J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

Someone asked on Quora what do foreigners misunderstand about Japan. I answered as I always do that Foreingers at least since Ruth Benedict (1946) think that Japanese shame is external, imposed on them from the outside, when in fact the Japanese live in the sight of the Sun God, Amaterasu, or Otendou-sama (Funahashi, 2008) who watches from within their hearts.

This explains why for instance, the Japanese do tidy up not only football stadia (even when their national team loses) but also tidy up in the privacy of their hotel rooms (Funahashi, 2008, p.166) and toilet cubicles which they leave as if unused, contra non-Japanese guests.

Conversely it is because Japanese care about how things look from a special perspective in their hearts, NOT from the point of view of other people, which is the reason why Japanese cities are a bristling, bubbling morass of individuality as opposed to rows of houses all looking the same.

The above images are the Google image search results, at half size, for:
I Top) British public toilet inside
2) Japan public toilet inside
3) Tokyo Street
4) London Street

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Labels: collectivism, individualism, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 個人主義, 日本文化, 集団主義

The sign reads "I am, because you are" or "You are, so I am," which is the philosophy of interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1981), or ubuntu, in a nutshell.

Note however that this Japanese interdependence is in the world of speech. The second line reads, "Lets hail each other, and thereby, together do our best." This the above is a slogan encouraging greetings such as "good morning" and "g'day" which the Japanese favour even more than Crocodile Dundee. In the world of language, the Japanese subject, their "I" is "you for you" (Mori, 1999, p.163 complete quote again below).

The interdependence of the Japanese visual self is a little more nuanced. The visual self-encourages and requires an awareness of the social nature of self, and interdependence due to the scopic necessity of focusing upon a surface. This ostensible 'externality' convinces even the Japanese that they are out and out collectivists.

But in the Japanese case, they also believe that the 'the kind old sun is always watching' (See e.g. Akagawa, 2015). Their belief gives them a good measure of independence, and Morality with a capital M. Even if 'everyone else is doing it', the Japanese avoid doing things that look bad because the kind old sun can see them, and they'd feel her displeasure should they do ugly things.

Akagawa, J. 赤川浄友. (2015). お天道さまは見ている. 国書刊行会.
Mori, A. 森有正. (1999). 森有正エッセー集成〈5〉. 筑摩書房.
扨（さ）て私は、「日本人」において「経験」は複数を、更に端的に二人の人間（あるいはその関係）を定義する、と言った。それは一体何を意味しているのであろうか。二人の人間を定義するということは、我々（日本人）の経験と呼ぶものが、自分一個の経験にまで分析されていない、ということである。換言すれば、凡ての経験において、それをもつ主体がどうしても「自己」というものを定義しない、ということである。肉体的に見る限り、一人一人の人間は離れている。常識的にはそこに一人の主題、すなわち自己というものを考えようとする思惑を感ずるが、事態はそのように簡単ではない。それは我々において、「汝」との関係がどれほど深刻であるかを考えてみればある程度納得が行くであろう。もちろん「汝」ということは、日本人のみならず、凡ゆる人間にとって問題となる。要はその問題のなり方である。本質的な点だけに限っていうと、「日本人」においては、「汝」に対立するのは「我」ではないということ、対立するものもまた相手にとっての「汝」なのだ、ということである。私はけして言葉の綾をもてあそんでいるのではない。それは本質的なことなのである。「我と汝」ということが自明のことのように、ある場合には凡ての前提となる合言葉のおうに言われるが、それはこの場合当て嵌まらない。親子の場合をとってみると、親を「汝」として取ると、子が「我」であるのは自明のことのように主和得る。しかしそれはそうではない。子は自分の中に存在の根拠をもつ「我」でなく、当面「汝」である親の「汝」として自分を経験しているのである。Mori, 1999. p.163

Labels: culture, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 日本文化

The United Nations publishes a world happiness report based upon data from a Gallup survey, ranking countries according to their level of happiness. The Danes game out top. The Japanese were 53rd, one third of the way down the 150 or so countries, which is irregular bearing in mind their high GDP per capital with which "happiness" is shown to correlate.

It transpires however that the Gallup survey does not measure anything I recognise as happiness at all. The actual, and single, question that determines national happiness is as follows.

“Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” (From the statistical appendix of the report)

(In my Japanese 「０」という一番下の段から、「１０」という一番上の段のある梯子を想像してください。一番上の段は、あなたにとって自分の一番よい人生で、一番下の段は自分の一番悪い人生を表しています。今現在、梯子の何番目の段に立っていると感じるといえるでしょうか？)

While the notion of a variety of lives, and the possibility of my being able to live any other life but the one I am living is a little fraught, it is at least imaginable. I might never have left the UK. I might have married someone else, etc.

As the famous song by Chiyoko Shimakura goes, people lead and we all could have lead a variety of lives. Life is varied. And by implication in the song, while life has its ups and downs, it is all good.

The notion on the contrary that these lives could be ranked and arranged in a vertical hierarchy with the "best life" at the top and "the worst life" at the bottom is far more difficult to grasp. It seems to me that certain negatives accompany positives (such as the envy of others with success), and positives with negatives (such as emotion, and humility with suffering).

That this imaginary vertical ranking of lives transpires to correlate - in most instances - with wealth may be because it is in fact encouraging respondents to economically appraise their own lives, ranking it in quantitative terms -- "I've done okay" "I've done well" -- in none other than in dollars and yen. In any event the suggestion that this one question plumbs the depths of national well-being or that it should be used to guide political policy seems to be to be quite absurd, especially in view of the way in which Westerners answer such questions in so unrealistically positive ways. But alas, this and similar measures are being used to inform political policy and the need for public spending. We are not high enough on the ladder. So, do we need to spend more?

The ladder of life does not exist so we should give up trying to climb it.

The above image contains a detail from a still from Chiyoko Shimakura's video for "Jinsei Iroiro" (Lit "Life Variety" or "Life has its Ups and Downs").

Labels: blogger, culture, Flickr, happiness, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 日本文化

This excellent video, not taken by me, shows the Japanese tradition of having school students serve food to each other in classrooms. This encourages them to be cooperate and grateful for the efforts of others that which might otherwise (in school canteens for example) go largely unnoticed. It is a tradition that is carried out in pretty much every school in Japan, and a wide variety of festivals (Uni campus festivals are essentially cooking and providing food) television shows (such as Smap x Smap and many others), and Japanese shabu shabu, monja yaki, okonomi yaki, yakiniku, and other restaurants where the customers are given the "opportunity" to cook for themselves and sometimes the people they are with. The origin of this tendency lies at least partly in the fact that Japan is a matriarchy where people are much more likely to want to behave like mummy, the most powerful parent within the home, who makes everyone food. In the UK, which is far more patriarchal, food preparation is more often considered something rather naff that we often leave to immigrants, to the point where we find it difficult to say what British cuisine is.

Labels: japanese, japanese culture, matriarchy

I thought "Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages" was a Japanese commentary on Western culture personified in "Hoopa, the hooper that could not loop" (my subtitle).

Hoopa has two forms (as do many Pokémon), and as are believed to exist in the Buddhist view of ourselves: the small (unenlightened) and large (enlightened) self. We see the giant form of Hoopa first who uses giant hoops to move (or steal) things from anywhere in the world. Hoopa's power rests in this telekinetic ability. Herein lies the first parallel with Western culture. The Japanese have a bit of a tendency, in my limited experience, to see the British and their descendants as thieves, or "vikings" as they tactfully put it, conquering the world and taking it home. The seven hoops of Hoopa (one around each of his six arms, and one around his waist) may correspond to the sense of Buddhism (although there is one too many) which include the sense of the heart. From some Japanese points of view Westerners look upon nature and the world as a source of things to take, rather than as something with which one feels in harmony, to an extent unified.

Hoopa finds himself internally conflicted and unable to evolve into his large self who remains trapped in a bottle by a religious organisation that bears more than a passing resemblance to Judeo-Christianity. From a Japanese perspective Western culture separates God and humankind whereas in Japan, the enlightened, a supreme martial artist for instance, becomes one with God or the Buddha - which tend to be seen as the same things.

This inability to evolve into his large self, and being in conflict with it, parallels Hoopa's inability to pass through his own hoop. As we have seen Hoopa has six hoops (plus one around his body) that he uses to move or plunder the cosmos. He seems partially able to pass through one of his hoops (the one around his middle) but unable to pass through any of his others.

This inability to pass through his own hoops is due to Hoopa's lack of gratitude. Through his experience of growing up once again as small Hooper, however, Hoopa learns to love and feel gratitude and finally, when he does this he is able to pass through one of his own hoops. In this sequence, before the triumphant auto-looping-hooping the hoop, and overcoming self-conflict, Hoopa imagines himself growing up and all the love he has received. This introspection - literally seeing himself - works on a lot of levels as the defining characteristic of Japanese culture. The Japanese believe their heart to be a mirror, are found to literally have a mirror in their heart, they are (through the practice of Noh and Karate forms) able to see themselves from a perspective outside, and use this ability to see themselves from the points of view of others. Autoscopy is also especially noticeable in the last letters of suicide pilots and the Japanese version of psychoanalysis: Naikan therapy.

This self-seeing, or self perception may be what the whole "Pocket Monster" mythology is about as represented by the Pikachu Satoshi Diad. There is a monster within us, sitting on our shoulder, who sees us, but at some level, or in some way, Satoshi and Pikachu are one. Perhaps in a final Pokémon movie this fact will be revealed. Or perhaps it already has. I have only seen two Pokémon movies.

Reading perhaps far too much into the iconography, it seems proper that Hoopa should be appear from out of one of his hoops (little Hoopa), have hoops on his ears (little Hoopa) or have one of his hoops as a hole at his centre (Big Hoopa) since Westerners do feel able to perceive themselves, linguistically. Only being able to perceive ourselves through this especially dark mirror, we are able to wreck destruction on an unparalleled scale, believing that anything that can be linguistically justified is acceptable. Hence a Briton feels able in saying that the British enforced importation of narcotics into China, for more than a hundred years, was acceptable because "the Chinese chose to smoke (opium). Or, in my experience, Americans (and others from the allied nations) generally continue to approve of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as just since 'the Japanese started it.' It is only when one starts to see oneself, hear the crying children, smell the stench of results of what one does, it is only when one passes through other hoops, that such justifications become untenable. We need to learn other forms of insight fast.

Hoopa learns gratitude, becomes able to perceive himself, is no longer conflicted, walks in the light, or becomes Japanese, in harmony with, not apart from the world. In the last part of the movie giant Hoopa spends his time rebuilding that which he has destroyed, only plundering the occasional doughnut.

I was moved by the compassion with which Hoopa the destroyer was viewed. Even though he destroyed the humans that fed him, Hoopa was not punished with death, but merely part of him kept in a bottle, since after all, as grandfather says, Hoopa is one of the family.

(I have a Japanese family, and lack gratitude, so this notion moves me to tears.)

Labels: autoscopy, cultural psychology, culture, japan, japanese, nihonbunka, occularcentrism, self, specular, 日本文化

"Proactive interference" (Wickens, 1973) is jargon for the way in which it gets more and more difficult to remember sets of the same type of stimuli, since previously remembered sets interfere or confuse.

"Release from proactive interference" (Wickens, 1973) describes the way in which after a series of similar memory tests one is given a novel set of items to remember, then ones short term memory returns almost to fresh, first test or second test levels, since the novel stimuli are not confused or "interfered with" by the previous tests sets.

"Release from proactive interference" between visual and audio modalities, mentioned previously, is only found, in Western subjects, when moving from audio to visual stimuli and not when moving from visual to audio stimuli (Hopkins, Edwards, Tamayo, Holman, & Cook, 1973).

In other words, if Western subjects are given three memory tests with three pictures of fruit followed by a memory test using fruit words, their performance does not return to previous levels.

But if Western subjects are given three tests using fruit words, and an a fourth with pictures of fruit their performance does improve to previous levels.

The reason for this asymmetry may be due to the fact that, even when shown pictures of fruit, Western subjects are likely to think, or hear themselves speak (Derrida), the words for the fruit, so that their short term memory of fruit words is being depleted ('proactively interfered' with) even in the visual pre-test condition.

In the case where Western subjects are first given fruit word memory tests however, the Western subjects may not generally imagine the fruit corresponding to the fruit words, so if on the fourth trial they are shown fruit images, these images are felt to be novel stimuli, that are not "proactively interfered" with by the previous verbal trials.

I predict that Japanese may show the reverse pattern in that moving from audio fruit words to visual fruit pictures may not result in a "release from proactive interference" since in the audio condition Japanese may imagine the fruit that is presented in words.

However in the visual pretest condition, the Japanese may not bother to say the words for the fruit to themselves (see Kim, 2002 for evidence), so if the fourth trial is of fruit words, then they may show a release from proactive interference -- an improvement in recall -- since the fruit words will be felt to be novel stimuli.

This would be easier to test than self-related stimuli.

The test response method (getting subjects to say or draw the fruit) and distractor task between trials (getting subjects to add visually and verbal presented digits) may also confound results.

Interestingly a mixed audio and visual filler task (adding visually presented digits) produced the same results as an audio tasks adding orally presented digits. Again, I think that this is because Western subjects would be likely to self-speak the images of digits, so images are always mixed mode for Westerners. Following the reasoning in Kim (2002) the same may not be the case in Japan. According to a Nacalian transformation, a mixed filler task would be equivalent to a visual filler task since Japanese will provide the visuals when presented with oral stimuli. Oral stimuli are likely to be always mixed mode for Japanese.

I wonder if there is pre-existing Japanese research on this paradigm, and whether a reversal has already been found. Or whether the same tendency was found. No this paper (Hopkins, Edwards, Tamayo, Holman, & Cook, 1973) seems to be cited only three times, and only by researchers in the West. Searching for the authors surnames and Japanese keywords likewise yields no hits.

Addendum
There is some Japanese research by Tadashi Fujita (Fujita, 1995; 藤田正, 1985, 1988) and the results are not good from the point of view of my hypotheses.

In the main the research I have found is not testing audio visual modality shifts and repression of proactive inhibition but in the one article which did investigate modality (Fujita, 1995), to a degree, by looking at the way in which kanji characters interfere with each other, it was found that similar kanji pronunciations do result in proactive interference (suggesting that Japanese do not process kanji by image alone, as is well known) whereas different pronunciations result in a release from proactive inhibition. And even worse for my hypothesis, changing the radical of kanji did not however result in a release from proactive interference, whereas semantic differences between tests did. This suggests, contra my hypotheses, that Japanese are thinking in phonemes and semantics (meaning) more than purely in kanji morphology. In a more recent paper (Fujita, 2007) it was found that Japanese (kun) reading of the kanji has more effect than the Chinese (on) reading.

I would be more interested to know what happens when Japanese remember non linguistic images or icons, other than kanji. Fujita's research used a different methodology, with successive tests being in the same or different groupings rather than three tests in the same followed by one in a different group.

Bibliography
Fujita, T., & others. (1995). Buildup of proactive interference in Japanese Kanji learning. Retrieved from near.nara-edu.ac.jp/handle/10105/703
藤田正. (1985). 順向抑制の形成に及ぼすリスト類似性の効果. Retrieved from libneardspace.nara-edu.ac.jp/handle/10105/2221
Fujita, T. 藤田正. (1988). 順向抑制の形成に及ぼす隣接試行の類似性の効果. Retrieved from dspace.nara-edu.ac.jp/handle/10105/2042
藤田正. (2007). 訓主漢字と音主漢字の記憶における分散効果. Retrieved from dspace.nara-edu.ac.jp/handle/10105/637
Hopkins, R. H., Edwards, R. E., Tamayo, F. M. V., Holman, M. A., & Cook, C. L. (1973). Presentation modality and proactive interference in short-term retention using a mixed-morality distractor task. Memory & Cognition, 1(4), 439–442.
link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBF03208905
Kim, H. (2002). We talk, therefore we think? A cultural analysis of the effect of talking on thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
doi.org/10.3758/BF03208905
Wickens, D. D. (1973). Some characteristics of word encoding. Memory & Cognition, 1(4), 485–490. Retrieved from link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03208913

Labels: cultural psychology, culture, japan, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 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

Ball and Torrance (1978: see Kim, 2002) demonstrated that the Japanese can visualise inside things. Since as demonstrated by our research they have a sort of mirror in their heart (Heine, Takemoto, Moskalenko, Lasaleta, & Henrich, 2008) their internal visualisation ability applies to their underwear, car interiors and hearts. This self directed eye is not something that the Japanese are fully aware of, but is rather the eye of the Other of the Japanese self, their super-ego which also prevents them from writing graffiti in toilet stall, or robbing people even in the dark. The eye in the Japanese sky sees inside things, and in infra-red too, but perhaps not quite so well. Tthe Japanese do tend to get a little more boisterous at night, and there is a division of what one is and is not allowed to do before and after sundown - specifically drink alcohol.

Image bottom left from Vip Style Magazine (July, 2015) p. 131
Image bottom right copyright 株式会社雅
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Ball, O. E., & Torrance, E. P. (1978). Culture and Tendencies to Draw Objects in Internal Visual Perspective. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 47(3f), 1071–1075. doi.org/10.2466/pms.1978.47.3f.1071
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(7), 879–887. Retrieved from www2.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/docs/2008Mirrors.pdf
Ball, O. E., & Torrance, E. P. (1978). Culture and Tendencies to Draw Objects in Internal Visual Perspective. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 47(3f), 1071–1075. doi.org/10.2466/pms.1978.47.3f.1071

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(7), 879–887. Retrieved from www2.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/docs/2008Mirrors.pdf

Labels: authenticopy, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 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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Labels: autoscopy, horror, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, occularcentrism, ホラー, 日本文化

The image on the left is from a book recommending Nudism to Westerners, in an attempt to "grow up without Shame". The genitals have been by me blurred to conform with current Japanese law. The image on the right is from Nakao (2010) "Since when did the Japanese find being naked embarrassing" and is one of the sketches by Heine in Admiral Perry's impressions of Japan at the end of the Edo period. According to Nakano (2012) and for that matter Isabella Bird, the Japanese did not have anything against the display of genitals until shocked Westerners arrived.

The Japanese did have words about the separation of the sexes however. It was said that Japanese males and females should only "share seats" (sit together) up to the age of 7 (Nakano, 2010, p. 18 「男女７歳にして席を同じうせず」) and that among samurai talking (yes!) to the opposite sex was avoided with males and females being kept strictly apart in the Edo period. （武士では男女が言葉すら交わすことも憚れた時代、男女の別厳しく問われた時代ではなかったか。」ibid).

I wonder if the Western nudists achieve their aim of growing up without shame. I went to a boarding school and managed to cease from being ashamed of my body, especially when as a late developer I had no pubic hair and a small penis compared to my peers. My shame was so great that I think that in order to beat it I had I no longer identified with my body at all. I can remember that the greatest time that I felt shame was when a house master, a father figure of sorts, came into the boys showers when I and some of my peers were there.

I guess that if the Japanese were in gaze of a mother then they would not feel ashamed, and it is only because the gaze felt is somewhat sexualised, that one might feel ashamed at all. Since Westerners feel shame towards their nudity and guilt about their moral behaviour, and Japanese felt shame about their moral behaviour but no shame or guilt about their nudity.

Does this suggest that a reversal therefore of the parent that looks and listens. As a boy I used to imagine that my father was watching, and cheering, me when I ran in cross country races.

Hypothesis

West it is felt that there is a
Motherly ear listening (according to Freud and Derrida at least)
Fatherly/Male gaze watching (which would make sense explaining the reason why nudity is so shameful)

Japan it is felt that there is a
Motherly gaze watching (hence the absence of shame towards nudity, since the mother gaze is non sexualised)
Fatherly/Male ear listening (hence the strictness with regard to talking to the opposite sex).

In my lectures I make Japanese men and women, who do not otherwise sit together, sit and talk to each other. What a Westernising devil! Perhaps I should cease and desist.

If anyone wishes I cease and desist with regard to the image on the left please leave a comment below or email me via nihonbunka.com.

Nakano, A. 中野明. (2010). 裸はいつから恥ずかしくなったか―日本人の羞恥心. Tōkyō: 新潮社.
Bird, I. L. (1880). Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An Account of Travels in the Interior Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikkô and Isé. J. Murray.
Smith, D. C., & Sparks, W. (1986). Growing Up Without Shame. Elysium Growth Press, book.

Labels: japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, occularcentrism, sex, 日本文

When the centre of gravity of your self (Dennet, 1992) is your face (Watsuji, 1935/2011) then the discovery of the visually spectating other in your psyche, hidden in the eyes of others, or the eyes of the world (seken) or the sun, returns one to a dead image. In Japan the dead are images but the Japanese, like Westerners, are not aware that they are, as images and voices respectively, we are already dead. Barutan Seijin (the alien from Barutan Star has a ray that freezes people. Sadako turns her victim silent and negative with her gaze. Kayako drags people into mirrors or into photo developer. In all cases the victim is dragged back into the image.

Visual spectators are more active than linguistic ones and can kill just with a stare. They also tend to silence their victims rather than turn them into a scream. The the scream of frozen team member (taiin) in Ultraman (as well as Ultraman himself), and that of Sadako's victim are silent, whereas Kayako's victims do not bother to scream. They know where they are going.

Being of the "imaginaire" (Naclanianly, Lacan) Japanese monsters do not speak but make noise like this.

Dennett, D. C. (1992). The self as a center of narrative gravity. Self and consciousness: Multiple perspectives.
Watsuji, T. (2011). Mask and Persona. Trans. Carl M. Johnson. Japan Studies Review. XV, 147-155. In English https://asian.fiu.edu/projects-and-grants/japan-studies-review/journal-archive/2011.pdf In the original Japanese http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001395/files/49911_41926.html

Labels: horror, japanese, japanese culture, 日本文化

Japan seems to have a bit of a poor reputation among its foreign residents for having paedophillic tendencies based upon the Japanese preference for young female stars (see comments here for example). Is this reputation fair? The graphs on the left from Kenrick and Keefe (1992) for Americans, top, and Oda (2000), based on analyses of lonely hearts advertisements show that Japanese have only a slight preference for younger women in the case of older Japanese men. American 50-somethings advertise for women over about 35 whereas Japanese 50 sometimes (8 years later) advertised for women over 30. At younger male ages the differences in age preference between Japanese and Americans is minimal.

What then of the prevalence of very young women appearing as scantily clad "idols" on Japanese television and in magazines? The important difference may be that they are not real. Buunk, Dijkstra., Kenrick, and Warntjes (2001) surveyed Americans to regarding their stated minimum age preferences for marriage partners, relationship partners, someone with whom one could fall in love, partners in a causal affair and sexual fantasy partners. They found that only those males in their twenties saw women below twenty as a potential partner even in a fantasy (approximately 18). Bearing in mind that the average age of AKB48 was approximately 22 years, they would seem on that basis of appropriate age for a US band. The average age of the HTK28 idol group based in Fukuoka was however 13.8 at their formation and 16.6 more recently. This is lower than any of the stated ages in the above American male focused research (Buunk, Dijkstra., Kenrick, and Warntjes, 2001) .

An important point may be however that Japanese "idol" groups stress their purity -- they are fired if they have a relationship -- and it is argued that they may be thought of under the literal meaning of "idol," an object of veneration or worship, and not a potential partner of any kind. On the other hand however, the particular appeal of the recent spate of XYZ48 idol groups is that they appear on stages and even shake hands with their fans. They have brought a greater degree of reality to the idol genre (Nishio, 2013, p90). Even so this may mean that simply, like shrine visiting, the fans now can get up close to their idols in the literal sense. It may still be the case that they are not seen as partners in any kind of fantasy, but that they are in a sense child gods. Indeed the depiction of children as gods in Japanese festivals has a long tradition.
 
The truth is that I do not have data on the extent to which fans of idols see them purely as objects of veneration or partners but the difference in attitudes reflects a massive difference in cultures.

www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/one-finali...
11歳のAKBメンバーが登場したことについての英語話者のコメント
No. Wrong. Stop. Now.　いや！悪い！止めろ！今！
twelve years old do those creepy predatory bikini pics　12歳でビキニ姿の卑怯で強奪的な写真も撮る
Sick...病気
The utter debasement of a child.子供の心を踏み潰している
what the f. are the parents thinking?　両氏は何を考えているだろう？
Disgusting! This is soft kiddy porn. If the fans were the same age it would not be a problem but the fans are older men!　ぞっとする！これはソフトな児童ポルノ。ファンが同じ年齢ならまだしも、しかしファンがおやじだ。
The peadophiles who watch these girls will be so happy!
AKBを見るのは、小児愛者・子どもを性的に虐待する犯罪者で
喜びそうだ
Stepping up the ante from "quite very creepy" to "incredibly creepy".かなりキモイから、驚くほどキモイへ
Paedogeddon is upon us　小児性愛の悪と善の最終決戦開始前

お取り下げご希望でありましたら、コメント欄、またはnihonbunka.comのメールリンクからご連絡ください。
Kenrick, D. T., & Keefe, R. C. (1992). Age preferences in mates reflect sex differences in human reproductive strategies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15(01), 75-91.
西尾久美子. (2013). エンターテイメント事業の比較分析: 宝塚歌劇と AKB48.
小田亮. (2000). 日本人における配偶相手の好みにみられる性差: 結婚相手募集広告の分析から.
Buunk, B. P., Dijkstra, P., Kenrick, D. T., & Warntjes, A. (2001). Age preferences for mates as related to gender, own age, and involvement level. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22(4), 241-250.

Labels: japan, japanese, japanese culture, sex, 日本文化

In my lecture on comparative morality as part of my inter-cultural communication course, I suggest that one should be careful about admitting that one is bathing with ones children in the UK since you might be arrested. I based this wild assertion on the controversial case of a two doctors in Cleveland, UK in the 1980s brought sexual abuse charges against parents that had been showering with their children. The children were diagnosed using a controversial physical test, but I believe that the initial suspicion was aroused due the children's showering practices. If they had been bathing as opposed to showering, with daddy, I think still greater suspicion would have been aroused especially in view of the fact that this practice is seen in Japan as a form of "skinship" (a Japanese portmanteau from skin and friendship but more touchy feely) or a social bonding leisure activity (see below).

It seems that my warning was appropriate. This recent Asahi Newspaper article relates that the Japanese Foreign Ministry has now issued a warning on its homepage saying that in a Japanese national living in an "advanced / first world" nation wrote an school essay entitled "I am looking forward to bathing with daddy," as a result of which the school informed the police and the father was arrested under suspicion of sexual abuse.

The foreign office homepage is here, complete with cartoons showing the co-bathing father being reprimanded by a policeman suggesting that photos (no one takes photos) or memories of bathing with his daughter are pornographic. Another cartoon warns against leaving children in cars.

The above article also states that the average age to which Japanese daughters bathe with their father is 9 years of age, reducing to about 10% of eleven year old daughters. 10% of eleven year old Japanese daughters are getting into a 1.5m square bath with their father partly because (so one person mentioned in the article opines) Japanese fathers are estranged due to the amount of time they spend working. Since they can only spend a smaller amount of time with their children it is appropriate, it is argued, that they spend it closer proximity with their offspring.

My favourite philosopher, Derrida (2008) writes that shame regarding nakedness is fundamental condition of being human and having morality.

"It is generally thought, although none of the philosophers that I am about to examine actually mention it, that the property unique to animals what is in the last instance distinguishes them from man (sic), is their being naked without knowing it. Not being naked therefore, not having knowledge of their nudity, in short, without consciousness of good and evil." (Derrida, 2008, p4-5; Derrida, 2002

That is not to say that the Japanese are animals, but not "men." It is my belief that the Japanese are humans in a different way.

Derrida, J., & Wills, D. (2002). The animal that therefore I am (more to follow). Critical Inquiry, 369–418. Retrieved from www.englweb.umd.edu/englfac/KChuh/Clark.Seminar.Doc.1.Der...

Labels: cultural psychology, culture, japan, japanese, japanese culture, sex, taboo, tabuu, 日本文化

Tenskwatawa was a Shawnee "prophet" and revolutionary who had visions of the Great Spirit and attempted to unite First Americans ("American Indians") against European American invaders. He tried to encourage First Americans to have no contact with the Europeans, to cease all trade, and to only give them food if they (I mean we) were starving - an incredibly generous act.

Tenskwatawa claimed to have  a series of visions wherein he was possess by the Great Spirit who said, "The Americans I did not make; they are not my children but the children of the evil spirit. They grew from the scum of the great waters when it was troubled by the evil spirit and the froth was driven into the woods by a strong east wind. They are numerous, but I hate them. My children, you must not speak of this talk to the whites. It must be hidden from them. I am now on the earth sent by the great spirit to instruct you. Each village must send me two or more principal chiefs to represent you, that yo may be taught. The bearer of this talk will point out to you the path to my wigwam. I could not come myself to Abre Crocted, because the world is changed from what it was. It is broken and leans down, and as it declines, the Chippewas and all beyond, will fall off and die; therefore you must come to see me and be instructed. The villages which do not listen to this talk and send me two deputies, will be cut from the face of the earth."

Shortly thereafter the confederation of First Americans, together with the British, fought the Americans in the war of 1812. The result of this war was not good for the First Americans (although the British managed to save Canada for the Commonwealth) and the First Americans were, in very large part, cut off from the face of the earth,as Tenskwatawa predicted.

On the right is Shouin Yoshida . He was a late nineteenth century revolutionary who encouraged the Japanese to arm, and invade or otherwise persuade other Asian countries to federalise with Japan since he felt that Japan was surrounded by European enemies. As we know, the Japanese did do as Shouin suggested but eventually they were pushed back to their island, and finally invaded. Today the inhabitants are gradually becoming Westernised. Tenskwatawa, or at least Shouin Yoshida would be rather upset.

The notion that a people might be formed from 'scum on the water when troubled by the evil spirit' is interesting since it is a theme shared in creation myth of the Japanese. The Japanese trace their own origins to a defilement floating on the surface of the water, a problem which they eventually overcame, temporarily perhaps.

Labels: culture, japanese, nihonbunka, 日本文化

Labels: blogger, culture, Flickr, japanese, nihonbunka, psychology

The Japanese rate themselves to be the most risk averse nation in the world with more than 70% of Japanese saying that they are NOT someone who enjoys taking risks (World Values Survey). I believe that the differences between Japan and other developed nations are qualitative rather than quantitative so there should be some area of Japanese behaviour in which they are shown to take risks. I think it unlikely that they would say that they enjoy taking risks since this would be similar to standing out in their linguistic self expressions - something that they have no interest in doing.

Eating blowfish and getting on roller coasters are both not very risky behaviours when compared to skydiving (the 5th most dangerous sport after BASE jumping, swimming, cycling and running).

Guzman and Pohlman (2014) highlight the following classes of risky behaviour among youth worldwide: "Self-Injurious Behaviours, Violence, and Suicide, Substance Use, Risky Sexual Behaviour, and Behaviours Related to Obesity and Unhealthy Dieting." Only suicide is clearly elevated in Japan but that is a special case of risky behaviour. I am not sure that self annihilation is actually "taking a risk," but may on the contrary be a way of avoiding risk, and heightening certainty. The only other risky behaviour on that list that might be high in Japan is risky sexual behaviour.

However, Japanese sexual behaviour does not appear to be all that risky. While no where near as risk averse as their self rating would appear to indicate, the Japanese are below the global average (47%) of percent of adults who have had unprotected sex with a person whose sexual history one is unaware at 42%. And the Japanese have better than the global average (77%) of persons who have never had a sexual accident, my term for unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, at 84%. Both sets of data are from the Durex World Sex Survey (2005).

So where is Japanese risky behaviour?

Labels: cultural psychology, culture, japanese, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 日本文化

The Japanese eat 10,000 tonnes ( Top 10 Most Dangerous Foods - TIME ) or 9,000,000 kg of blowfish or fugu which is approximately 90 million servings, since one does not usually eat more than about 100 grams, or less, per serving (my estimate).

Further, the risk of deaths from eating fugu are even less than that of skydiving. The list below is from the Japanese wikipedia article on fugu, and claims to be comprehensive list of "main" deaths by fugu poisoning since 2000 (perhaps there were others that are not reported). Assuming that there have been 90 million servings a year for the past 14.5 years, or nearly 1300 million servings but only 13 deaths that makes the risk of dying from fugu poisoning to be about one in 100 million. So to compare the death rates, the risk of dying from skydiving according to one estimate is 25/3,000,000 per sky dive. Divided by 1/100,000,000 (my estimation) for the risk of dying as a result of eating a serving of fugu and, I think that we can cross off the millions, so that is 25/3 divided by 1/100. Or about 800. And the wikipedia article also notes that in the ten years from 1995 to 2005 31 people died of fugu poisoning in Japan in similar situations. That is about twice the rate of the 2000s, or 400 times less dangerous than skydiving.

And just as in estimation of the dangers of skydiving where we found that it was experienced, risk-taking skydivers that were dying, similarly, with fugu eating it is those taking risks (preparing, usually self-caught the fish without a licence, and eating the most dangerous parts, the liver or other innards), and not those eating it at fugu restaurants, who are dying.

So skydiving is about 400 to 800 times more dangerous than eating a serving of fugu, but both are very safe activities unless you really try your luck. Indeed, both activities are probably at least in part, enjoyable precisely because one appears to be (but one is not in fact) trying ones luck. This makes skydiving and eating blowfish similar to getting on a roller coaster ride, for thrills.

The Japanese rate themselves as being the most risk averse nation in the world and may only enjoy simulated risks. 

From フグ - Wikipedia
April 2001 Tokyo, Person in 60s prepared sashimi from fugu self-caught
May 2002 Kagawa Prefecture, two persons in their 50s boiled self caught fugu
November 2002 Person in 60s ate poison containing fugu liver
November 2003 Person in 70s ate dried fugu received from a friend.
May 2005 Nagasaki Prefecture Person in 70s made miso soup from self-caught fugu.
September 2005 Aichi Prefecture ate poison containing fugu liver
March 2006 Miyazaki Prefecture. Person in 60s cooked fugu themselves
January 2007 Nagasaki Prefecture. Person in 60s made sashimi for themselves.
August 2007 Nagasaki Prefecture. person in their 40s made a stew of fugu innards containing poison.
December 2007 Hyougo Prefecture. Person in 50s prepared fugu that they had caught themselves.
January Aicii Prefecture. A sushi restaurant proprietor ate some fugu innards with a customer and died. The proprietor did not have a fugu preparation licence. Another person (presumably the customer) was hospitalized.
October 2014 Hyougo Prefecture. Person in their 50s took home the left overs from a colleague's fugu cooking practice and ate the liver and died.

Labels: culture, japanese, japanese culture, psychology, 日本文化

According many Japanese commentators such as Shiba Ryoutaro (1986) the rule of law, and laws themselves, are extremely important in the USA, in places where traditional praxes, ways of doing things may suffice in Japan. Indeed one of the ways in which Japan is now awash with Western culture is that it is being swamped with requirements to manualize everything. Wakamatsu (2007), a former Toyota line manager, argues that the recent glut of written materials (shiryou　資料) can kill efficiency with a lethal dose ([chi]shiryou)死量) of voluminous paper (shiryou 紙量). I think he is right. The recent lack of competitive efficiency of Japanese companies is I believe due to their sinking under mountains of shiryou with western sounding names (po-toforio, adomisshion porishi-, gurajue-shon porishi-), in an attempt to be as linguistically regulated as Western countries.

Despite the fact that the West, or at least the USA, is know as being the land of the "shiryou" Westerners at the same time like to draw attention to some of the places in which Japanese have traditionally been very strict, as in the above image, school student dress regulations. And these regulations certainly are very strict, attempting to define each measurement, each cloth colour, the types of hairstyle that are allowed. So why is it that in this particular area, the Japanese have voluminous regulations?

There are so many regulations on appearance because the Japanese desire to express themselves in their appearance so much, that regulations of this severity are required to prevent them from being outlandish (which somehow the Japanese are also claimed to be).

I do not mean to suggest that Japanese are any more or less collectivistic than Westerners. Elsewhere, however, always the focus is upon collectivism and individualism. The image above is from a paper entitled "The Nail That Came out all the Way," which suggests that Japanese outlandishness is individualistic aberration in the face of ruthless, 'militaristic', collectivism. Many people still hold this impression of Japan. Bearing in mind the way that individualism is valourised in the West, being thought a militantly collectivistic country is, needless to say not a positive impression.

The truth is that Japanese dress and dress codes are neither outlandishly individualistic nor collectivist to the point of being militaristic, but that the Japanese have a stronger desire to express themselves matri-visually, in their wombimagocentric culture. They care not a toss about daddy and his logos, but they want to look cool at least in large part for mummy, or at least originating in the pleasure of her simulated gaze.

The hairstyle shown above bottom (from Google image search) is called a "wolf cut" which is spiky at the front, with along wolf's mane hanging behind, is certainly pretty noticeable. No wolf cuts is one of the items of the above dress code. That Japanese schools wish to ban wolf-cuts does need to surprise. That British school do not have an explicit ban on the "wolf cut" is more to do with the lack of self-expression in the area, that liberal nature of British school dress codes. Correspondingly there are few hate speech laws, or other curbs on linguistic expression, since, for the most part, the Japanese do not desire to be radical in their speech, but they do have some wild haircuts.

Image top from Thorsten Morimoto, 1996, p206, originally from Sakamoto, 1986.
Image bottom from Google image search "ウルフカット"

Thorsten Morimoto, M. (1996). The Nail That Came Out All the Way. In W. Dissanayake (Ed.), Narratives of agency: Self-making in China, India, and Japan. U of Minnesota Press.
坂本秀夫. (1986). 「校則」の研究―だれのための生徒心得か. 東京: 三一書房.
司馬遼太郎. (1986). アメリカ素描. 読売新聞社.
若松義人. (2007). トヨタの上司は現場で何を伝えているのか. Tōkyō: PHP研究所.

Labels: blogger, culture, Flickr, japanese, nihonbunka, 日本文化

The lion, naked, prostrate and clearly lacking a womb, is scared. Sazae can tame anything and has tamed a sealion too, left. Like most Japanese women most of the time, Sazae appears to be on stage. She alone is fully aware of an audience. The lion is, like the Western wife perhaps, aware of the audience only through Sazae. The young chap with the ball, Katsuo I presume, is as yet oblivious. The audience constrains Sazae as it empowers her. In Japan phallogocentrism is replaced by wombimagocentrism*. When the audience watches, the women are in control, as they are controlled. Give up on the "different voice" (Gilligan, 1962) and get wombimagocentric now.

長谷川町子美術館の著作権です。おちりさげご希望でありましたら、下記のコメント欄かnihonbunka.comのメールリンクまでご連絡ください。
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Harvard University Press.

Notes
* I think that this can be pronounced a bit like the Wombles, wom-bi-mago-centrism.

Addenda

What is it about logocentricism that is phallic?

Lacan mentions that mothers are often primary caregivers whereas males are fathers by virtue of their symbolic (linguistic) position in society, and often because of their work. In some societies the brothers are those which work to support sisters and their children and are treated much like fathers to those that they support.

In patriarchal societies, patriarchs may hope that their work, their significant acts, their money is rewarded on an exchange basis, with "presence" and "affection." The "philosophy of presence", where signifier are co-present with meaning in the "car-loving" mind, may be enacted in logocentric bedroom. 

Logocentrists place themselves into the imagined dialogue between their parents.

"Car-loving" is one of Derrida's puns on "auto-affection", or onanism.

Labels: autoscopy, culture, feminism, japan, japanese, manga, Nacalian, occularcentrism, self, sex, specular, 日本文化

There have been several studies on Japanese and American facial expressions. Perhaps the most famous is that of David Matsumoto (see Gudykunst & Nishida, 1994) that found that Japanese were worse at recognising the four negative 'universal' expressions (fear, anger, disgust, sadness) not because these emotional expressions are not universal, but because negative emotions are repressed in Japanese culture where there is a greater stress upon harmony. This interpretation is plausible, but I remain rather unconvinced.

In this post I concentrate, however, on self-consistency in expression of emotions, but first a recap on linguistic self-expression. Westerners, or at least North Americans are almost always positive about themselves, irrespective of social situation (Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001) and even when what they are expressing is negative. Negative traits are "spun" to be positive ones.

Further, even though Americans "spin" or "enhance" their verbal expressions so that everything is positive, Americans nonetheless believe that the words of others represent their true feelings, even when they are told that the person they are listening to is reading a text that has been given to them whereas Japanese do not (Miyamoto & Kitayama, 2002).

The tendency for Westeners to believe in the consistency of verbal expressions and true feeling or self is called "The Fundamental Attribution Bias." In Japan it is however well-known and assumed that people say one thing in social situations (tatemae) whereas they mean another (honne).

I argue that this situation is reversed, or Nacalianly transformed, in Japan when one considers Japanese facial expressions.

The first phenomenon is equivocal.

Gundykunst and Nishida found that when Japanese and Americans were shown a negative film in the supposed absence of an observer (but in fact the subjects were videoed watching the film) both Americans and Japanese showed negative emotions. However, the Japanese, but not the Americans, affected positive facial expressions when describing the movie to an experimenter. This might be construed to suggest that the Japanese are less consistent in their facial expressions, but I suggest that the Japanese would attempt to affect the same smile whether they were describing a negative film or a horrible one, irrespective of who they are talking to.

It is clear at least that the Japanese have "spun" or "enahnced" their expression to make it positive when in some sense the reality was not.

Secondly when asked to rate emotion and expression of others, Gudykunst and Nishida (1994) found that Americans rated other's emotions and facial expressions differently, whereas Japanese rated emotions and facial expressions as being the same. The Japanese appeared to believe that faces expressed only true emotions.

This result is what I would call the Japanese Fundamental Attribution Bias, and the Western version of "honne and tatemae." In respect of the latter, "The face is no index to the heart," says an English proverb, "A fair face my hide a foul heart" says an American one, and the face - being potentiallly and often "two faced" - is the sine qua non of inconsistency.

These phenomena expose the same paradox: despite the fact that both Americans and Japanese "spin" their self-expressions in a positive direction in language and facial-expressions respectively, both Americans and Japanese believe in the consistency and truth of the modality that they are spinning or enhancing, and do not believe in the veridacy of the one that they are not.

This paradox is due to the modality or theatre (Weber, 2004) that matters. Americans are chronically exposed to the ear of the 'generalised other' (Mead, 1967), whereas Japanese to the 'eye of the world' (seken). In each of these theatres each attempts to appease and express their meaning, being, their selves to a hidden, intra-psychic other.

As mentioned in a previous post, Westerners claim that they are talking to only themselves, and Japanese that they are expressing themselves only to other people, but these explanations fall apart since Americans could be verbally honest if only to themselves, and Japanese would know that that they are facially dishonest to others.

The nature of self as being for Other makes us all bullshit and yet, believe it.

The image shows my wife, son and myself from some years ago and was chosen because the Westerner, and partial Westerner, are showing less consistency in their facial expressions.

Addenda
I am very stupid but disgusting and in a position to realise it. Japanese culture will teach even the most stupid and disgusting of people the truth.

Bibliography
Gudykunst, W. B., & Nishida, T. (1994). Bridging Japanese/North American differences (Vol. 1). Sage.
Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). ‘Who am I?’ The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(1), 90–103.
Mead, G. H. (1967). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (Vol. 1). The University of Chicago Press.
Miyamoto, Y., & Kitayama, S. (2002). Cultural variation in correspondence bias: The critical role of attitude diagnosticity of socially constrained behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(5), 1239.
Weber, S. (2004). Theatricality as Medium. Fordham Univ Press. (as yet un-read, but I dig the term and I am a major fan)

Labels: blogger, culture, Flickr, japanese, nihonbunka, 日本文化