J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Japanese mythology the primal female, Izanami (top left), "the female inviter", who together with the primal male, Izanagi, created the first entities - the islands of Japan, mountains and finally fire, at which point she died and went to the underworld.

Such was her partners mourning, he spoke to himself liberally, that he decided to go to the underworld to get her out. Despite her warning he looked at Izanami, and saw that she was dead! This should not have been a surprise, but he was horrified and fled. Izanami gave chase and the two parted at the gates of hell with the following promise.

Inazami: "If you trap me in the underworld with that rock I will kill 1000 children a day"
Inazagi: "I will make 1500 parturition huts (where japanese women go in myth and relatity to give birth)."

Like the myth of the Fall, in Genesis, this creation myth has a taboo (on birth hence the "parturition huts" rather than fig leaves hiding sex) and explains the origin of death, the seperation of two worlds, and the beginning of going forth and multiplying.

The Japanese population has increased ever since, until, five years ago, when in 2010 it started to fall. It occured to me that Izanami must be out and about. But I did not know what that might mean.

More recently I have tended to believe that these primal females that are shut in caves, hell or our breasts, are the interluctors that some Western psychologists and philosophers claim underpins the narrative self. I met her a long time ago, in a brief moment of psychosis and presumed it was only me. Still more recently I have seen that Freud and Derrida are hinting at the same structure. It is not only me. Izanami is listening to everyone who talks 'to themselves'.

Who was she? Izanami helps her partner drip brine from his "pond lance" to create the first "self-stiffening" island. She accepts (but must not give) invitations to sex. When she invites the results are disasterous, so she just says yes, "Ah! what a fair and lovely man!". Izanami affirms. Until that her partner realied that she was dead, Izanami made him feel really good about himself. She completed him. Izanami is the great male-ego-massager.

This is what the narrative self does for you. Our self-narratives allow us to spin self-evaluations in a positive direction, and in the West this tendency has spun out of control (Twenge & Campbell, 2009; Ehrenreich, 2009). While there are still lots of people with low self esteem the USA, and they are maintaining the birth rate, it has been pointed out that self-esttem correlates with low teen pregnancy, (Mecca, Smelser, & Vasconcellos, 1989), high use of contraceptives (Ager, Shea, & Agronow, 1982; Cvetkovich & Grote 1980: Herold, Goodwin, & Lero 1979; Hornick, Doran, & Crawford 1979: see Mecca, Smelser, & Vasconcellos, 1989) and the singles culture that has exploded since the 1960's and 70s in the USA (Twenge & Campbell, 2009) . .

A Japanese television presenter (Hasegawa, 2014) has made a similar claim regarding the declinging birth rate in Japan. "The decline in the Japanese birth rate does not stop because young people love themselves more than raising children." (日本の少子化が止まらないのは、若者が子育てよりも自分のことが大好きだから).

The opinion of one commentator is all very well but what about hard research?

Nagahisa, Kashiwa, (2003) gave adult married women a questionnaire about how they felt about their lives containing containing 21 questions (Table 3, p 42 bottom three factors shown), upon which they performed an exploratory factor analysis to see which items grouped with which others. They found that there were four main factors in the womens lives which they named (reordered to match Table 4)
1) Satisfaction with husband
2) Satisfaction as parent.
3) Satisfaction with self
4) Impatience and disillusment with own individuality.
Unfortunately for my theory, self esteem correlates positively, and self-dillusionment negatively with satisfaction with parenthood. My hypothesis was not upheld. I thought that hypothesis may have been supported when I first started writing this post since the factors are ordered diferently in Table 3 and 4 in the original paper.

Still the paper tested satisfication with parent child relationship and not the intention to have more or less children. I shall have to do my own research. The prediction is that self-esteem will be related to sexual self-worth (see Anderson, 1990) rather than as valuations of and as a parent. It is probably more appropriate to investigate Japanese male self esteem and desire for children.

The Japanese have been pushing self-esteem on their children since the 1990s. They now have a large sector of their population that not only see themselves positively (in the usual Japanese autoscopic manner) but narrate themselves positively as well. As Hasegawa (2014) says, these hybrids are unliklely to want involve themselves in childrearing.

Bibliography
Ehrenreich, B. (2009). Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America. Macmillan.
Hisanaga, Kashiwagi (1999) 永久ひさ子, & 柏木惠子. 成人期女性における資源配分と生活感.教育心理学研究 Vol. 47 (1999) No. 2 p. 170-179
Hasegawa, Y. 長谷川富.(2014).日本の少子化が止まらないのは、若者が子育てよりも自分のことが大好きだから. Blog post.
spotlight-media.jp/article/93578650305704689
Mecca, A. M., Smelser, N. J., & Vasconcellos, J. (Eds.). (1989). The social importance of self-esteem. Univ of California Press.
Jean M. Twenge, W. Keith Campbell (2009) The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement,  Free Press.

Notes
The "pond spear" of Izanagi and Izanami is usually translated as jewelled spear from a reading of the 沼 character used in the Kojiki to mean jewel. But the Kojiki rarely uses characters phonetically alone unless it says so ("these three characters should be read phonetically") so the lance was jeweled and one from a bog or pond. Weapon's entering a reflective pond, is repeated in the next section of the Kojiki when Susano'o meets Izanagi's replacement above the "well in the middle of heaven" and allows his sister to chew up his sword and spit it into this new pond.
Much of Japanese mythic creation takes place over water often dripping upon them. I think that this is an attempt to illustrate the "contradictory" (Nishida) looping of the klien bottle of the visual self. For that which sees, consciousness, to see itself, the face in the mirror must at the same time cover it, become it. So Japanese heroes and heroines, and the first person of Japanese songs, are often crying, spitting, and dripping impure symblos above mirrored surfaces.

Jean M. Twenge, W. Keith Campbell (2010) The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
books.google.co.jp/books?isbn=1416575995
At the same time that the interest in self-esttem and self-expression ramped up, the culture begam to move away from community-oriented thinking. As Robert Putnam showed in his bestseller, Bowling Alone, membership in groups such as Kiwanis, the PTA, and even bowling leagues began to decline in the '70s. Personal relationships showed similar trends. The divorce rate skyrocketed, young people began tomarry later, and the birth rate plummeted. Singles culture, practically nonexistent in the 1950's and 1960's was all the rage, with singles only aparment complexes springing up and disco rooms full of gold-chain wearing bachelors and young bachelorettes trying not to spraing their ankles dancing to "Stayin Aliv" in four inch platform heels. A few other atuhors have also pegged the roots of the narcissim epidemic to the 70's..."the "Me" Decade"


publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6c6006v5&...
Four of the five studies investigating the association between selfesteem and contraceptive use report similar findings: low self-esteem is associated with less frequent or less sustained use of contraceptives. ...No study demonstrates a link between low self-esteem and effective use of contraceptives.

Ager, Shea, and Agronow 1982
Cvetkovich and Grote 1980
Herold, Goodwin, and Lero 1979
MacKinnon Self-Esteem Scale
Hornick, Doran, and Crawford 1979
Rogel and Zuehlke 1982

high self-esteem has been associated with effective contraception primarily for white adolescents, thereby limiting the applicability of these findings to other groups. Nevertheless, there is sufficient correlational evidence to further consider a possible causal link between self-esteem and contraceptive use.

www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=1446
Males become sexual predators whose self-esteem rests on mastering women, maneuvering them to relinquish sexual favors without commitment or support from the man.35 A male's status will actually be enhanced to the extent his mastery of women allows him to parasitically draw economic and material support from them.
Elijah Anderson, Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990), pp. 112-119.

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19900818&...
Self-esteem, values called tools to help curb teen pregnancy.

www.overpopulation.org/pop-sustainability.html
Dr. Adamu: Giving them information on how to control their reproduction and get health care - and that there is a choice - empowers them and gives them the self-esteem to choose the number and the spacing of their children.

Dr Potts: If you respect women and give them a choice, they will tend to have fewer children.

spotlight-media.jp/article/93578650305704689
日本の少子化が止まらないのは、若者が子育てよりも自分のことが大好きだからフリーアナウンサ 長谷川豊

Labels: japan, japanese culture, nihonbunka, religion, Shinto, specular, taboo, tabuu, theory, 日本文化

These chocolate treats are called Unchoco the "un" of which is a pun on the "un" of luck or fortune and the "unch" of "unchi" or poop. The connction with turds is emphasised by the fact that the chocolate treats, in three colours, are dispensed from an orifice in the posterior of a variety of origami animals. Children are encouraged to devine their fortune based on the colour of the chocolate stool, and then eat it.

Young children the world over probably share a fascination with faeces, but in the West this fascination is repressed out of them. The relative lack of taboo on nakedness and sex, in Japan, encourages no ill feeling towards things elow the belt. Rice farming encouraged the Japanese to see faeces as a valuable source of fertilizer. Hence compartive research shows that the Japanaese are able to talk about the size and consistency with their parents. This confectionery also exemplifies, the Japanese fascination with cute things, and the small quantities in which they consume sweet things; the treats weigh only 31 grams (about one ounce) in total.

Labels: culture, japan, japanese culture, taboo, tabuu

The Japanese are good at making some things and not at others.

According to my understanding, the Japanese are ego-involved in the image, the imaginable, res-extensa, space and place. Westerners are ego-involved in language.

So generally speaking Westerners are good at making linguistic things, such as retail systems, financial services, institutions, laws, theories, drug formulas, and above all software, except heavily image-dependent game software.

And generally speaking the Japanese and East Asians are good at making things - pretty much all things, especially those which capture and display images, but also cars, robots, lights, bicycle frames, motor bikes, trains, bridges, dams, architecture and computers other than the logical/linguist microprocessor "architectures".

But there are exceptions, especially relating to cultural taboos.

To the Japanese, nature is something rather special, sacred and to a degree taboo. Nature is beautiful and a little scary; not something that until recently, they felt able to go traipsing around in as a leisure activity, enjoying "outdoors". This is why many "outdoor" (they use the English word) goods, such as tents, rucksacks, raincoats, and climbing gear may be branded, if not made, outside of Japan.

Another thing that the Japanese have not been very good at, and continue to import, is shoes. Britain imports very little to Japan but one product that can be purchased in any town are British shoes, made by Doctor Martens for instance. I presume that this may be due to the taboo associated with leather industry. Due to the Buddhism related prohibitions on the killing of animals (or at least land animals, with hair) the leather industry was traditionally considered impure and those that worked in it it likewise. This may have served to dampen the development of Japanese footwear. Who wants to wear wooden clogs (geta) anyone?

But then again, the Japanese are excellent at making footwear for appearances such as those pictured above. They may not last all long, in terms of comfort, grip and walking speed, they may not compete, but they look...well anyway that the customer wants them to look, with heels, patters, toe extenders, and straps galore.

Japanese footwear brings my attention to another aspect of Japanese products: the sometimes place form over function. When it comes to what they do, other than look really cool, they are not always the best. Japanese cars for instance, may look good but they are often not 'drivers cars' because the qualities such as "responsiveness", or "handling" ar,e in so far as they can be communicated or represented, notional, ideational, arguably linguistic, and at least not something that Japanese designers can see or imagine and become ego-involved in.

What about the car I drive, a Subaru Impreza WRX? It is the epitome of functionality over appearance. I can only surmise that there are exceptions to everything and point out that "Scoobies", as they are known and loved in the UK, are not very popular in Japan, and those that drive them are thought to be rather strange, "Subarists." Sadly, from my British point of view, Subaru seems to be in the process of being taken over by Toyota and seem to have given upon on their function above form philosophy.

Labels: athletes foot, image, japan, japanese culture, logos, nature, nihobunka, nihonbunka, taboo, tabuu, theory

The climax of the chorus of the recent chart topping song by teenage girl-band, 'idol group' NMB48 is "steel panties," refering to their collective intention not to take them off for their boyfriend until they are 20 years of age. The song's title, "Junjou U19" means "Pure (i.e. non sexual) emotion or affection, and the "U19" may mean under or equal to 19, since the lyrics mention adulthood which is considered to be from 20. The boyfriends are going to have a long wait in some instances because at least one of the members is 13 years old. Yes, indeed, only 13 years old.

Having seen the video, it seems that it has been created with the intention to include as many ways as possible of allowing the viewers to feel that they can or will see the "steel panties" refered to the in the lyrics, with low camera angles, miniskirts, rotating girls, somersaulting girls, girls lying down, hanging from wires, rolling over balls, on tightropes, a trapeze, podia, and finally fired from a circus cannon. I think it is very inventive, but not to my taste.

Japan is bursting at its creative seams. Donald Richie's "The Image Factory: Fads and fashions in Japan," details the many ways in which Japan is a powerhouse of creative image making. Alas, the myriad images that Japan makes are different, and often not popular among those with Western sensitivities.

A big problem for human society, perhaps the biggest, is encouraging men and women to cooperate. There are two extremely effective ways of doing this. 1) Persuade all members of society that they are neutred men. 2) Persuade all members of society that they are wombless, bloodless women. The West takes the former route, Japan the latter. In each case it is imperative that the unattractive parts of the idealised sex are banished: their desire in each case is taboo. Jesus was a man in his ability to lead, be righteous, brave, and strong but there was no one iota of lewdness about him. The idealised woman in Japan is similarly, self-sacrificing and supposedly berift of desire. The Western "gentle" man, and Japanese "idol" stop at the waist, they are castrated, spayed, anaemic, and perfect.

This repression however, gives rise to even greater desire for its disolution, for (in the West) a gentleman who is also an ape man; Tarzan/Earl Greystoke a combination of pure male sex and complete gentrified repression. I think that NMB48 are the Japanese equivalent of Tarzan/Greystoke, pure sex, and pure chasity rolled (often literally) into one steel pantie.

The idealized synthesis of purity and sexuality (Ranger, 2011) is also found to an extent in the British lady, such as portrayed by Audredy Hepburn (who was tremendously popular in Japan) in the naivity of the characters played by Marylyn Munroe (though she was a little too sexy, and not quite pure enough for Japanese taste) and the disembodied chamellion Lady Gaga who almost seems a little Japanese. However, In Japan there is a desire for a more extreme synthesis which is why we see thirteen year old chidren, in miniskirts, singing about sex, wearing "steel panties".

Other examples of Tarzan, that the Japanese need to import if they are to enjoy, include the macho heroes such portrayed by Arnold Schwarnegger, and Sylvester Stallone, who are an idealised synthesis of testosterone and righteousness.

NMB48 poster by MadAdminSkilz copyright Kyoraku Yoshimoto Holdings Co., Ltd.
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Labels: fashion, female, gender, male, nihobunka, nihonbunka, taboo, tabuu, theory, 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Labels: horror, nihobunka, nihonbunka, specular, taboo, tabuu, theory, 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

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

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

Beaches are not visited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: japan, japanese culture, Jaques Lacan, lacan, taboo, tabuu, theory, 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


The full Japanese words are listed here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: culture, japan, japanese culture, nihonbunka, sex, tabuu, theory, 日本文化

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: culture, female, horror, image, japan, japanese culture, lacan, logos, male, nihonbunka, ring, ringu, shining, tabuu, theory, 日本文化

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

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

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

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

Labels: culture, japan, japanese culture, Jaques Lacan, lacan, manga, nihonbunka, sex, taboo, tabuu, theory, 日本文化

As Foucault argued, in a society where sex is taboo, sex - in a cleansed form - becomes a social obsession. Cleansed sex, or romantic love, is a major Western obsession.

In Japanese society, on the other hand, where the womb and all it stands for is the most secret, hidden, scarlet taboo, motherly love seeps out everywhere. Even yakuza pretend to be elder brothers (perhaps in a sense mothers or care givers), and even the most hardened of businessmen learn to fawn ("amae") to their bosses. Japan is awash with fawning, spoiling, and people being cute.

Even building site labourers are cute. These work safety promotion posters depict building site labourers in a big-eyed, cute way. And building site labourers, in their knickerbockers, really do look cute too.

See also

Labels: culture, horror, japan, japanese culture, nihonbunka, taboo, tabuu, theory, 日本文化

There is no door to this gentleman's toilet in a park in Yamaguchi. The park is in a residential area, along the side of the Fushino River in central Yamaguchi City. During the cherry blossom season the park is popular as a place to hold "flower watching" parties. When the weather is fine there are usually people walking their dogs, playing baseball, football or dodge ball or occasionally with remote control aeroplanes.

This means that if men or boys wish to urinate they must do so in full view of other users of the park. People from Anglophone cultures may feel very uncomfortable with this Japanese custom. I believe this is because there is a stronger taboo upon things associated with sex.

In Japan, on the other hand, there is a greater taboo associated with the sexuality of women (such as birth). Toilets for women always have doors. Japanese women’s toilets, also occasionally have devices for hiding the sound of the falling urine, by broadcasting the sound of a toilet flushing. Before such devices were available, Japanese women were, for the same reason, inclined to flush the toilet more than once during and after use.

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