J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

Here are some of things that may have helped the Japanese to have suffered fewer deaths in the coronavirus pandemic so far include perhaps (I am not connected with medicine):
1. wearing face masks which have been de rigueur for those who are suffering from respiratory illnesses perhaps since the influenza pandemic of 100 years ago,
2. a greater attention to covering ones mouth when one coughs (Japanese ladies cover their mouths even when they laugh),
3. far less dancing and discos,
4. bathing in the evening when arriving home dirty rather than the next morning (having passed the evening and night dirty at home!),
6. drying oneself using single use towels rather than bath towels that may not be washed for a week,
7. high interpersonal distance,
8. boiled sweets (candy) provided at customer service locations partly to reduce customer coughing,
9. generally lots of cleaning and sweeping by everyone from school children to monks,
10. food wrapping or the lack of unwrapped food sales, polythene bagging of unwrapped foods such as fruit at the checkout,
11. non-food product wrapping so that even if the packaging has been handled purchased products are sterile when unwrapped at home,
12. changing of clothing upon returning to the home and arriving at school (school uniforms are worn only on the way there. Pupils often change to track suits in class),
13. removal of shoes indoors,
14. use of a separate pair of slippers inside toilets,
15. passing things to other people with both hands thus interpersonal maintaining distance,
15. the use of semi disposable gunte cotton gloves by service personnel such as ticket inspectors, taxi drivers and anyone doing a dirty task even at home*,
11. the Japanese housewives' love of aprons which keep their clothes clean,
12. the way that Japanese taxi drivers open taxi doors for passengers so they don't need to touch the door handle**,
13. the predominance of uniforms in any job that may involve even a little dirt such as on any sort of manufacturing industry,
14. preference for the "one room mansion" over shared houses and flats,
15. more vending machines allowing purchases without human interaction,
16. the practice of sterilizing ones mattress (futon) by hanging it out in the sun,
17. taking rubbish home rather than littering or even using (non-existent) public waste bins,
18. plastic fairings along the sides of car windows to allow windows to be open a little refreshing car interior air even when it is pouring with rain,
19. a general preference for fresh air over closed air-conditioned rooms.
20. a preference for new things rather than second hand,
21. a greater belief that "cleanliness is next to godliness" and conversely that sin is a sort of defilement,
22,regarding cleaning is a sort of spiritual practice (that at least teaches the importance of cleanliness),
23. respect paid to homes, temples, martial arts gyms and other spaces with cleaning and bowing and greetings at the entrance to such spaces, emphasising the importance of keeping them in all ways good and pure,
24. traditionally according to Shinto scripture considering (skin) disease to be one of the deadly sins,
25. the integration of hand and mouth washing (chouzu, temizu) into Shinto prayer ritual,
26. shame-culture severity towards mistakes and not things that one does intentionally (infection is generally unintentional caused by a lack of vigilance such as in failing to cover ones mouth when one coughs),
27. the traditional provision of hot hand washing wet towels (oshibori) and disposable chopsticks at restaurants (that remain open even now),
28. individual bowls and chopsticks rather than sharing a common stock of cutlery even within the home,
29. sitting next to partners and friends rather than facing them and enjoying their company side by side (e.g. using counter seats),
30 enjoying the presence of others without feeling the need to keep talking all the time,
31. swallowing ones nasal mucus rather than blowing ones nose,
32. the consumption of many healthy foods. An urban myth has it that natto (rotten soya beans) is preventative but the notion that it may help has been rejected by Japanese specialists. Something about the Japanese diet (which is higher in rice, soy, and) may help. Natto contains a serine protease (nattokinease) which may encourage the production of serine protease inhibitors (serpins) which may block infection, or do the opposite. I am not a doctor.
33. Washlet (and other brand) bidets fitted to toilets keeping coronavirus from wiping hands,
34. the avoidance of touchy feely greetings such as handshakes, hugging and kissing,
35. less petting at least in public and less sex out of courtship and procreation, and a greater use of prophylactic sheaths,
36. a greater use of the seated position by males when urinating (sometimes by order in public toilets) thus avoiding urine on the floor and seat and hand to genital contact (male genitals may act as a fomites and while it is not a Japanese tradition, I have taken to washing my hands before and after using the toilet),
37. washing ones hands inside toilet cubicles using a raised flush-cistern faucet/spigot or tiny sinks before touching the toilet door handle,
38. the provision of disposable paper toilet seat covers and or disinfectant for cleaning toilet seats in public toilets,
39. spitting is unacceptable,
40. flatulence is beyond the pale,
41. drinking green tea and various medicinal teas,
42. perhaps the practice of getting neck deep in clean hot baths (Japanese wash before soaking) almost every night,
43. the use of hot spas as a folk treatment for almost everything.

The last two would be my Japan-influenced suggestions for attempting to treat the virus even in the face of WHO "myth busting", but I am not connected with medicine in any way.

I thought that the Japanese would be especially inclined to catch the coronavirus due to their genetics but Japanese culture proved me wrong.

I hope and pray that everyone worldwide stays safe. When Japanese schools reopen in April, the Japanese may face a resurgence of the coronavirus, so, I am praying for Japan too. Perhaps prayer should be added to the list of hygienic behaviours. Many Japanese people pray in the face of adversity (kamidanomi) even if they do not believe in the existence of that which they are praying to. This I think promotes awareness of the strength of ones yearning, and lack of ones power, thereby promoting a kind of humble diligence, hopefully.

The above inaccurate image was drawn freehand by me based on an accurate graph in the New York times.

*One hygiene product that I felt to be lacking Japan is the (Great British!) nail-brush. Upon reflection, however, I have come to realise that there are few nail brushes in Japan because Japanese would always wear gloves before performing a task that is so dirty as to result in dirt getting behind their nails. Oops.
**I now think back with regret at the number of times I have opened Japanese taxi doors for myself, in an expression of autonomy, as if to say I don't need you to open the door for me, and thereby putting my nasty germ ridden hands on the taxi probably forcing the taxi driver to get out and disinfect the door.

Labels: japan, sex, taboo, tourism, ホスピタリティ, 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

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

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

A recent video showing the extent to which Japanese children return wallets moved me to tears.


In the USA when a child found some money (admittedly not inside a wallet) he was lauded for giving it to someone else.

Handing the money into lost property did not seem to cross anyone's mind in the USA.

Western commentators since the Edo period have marvelled at Japanese honesty with regard to personal possessions and the absence of theft. They also marvelled at the sexual mores (nakedness and the prevalence of prostitution), and speech crime (e.g. flattery, deceit, and creative accounting). That said I believe the Japanese to be the most moral nation on earth.

"The Lost Letter Technique" made famous by Milligram et. al. (1965) found that 70% of personally address letters but only 25 of Nazi/Communist party addressed "lost letters" were returned. Earlier research by Merritt and Fowler (1948: see Liggett, Blair, & Kennison, 2010) found that 85% of letters, but only 54% of letters presumed to contain money were returned.

And yes, there is comparative Lost Letter Technique research. West (2003) dropped phones and wallets containing cash in Tokyo and New York and the results were T 95% vs NY 77% for phones and T 85% vs NY30% for cash. That makes Tokyoites about three times more honest when it comes to returning wallets. Near Tokyo rates of return were obtained outside a Japanese supermarket in New York, so this is not something geographical. The Japanese are extremely honest when it comes to personal property.


In Japan stealing is almost absent, but creative accounting and linguistic obfuscation is reported to be prevalent. In the historical record numerous commentators report the low level of stealing (Bird, 1880; Cocks & Thompson, 2010; Coleridge, 1872; Golovnin, Rīkord, & Shishkov, 1824) and the strict way in which it is dealt with. At the same time, visitors have noted that linguistic misdemeanour's such as flattery, deceit, and "the squeeze" (taking a kickback of up to 100% to 200% of cost: see Bird 1880).

I claim, as always, that the amazing way in which the Japanese do not steal things but are at the same time able to "squeeze" double or triple the expenses from their employer relates to the nature of the Other (and horror) in Japanese culture.

Westerners have a horrible other that listens. This encourages us to be fairly honest, if very self-serving, in our self-narrative. Our narratives are self-enhancing but are constrained by the need for them to be palatable to another imagined human being. On the other hand, we feel no one is watching, so how we look, however, is far less fraught, ego-involved. We can get very fat, or even justify theft as redistribution of wealth (Robin Hood), since "property is [or can be argued, narrated to be] theft." We are good at promises and institutions of linguistic trust (such as insurance, and financial products) since we want to be heard to be, narrated to be, good.

The Japanese, on the other hand, have an Other (that is almost as horrifying) that looks, concealed not in the head but amongst the crowd. This encourages them to be fairly upstanding, if very self-serving, in their posture (sekentei). Their self-imaginings are self-enhancing but are constrained by the need for them to be palatable to another imagined human being. So the Japanese abhor crimes and misdemeanour's that can be seen, such as theft and physical violence. When it comes to linguistic malfeasance such as "the squeeze" or kick-back however, this can be seen as just a way of doing business involving no visual injury. The Japanese are good at creating things (monozukiri) since they want to be seen, imagined to be, good.

This modal -- language vs vision -- difference highlights one aspect of the origin of the myths of individualism and collectivism. It is not in fact the case that the Japanese are any more or less individualistic or collectivist, nor Westerners likewise. Both Japanese and Westerners care to an extent about real others and care more about their horrible intra psychic familiars, but in each case the horror of the familiar must be hidden.

It is only because our familiars, our imaginary friends, are horrible that they can remain hidden and continue to be familiar. Identity is a contradiction that depends upon horror, or sin, on a split that must be felt to be, but not be cognised as being. Identity or self is impossible (nothing can see or say itself) but the dream of its possibility is maintained by desire for, and abhorrence -- and resultant obfuscation -- of the duality required.

In the Western case the necessary, horrible imaginary friend is hidden *inside* the person as an interlocutor that, as inside the person, can only therefore be denied by being claimed to be part of, and one with the self. Eve, that gross "knowing" helper we have, is hidden by virtue of being thought of as just another me (see Levinas vs Derrida and "altrui"). She disappears because, as Adam Smith says, we are just splitting ourselves into two of ourselves. If there is just me and me, then there appears to be nothing disgusting going on. Westerners think, "I think to myself."

But if on the other hand the Other is external, as is required by any visual (self) cognition, there is little way of claiming that the Other is me. Spatial dualism, or rather distance, eye and surface, as required by visual cognition, becomes apparent, and undeniable. So the Japanese claim that all they are doing is being collectivist. The Japanese horrible Other is just another person, one of many other people. The Japanese hide the horror, their familiar, their imaginary friend, in the crowd.

Individualism and collectivism are myths by which means we hide Eve/Amaterasu, a part of our souls, our "helpmeets"or "paraclete" (John's term for Jesus). 

In a similar way to paradox of Japanese morality in which Japanese will not steal your wallet even if you leave it on a table at a restaurant and walk out, but may (or did) charge a kickback doubling or tripling the price, the British will be utterly polite, honest and even humorous as they sell you narcotics and destroy your country, as we did to China for 150 years. Some estimate that the enforced import of opium into China resulted in the deaths of 100 million Chinese, but at least one British academic makes jokes about it .

Paraphrasing Isaiah, those that worship the logos have a tendency to smear over their eyes so that they cannot see, and those that worship idols have a tendency to smear over their hearts so they cannot comprehend.

Bibliography (all available online)
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.
Cocks, R., & Thompson, E. M. (2010). Diary of Richard Cocks, Cape-Merchant in the English Factory in Japan, 1615–1622: With Correspondence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coleridge, H. J. (1872). The life and letters of St. Francis Xavier : in two volumes. Asian Educational Services.
Golovnin, V. M., Rīkord, P. Ī., & Shishkov, A. S. (1824). Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan, During the Years 1811, 1812, and 1813: With Observations on the Country and the People. H. Colburn and Company.
Liggett, L., Blair, C., & Kennison, S. (2010). Measuring gender differences in attitudes using the lost-letter technique. Journal of Scientific Psychology, 16–24. Retrieved from http://www.psyencelab.com/images/Measuring_Gender_Differences_in_Attitudes_Using_the_Lost-Letter_Technique.pdf
Milgram, S., Mann, L., & Harter, S. (n.d.). The lost-letter technique: A tool of social research. Retrieved from http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/the_lost-letter_technique-_a_tool_of_social_research.pdf
West, M. D. (2003). Losers: recovering lost property in Japan and the United States. Law & Society Review, 37(2), 369–424. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1540-5893.3702007/full

Labels: autoscopy, collectivism, individualism, japanese, japanese culture, Nacalian, nihonbunka, reversal, sex, 日本文化

Linguistic self-enhancement has generally been considered to be rather disgusting in Japan, or at least something that the Japanese have avoided. In my experience, and in historical accounts of Western impressions of Japan, boastfulness is almost completely, and notably, absent.

One of the few accounts of Japanese boastfulness is that of a highly Westernised scholar of things Western (rangakusha). After several months in captivity in Japan, the Russian spy Vasiliĭ Mikhaĭlovich Golovin remarked in 1811 that the Japanese geometrician and astronomer, Mamia Rinso (Mamiya Rinzo) "manifested his pride, however, by constant boasting of the deeds he had performed, and the labours he had endured." (Golovin, 1824, p284) but further that, "I must here remark, that this was the first Japanese ventured, in our presence, to swagger and assume // importance on account of his military skill, and his vapouring made not only us but even his own countrymen sometimes laugh at him. " (Golovin, 1824, pp. 285-286). In other words, the only Japanese person to boast, in Golovin's experience, was one who had been influenced by Western culture.

I have found two other records of instances of boastfulness in Japan in the pre-twentieth century historical record and both of them relate to sex.

"One old couple, who kept one of these shops, we were on intimate terms with; that is to say, we seldom passed without a few words to them. One day, seeing the old woman by herself, we asked her wherever husband was, and were told that she supposed 'he was after the girls', after which she laughed, as if delighted at the idea of having such a gay old dog for a spouse...
The next time we visited the shop, we rallied the old fellow on being such a gay Lothario; be he did not seem as proud of the reputation as his wife was, and indignantly declared the aspersion cast on him to be totally without foundation. We were half inclined to believe him, and even now think that the old woman's statement may have only been a vainglorious boast"(Cortazzi, 2013,, p67)

Edward de Fonblanque writes, in 1860, of another rare instance Japanese boastfulness, which is also sexual.

"Nor were business wants alone consulted, for the Government had considerately provide a magnificent building, all lacquer and caving and delicate painting, in which the Tojin [Foreigner] might pass their leisure hours in the company of painted musume [literally daughter, but the meaning her is girl], dressed in gorgeous robes, and coifées in the most wonderful manner.
I visited the Gankiro, taking the precaution to go there in broad day, and for my character's sake, in good company, and was a little startled at the systematic way in which the authorities conduct this establishment. Two officers showed us over the building, and pointed out its beauties which as much pride as if they were exhibiting an ancient temple sacred to their dearest gods. This was the court-yard; that was to be a fish-pond with fountains (the building was still incomplete at this time); in this room refreshments might be procured -that was the theatre; those little nooks into which you entered by a slide panel in the wall were dormitories, encumbered with no unnecessary furniture, there, affixed to the walls, was the tariff of charges, which I leave to the imagination; and in that house, across the court, seated in rows on the verandah, were the moosmes themselves. We were invited to step over for its was only under male escort that they might enter the main building? My curiosity had, however, been sufficiently gratified and I departed, quite ready to believe in anything that might hear as to the morals of the Japanese. (Cortazzi, 2013, p274.)

The Japanese are perhaps similarly reserved towards boastfulness and sexuality. Japanese humour, unlike that of the British, rarely revolves around innuendo. But in my experience (and research on the latter), both sexuality and boastfulness do appear when the Japanese have been drinking.

For example when attending a party with some Japanese sports persons, I found myself invited to drink at a table of similarly inebriated Japanese. It was late in the day, we had all had a few glasses of sake. One gentleman asked mischievously "So you are English? (omitting the subject and particles) England has Big Ben doesn't it? / You have a big ben don't you?" （イギリス人ですか。*ビッグ・ベン*はありますよね？）. I think my host repeat "big ben", nodding in a conspiratorial way for emphasis. This was a very rare case of innuendo and inviting the opportunity to boast, once again on a sexual topic, which from a Japanese perspective may regarded, with some disdain - but at times enjoyment - to be of similar ilk.

Is there any inherent connection between linguistic self-enhancement and sex? Or on the contrary between visual self-enhancement and the storge appreciation of cuteness? Some theoreticians of language, its origins and merits suggest that it may have something do with peacocking. Derrida argues that linguistic thought, as self addressed love letter, is like onanism. One of the characteristics of linguistic as opposed to visual self-enhancement is that it takes places inside rather than outside the head. While linguistic self love becomes silent, ashamed, and interior (see Vigotsky on self-speech and the way it becomes hidden) visual self-love always presupposes an exterior, viewer. Does the interiority of self-serving interior dialogue, knowing oneself via ones self-narrative, imply or promote a sexual "autoaffection"? I tend to think so.

I think I told my hosts that I had not seen Big Ben. Lame!

Image of Big Ben from Wikimedia
Cortazzi, H. (2013). Victorians in Japan: In and around the Treaty Ports. A&C Black.
Golovnin, V. M., Rīkord, P. Ī., & Shishkov, A. S. (1824). Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan, During the Years 1811, 1812, and 1813: With Observations on the Country and the People. H. Colburn and Company.

Labels: japanese, japanese culture, logos, occularcentrism, sex, 日本文化, 自己視

In Japan sanitary towels or "napkins" are tremendously popular in comparison to tampons. The above image and the image at this link show the vast selection of sanitary towels available to the Japanese buying public. On the other hand this image shows the tiny selection of tampons on sale in the same shop. While Japanese tampons are fairly primitive, generally lacking aplicators, Japanese sanitary towels are extremely advanced, thin, absorbent and body-hugging.

Japanese sanitary towels come in different sizes, shapes, thicknesses and for niche markets such as "sanitary towels to wear at night" (see note). Sanitary towels used not to be advertised on television but over the past ten years there has been a proliferation of television adverts showing smiling women walking with large strides, and blue liquid disappearing to leave only white body-shaped cotton pads.

It is not clear why Japanese prefer sanitary towels so much more than tampons. The reverse is the case in the US 70% of women used tampons in 2001 (Kohen). Use of tampons in the US depends upon race. 71% of European, 29% African American, 22% of English-speaking Latina, and only 5% of Spanish-speaking Latina women use them (Romo & Berenson, 2012).

The reasons for this difference can be traced to their history. There was initial reaction against tampons in the West by their association with sex. Bishops in the British House of Lords complained about these "sinful" products, and tampons were required to display a warning that they are not suitable for unmarried women till the 1950s (AHPMA, 2007). Likewise presumably due to the taboos on premarital sex and the importance of maintaining the hymen intact, tampons are less popular in Catholic countries (AHPM, ibid) and Latina women in the USA (Romo & Berenson, 2012).

First of all I think that the lack of popularity of tampons may be related to the lack of popularity of the contraceptive pill compared to condoms. Japan is one of the worlds biggests producers and consumers of condoms, but it was only in the late 1990's, after the legalisation of Viagra, that the contraceptive pill was introduced. Many feminists claimed that it was Japanese men that prevented the contraceptive pill from being legalised. This seems unlikely to me bearing in mind the negative effect they have on male enjoyment of sex, and the positie consequences that condoms have in the protection of women. The lack of use of the pill needs to be explained in other ways.

I think that both the lack of the popularity of the pill and tampons is reflective of the taboo on Women's sexuality (childbirth and menstruation) and sex organs in Japan. Far more than the dreaded phallus (the focus of sexual taboo in the West), in Japan it is women's sex organs that are intrinsically scary and not to be seen, thought, or interfered with.

Till the Meiji period, Japanese women would isolate themselves at childbirth and during menstruation in "parturition huts" mention in the mythology (Chamberlain, 1882//2005 p. xxxii) called "birth houses" (ubuya). The isolation of women during menstruation similar huts often on mountainsides decreased from the Meiji period but there is a report that the wives of Shinto priests living in Tsuruga City in Fukui Prefecture would live in a seperate wing for one week during menstruation even in 1979 (Fujisawa, 2008).

Upon further reading I find that the first disposable mensturation products, introduced in the 1930 (prior to which women had used reusable cotton undergarments) were tampons. There had been a history of the use of tampons like products among prostitutes in the Edo period which were refered to as "red balls," (akadama) "plugging balls" (komedama) and "packing paper"(tusmegami). Post Meiji, the use of cotton wool became more popular. Then in 1961, Anne Corp released the sanitary towels marketed as a liberation from the discomfort of blocking menstrual flow, using catch copy such as "Sorry to have kept you waiting 40 years," and please call it "Anne Day." Since that time sanitary towels have become far more popular than tampons (Takana, 2003: see Fujisawa, 2008) in Japan. According to a Yunicharm survey (2010) of 10.000 Japanese women, 76% used sanitary napkins, and only 23% tampons (including those who use both). Only 1.2% of Japanese women use only a tampon! A majory of Japanese women feel a psychological "resistance" (teikou) to using tampons, and would not use them even under special circumstances such as when entering a hot spring, pool, or the sea (Yunicharm, 2008: see chart 2).



This vast difference in the use of sanitary products between the US and Japan reflects I believe the different nature of taboos. Mensturation is *relatively* non-taboo in the West, regarded as a "curse," punishment or inconvenience. Sex on the other hand is far more taboo so there was an initial resistance towards the use of "sinful" (AHPM, 2007) tampons due to their association with sex. As taboos became less strict, and mensturation merely an inconvenience, tampons became popular.

In Japan on the other hand birth and menstruation have always been associated with the most severe taboos (Chamberlain, 1882/2005) whereas sex far less so. Chamberlain was unable to translate Shinto mythology into English due to the explicit nature of the descritpions of coitus. Such was the great taboo upon birth and menstruation however, at first Japanese women were required to isolate themselves at the time of childbirth and menstruation in huts on houses (Chamberlain, 2005, p.xxxii). Until 1979 women married to Shinto Priests would isolate themselves from their husbands for the duration of their mensturation (Fujisawa, 2008). This strong taboo required initially that menstruation be blocked. As taboos weaken Japanese women liberated their menstrual flow and moved to sanitary towels, which remain overarching popular. The "resistence" (Yunicham, 2010) felt by Japanese women towards the use of tampons is related to the fact that rather than being a "phallocentric" (Derrida, 2013) culture, Japan is the reverse (wombcentric, fallopocentric) so the taboos and reverence (Freud) for the phallus are directed instread towards women's sex organs, requiring that they be interfered with as little as possible in Japan. The taboo on things feminine in Japan, also explains why so much more Japanese horror, in traditional legend, fiction and cinema, focuses above all upon the monstrous feminine.

The above line of arguement suggests that is the Japanese Women who are behaving irrationally, while Western women are free from irrational taboos. Another possibility may be that while Western tampon manufacturers claim that "A tampon is neither felt during wearing nor does it restrict movement or hinder a woman from engaging in any sporting activities" (Edana, 2006), tampons may be indeed, as Japanese (Fujisawa, 2008) claim, intrusive and a little uncomfortable to use. Due to the way in which Western society is modeled on the man ("Mankind" see De Beauvoir) and phallocentric, women are encouraged (and internalise the desire) to get in line with men even if that involves some discomfort. In Japan however, the model of the human is I believe the mother, and so demanding that women undergo the discomfort in order to man-up as it were, is neither appropriate or allowed. In Japan men are encouraged, and (and internalise the desire) to get in line with women even to the point of wearing man bras.

The packaged designs marks and brand names, such as
Elis, 'New Bare Skin Feeling'
Elis, Ultra Guard
Elis, Perfect Block
Elis, Rustling Silk
Shiseidou, Center-In Daytime Use Snug/Downy Touch
Shiseidou, Center-In Nighttime Use
are trademarks of their respective owners.

Chamberlain, B.H.(2005/1882). Kojiki. Record of Ancient Matters. Tuttle Books. Retrieved, 2015/04/03 books.google.co.jp/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en|lang_ja&...
Fujisawa. M. 藤澤美和子.（2008). 生理用品 (ナプキン) の選択基準. ~消者が重要視するポイ ントと、 生理用品に. 対する意識の違い.流通科学大学.修士論文.http://blog.nikkeibp.co.jp/nb/academic/university/pdf/ryutsu1_ryutsu_yamashita11.pdf
European Disposables and Nonwovens Association (EDANA) (2006). Tampons for menstrual hygiene; modern products with ancient roots,
AHPM, Absorbent Hygene Products Manufacturers Association. (2007). Menstruation and Sanpro/Femcare Market Facts and Fig’s. Retrieved 2015/04/03 www.ahpma.co.uk/docs/Menstruation Facts and Figs.pdf
Kohen, J. (2001). The History of the Regulation of Menstrual Tampons. Retrieved 2015/04/03 dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8852185/Kohen.pdf?seq...
Romo, L. F., & Berenson, A. B. (2012). Tampon Use in Adolescence: Differences among European American, African American and Latina Women in Practices, Concerns, and Barriers. Journal of pediatric and adolescent gynecology, 25(5), 328-333.
Yunicharm ユニチャーム(2008). 生理と生理用品に関する1万人女性の意識調査. Retrieved 2015/04/03 http://www.unicharm.co.jp/company/news/2010/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2010/05/06/nr100506_01.pdf

Labels: culture, horror, japanese culture, ring, ringu, sex, taboo, tabuu, 宗教, 日本文化

I wrote recently about the creation myth of Guam. To recap, it goes like this.

Human souls were all slaves in hell but due to a conflagration, one soul managed to escape to Guam where he made a human child out of soften rock and gave it a soul made of the sun. When the king of hell came looking for his lost soul he thought it must be that of the child and tried to bring him back down to hell, but hard as he tried, he could take the child to hell, because its soul was made from the sun.

The creation myth of Guam is almost a paraphrase of that of the Japanese in the Kojiki where it relates that soul of the Japanese is also made from the sun -- the mirror of the sun -- and that the creator of this sun-mirror-soul went to hell - or the underworld - and came back.

Indeed, the deities and heroes of Japanese mythology are always going somewhere rather under-worldly. Susano'o visits the Sun who hides in a cave with hellish consequences. Yamasachi HIko goes down to the kingdom in the sea. But they always manage to come back. And their soul remains, according Heisig's reading of Nishida, visual, self-seeing, in the light, made of the sun. How did the Japanese achieve this?

Consider first the alternative. What is hell or "the underworld." Having at last worked out what Derrida means by "mourning," and what Freud was hinting at by his "acoustic cap," I now realize that hell is that which was nearest and dearest to me, and where in large part I live. Hell is a place where there are dead people. I don't see them, I talk to them. I talk principally to a dead woman, a woman who was never really alive, or even a woman, in my head. This is the essence of the narrative self. Mead calls it a Generalized other, Bakhtin a "super-addressee," Freud the super ego, Lacan (m)other, Adam Smith "the impartial spectator" and I think that the Bible refers to it at first as "Eve." A dead woman to keep you company, for you to get to know, and have relations with. Hell indeed. (There is a Christian solution, that involves replacing the internal interlocutor, with another "of Adam" and, quite understandably, hating on sex.)

So how did the Japanese manage to avoid talking to the dead woman? There are various scenes in the mythology. Izanagi runs throwing down garments which change into food (this chase with dropped objects turning into things that slow down ones attacker is repeated all over the world. I have no idea what it means). And in the next myth cycle, as mentioned recently, the proto-Japanese get the woman to come out of her cave with a sexy dance, a laugh, a mirror and a some zizag pieces of paper to stop her going back in again. In this post I concentrate on the last two, shown in the images above.

The mirror was for her to look at her self. She became convinced it was her self and told the Japanese to worship it as if it was her, which they had done every since, eating her mirror every New Year, until quite recently.
The zigzag pieces of paper have two functions. One in purification rituals where I think they are used to soak up words since the woes of humans are in large part the names given to those woes (e.g. of the proliferation of mental illnesses). As blank pieces of paper are waved over Japanese heads a priest may also chant a prayer about how impurities were written onto little pieces of wood which are used to take all them back to the underworld where they belong.

The other use of zigzag strips is that they can also be used for all the sacred stamped pieces of paper which are used to symbolize identity in Japan, and to encourage the Japanese to realise that words are things in the world - not things that should be in your head. And until recently (Kim, 2002) the Japanese managed to keep the words out of their mirror soul.


But alas it seems to me that the Gates of Hell are opening and the children of the sun are in danger of being sucked back in. How might this be achieved?

The following is the beginning of a recent Japanese journal article (Iwanaga, Kashiwagi, Arayama, Fujioka & Hashimoto, 2013) in my translation (the original is appended below) which, intentionally or not, aims to import Western psychology into Japan.

"As typified by the way in which the phrase "dropouts" (ochikobore) was reported in Japanese newspapers and became a social problem initiated by the report from the national educational research association in 1971, the remaining years of the 1970's saw the symbolic emergence of a variety of educational problems. Thereafter there was an increase in problems such as juvenile delinquency (shounen hikou), school violence (kounaibouryoku), vandalism (kibutsuhason), academic slacking (taigaku), the 1980s saw the arrival of problems such as the increasingly atrocious nature of adolescent crimes including the murder of parents with a metal baseball bat (kinzokubatto ni yoru ryoushin satugaijiken) and the attack and murder of homeless people in Yokohama (furoushashuugekijiken), domestic violence, and bullying, and then in the 1990's the seriousness of educational problems such as the dramatic increase in delinquency (futoukou), dropping out of high school (koukou chuutai), and a series of murders by adolescents steadily increased. "(Iwanaga, Kashiwagi, Arayama, Fujioka & Hashimoto, 2013, p.101)

As you can see the writers are partially aware that all the "problems" that have assailed Japan since the 1970's are in part an "emblematic emergence" or impurities. While some of these problem have worsened in fact, many of them are simply the sort of thing that should be tractable to purification. The Japanese are not for instance assailed by an increase in adolescent crime which as Youro (2003) in his book "the Wall of Foolishness" points out, has decreased and become less violent post war in Japan.

The Japanese are assailed by a variety of emblems - names of problems - which nonetheless cause real suffering.

If it were only this plague of names of social ailments swarming out of hell, then I think that the Japanese would be
fairly safe. The problem is that the above paper, Japanese Education Department, and a great many Japanese clinical psychologists and educators, are offering the Japanese the infernal equivalent of the mirror: self-esteem, a dialogue with the dead woman that allows one to enjoy "mourning," telling oneself for instance, that one is beautiful as one stuffs one's face. The title of the paper (Iwanaga, Kashiwagi, Arayama, Fujioka & Hashimoto, 2013) is "Research on the Determining Factors of the Present State of Childrens' Self-esteem," in which the authors blame the lack of Japanese self-esteem -- the Japanese hardly sext themselves at all-- on the emergence of all the social ailments. What fiendish genius: the cause is being represented as a cure! The Japanese may indeed be dragged back in.

Note Opening paragraph of (Iwanaga, Kashiwagi, Arayama, Fujioka & Hashimoto, 2013) in the original
1971年に出された全国教育研究所連盟の報告書(1を契機として，「落ちこぼれ」という言葉が新聞で報道され，社会問題化したことに象徴的に現れているように，1970年代以降，わが国においては教育問題が顕在化することになる．その後，少年非行，校内暴力，器物破損，怠学へと問題は拡散し，80年代には金属バットによる両親殺害事件，浮浪者襲撃事件など青少年犯罪の凶悪化が問題視され，家庭内暴力，いじめ問題が，そして90年代にはいると不登校の急増，高校の中途退学問題，連続的に起こった青少年の殺人事件など，教育問題は深刻さを増していく

Bibliography
Iwanaga, S., Kashiwagi, T., Arayama, A., Fujioka Y., & Hashimoto, H. 岩永定, 柏木智子, 芝山明義, 藤岡泰子, & 橋本洋治. (2013). 子どもの自己肯定意識の実態とその規定要因に関する研究. Retrieved from reposit.lib.kumamoto-
Yourou T. 養老孟司. (2003). バカの壁. 新潮社. Retrieved from 218.219.153.210/jsk02/jsk03_toshin_v1.pdf

Image bottom
お祓い串 by Una Pan, on Flickr

Labels: autoscopy, japan, japanese culture, nihonbunka, psychology, religion, reversal, self, sex, Shinto, specular, 宗教, 日本文化, 自己, 自己視

Mouse pads with wrist supporters designed to resemble the breasts of the cartoon figure on the mouse pad so that the user may feel his (presumably) wriststo be supported in their cleavage appear to be popular in Japan judging by the number for sale in a local second hand shop. They were about 10 dollars each, which is 70% less than the price they sell for new on Amazon.com. Yes they are also sold in the USA but they originate in Japan.

Why is it that the Japanese are more able and willing to produce products of this type?

The Japanese are better at visual design since they identify with their self-image to a greater extent.

The Japanese are more interested in visual designs since, following on from the above, bodies, even plastic and virtual ones are felt to be animate.

Japanese men are also less repressed about their sexuality and admiration of breasts. In Japan there is no such thing as that fantasy, 'the gentleman' who has 'transcended' his sexual desire. Japanese men believe themselves to be and are believed to be male qua male, and as such admirers of breasts.

But who wants to purchase a mammarian mouse pad second hand?

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

Takaaki Yoshimoto's famous book (pictured above) "Theory of Communal Fantasy" (1969) was very disappointing to me when I picked it up about 20 years ago, because I had not the foggiest what he was on about.

The Wikipedia page on the book claims that it is not only a difficult book but also that it is like a Rorschach inkblot test in that different people read into it different things.

Yesterday I read it again and found it in a way of describing that which replace Oedipal, sexual fantasies in Japan.

In the preface Yoshimoto introduces "communal fantasy" (共同幻想) as fantasies or psychological constructs shared by a society. He later uses the example of mythology. Under this interpretation "communal fantasy" is close to Jungs' collective unconscious and the culture of cultural psychology: "shared understandings."

However in the first chapter "communal fantasy" emerges from a discussion of taboo in Freud, as an alternative class of taboo.

Yoshimoto notes that taboo is associated with ambivalence. Those things that taboo are not only rejected and hated but also loved and wanted at the same time. Then as an alternative to the "pair fantasies" manifest in incest taboos - the fantasy of incestual sex - "Communal fantasies" are introduced to describe initially the ambivalence towards kings and chiefs. (Yoshimoto does not need, or can not, mention the emperor since certainly the emperor of Japan is taboo subject in Japan).

Thus, the word "fantasy" (幻想) is used not only to describe psychological contents but also aspiration: fantasy in the sense of what people fantasise about, what they want, what they desire (even if they hate it as the same time).

Secondly, when he talks of sexual fantasies as "pair fantasies," (対なる幻想) the meaning of "pair" is transformed from a subject to an object or objective. Incestual sexual fantasies as "pair-fantasies" are not, necessarily at least, fantasies held by pairs, but fantasies about pairing. I don't think that Freud argues anywhere that Oedipal fantasies are necessarily, or even often, held equally on the part of mothers and fathers - the fantasies are held largely or exclusively on the part of children. Equally, , as a parallel concept, "communal fantasies" are not simply or even necessarily fantasies held by communities so much as fantasies of communing, of merging, melding, being one. And this fantasy may also be taboo, as there may also be taboos associated with the commity represented in the person of a king, or emperor*, for example.

As previously discussed, bearing in mind the bedroom arrangements in Japanese homes, the way that nakedness, communal bathing, touching and sleeping together are all everyday events that are not the subject of taboo, it seems clear that sexual incest taboos are not a prime mover in Japanese development. Children already get to sleep with their mothers. Their fathers do not step in with their paternal prohibition, but rather on the far side of their children, sandwiching their children closer to their mother. So how could the Japanese bow be tightened? How could, how do the Japanese ever grow up?

Cynics might say that the Japanese do not grow up, but it seems to me, with all the studying and almost religious ascetic practising of sports, and martial arts, that the Japanese child's trajectory into Japanese adulthood is no less motivated, the Japanese bow is no less taught. So, to coin a war poem, what made fatuous Japanese toil to break out of mummies bed at all?

My answer is that rather than incestual "pairing fantasies", the Japanese are propelled into the world by "communal fantasies", they desire communitas, they want to merge (合体), with mother, with father, with the community of parents, progenitors, ancestors and even eventually the gods.

Considerations such as the above may also related to the previously discussed way in which images and mothers in the West, and fathers and symbols in Japan, are to blame for, or catalytic in propelling the infant in a quest for something else something more.

The father in Japan, even as he says, go on sleep next to your mother is living symbolic proof - "father" - that the child is not a parent. A child of my acquaintance fantasised that a sibling was that child's own child. But the presence of the father and mother, the fact that they come as a set, presents a different type of prohibition, a parental prohibition that says to the child "No! You are not one of us. You are not a parent too!" And so all that toil, and study, and waiting and sweating and longing begins.

Notes
天皇は、日本國の象徴であり、日本国民の総合の象徴であって、その地位は日本国民の至高の総意に基づく。The emperor is the symbol of Japan and the symbol of the will of the Japanese people, and this status is based in the highest will of the Japanese people.

吉本隆明. (1982). 共同幻想論 (1982年) (改訂新.). 角川書店.

Labels: japan, japanese culture, Jaques Lacan, lacan, sex, 合体, 日本文化

The above is a screen-shot of a recently opened "Co-Sleeping Speciality Store" (Soneya) or a place where customers can pay to sleep with Japanese women, called "Sonesuto" or Co-Sleepists according the store's twitter. The prices are steep at about 70 dollars an hour for the first hour, and one has to pay for extras such as staring into your bed-partner's eyes, patting or being patted, or sleeping (for three minutes!) in their arms. But custom is booming, and media attention considerable.

There are a lot of reasons why this services is available in Japan as opposed to anywhere else.

The central theory espoused by this blog (burogu.com) is that the Japanese live in the visio-imaginary. That is to say that the visual and imagined is the most important media/channel and felt to be the most real part of the world. This is because instead of having simulated/internalised a thou, super-addressee, Other, or generalised other of self-speech, the Japanese have internalised a generalised point of view. The Japanese can see themselves from the eye of the Other.

This means that things that look the same, are, for most practical purposes, the same. Thus shrines and temples, foreign villages (gaiku-mura), food (plastic food), art works, offerings (horse sculptures and drawings called ema), and people (robots, and co-sleepists) can be copied and will be felt to be the same as, or almost the same as the original.

This encourages the Japanese to purchase far more copyist services, such as women that sit next to your and laugh at your jokes (the main job of a snack hostess), people who clean our your ears (the typical behaviour of a mother or doting female) or someone to sleep next to you, the behaviour again of a girlfriend. The Japanese do not limit themselves to prostitution (which in its coital form is illegal) but purchase all sorts of soft services that people from Britain would only require from someone who had the correct "internal" states.

The tag line of the website says, "it is just enough to have you sleep next to me". Their major clientèle are tired men in their 30s to 40s.

This brings me to another reason that Japanese are more inclined to purchase co-sleeping services. The Japanese sleep with their children. Children sleep between their parents. They are brought up feeling very secure and loved. This means that the parents on the other hand far more rarely get to sleep with someone of their own size at least. Hence the need for this service.

Labels: authenticopy, image, japan, japanese culture, nihonbunka, sex, 日本文化

Labels: female, gender, male, religion, reversal, sex, Shinto, ジェンダー, 宗教, 日本文化

They could almost be the same girl, with a variety of hair colours. In the Edo period too, stylised pictures of "beautiful women" looked like they could have been of the same woman but now the woman's face is very different. Images of beauty have changed.

The above is the first page of google images, searching for anime face girl.

It would be interested to ask a pool of subjects whether they think the images are of the same girl by different people, or of different girls, and to compare these results with say, googles first page of impressionist beautiful women. While I do not believe that the Japanese are generally conformist (as is generally believed) I do think that views of feminine beauty are very convergent in Japan because the Japanese idealise and enhance the image more. I have argued (Leuers and Sonoda, 1999) that since Westerners idealise and enhance character traits more, their self-professed character traits are far more convergent than those of Japanese.

It is amazing that there is a photo (or two?) in there.

Copyright their respective copyright holders. please use comments or nihonbunka.com contact link to have this image removed from the net.

Labels: fashion, female, feminism, image, japan, japanese culture, Jaques Lacan, lacan, logos, male, manga, mirror, nihobunka, nihonbunka, occularcentrism, self, sex, specular, ジェンダー, 日本文化

The Japanese in the Edo period had a fairly localised view of beauty, so much so that these beautiful women look very alike to the point of appearing identical. These Traditional Japanese beauties had neither large round eyes, nor double eyelids. Their eyes were slit like and their features were generally small and angular. Pointy noses where in, but not particularly large ones. This leads me to believe that the current Japanese fondness for large round eyes, especially with creased ("double") eyelids is partly the result of the influence of Western, caucasian, images of beauty upon Japan.

Labels: fashion, female, feminism, image, japan, japanese culture, Jaques Lacan, lacan, logos, male, manga, mirror, nihobunka, nihonbunka, occularcentrism, self, sex, specular, ジェンダー, 日本文化

The ubiquitous short stay hotel, affectionately know as love hotels or in abbreviated Japanese rabuho, with prices by the hour or two, and by the night if you come after about 10pm. They are usually situated at the outskirts of town, sometimes in a hotel complex (there are two affilated hotels in this photo) often, in rural areas for privacy, and near motorway interchanges for easier access. They are, of course, hotels primarily designed for the purpose of having sex.

Two condoms usually in a little basket, are invariably provided at the head of the bed, and sometimes there are vending machines selling sex toys.

The rooms are often themed, with such varieties as: classic four-poster-bed style, slightly Japanese style, mirrored ceiling, gymnasium style, wild west style, cute-pink and pastel shades style, disneyland style, or simply various styles of interiour decoration. The style of interiour decoration will be displayed on a poster outside the room or in the front lobby.

The rooms often have jaccuzzi baths, and one room or "cottage" in this complex has a sort of swimming pool bath with flowing water so that one can swim without going forward - the swimming equivalent of a jogging machine/treadmill.

Typical prices are about 60-70 dollars for 2 hours and (after 10 pm) 100 dollars till the next morning. Users are typicallly young couples that live at home, parents and couples that live in three generation households who do not have a sufficiently private space in their homes, those having extra marrital affairs, and occasionally men who are accompanied by or who order prostitutes (or "delivery" "health" masseuse) to the rooms.

I am not aware of the existance of short stay hotels in the UK. In the USA there are short stay hotels but they generally serve only the latter type of customer, so I am told.

Love hotels are often fullly booked on Christmas Eve when it is traditional to take ones girlfriend out for a bonk, such is the Japanese idea of the spirit of Christmas.

"Love" (appropriately pronounced "rub") Hotels are usually set up in such a way so that the occupants of the rooms do not need to meet the hotel proprietors. As one enters the room the door is automatically locked so that one can not leave (except in emergency) without depositing money in a vending machine. Alternatively the front desk of the hotel in an urban situation may be a kiosk with a small window such the desk clerk and the customers can not see each other. Before the advent of vending machines controlling door locks, there were sometimes systems of pipes that allowed customers to send payment in canisters sucked or blown down a network of pneumatic pipes.

The rooms are often very spacious, with living room areas, large (often glass walled) bathrooms, and king sized beds. The rooms of the hotel in this photograph are semidetached masionettes, with a living room and bathroom area on the ground floor, and a bedroom on the upper floor.

From a British point of view, their is a definate strangeness, which seems to lie in the difficulty of visiting (with a partner) a space whose purpose is so overt.

British couples take each other back to their respective apartments with the tacit assumption that sex may be on the cards, but at the same time with possibility that they may just watch TV, drink tea, or fall asleep in various degrees of proximity ("I'll take the couch").

When taking someone to a love hotel on the other hand, there is presumably an overt assumption, that one is going there for the purpose of copulation. Not withstanding the euphamistic name, "love hotels" are a space designed and designated for purpose of sex acts. An invitation to a love hotel is thus, not just "lets go back to my/your place for a bonk," but "lets go to a sex gymnasium," or "lets rent a room for ****ing in."

Having said that, some Japanese couples do just go to enjoy the themes and luxury of the love hotel environmment. And they are luxurious, and a nice place to stay even if you do not use them in the way that their designers had in mind.

Unfortunately, love hotels sometimes do not welcome single customers, or groups (such as groups of backpackers).

Labels: family, feminism, japanese culture, nihobunka, nihonbunka, religion, sex, taboo, tabuu, 日本文化

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

Labels: care-givers, family, female, feminism, gender, japanese culture, nihobunka, nihonbunka, reversal, sex, taboo, tabuu, ジェンダー, 日本文化

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.

Labels: culture, nihobunka, nihonbunka, sex, westernisation

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.

Labels: family, gender, nihobunka, nihonbunka, sex, Shinto, 宗教, 日本文化

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.

Labels: culture, japan, japanese culture, lacan, nihonbunka, reversal, sex, taboo, tabuu, 日本文化