Friday, March 20, 2015
Food Autonomy in the Matrivisual
Not withstanding the superb research by Hazel Marcus (Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki, 2004; Markus, 2008; Markus & Schwartz, 2010; Savani, Markus, & Conner, 2008; Savani, Markus, Naidu, Kumar, & Berlia, 2010) on the way in which non W.E.I.R.D (White Educated Industrial Rich Democratic) (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010) persons are not so interested in making choices, it is my opinion that the cultural desire to exercise ones autonomy depends upon the medium or channel in which the choice is to be made.
"Choices" generally refer to verbal expressions, vocalised or thought. Westerners look at menus and make orders and people bring them things. Westerners like to do this. They feel that it increases their self-esteem, empowers them, and makes them feel like God, in whose image they were made, with the word.
The Japanese however often say "I'll have that too" copying the first person to order, and feel less desire to make choices as expressed in verbal orders for food. The Japanese even feel that making choices and orders to be a burden so that good service in Japan, as shown in the above video is often believed to be one in which the verbal choices are made by an expert host who serves his guests with the food that is in that season and locale, the most delicious, and it was indeed delicious and looked great.
But at the same time, the Japanese are very keen to express their autonomy in the visio-behavioural domain. For this reason it is another strong characteristic of Japanese food as served at Japanese restaurants, that it allows the patrons to make it themselves, there on the table according to their proclivities.
Making a sexist assumption, which I believe largely underpins these differences, Japanese restaurants allow and facilitate mummy-autonomy rather than daddy-autonomy. If you want to bark orders to a wife, do not come to Japan. If you want to be free to make food how you like it, then Japan is heaven. Strangely, among feminists, Japan has a bad press.
I also note that the Japanese creation myth or mix starts with what might be called celestial cooking. The first deities mix the 'oily' primal soup and make the first island by dripping salty water. Christians believe in and enjoy creation 'ex-nihilo' by vocalisation. Japanese enjoy creation ex-soup by stirring, and dripping -- a common creative trope in Shinto mythology -- and a lot of fun at the farewell party banquet table.
Notes
'ex-nihilo' is a lie, about a lie!
Bibliography
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61–83. Retrieved from http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X0999152X
Kitayama, S., Snibbe, A. C., Markus, H. R., & Suzuki, T. (2004). Is There Any ‘Free’ Choice? Psychological Science, 15(8), 527.
Markus, H. R. (2008). Does Choice Mean Freedom and Well-Being?. Presented at the International Society for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/651242
Markus, H. R., & Schwartz, B. (2010). Does Choice Mean Freedom and Well-Being? Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 344–355. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/651242
Savani, K., Markus, H. R., & Conner, A. L. (2008). Let your preference be your guide? Preferences and choices are more tightly linked for North Americans than for Indians. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(4), 861–876.
Savani, K., Markus, H. R., Naidu, N. V. R., Kumar, S., & Berlia, N. (2010). What Counts as a Choice?: U.S. Americans Are More Likely Than Indians to Construe Actions as Choices. Psychological Science, 21(3), 391–398. http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797609359908
Labels: choice, collectivism, cultural psychology, culture, feminism, hazel markus, japan, japanese culture, psychology, specular, theory, 宗教, 日本文
Monday, January 05, 2015
The Game of Life
My seminar student, Miki Fujimura, and I have theorised, in accordance with Naclanian theory, that Westerners and Japanese expect rather different things from the games that they play, and analysed computer games accordingly. Japanese computer games have a high level of fantasy in their depiction - their visual aspect is simplified and idealised to the point of heros becoming very look-alike styliszed "characters" (in the Mario/Kitty/Kirby-esque sense of the word) but they offer interesting, branching, story paths, that resemble life (like the Game of Life, or Sugoroku created by my wife pictured above). Sugoroku is a board game like sntakes and ladders, in which one rolls a dice to see which of the paths one follows to reach a destination. It has been created and played since at least the Edo peroid, whith the boards often representing a journey or tourism experience ending at mount fuji for instance. The game above shows routes ending at our houses and the local swimming pool.
Western games on the other hand, such as Call of Duty, aim for highly realistic visual depictions to the point where it almost feels like the game is visually real but simplified idealised stories where basically almost all of them consist in a battle-field where one shoots and kills a lot of enemies, and or drives fast, and that is it. That is to say the Japanese want realism in the linguistic (story) aspect of the game, but idealisation in the visuals, whereas Americans want realism in the visuals, but simplified idealisation in the story. In line with this, the area in which one can choose is also limited by their respective realism. While Japanese games (like the sugoroku above) have realistic stories one often is constrained by them.
In the game above there are different game paths but no choice as to which path one can take, which (like in "The Game of Life") is decided by the roll of a dice. One is however offered a wide in the visual aspect of the variety of characters that one can become. In Call of Duty, I predict that there is a wide variation in the routes one can take through the battlefield but I hypothesise that the number of people - in terms of their visual aspect - one can control is very limited.
Japanese games usually also provide an objective visual perspective on the player, seen from the outside. The Japanese player becomes the "impartial spectator" or "generalised other" of the stylised visual avatar that he controls. Japanese games mirror Japanese life. Similarly the Western player becomes the linguistic impartial spectatory or generalised other of the character that he controls, as we do in life, but I am not sure in what game phenomenon that this consists. I guess it is related to the way in which Western games are often equipped with headsets using which one can talk to other players. Verbally the Western player is - like the Japanese viewpoint on Mario- out of the action, ablel to say "Oh no I have just died," but experience his own visual death with the screen going red and or blank. Japanese can watch mario drop out of the screen, while their viewpoint remains visually immortal.
In addition to tourism, reviewed in the next post, this relates (Mr. Imamura) to the hopes and dreams that Japanese and Westerners have of the afterlife. Westerners (asterror management theory proves) aim for symbolic importality, to keep on talking or being talked about after they die. They want to become the fiction that they have lived. Japanese however, hope to live on in the visuals that they have created - primarily their offsprung- their grave, the picture hanging above the household buddhist altar and imagining themselves visiting and watch and protecting their family once or twice a year, at least at the festival of obon. The Japanese too want to become the fantasy that they have lived upon their death. Fame in the sense of name is far less important.
Come to think of it Ms. Fujimura has pointed to a great way of understanding Japanese and Western culture since each express themslves, their selves, their ideals, so vividly in their games. Thank you Miki Fujimoto.
Western games on the other hand, such as Call of Duty, aim for highly realistic visual depictions to the point where it almost feels like the game is visually real but simplified idealised stories where basically almost all of them consist in a battle-field where one shoots and kills a lot of enemies, and or drives fast, and that is it. That is to say the Japanese want realism in the linguistic (story) aspect of the game, but idealisation in the visuals, whereas Americans want realism in the visuals, but simplified idealisation in the story. In line with this, the area in which one can choose is also limited by their respective realism. While Japanese games (like the sugoroku above) have realistic stories one often is constrained by them.
In the game above there are different game paths but no choice as to which path one can take, which (like in "The Game of Life") is decided by the roll of a dice. One is however offered a wide in the visual aspect of the variety of characters that one can become. In Call of Duty, I predict that there is a wide variation in the routes one can take through the battlefield but I hypothesise that the number of people - in terms of their visual aspect - one can control is very limited.
Japanese games usually also provide an objective visual perspective on the player, seen from the outside. The Japanese player becomes the "impartial spectator" or "generalised other" of the stylised visual avatar that he controls. Japanese games mirror Japanese life. Similarly the Western player becomes the linguistic impartial spectatory or generalised other of the character that he controls, as we do in life, but I am not sure in what game phenomenon that this consists. I guess it is related to the way in which Western games are often equipped with headsets using which one can talk to other players. Verbally the Western player is - like the Japanese viewpoint on Mario- out of the action, ablel to say "Oh no I have just died," but experience his own visual death with the screen going red and or blank. Japanese can watch mario drop out of the screen, while their viewpoint remains visually immortal.
In addition to tourism, reviewed in the next post, this relates (Mr. Imamura) to the hopes and dreams that Japanese and Westerners have of the afterlife. Westerners (asterror management theory proves) aim for symbolic importality, to keep on talking or being talked about after they die. They want to become the fiction that they have lived. Japanese however, hope to live on in the visuals that they have created - primarily their offsprung- their grave, the picture hanging above the household buddhist altar and imagining themselves visiting and watch and protecting their family once or twice a year, at least at the festival of obon. The Japanese too want to become the fantasy that they have lived upon their death. Fame in the sense of name is far less important.
Come to think of it Ms. Fujimura has pointed to a great way of understanding Japanese and Western culture since each express themslves, their selves, their ideals, so vividly in their games. Thank you Miki Fujimoto.
Labels: blogger, choice, cultural psychology, Flickr, game, Nacalian, nihonbunka, reversal, theory, 日本文化
This blog represents the opinions of the author, Timothy Takemoto, and not the opinions of his employer.