J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

The sound princes or oto-hime is a device for hiding the sound of ones excretions, which emits the sound of running water. It is made by the Japanese manufacturer Toto. Usually only available in women's toilets (hence my inability to take this photo so far) this one was in the disabled persons toilet. The sound continues, it says, for 25 seconds during which time the user would hope to finish their 'ablutions,' which, disguised by the sounds of running water emitted from this device might not have existed at all.

Since the beginning of time, according to Japanese mythology, the Japanese have endeavoured to hide the desire, sexuality, and nature of women so as to raise the feminine (or castrated feminine) to the level of 'social principle' (Kawai, 1982) or role model.

An as a result all the Japanese to a man, aspire to be a nice kind harmonious watashi a first person pronoun used by men and women, originally only indicating, the woman.

To this day the desire, sexuality, and nature of women is so taboo, so off limits, in Japan that Japanese women: read pornography only about men having sex with men; do not use tampons, use toilets hidden further than those of the gents, laugh behind their hands, wrap themselves in layers layers and of underwear, never suffer from flatulence, almost only use the back-channel in mixed-sex conversation, only moan "no," and use electronic sound-emission devices, such as that shown above to disguise and hide the terrible tinkle or splash.

And I mean terrible. When Japanese women show their true nature, they can often wither Japanese men with a glance.

The noise of the sound princess, and many of the other important meaningless noises emitted by Japanese culture (politician's crooning, sports-persons' shouts, Buddhist chants, pachinko cacophony, mid-day and evening come home Tannoy's, supermarket endless tapes, and New Year's temple bells) may have structural similarities with the Biblical fig leaf and the veil. The sound of the sound princess is a audio cover of female desire, as opposed to a visual cover of male desire.

Click here for YouTube Videos with the sound of the sound princess.

Kawai, H. 河合隼雄. (1982). 中空構造日本の深層. 中央公論社.

Labels: horror, japanese culture, matriarchy, nihonbunka, reversal, ring, ringu, tabuu, ホラー, 日本文化

The Japanese think that they are being collectivist but there is one simulated autoscopic gaze whose x-ray eyes they can cannot meet. Likewise, we Westerners think that we are only speaking to ourselves and our absent friends but there is one ear that we ignore. Paraphrasing Archimedes, "Give me a place to stand on, and I will make the Earth." Just one subject position hidden: that is all it takes to believe in a visual, or verbal (Kantian, ideal) world.

The need to hide the superaddressee is the reason why Westerners think they are individualists and Japanese think that they are collectivists. The horrific other can be hidden, as well as by being horrific, in one of two ways.

If the superaddressee is an ear then it can't be hidden publicly since one would need to go around talking out loud all the time. This is what children do at first (c.f. Vygotsky) but the content of the chanting that they do is too weird for them to keep doing it out loud. Once they start doing it quietly it does not take long before they think that they are talking purely and simply to themselves (but as Vygotsky demonstrates, children still in the talking out loud stage give up if put in a room full of foreign language speakers). Since we Westerners kid ourselves that we are talking only to ourselves, we claim that we are individualists. Individualism is a lie that helps keep the sin, that is so horrific, hidden.

If the superaddressee is an eye, then it emphasises its own duality be requiring space, or a gap, between the see-er and seen. The way that phonemes require a temporal gap is less obvious. Westerners imaging that it is possible to understand the living word in mind even as it is spoken in immediate "presence." To hide their sin, which is not nearly so disgusting since the superaddressee is less passive, the Japanese claim that they only care about the eyes of others. This allows them to forget that they are posturing to vast and scary Starman, or sun goddess. While, however, individualism is a lie since meaning is always transitive, it is in fact possible to be collectivist. In this situation the Japanese mirror is clean; the abject feminine can be washed from it. For this reason I believe, it may be necessary to be born again, as a Japanese, in the sense of someone who lives in the light, in order to be saved from the beast!

Kayako Saeki pictured above, always looks like she is trying to get out of the image, because like Sadako, she is. Furthermore she is not really modelled as a member of the crowd, with a face that can be seen from the front, but rather as or in the boundary of experience: the first person view of the subject. The Japanese, I believe, look out of her eyes. She is especially difficult to see because East Asians have smaller, invisible, noses like Gachapin!

Image of Kayoko Saeki copyright Aiko Horiuchi and Ghost House Pictures / Vertigo Entertainment

Labels: autoscopy, horror, japanese, taboo, tabuu, ホラー, 日本文化

If you tried to have a conversation with this lady you might mistakenly think that she is alll and humble lacking in individuality. She has dressed up her car interior in vivid pink, leaving the outside black with only a hint of weird. The Japanese have an X-ray eye that can see even into their hearts. No Japanese can meet its gaze and live.

Vip Style Magazine (July, 2015) p. 131

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