes me cry. However this post is in, in brief and attempt to explain why the Japanese do it. Are they not men? They are. They care.

Under Japanese law, there is no dual custody. When a couple divorces, the law believes that rather than be a ping pong ball between two often warring households, the child should be with one parent, the parent most able to meet the needs of the child. In the past that was often the father. These days, it is usually the mother. If the father pays alimony then mothers may allow the father parental rights. But if he is flaky, hateful, or if one or ther party remarries, then the father is often cut out of the children's lives. Many Japanese fathers, and some mothers, are also crying themselves to sleep at night. This is quite commonplace. Even the immensely popular Ex Prime Minister Koizumi was divorced from his wife. He took custody of one child and the mother the other. Essentially, afaik, each of the children never saw the other parent again.

Is a child happier seeing bother parents? Knowing that a parent is gone, knowing that one of ones parents is not ones own, but not meeting two people who do not love each other anymore, that present, even if unsaid, a criticism of each other. Dual custody says, "here is my father that could not be with that woman". "Here is a Mother that could not be with that man." I think that that most Westerners would say "yes, the child is happier knowing the truth about mummy and daddy". It is not essential that they have a parent to idolise.

CULTURE
In the West marriage centeres on the bond between the parents. Families remain together, at least in theory, due to the strength of this bond. The love of the parents makes or breaks the marriage. Even though the parents love their children, they may get divorced if they no longer love their spouse because they believe it is in the child's interests to see a loving relationship, have a loving relationship to idolise, and model their future relationships upon.

In Japan people are realistic about man-woman love. They know that man-woman love comes from the nether regions and that it does not last, or it burns off and on, and that it is no basis upon which to build a family. On the other hand they deem the bond between parents and childred as sacred, and ignore any physical elements in that relationship. Should the parents not get on with each other they will usually remain together in what is known as "divorce within the home" because they value the happiness of their children. Divorce rates are fairly high prior to the birth of children but very low afterwards.

Indeed in Japan, historically, there was NO SUCH THING AS MARRIAGE. People lived with each other, had sex with each other, and seperated from each other until the birth of a child. The birth of the child signalled the entry of religion. The child would be brought to meet the ancestors and ancestral gods and an inviable bond would be formed.

Now in the latter society, what would happen if there were dual custody?

First of all it would be going against the religious tradition of people having only one set of ancestors. One or other party to the marriage (and not always the woman but that is far more commone) goes to join the lineage of the other spouse.

Secondly, since there are ideals placed upon and few efforts made to preserver and renew the marital bond, then if it were possible to leave ones spouse and still maintain ones all important bond with ones children, then the divorce rate would sky rocket.

FURTHER CULTURAL BACKGROUND
In the west, sex is taboo. Horror (generally male monsters) is related to the sexual (don't take a shower in a horror film), coitus and the penis, especially erect ones are most unholy and unsavoury. Since the garden of Eden, and that fig leaf, the penis is banished. But love, the most pure and everlasting love, remains. In Japan the womb is taboo. In horror monsters are women, who often have some motherly desire either towards their victims (who they drag into their womb) or the babies that they wanted to have. Since Izanagi escaped from Izanami and created a partrition hut (a hut on the hillside where Japanese women gave birth) the womb has been banished. And its place remains an idealised bond between parents and their children. It is because the Japanese idealise parent child love so much that they could not have it sullied in dual custody. It would be like suggesting to a westerner that they put up with a "divorce within the home." Since the bond between man and woman is ideal, it must be there, or seperate. There is no half way house of love. No limp bisket marriages for Westerners, no dual custody for the Japanese.

CONCLUSION
Divorce is damaging to the future prospects of the offspring of marriages that end in divorce, and it has a profound affect upon society. Westerners step on certain relationships and idolise others. The act of making ones baby sleep in another room from the (sacred) marital bed, from the age of a few months is something that Japanes find difficult to see in any way but brutal. As we have seen in this issue, the Japanese step on adults in order to maintain an idealised bond with parents.

When ideals and dreams collide, something has to be sacrificed. In order to confirm with Western culture, should the Japanese destroy theire own?

The Hague convention requires that a child be given the right to see both parents subsequent to a divorce, but I guess that the Japanese will reach some sort of compromise wherein dual custody will be recognised in international marriages but not in domestic ones. But then the fathers in Japan will have a ligitimate reason to complain (how come that gut gets to see his children whereas I do not?).

Wide Show Mock-up

2009-09-23T20:49:00.002+09:00

Wide Show Mock-up
Originally uploaded by timtak

A mock-up of a Japanese Wide Show (current affairs and entertainment program) emphasising the features that demonstrate timtak theory of Japanese culture: that Japanese culture is predominantly visual or imago-centric.

1) The faces of the commentators are seen displayed during the parts of the current affairs program that are filmed on location, so that viewers can SEE the expressions, and see the feelings that are being felt. (Yasuko's face, in the top right hand corner)

2) The Japanese is given subtitles so that the viewers can SEE what is being said.

American current affairs shows have a ticker tapish thing giving additional phono-lingistic information, and faces only when they are talking and often in side view.

The Poo Poo Song

2009-04-24T10:02:00.006+09:00

As mentioned previously, faeces are less taboo in Japan and Japanese people are more likely to discuss their faeces with members of their immediate family for instance. Presumably to encourage discussion and awareness of faeces, the Japanese Toilet Research Association has released a song and promotional video called "The Poo Poo Song" (or "faeces excercise dance") for which this image is a screen shot of the promotional video, which can be seen on Youtube.

The realease of the music was announed in this news article.

The music can be purchased here.　I have ordered a copy at ten dollars plus postage.

Where there is an English version, which can be previewed here. The English words are

How's your tummy, hows your poopy
Dr. Poopalot has this to say,
Chew your breakfast, chew it chew it
After breakfast poopy do,
Shiny poopy, rocky poopy, skinny poopy, slimy pooh
Shiny poopy, rocky poopy, skinny poopy, slimy pooh
Shine pooh is very healthy
when you....

The full Japanese words are listed here.

Hsirgne

2009-04-06T10:36:00.003+09:00

hsirgne
Originally uploaded by timtakA back-translation of a T shirt, with English-like writing on it, sold in Japan.

The original has

"Impact attack never give up
Hope wonderful woeld.　
And Peaceful.　
All peopel keep smiling　
Everyday.　
More & More.　
Fatastic.
Peace World."

Imagine if all the Tshirts on sale in clothes shops in the US or the UK had designs like the above. That is the situation in Japan. A large proportion of the Tshirts being worn and in the shops have English-like writing on them if they have any sort of print or patter at all. No one seems to think that it is in any way notable. It seems to me to be indicative of the fact that Western, particularly US, culture has become so desirable that Japanese people want to put its signs on their bodies. That the Japanese wear T-shirts like this suggests to me that Western culture is valued so highly that the same people probably also import Western culture into their minds.

イギリスかアメリカの店に入って、そこにあるTシャツの全てがこのようなデザインだったらどう思われるでしょう。日本人が着ているTシャツのほとんどは、上のようなものです。日本では特別視される事態ではありません。欧米、特にアメリカの文化がその表彰を体に一杯付けたいほど高く評価されていることを示唆していると思います。また、このようなTシャツを着ているのであれば、ここまで英語圏の文化が高く拝められるものであれば、欧米の精神的な文化（思想・価値観など）を心の中にも輸入していると思われるでしょう。

Percent of Japanese cars with cute dolls on the dash

2008-12-02T17:38:00.001+09:00

Percent of Japanese cars with cute dolls on the dash
Originally uploaded by timtak

About 25 percent of 71 cars in my university car park this morning had cute dolls on the dashboard. This percentage increased to 49 percent for light cars - which are often driven by women and are themselves cute - and 47 percent for those that also had a Shinto amulet on or near the dashboard of their car.

Shinto amulets are in a sense thought to be alive, containing the spirit of shrine at which they were purchased. They are for safety on the roads. It is thought that they somehow act as a "double" or "dummy" (migawari) in the sense that they draw the misfortune that the bearer would otherwise have experienced and bear that misfortune for them, a little like a material version of Jesus or Ambithaba both of whom are said to bear our sins.

It is not clear why it is those that like amulets also like dolls. Are the dolls also sacrificial? Do dolls contribute to road saftey? It would not seem to be due to an indirect effect of gender, since the amulets were found spread equally between the (more often male) non-light cars and the more often female light cars. Is it just that the those people that do not mind cluttered dashboards clutter them with dolls and amulets since it is these that are cultural favoured in Japan.

This phenomenon deserves further research.

You can see the dolls in the following photographs in my photostream.

The Throat Willy

2008-01-16T10:23:00.007+09:00

Originally uploaded by timtak

"Nodo-chinko" or "throat-willy,"is the informal Japanese word for uvula, the small pink dumbell that hangs down at the back of the throat; due its resemblance to the male organ.

The medical name is "口蓋垂" Kougaisui. "Nodo-chinko" does not appear in even a large only English-Japanese dictionary. There are however more than 12,000 hits on google for the Japanese word.

Another word is "nodo-chinpo" where chinpo is wang.

Of course, both men and women have nodo-chinko.

I can't imagine a British doctor using the simile even if a patient were not able to understand uvula.

Doctor: You seem to have an infection of your uvula.
Patient: I am sorry, Doctor, but what is an uvula?
Doctor: You know, your throat-willy.
Patient: My what?!
Doctor: The little pink wang shaped thing at the back of your throat.
Patient: [Exeunt]

I think that this is another illustration of the fack that the male organ is not as taboo in Japan as it is in Europe.

This image is from Wikipedia, relased under the GNU licence and was uploaded by KLEM.

By the way, you don't need an online PHD to know what an uvula is :-)

King Mukade

2008-01-03T11:39:00.002+09:00

King Mukade
Originally uploaded by El Fotopakismo

Mukade Venom
These things can be dangerous. To be safe, I recommend you seek medical attention if you are bitten by a mukade.

The American Trantula Society says
"Much has been alleged on the toxicity of centipede venom, but very little material on the subject has made its way into the scientific literature. As with tarantulas, this vast lack of medical reports on them more than likely indicates they are not medically significant. Like tarantulas, their perceived repulsive appearance by most people is probably the reason they are widely viewed as somehow dangerous and toxic. We do know that some of the larger centipedes, especially in tropical areas, can administer a painful stab, but none are known to be dangerous. All we can say for sure on the subject is that some can cause a painful bite, but that's absolutely all."

The English Wikipedia page says that there has only been one centipede fatality - a child was bitten on the head in a pacific island and even the Scolopendra gigantea (Giant centipedes) found in the Amazon and trinidad, are rarely fatal, only painful according to this case study paper. They seem to suggest (by extrapolation from mice) that the fatal does in humans is 1000 venom glands. Even if there are two venom glands per centipede, this would require being bitten by 500 of them. If you did not die you would probably want to. They summarise the effects as follows

"The most common scenario includes moderate to severe local symptoms associated with mild systemic symptoms. Local symptoms include pain, erythema, edema, lymphangitis/lymphadenitis, weakness, and paresthesias. Skin necrosis may occur at the site of envenomation during the weeks following the sting, but rarely becomes extensive and heals spontaneously. Systemic symptoms may include anxiety, fever, dizziness, palpitations, and nausea. "

and conclude

"Despite the striking appearance of the offender and the significant pain associated with a sting, treatment for centipede envenomation is essentially pain control and routine wound care."

However, most of the cases being that of one of the (centipede rearing) authors and none of the centipedes were mukade. There is however, at least one paper about mukade bites which reports that they can cause Korsakoff's syndrome!

You know they mean business when, unlike any other bug, they show no fear, and walk towards you.

I was putting on my wetsuit one chilly December afternoon when I felt a movement next to my thigh, my inner thigh. I knew what it was.

And it bit me. The pain was not so great as my panic as I felt it crawl down (could have been worse!) my leg, towards where the wetsuit was tighter and I thought it would bite me more. I used a knife to slit open the wetsuit to my calf, and when it escaped my friends dispatched it.

At first I thought that it had only given me a nibble. I had experienced a mukade nibble in the past, when I awoke to find one on my upper torso. Two red bite marks were all that were left. It did not hurt all that much nor had any ill after effect (Partly perhaps because I used alkaline - ammonia - on the wound).

And neither did it hurt all that much on that day, when a mukade shared my wetsuit.

I continued to wakeboard. The thrill of wakeboarding made me forget the pain. No worse than a bee sting I thought. But I was wrong.

The next day, or the day after that, my left thigh had swollen to about 1.3 times it size. This is no mean feat. I do not have thin thighs.

All the same I thought I would brave it out, and went jogging (I do this a lot). I thought I would flush the poison out with a good pump of blood with a little adrenaline. The leg around the bite became hard. By the third day I had a fever and was feeling generally weak.

I went to the doctor. They gave me antibiotics and antihystamines I think. They told me that had I come immediately after the bite I would have saved myself a lot of bother.

I was a 37 year old 70 Kg male. The mukade was not as big as the one in this picture. If your child gets bitten by one of these things, or if you get bitten on the neck, go a hospital immediately. Go to a hospital immediately anyway if you do not want to have serious swelling and general malaise. Who knows what would have happened had I not gone to the hospital at all.

I was only after I had posted the first draft of this that I realised that Todd Baker << technowannabe had kindly linked to another rendition of this story.

ASIDE
I find that incecticide does kill mukade if you douse them in it. But they do not die immediately.

This is hearsay but, I believe that a lot of incecticide uses the same active ingredient which is a nerve gas to bugs. It does something to their nerve receptors or somesuch, such that they loose, or gradually loose, muscular (if that is the right word) coordination. Flies sprayed with bug spray also go beserk in a way, changing course at even more regular intervals, bumping into things, flying upwards, dowards, upside down.

I seem to remember a mukade sprayed with bug spray loosing the coordination of its legs which, instead of moving in a controlled ripple, started to work all at once. The berserking mukade would probably have died. But in the meantime it went beserk.

I got good with chopsticks and developed an ability to drop them in a jar of oil. When I gave up on the oil (see the other post linked above), I just chopsticked them out of my house. Do not attempt to chopstick a mukade unless you are very confident with chopsticks.

Lacan and Anpanman

2007-10-17T12:39:00.006+09:00

Anpanman
Originally uploaded by SirPurple

Japanese infants, especially young Japanese boys, love Anpan-man. Anpan-man is a male cartoon character whose face is made of "Anpan," meaning bread (pan) filled with sweet, brown bean-paste (an). Anpan-man is a generally nice guy and a superhero in the sense that he can fly, punch mightily, and if the people he is helping are hungry, he can feed them his face, as shown in the illustration (right).

Japanese boys can become quite Anpan-man obsessed. There is a boy in my son's kindergarden that refers to himself as Anpan-man when asked his name. I knew a boy that repeated an "Anpanman" chant in an obsessive complusive fashion when he was nervous, perhaps.

What is this Japanese obsession with Anpan man?

Is there some connection with caniblaism, sacrifice, or self-sacrifice? Possibly Anpan-man has connections with all these things, even with the transubstantiation of the body of Christ, the Eucharist and Mass. After all, Anpan-man is made of a Western import, bread, and not rice.

However, I would like to suggest that the popularity of Anpan-man in Japan may have something to with Japanese boys wishing to identify with their mother. I suggest that Japanese infants want to symbolically suckle (give breast milk to) others. I got the idea for this because a certain Japanese male infant that I know wants to give his (non existant) breast milk to his father. This behaviour is not so strange in itself since young children tend to wish to copy their significant others. The boy in question likes to spoon feed his parents, brush his parents' teeth, and carry a briefcase, all in imitation of his parents.

All the same, the affection for Anpan-man among Japanese males is often obsessive. I suggest that Anpan-man provides the male infant with a imaginary means of identifying with his mother, even after he becomes aware of the fact that his own nipples do not give milk. He can imagine that, in some sense he is, like his mother, in some sense edible. By this manouvre, the Japanese infant manages to identify with his own corporeal objectification as body and image.

Jacques Lacan, the post-Freudian psychoanalyst, argues that infants tend to have two sorts of self-concept: "imaginary" and "symbolic". While it may be doing some injustice to Lacan, I understand these as being visual (imaginable) and linguistic. That is to say that infants come to identify with images that they have of them selves, and and also with the linguistic referent to which they refer to themselves: "I", or their own name. Lacan further argues that the latter type of identification is preferable and normal in Western culture - that we should grow up from identifying with our self-image to indentifying with our self narration. A great number of other "narrative psychologists" working independently, claim that it is intrinsically human to narrate oneself into existance, as the imagined hero of a novel of ones own self telling.

Lacan futher argues that this movement from imaginary to symbolic self identification is motivated in part by the social dynamic of the (Western) family. Mother is the imaginary, the visible parent, the parent with which the child identifies (before perhaps even with his own image in the mirror) visually. Father is the symbolic parent. Father is often absent, but somehow very important. Father is the parent that is narrated into existance for the child, through such statements as "this is your father." [In some societies is its an uncle that takes the role or position of the father. The father is a narrated existance. The "name of the father", his hallowed name, is what makes him a father.]

In the West, in the oediple triangel, the father wins. Lacan argues that children would like to maintain a strong relationship with their mother (to the point of merging even) but fortunately for their development, the father gets in the way of this relationship. The child finds himself repeatedly alone at night, left with only his mother's statement, "I am going to, I have to sleep with daddy." Or "I am daddy's".

The name of the father "daddy," becomse the name or prohibition of the father ("Nom or Non de Pere" -- Lacan makes a cheesy pun on "Nom" - "name" - and "Non" "no!" of the father) in that the arrivale of an awaress of daddy, also signifies an arrival of an awareness that baby will never be what mother really wants, the object of her desire. Instead, daddy, father is a signifier that refers to something that mother really wants, and reason why the infant can not have his or her mother.

After fretting around for a while, the Western infant gives up on trying to be a baby, gives up on trying to be bundle of cuteness that might almost have been the "phallus," the apple of his mother's eye, and instead, identifies with the winner in the triangle of love, daddy, the signified, daddy the linguistic entity. The child starts to identify with his or her name and the first person pronoun in the hope that this signifier also refers to an entity which has, or will one day have, that special something that can make mummy (or a surrogate mummy, a future wife) "mine".

In the West, that special something that daddy has is sexual. While insiting that it is not a real male sex organ , Lacan calls daddy's special something a "phallus". And it is the subject of taboo. I am not sure about Lacanian theory but in reality it seems to me that if the male sex organ were not taboo in Christendom, they would not be raised to the status of the ultimately desirable, and frightening object, that attracts mothers so effectively.

The above may (or may not) be useful when trying to understant out why Westerners identify with their self speech, or why sexual love is held in such high esteem, and yet taboo at the same time, in Western Culture.

Further, Freud and Lacan tell us that the child is "castrated," through the awareness that
1) Mother does not have a phallus
2) Neither does the child have a phallus now
3) That dad has a phallus
The child comes to think that the object of the mother's desire is elsewhere, hidden, daddy's. The phallus, that thing that will enable the child to be loved, is something that even a male child does not yet have. The child looks to the future and dreams of a time when he or she will have a partner, when he or she will have romantic love. Dreams of a time when he will have or she will be given, a phallus, that thing that (hell, why else would she be sleeping elsewhere?) mother seems to lack.

Freudo-Lacanian theory may be incorrect even regard to Western culture. Personally, I am rather persuaded by the Lacanian version. In Freudian theory humans (both adults and infants) are essentially sexual beings. In the Lacanian version it is the upbringing that results in the oh-so-very-high valuation of sex. The child is ejected from the mother's bed, left alone, and told to wait, to wait until one day it will have an opposite sex partner of its own. In the West is thought normal to rear (torture?) young children in this way. Young Western children cry themselves to sleep at night, but stop crying with the dream that one day, they too will have someone, in a sexual relationship of their own, to hug.

While I can see how this theory applies to the West, in my opinion it does not apply to Japan. Japanese parents sleep with their children! This fact needs repeating. Japanese parents let their children sleep in the parental bed until they are about 4 to 11 years old. Where do they have sex? Presumably, sometimes in front of their children! Sometimes, and I know Japanese that have testified to this, the children have watched. This watching is something that Freud claims is enough to drive children mad. But not, obviously, in Japan.

For reasons that I will not go into in this post, in my opinion (or theory of Japanese culture) the Japanese identify with visual self-representations, with the imaginary rather than the symbolic. Again, as argued in other blog posts, the Japanese place taboo on female sexuality, childbirth, rather than upon male sexuality, coitus, and upon the visual (think Sadako) rather than the symbolic. A reversal is going on.

It occurs to me that the awareness, among Japanese children, that the child does not have breasts, that work, that can feed others may represent a sort of castration, or rather mastectomy. This mastectomy does not result in an alienation from identification with the *object* of the mother's desire, but it results in an alienation from identification with the *subject*: mother.

Lacan stresses the child's desire to be the *object* of the mother's desire. A child in a Japanese family could continue to feel, and bearing in mind the love and affection that is lavished upon Japanese children, may often continue to feel, that they are still the prime *object* of their mothers desire. They can continue to feel that they are the "phallus"

However the Japanese child may feel alienated from direct identification with the mother as desiring *subject*. Love is not only about being loved. Love, as in Wuthering Heights for example, is also about identification with the other. "I am my Heathcliff" said Cathy in one of the most famous statements of the essence of love. Being the object of love is important. Being the subject, being the same as, merging with, feeling close, inseperable, bonded with the subject is also important.

For the Japanese child, the realisation of his or her own mastectomy (inability to breast feed), forces the Japanese child to realise that he or she is not the mother, distanced, other. "I can not feed," "I have no breasts". "I am not my/a mother"

Much as the child may attempt to identify with, , and succeed in being the object of his mother's love, he or she wil realise that the love relationship he or she has with mother is not satisfying. Mother loves the child, but is distant. Who wants to be a love object? Being loved is great. But think of being the object of lewd and lavcious love! Being a love object is also rejection.

At this point, for the female infant (as for the male infant in Western society) can dream of a time when she can be a mother, subjectively indentify, identify as subject, and sleep with her own children. For the male infant, however, the father may emphasise this seperation and offer a compromise.

In Japan, as far as seperating mother and infant goes, the role of the father is weak. The child sleeps between mother and father in "the river character" (the Japanese ideogram for river is three verticle lines with the shortest in the middle,), so if anything the child represents a rupture in the relationship between father and mother rather than the other way around. However, the father is not completely without a rupturing function, and the Japanese family is not entirely without "oedipus." The Japanese father reiterates the subjective-alienation of the child from mother, that is to say the father emphasise the fact that the child is not the same type of subject (a feeding subject) as his mother or father.

While basking in the love of, that is being the object of mothers and father's love, the child will also become aware that those two people (mummy and daddy) are parents, whereas I am not. By forming a even visual category ("parents," the-large-bodied) to which the child does not fit, the father serves to emphasise the fact that mother and child are not the same. The father proves that the child is a child, a subjectively alienated other.

The compromise?

According to Lacan, the compromise that the Western child reaches is to believe that he or she one day may have *or* get the "phallus", the object of mother's desire.

The compromise that the Japanese child may reach is to believe that they may eventually be the subject, subjectively united with mother by eventually being able to be edible, eventually being able to feed, or create. As Japanese children grow up they gradually become aware that parents are both in a sense edible, both parents are in a sense mothers. Mothers breast feed and fathers produce food through work.

Anpan-man is an imaginary step in this direction.

As an aside, the Japanese obsession with cooking programs, such as the Iron Chef is perhaps all part of the same compensation for the infantile mastecomy: "one day I will be able to feed people".

John and Yoko

2007-08-06T01:15:00.001+09:00

According to most sources, including the wikipedia article this photo was taken the morning of John Lennon's death. While I am a wikipedia fan,“taken in 1980 the morning before Lennon’s death,”doesn't sound quite right. I think that the interview for Rolling Stone may have been the day of his assasination, but was the photo?
I doubt the wikipedia assertion only because I also think that John Lennon commented on the photograph saying that it was great because summed up his relationship with Ono perfectly.
So unless Lebowitz also took a instant polariod too it is difficult to see how Lennon could have commented on the photo if it were taken on the morning of his death because the photograph would have not yet been processed (unless he was just commenting on the pose).
The pose says a lot. Lennon is like a foetus or at least a infant, stuck to, almost suckling, and anyway dependent upon Ono. Ono has her arms raised above her head - almost blase' of Lennon's affection - and her eyes slightly open (I think) while Lennon's are shut. This suggest something along the lines of rather absolute trust on the part of Lennon, and "looking out for us both" on the part of Ono.
Lennon was parted from his mother at an early age and raised by his maternal aunt. His mother lived not so far away but Lennon did not know that at first, presuming that the infrequency of her visits was because his mother lived a long way away.
In fact, after the disappearance of Lennon's father (a 'listless' sailor) his mother found another man, and just did not feel able to keep a child from a previous marriage with her new man.
I think that Lennon became aware of this truth (that his mother had chosen a relationship with a new man over himself) before his mother's death.
I think perhaps that Lennon's mother died in sight of Lennon in a automotive accident (hit by a bus??) as she left after one of her visits.
These circumstances, it seems to me, may have produced in Lennon a far bigger than usual oedipus complex in the Lacanian sense.
Freud argued that male children naturally want to have sex with their mothers. This seems silly to me, living as I do in Japan where children share the parental bed. (My son does not try to hump his mother.)
Lacan (an obscurantist twerp at times I think, but also brilliant) argued that (Western) upbringing results in the formation of the oedipus complex. That is to say that because (Western) mothers reject their infants and (mixing in Richard Schweder's "Who sleeps by whom") go and sleep in another room, infants gain the impression that the 'thing that daddy can do' must be wonderful, and wish that they could do it too. This, Lacan argued, results in the oedipal/sexual desire.
In the 'normal' Western household this is predominantly a result of bedroom arrangements, but in Lennon's case his mother opted for a sexual relationship to the extent of not just another bedroom but living completely apart, even to the point of death.
It is no wonder then that early Lennon was super Western and, echoing the pan-sexual-theorist Freud, was fond of saying "It's all dick (according to the movie "Back Beat" at least)."
Indeed, the Beatles, with their songs of sexual love, chanted the Western mantra big-time. "All you need is love." Or perhaps, all you need is a, or many, coital relationships.
But then John Lennon found Yoko Ono who, Japanese as she is, did not idolise sexual love. Even after all the bed-ins and the Ono arranged affair still loved him. This was the mother he always wanted. She was his rock, she looked out for the both of them, his trust was eyes wide shut.
Personally, I thin that Ono was a smidgeon upwardly mobile and don't believe in pure love myself. But I can appreciate Lennon's point of view.
Here is love. A beautiful photo.

Thick Soled Shoe

2007-01-29T00:47:00.001+09:00

Thick Soled Shoes
Originally uploaded by timtak.

Like a lot of women's fashion all over the world, from Kimono to coursets and at the extreem lilly feet, thick soled shoes are designed to show off and incapacitate the wearer to give her that gentile air of a valued product rather than a person. While not as painful as lilly feet, tendency to crush the feet of women in China in the past, I believe that there has been at least one fatality due to a fall from a pair of thick soled shoes.

As Suviko points out both these boots and the "ganguro" (sun tanned face to the point of being "black") style of some young girls over the past decade is going out of style. Why is this?

Perhaps it is an example of a reverse hemline rule. The hemline rule in economic theory states that the hemlines of women's skirts move up and down as the state of the economy moves from boom (hemlines up) to depression (hemlines down). This is perhaps because when the economy is good, women can afford to give away their booty, or at least a glipse of it for free, but when times are hard they must demand more dedication, more platonism, more love before they even show their knees.

The ganguro fashion was populare during the long period of depression in Japan from the late nineties to the early two thousands. On the face of it (no pun intended) having a heavily tanned, almost black face, made the fashion victims less attractive in a country that has valued the whiteness of women's skin (partly because white means that one does not have to work in the fields, partly because of a Western influence, as argued in a previous post). Thus Ganguro would seem to be making themselves *overtly* unattractive. The ganguro style was thus a very flamboyant defiance of norms of beauty, and may have been a demand for men who (as with a long hemline) are more dedicated, more loving. Perhaps also the platform shoe was an attempt to put the female form on a pedastle without excentuating sexuality that again demanded care and attention paid to the wearer.

This theory is unlikely to be popular since the long hemline is associated with a lady like purity whereas ganguro is associated with a radical lack of purity, but...this is Japan.

Ghost_with_open_arms

2006-08-23T20:44:00.001+09:00

Ghost_with_open_arms
Originally uploaded by timtak.

Hounen Tsukioka, The Ghost with Open Arms (1882), in the National Musemu of Japanese History.

Maruyama Oukyo was a Japanese painter known for realism and occasionally painting ghosts. The painter is rumoured to be the originator of representations of ghosts with no legs but I suspect that the tradition is far older. Ths shows the artist being shocked as a female ghost appears out of one of his own paintings, with the image coming to life.

I have two theories about Japanese culture
1) The internalised other of the Japanese self looks rather than listens - it is the imaginary other, an eye in the sky rather than the symbolic ear of the Other. Hence, the Japanese self is in the visual, rather than linguistic plane.
2) The tabu (and perhaps the tabooed other) of Japanese culture is upon the feminine rather than the masculine. Hence Japanese horror focuses upon horrible women, while Western horror largely focuses upon horrible men.

This photo, "The Ghost with Open Arms" links the two theories together.

It shows a horrible woman coming out of the imaginary plane, female horror coming out the image. This theme is surprisingly popular in Japanese horror.

Ringu, probably the most famous Japanese horror film of recent years features Sadako, a ghost or monster that emerges from the screen of a television set when playing a particular, haunted video tape.

Izakayayurei ("Ghost Pub", 1994) is the story of a publican who promises his dying wife never to remarry, and then when he does his first wife returns as a ghost. In an attempt to have the first wife's ghost return to the other world, they are entrusted with a traditional Japanese scroll drawing of a ghost (as is being drawn in the picture above can be viewed here) which is said to be a portal to the other world.

I think that there are a lot of ways that this might be explained. Freud, Mead and others claim that we must internalise the view of another in order to have self at all. The other of the self has to be hidden, for the self to be the object of identification. It is enevitable therefore that something needs to be hidded in the plane, domain, or medium of self-identification, but what? A hidden eye or ear? I don't think that there is any need for an image of the other but I am not sure.

I think that the tabu bears upon the medium, image or language, itself.

In order for there to be a human self, we identify with a self-represenation. But if we were aware that the self is only a representation, then we would not be able to identify. Hence, we must forget that it is only a representation. We achieve this by a tabuu on the medium of self represenation, pretendind that our favoured medium is essence in itself.

Hence Westerners are inclined to claim that self is the dialogue that the self holds with itself, that ideas (not words) exist in minds, that words cut nature at the joints, and that grammar can not be doubted (e.g. "I think therefore I am" is indubitable).

I wonder if Japanese people are similarly unaware of "the veil of perception." To what extent is everything that we see merely ourselves? This is a knotty question, and I don't think that there is a right answer. But those that see essence as idea, are inclined to believe that the world of vision ("res extensio") is a internal sensation and not "the thing in itself." Similarly in Japan perhaps, the word is seen as that chit-chat, and perhaps (a hypothesis) the image is seen to be out there and shared.

Thus the return of the medium, the return of the image in Japan, and the return of the phoneme in Western culture, might be felt ot be horrible. The Japanese are not afraid of images as entities, but of the return of the image as veneer or the horrible "tain of the mirror".

Does this form of horror also exist in Western culture, in the linguistic field?

Recently I watched the American horror film, Emily Rose about a woman possesed by demons. It bears a strong resemblance to "The Excorcist." However I did notice that a central feature of the excorcism ritual was the attempt to find out the names of the entities that were possesing the woman. They were all men of course. But what was the significance of finding out their names? Till then they had been voices. Perhaps by finding out their names, perhaps, the horrible voice (phoneme) can be returned to the realm of language. This naming of the beast, theme can also be seen in the animation of the Wizard of Earth Sea.

Perhaps there are also a prevalence of proffecies (language) coming true, horribly, in Western horror?

The Shining is a good example of the horror of words in the Western tradition. I was truly horrified to find that Jack's book was simply made up of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" written over and over again. I think that the repitition of the single phrase made the medium (the ink, the paper) return, allowing us to see it for what it is: a medium and not idea. And similarly at the climax, just before Jack says "Wendy, I'm home," his sun writes r3drum on the wall in blood, which is murder written backwards. This "redrum" may in a sense be the equivalent of Sadako in the ring, at first only "noise" a pattern of sound and images, becomes real...enter Jack with his axe.

The word God (some prefer to write G_d) is often tabuu, and that the ancient Jews wrote it without any vowels YWH (Yaweh) so as to make it more difficult to pronounce. Some people write G_d, to thise day. Do not use the lords name in vain, for fear that you may realise that he is but a name? And then of course there is John, dear John.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God....And the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, says John. But this was far from horrible. Perhaps the realisation that Jesus is the word e.g. Jesus as myth hypothesis, is this sort of horror.

Crates of Shouchuu Bottles

2006-08-10T07:30:00.001+09:00

Crates of Bottles
Originally uploaded by timtak.

This shows the side of a small street in Tokyo opposite an off licence (liquor store). I suspect that the corner of the road may be the private property of the shop even though it is covered in tar mac. The shop keeper is using this area as a place to keep his and his wife's scooters, and about 100 crates, each containing four empty shouchuu (see below) bottles.
I think that if someone left a large quantity of bottles on a street in London then some young men, returning from the pub would find it amusing to knock over the tower of crates and smash some of the bottles.

　Shouchuu is Japanese vodka. Containing only about 25% alcohol it is considerably weaker than Russian vodka. It is a distilled white spirit made from wheat, rice or sweet potatoes.

In the past Shouchuu was a working mans intoxicant. It was consumed with hot water for, the maximum bang per buck. More recently however the existance of a great number of provincial shouchuu distilleries with a low volume of production, has created a new market, rather that which exists for "fine wines" made up of customers who covet the distinctive flavour and aroma of the various provincial brands.

Would you be able to leave crates of bottles on a street in London?

Unlocked Mountain Bike

2006-08-06T15:39:00.001+09:00

unlocked02
Originally uploaded by timtak.

According to an OECD survey Japan has the second least crime of the 22 OECD coutnries surveyed, after Northern Ireland, as measured by the percentage of the population that have been a victim of crime in the past year - in japan 15.2% in Northern Ireland 15%.

More than 30% of Japanese victims where victims of bicycle theft. This is hardly surprising because a lot of people do not even lock their bicycles up!

This is a bicycle in Northern Ireland. Note the U Lock fixing the bicycle to a bench.
www.flickr.com/photos/rosinante/44258869/

While Japan has incredibly low rates of concrete, visible crime, it comes 18th out of the 22 OECD countries in terms of corruption. I am looking for figures on copyright infringement.

I argue that this disparity is evidents of the fact that Japanese people are very much aware of the gaze of others, to the extent that they have externalised a generalised gaze. This means that they feel bad about performing visible and imaginable antisocial acts such as all the crimes listed in the first OECD victimisation ranking. Westerners on the other hand have internalised the ear of the other such that we find it painful to perform acts which are difficult to narrate in a non antisocial way. Hence crimes of corruption which often involve reprimandable linguistic acts, are more painful, more likely to arouse feelings of guilt among those from the cultures of the religion of the book - the West (and the Middle East, I am not sure why they are fighting each other).

Wanting to be White

2006-08-06T15:22:00.001+09:00

It was not raining
Originally uploaded by timtak.

Many young, and not so young, Japanese women like to avoide ultra violet radiation and use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun. The day on which this photograph was taken was cloudy but bright. Japanese generally believe that it is more attractive to be white skinned and have a word "bihaku" (literally "beauty-white") to express the state and colour of someone who has not been out in the sun. In the UK we call it "pasty." Some Japanese also explain that it is unhealthy to go out in the sun, since its rays produce premature aging although this is probably a secondary, long term rationale.

Are You Riding a Stolen Bicycle?

2006-08-06T15:21:00.003+09:00

Not Stolen
Originally uploaded by timtak.

These Japanese police officers weres stopping cyclists at random, and checking that the id of the rider matched the registration of the bicycle over their walkie-talkies. In order to combat bicycle theft, bcicycle registration became a legal requirement about 8 years ago.

From a very brief survey of the people that the police were stopping and checking, it would seem that they were concentratiing on those riding the standard, cross bar-less, shopping bicycles (mama-chari - mum's bikes). This suggests to me that the majority of bicycle theft is of such bicycles for the purpose of riding them rather than for the purpose of selling them to a third party. There are quite a lot of expensive mountain bikes and road bikes parked with flimsy locks, or no locks at all. But there are even more shoppers, without locks or with easily breakable built in front wheel locks (which can be twisted so that they do not interfere with the movement of the spokes. These bicycles are about 100 USD new in Japan. They are often abandoned even by their owners and large numbers of them are seen at rubbish collection stations on those days when "large rubbish" can be thrown away. It is my perception that some Japanese people tend to see such bicycles almost as a communal resource. Some towns, such as my old town of Kurume, have organisations that provide bicycles - painted blue - at stations for free for public use.

Perhaps the OECD statistics regarding the rate of theft of bicycles and the fact that bicycle theft represents 30% of crime as experienced by Japanese.

Mirror in Shrine

2006-08-05T22:38:00.001+09:00

Sometimes when praying at a Japanese shinto shrine, one can see oneself reflected in the mirror at the back of the shrine. At other times one can see the reflections of those standing nearby, as in this photograph. I don't think that it is important that any one be reflected in the mirror. Indeed it is possible that it is better that the mirror is empty. There is a ooth in Japanese to the effect that God (kami) is a "mirror" (kagami) without "me" ( or self or ego = "ga"). I claim tha the mirror in the Shrine is of central importance for understanding Japanese culture and that the Japanese have internalised the view point of society as a mirror.

technorati tags:mirror

Oshare Majou (The Best Dressed Witch)

2006-05-22T11:01:00.001+09:00

turninto-whatJPG
Originally uploaded by timtak.

The Sega video game, "Oshare Majou Mahou Card" (Magic Card of the Best Dressed Witch), allows Japanese girls to turn themselves into well dressed dancing caucasians in the virtual.

Oshare means "dressed up" or "well dressed" but as well see, this is a competitive game so I have rendered it as "Best Dressed"

The official site is in Japanese.

The game seems to be a combination of a virtual version of the video dance game "Dance Dance Revolution," and virtual fashion using swipe cards, in a competitive format. Players purchase clothes which their virtual personas wear before taking on the computer or a friend in a battle of who is the most "oshare," where oshare means well dressed and cooly attractive at dancing. By pressing the keys in time with the music, the young lady with the best fashion sense (I am not sure of the criteria) and best moves, wins the battle of the Best Dressed Witch. Perhaps this information is stored on the swipe card. I am not sure.

The two girls are called "Rabu and Beri-" ("Love and Berry") often being appended to "RabuBeri" or "Raberi" ("lovely"). In their cartoon form these characters are pretty Mid Pacific as are many manga characters, with features that do not define them as being part of any race or nation.

Recently two caucasian models have been used to represent Love and Berry in some magazine adverts directed at young girls.

The game is enjoying immense popularity with cues of preteen girls and their parents forming at video arcades all over Japan.

Yaoi - No Mountains, No Valleys, No Meaning, Just Gay Sex

2006-05-14T17:11:00.001+09:00

Yaoi
Originally uploaded by timtak.

Perhaps these comics are young boy love, or perhaps they are Yaoi (the more pornographic version) I am not sure. Yaoi means "no mountains, no punchlines, no meaning," just gay sex. Or perhaps, following Erica Jong, "zipless" sexuality.

Yaoi comics are purchased by young women who find reading books about male-male romantic/sexual relationships, to be less embarassing and more interesting than reading about relationships between men and women. Most commentators suggest that this is because women are repressed and want to identify with males who have a slightly better, freeer, more expressive position in Japanese society. I think that this interpretation only slightly misses the mark.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, it seem that in Japan, expressions of *male* sexuality are not taboo, whereas any expression of female desire has been hidden since the beginning of time. Hence, when young girls want to read about romantic love and sexuality, they find man on man love and lust, pure and innocent and unthreatening.

There is method to this madness. I call it Japan as Lacan in the mirror.

Buddhist Scriptures Unread

2006-05-14T17:02:00.000+09:00

Buddhist Scriptures Unread
Originally uploaded by timtak.

Ruriko Temple Tower was built 600 years ago. There are more than 2000 books of Buddhist scripture ("Buddha's Bible' as per the guide) stored in the base.

This is the first time that the base of the temple has been open to the viewing public. Normally the only person to enter the temple is the priest who goes to extract one part of one volume of the scripture. For the rest of the time, all the information, all the philosophy held in this tower is treated as a holy relic. No one reads it. No one looks at it. It is just there.

Not only is Japanese Buddhist scripture "unread" I would go far as to say say that *anti-logocentrism* is a prominent feature of *Japanese* Buddhism or perhaps the Shinto-Buddhist syncretism that exists in Japan.

Zen Buddhism is quite clear about this. Zen buddhism claims (in lanaguage) to be the Buddhism outside of scripture (language). Zen Buddhists are not afraid of the liars' paradox, but slap it in the face.

And most Japanese lay Buddhists use the scripture not as something that explains why the world is as it is -- a mental structure confabulated by the minds of humans -- because to become so involved with the scripture would be to make another structure, another confabulation. Instead they *chant* thewordsthatclaimitisallaconfabulationandbydoingso...reach the empty, wordless, truth.

My bashing people over the head with Buddhist books photo set is "arguing" (by bashing) the or their authors are Cretians, right and wrong at the same time. Thus, rather than get all fussed about paradoxes, Japanese Buddhist priests just bash people over the head with the books, and be done with it.

But this is not news to Gnostics. In the beginning was the word. Before that there was the demi-urge. Or was it the Buddha?

Hard Gay Toy

2006-05-14T17:00:00.000+09:00

Hard_Gay_Toy
Originally uploaded by timtak.

"Hard Gay" is the name of a comedian or television personality who models himself on his idea of a male engaged in hard core homosexual activity. He wears a leather leotard, cap and dog-collar and dark sunglasses. His act seems to consist of demonstrating pelvic thrusts, spanking his bottom and encouraging other entertainers to do the same - sort of in the manner of an aerobics instructor- "Okay, every body, lets do some (hard gay) plevic thrusts now."

He appears to be popular among young children. This produced by TOMY is for preschool children.

The entertainer is, in real life, heterosexual. I think that it is important however that he is mimicing the sexual activities of male homosexual, since in Japan it seems, that while male sexuality are not taboo the sexuality of women is. Thus, in this and other situations, due to the absense of any female participation, portrayal of purely male sexuality, in the form of male homosexuality, is deemed fit for consumption even by children.

Since in the West, the severity of taboos upon male and female sexuality may be reversed, it is concievable that there is nothing more likely to cause offence than the portrayal of male homosexuality.

I do not think that the tolerance towards such portrayals has a lot to do with the tolerance towards real homosexuality in Japan today, at least according to small sample of gays that I have met. Today, I am told, it is not easy to be gay or come out in Japan.

****************************************************************************************
I meant to write about cultural differences, not about the reasons for negative reactions towards homosexuality in the West but I have. And since I have, I feel that I should say a bit more about what I am asserting; homosexuality in the West is doubly damned for being both homo and sexual:
1) "homo" as opposed to hetro and thus different, and just because it is different the object of prejudice
2) "sexual", in the sense of being related to sex act and thus associated with that which is often the object of taboo in the Western tradition.
But, I am sure that there are factors too, and all of them are unfortunate.