J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

Rather than being "phono logo phallo centric" (Derrida) the Japanese are not so much animist (as they claim) but "Video Ergo Sum" (Lenggenhager, et al. 2007). This is due to the fact that the other of the Japanese is a gaze rather than an ear (Derrida). The Japanese mind is a mirror and the centre of gravity of the self is the face or "mask" (Wasuji). For that reason the Japanese have a fascination with photography and especially trick photography since if something looks like it is, then in a sense, it is. He I am photographed with Ray and May surrounded by "Photo Props" which are pieces of paper to change ones appearance in photos and are currently booming in Japan. Before the arrival of "photo props" of course, Puri Kura (Print Clubs) provided portrait photography post processing.

Why is it that we feel that each and every instance of a word has the same meaning, and can be copied perfectly authentically such as to make copies equivalent, and redundant? Answers to this question vary, but according to Derrida they all imply a "presence," either of some entity such as a metaphysical world of ideas (Plato, e.g. Theaetetus), meanings that are hard-wired in the brain (Pinker, 2007) , or because they refer to a shared physical world (Pierce, 1973). Others posit an ongoing inter-subjective presence, of God, the super-ego, super-addressee who understands words in the same way. At the middle ground between these two extremes is perhaps an awareness of usage: an abstraction from inter-subjective communication (Wittgenstein, 1973).

The Japanese may believe, as argued by Mori (1999), that words exist in the absence of any shared additional presence across iterations. Japanese words may lack both shared system and the perspective of a "third person" intra-psychic imaginary friend . Words are contextual and imbued with the subjectivity of the situation in which they were received. In this case copies of words are no longer redundant any more than are views of colours, flowers or sunsets. Words thus conceived are not authentically copyable, but need to be received.

When on pilgrimage, Japanese have traditionally collected words from spatially separate sites. These words do not sink into a system, nor are consumed by any internal friend. They are collected by having them stamped into cards, or books that pilgrims hang around their necks, or as in the above image, onto the clothes that they wear upon their person.

I am again reminded of Revelation 22:4. "There will no longer be any curse..."

The above image is the Google image search page for pilgrim's clothes (gyoue)

Derrida, J. (2011). Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Northwestern Univ Pr.
Mori, 森, 有正. (1999). 森有正エッセー集成〈5〉. 筑摩書房.
Peirce, C. S. (1894). What is a sign? Theorizing Communication: Readings across Traditions, 177. Retrieved from www.semioticadelprogetto.it/download/CSP%20-%20What%20is%...
Pinker, S. (2007). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Plato, 427? BCE-347? BCE. (1999). Theaetetus. (B. Jowett, Trans.). Retrieved from www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1726
Wittgenstein, L. (1973). Philosophical Investigations (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall.

Labels: authenticopy, derrida, nihonbunka, 日本文化

Edo period Japanese were fond of visiting Ise Shrine, other shrines and temples, and also famous mountains, none more so than Mount Fuji. However the purpose of visiting Mount Fuji was not to enjoy the view from the top, which as the saying goes is preferred only by stupid bigheads and smoke (baka ya kemuri ha takai tokoro ga suki). So instead of climbing the mountain, they more often chose to climb a model of the mountain, wearing full pilgrim's attire, at one of the shrines at the base of Mount Fuji (Ohwada, 2009, p. 40: quote in Japanese below).

There is no size information in the visual. A bonsai tree looks the same as a massive oak, and a model of Mount Fuji can look the same as the real thing. If you wear the right kit and walk up a model, then you might as well have walked up the actual mountain, because they will look the same way. In he land of the sun-goddess the authenti-copies or simulacra (Baudrillard, 1995) are not words, which Westerners feel to be perfectly copyable because we have a listening comforter, but visual replications such as of mountains in front of Shinto shrines.

Japanese culture is rife with authenticopies such as bonsai, model food in place of menus, dolls, horse and cow sculptures at shrines, masks, pictures of the deceased and his royal highness the emperor, and the god-head (goshintai) of the deities themselves that can be copied or split 'as one can split a fire' (Norinaga, see Herbert, 2010, p.99). The practice of visiting copies continues to this day in the form of creating foreign villages ("gaikoku mura") which fascinate foreign anthropologists and tourism theorists (Graburn, Ertl, & Tierney, 2010; J. Hendry, 2000; Joy Hendry, 2012; Nenzi, 2008). I don't think that they have noticed that the Japanese world is inside out yet, however.

If it were indeed the case, as argued here, that the Japanese world is that of light, an amalgam of images, seen and 'insured' by the watchful eye of the Sun goddess, then in order for someone to pass from Western to Japanese culture, from a Western to Japanese world, they would need to pass through the veil of perception. Perhaps all one really needs to do is find the dead girl that you are talking off to.

Perhaps that is what David Lynch (1992) meant by "Walk fire with me".

The above image is composed of a detail from the model mountains (though not of Mount Fuji) or standing sand (tatesuna) in Kamowake-Kazushi Shrine precinct by 663highland, and image of a monk in a straw hat from gatag copyright free image source.

富士山の場合は、富士山に実際に登山していわゆる富士山禅定（ぜんじょう・登る＝修行）を行う者はむしろ砂苦、大多数はしないの富士山神社や諸社寺境内に設けられた箱庭式で模擬登山を行うのであった(大和田, 2009, p. 40)

Bibliography
Baudrillard, J. (1995). Simulcra and Simulation. (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). Univ of Michigan Pr.
Graburn, N., Ertl, J., & Tierney, R. K. (2010). Multiculturalism in the New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries Within. Berghahn Books.
Hendry, J. (2000). Foreign Country Theme Parks: A New Theme or an Old Japanese Pattern? Social Science Japan Journal, 3(2), 207–220. http://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/3.2.207
Hendry, J. (2012). Understanding Japanese Society (4th ed.). Routledge.
Herbert, J. (2010). Shinto: At the Fountainhead of Japan. Taylor & Francis.
Lynch, D. (1992). Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Nenzi, L. N. D. (2008). Excursions in identity: travel and the intersection of place, gender, and status in Edo Japan. University of Hawaii Press.
大和田守. (2009). こんなに面白い江戸の旅. (歴史の謎を探る会, Ed.). 東京: 河出書房新社.

Labels: authenticopy, japanese culture, Nacalian, nihobunka, Shinto, tourism, 日本文化

Fritters as you like them. Fritters to taste. Free fritters. Fritters freed. Japanese pan fried pizza. Savory pancakes. DIY fry-up. Griddled Goo. Individualistic johnnycakes. Selfish savories. Preference, predilection, prepossession, propensity, personalised or pet pancakes or paste. Pet preparation. Wished or whimsy waffles. What you will waffles. (Free)Will waffles. Flavour Flapjacks. Groove griddle cakes. Number one gunge, My cup of tea cakes. Croquette my way. Darling, dearest, desired, or druthers doughboys or dumplings. Liberty cakes. The cook is on holiday cakes. Be my batter cakes. Beloved batter cakes, Coagulated stir fry. Callous cutlets. Choice cabbage cakes. Liking or Love lump cakes. Main mush. Choice Concoction. My mix. Pan fried partiality. Pan-fried perfection. Caprice cakes. Hobby hotplate. Free-style fries. Fried fantasy. Freedom fries. My fry. Favourite fries. Hashed heaven. Hashed happiness.

My students always 'translate' the name for Japanese foods such as that pictured above (お好み焼き) using their phonetization, "okonomi yaki," which might just as well be kowwash firdight for all the meaning it would impart to the average anglophone. This is I think because people hate meaninglessness (Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006) so if at least one word in Japanese is included in any sentence the sender knows that at least that one word will be meaningful in a Japanese context, and that their conversation partner will have some idea of what they are talking about. The reasons for this is anatta or no self. The self is just a representation (story or image): something with a meaning. The lack of meaning is self-annihilation, and English conversation practice almost deadly. I need to be nicer to my students, investigate Japanese hospice praxis, while insisting that students use non-phonetic translations.

Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(2), 88-110.
www.google.co.jp/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&...

Addendum Good Paper on Japanese hospice praxis emphasises the use of image-based measure (PAC analysis) rather than scales. Recommends, in addition to palliative care and listen: smiles and improved personal hygiene and health on the part of the carer. I try to always attend conversation class wearing a business shirt and tie.
對馬明美, Tsushima, A., 三上佳澄, Mikami, K., 西沢義子, & Nishizawa, Y. (2010). 死を意識している患者との対話場面における看護者の態度構造に関する研究. 日本看護研究学会雑誌, 33(5), 33-44.　http://www.jsnr.jp/test/search/docs/103305003.pdf

内藤哲雄1997／2002PAC 分析実施法入門［改訂版］「個」を科学する新技法への招待ナカニシヤ出版 amazon link a student gave a presentation about this. I thought it came from outside of Japan.

内藤哲雄. (1997). PAC 分析の適用範囲と実施法. 信州大学人文学部人文科学論集< 人間情報学科編>, 31, 51-87.
https://soar-ir.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=707&item_no=1&attribute_id=65&file_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=45

Labels: els, english, englishconversation, nacalianism, nihobunka, self, 日本文化

The Japanese very rarely brag (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999), linguistically at least (Leuers = Takemoto & Sonoda, 1999). On the other hand the Japanese are "haughty" in their manner, posture and attire (Busk, 1841; Coleridge, 1872; Cortazzi, 2013; Golovnin & Shishkov, 1819; Krusenstern & Kruzenshtern, 1813). The Japanese eschew vocalising their superiority, which is left for others to do for them in flattery which, though void of linguistic meaning, as a form of obeisance is rife (Takemoto, in preparation).

Kōdayū (pictured above) spent 11 years in Russia as a castaway at a time when Japan was closed to the rest of the world. He returned full of "Western learning," and no doubt somewhat Westernised in manner, to obtain an audience with the shogun, the top man in Japan, about which Donald Keene writes,

"The shogun's questions were asked at random, and suggests that he was more interested in displaying his own knowledge of Russian than in learning new things from Kōdayū. The interrogation sometimes took the form: "There is a great clock in the castle tower of Moscow. Have you seen it?" Similar enquiries about the statue of Peter the Great and a famous Muscovian cannon were followed by, "Have you ever seen a camel?" (Keene, 1952, p.55)

The Japanese are not perfect. Looking, but not listening, with mother they expect to see those around them fawn and pay lip-service. Keene takes the shogun to task. I think that Kōdayū failed to flatter. Faced with such an ill-mannered subject the shogun had no choice but to ask rhetorical, self-answering questions for the purpose of self verification which is probably pan-cultural (Seih, Buhrmester, Lin, Huang, & Swann Jr., 2013) da yo ne?

Busk, M. M. (1841). Manners and Customs of the Japanese, in the Nineteenth Century: From Recent Dutch Visitors of Japan, and the German of Dr. Ph. Fr. Von Siebold. John Murray, Albemarle Street.
Coleridge, H. J. (1872). The life and letters of St. Francis Xavier : in two volumes. Asian Educational Services.
Cortazzi, H. (2013). Victorians in Japan: In and around the Treaty Ports. A&C Black.
Golovnin, V. M., & Shishkov, A. S. (1819). Recollections of Japan: Comprising a Particular Account of the Religion : Language : Government : Laws and Manners of the People : with Observations on the Geography : Climate : Population and Productions of the Country : to which are Pre-fixed Chronological Details of the Rise : Decline : and Renewal of British Commercial Intercourse with that Country.
Heine, S., Lehman, D., Markus, H., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?. Psychological Review. Retrieved from humancond.org/_media/papers/heine99_universal_positive_re...
Keene, D. (1952). The Japanese Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and Other Discoverers, 1720-1798. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Krusenstern, A. J. von, & Kruzenshtern, I. F. (1813). Voyage Round the World, in the Years 1803, 1804, 1805, & 1806. C. Roworth.
Leuers = Takemoto, T., & Sonoda, N. (1999). The eye of the other and the independent self of the Japanese. In Symposium presentation at the 3rd Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology, Taipei, Taiwan. Retrieved from nihonbunka.com/docs/aasp99.htm
Seih, Y.-T., Buhrmester, M. D., Lin, Y.-C., Huang, C.-L., & Swann Jr., W. B. (2013). Do people want to be flattered or understood? The cross-cultural universality of self-verification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(1), 169–172. doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.09.004

Labels: blogger, culturalpsychology, Flickr, heine, japaneseculture, jimanga, nihonbunka, selfenhancement, 日本文化

It seems to me that the key to Japanese culture is to realise that in the land of the rising mirror, the Japanese see themselves. This is evident in my opinion in the Japanese sense of private shame, Kyari Pamyu Pamyu eating eyeballs, Mariokart (Masuda, 2010), and birds eye view points in Ukiyoe (Masuda and Chang?) but above all, that this autoscopic ability may be closely linked with Budo and the Japanese arts.

At the moment however the only good reference I have for this is the theory of the eye apart in the 14th-15th century Noh actor and theoretician Zeami who says that repeated practice of Noh forms allows the creation of Eyes at a distance (Riken no Ken) that look back at oneself.

There is also a this book on the psychology of Budo by Takashi Ozawa (in Japanese) with a cover and belt (obi) that said that doing Budo one "obtains an other that looks at you" (but when I read the book and contacted the publisher it turned out that it was the publishers comment, rather than the author's). The cover image is great though.
Attachment 10901

Similarly also this "Onore wo mitsumeru" (Staring at oneself) in Japanese where Ryo Nagano claims that in Iaido one is always fighting, and seeing, an imaginary opponent and that eventually one realises that his opponent is oneself, thus Iaido is an autoscopic martial art.

And there is some research that a Kyudo practicing student of mine (Ikki Yamamoto) did that found that self-seeing or imagining correlated highly with archery ability (more than practice or anything else) since in archery as in Kendo, one is evaluated on form as well as lethality.

It could be argued that the strong sense of aesthetics or grace in Nitobe implies autoscopy.

The twofold gaze that Musashi Miyamoto in the Book of five rings does not mention autoscopy but it may well be especially "The Gaze in Strategy The gaze should be large and broad. This is the twofold gaze "Perception and Sight". Perception is strong and sight week. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. " (近き所を遠く見る事 in the original) p14 "In large-scale strategy the area to watch is the enemy's strength."Perception" and "sight" are the two methods of seeing. Perception consists of concentrating strongly on the enemy's spirit, observing the condition of the battlefield, fixing the gaze strongly, seeing the progress of the fight and the changes of advantages. This is the sure way to win. In single combat you must not fix the eyes on the details. As I said before, if you fix your eyes on details and neglect important things, your spirit will become bewildered, and victory will escape you." p3 40　and on p23 "You must make the best of the situation, see through the enemy's spirit so that you grasp his strategy and defeat him." does not mean see using the enemies spirit but rather "look at the enemies heart" ("敵の心を見" in the original). Re-reading the final single page chapter on the Void, I wonder what I mean by "seeing yourself" because there isn't one! But still it could mean several things! 1) Imagining how one looks from the perspective of others. 2) Seeing ones self representations, such as mirror reflections and first person views as representations and therefore at a distance 3) Seeing the void, the non-self, in which these occur.

Judith Butler claims in "Bodies that Matter" that repeated (Derrida's "iterated") actions facilitate the creation of 'body as sign' which can be self-addressed, and be meaningful, "matter."

There is also work on the overlap between theatre ('dramaturgy) and martial arts but I would not wish to suggest that Martial arts are a *performance for others,* so I tend to steer away from things dramatological.

I do Karate a little and badly. I think that perhaps I may be able to see myself (with some pain!) more than than before. I don't know if Butler is right but it does seem to be, as Zeami can be read to say, that it is forms practice in Budo, tea, or 'radio exercises' (that all Japanese children do) that seems to be key. I find that doing forms in rows of other people helps in that I feel myself to be iterated in space as it were in the forms of the other people.

Do others know of any other sources regarding self sight, autoscopy, or "sight apart" in the martial arts?

Masuda 増田貴彦. (2010). ボスだけを見る欧米人 みんなの顔まで見る日本人. 講談社.

Labels: blogger, collectivism, culturalpsychology, Flickr, groups, individualism, japaneseculture, Nacalian

Why is it that we we feel ourselves to be watching a screen from inside our heads? We feel ourselves to inhabit the blackness in front of the light. One reason for this is because we talk to ourselves and, and possibly something else, in the this darkness. It has been demonstrated that East Asians are far less likely to engage in self speech at least while attempting to solve problems (Kim, 2002). Further Japanese deities and arguably the other of the Japanese self is felt to be something that watches from without (Heine et al. 2008). I notice that some of the best of them such as Naruto and hachimaki headband wearers may even have their names, or marks, not inside them, but upon their their foreheads like Rev 22:4. None of this muttering in the dark for them. In Japan the names are out there. I think that Japanese engage in tourism to "named places" to remind themselves of this fact.

The Japanese are Westernising furiously but it seems to me that the next stage in human development should be for the world to become Japanese, who are "meek" to boot. Bowie developed a mark for his last record. He nearly got there.

Image is drawn by me but the character is copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Hayato Date and Shueisha.

Heine, S. J., Takemoto, T., Moskalenko, S., Lasaleta, J., & Henrich, J. (2008). Mirrors in the head: Cultural variation in objective self-awareness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(7), 879–887. Retrieved from www2.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/docs/2008Mirrors.pdf
Kim, H. S. (2002). We talk, therefore we think? A cultural analysis of the effect of talking on thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(4), 828. Retrieved from labs.psych.ucsb.edu/kim/heejung/kim_2002.pdf

Labels: japanese culture, tourism, 日本文化

Labels: autoscopy, blogger, Flickr, japaneseculture, Nacalian, nihonbunka, 日本文化

Labels: autoscopy, blogger, Flickr, Nacalian, nihonbunka, tourism, 日本文化, 観光

These Ostuka Lazer Sneakers are designed, I believe, to make Japanese feet - which are generally shorter than those of European descent - seem as long as a laser beam. They are long in the forefoot before the start of the laces and end in empty winkle picker toes. The laces, though they start higher on the foot, have a narrower pitch and also end higher on the foot to make it seem that the wearer is positively L shape. The whole shoe is as narrow as possible, in sporty sneaker style, but accentuates itself by the use of high gloss leather. These Japanese semi formal sneaker shoes are trying to tell us that their wearer has a body like a ballet dancer, with style, reserve, and finesse.

The Japanese are masters at visual self-enhancement. When you next meet a self-deprecating Japanese man, look at his feet.

You may also notice that he is standing in a Yohei pose to emphasize the thinness of one of this thighs.

Shoe design copyright Otsuka Shoe Manufacturers. お取り下げご希望でありましたら、下記のコメント欄、またはnihonbunka.comのメールリンクまでご連絡ください。

Labels: blogger, culturalpsychology, Flickr, heine, japaneseculture, Nacalian, nihonbunka, selfenhancement, 日本文化, 自己高揚

Japan is perhaps the safest place on earth, with perhaps the lowest death rate of any country on the planet when standardized for age of population. The above bar chart shows the low levels of accidental death in Japan. Pink bars are show sub-category composition data of the red bars above them.

There are however two areas in which Japan is less safe than international averages (shown in darker pink) one of which is especially pertinent at this time of year.

There are higher rates of chocking on foods, and higher rates of drowning in baths in Japan that in other countries. The elevated age of the Japanese population is one reason for these increased accident levels. Old people are more likely to choke on their food and to slip or otherwise fall below the waterline of their baths and be unable to get out.

Another reasons pertains to Japanese culture in each of these areas. Japanese baths have deeper traditionally cubic tubs which allow shared bathing (particularly mothers and children) and foetal positions for that pre-sleep return to the womb feeling.

In respect of choking, the Japanese enjoy a number of high-density, gelatinous foods such as konyaku, octopus and, the biggest killer, rice cakes (mochi) which are consumed especially at the beginning and end of the year. These high density foods enable the Japanese to enjoy a food rush without consuming the sort of quantity and weight consumed elsewhere of Christmas cake for instance. The fatalities to asphyxia as a result of rice cake eating are likely therefore to be far less than the fatalities due to obesity due to Christmas cake eating. Even so one should take care when eating rice cakes and perhaps gem up on ways to treat chocking in oneself and others (see below).

The above chart is based on my translation of Japanese government statistics available from Statistics Japan Table 5-31.

Other statistics of note to a Briton like myself, are that traffic accidents are so rare due to the great care that Japanese take on the roads one is almost as likely to choke on your food or drown in your bath than die on Japanese roads. Another fact that may take some visitors by surprise -- take care, drink water -- as many die from the heat of the Japanese summer (hyperthermia) as die from the cold (hypothermia). Animals cause 17 deaths per year due to brute force (including wild boar) whereas another 30 lives are claimed by dangerous animals (my mistranslation) including giant "sparrow hornets," the creatures that causes the most accidental death in Japan. From the sparrow hornets' point of view the death they cause is far from accidental. They are territorial and attack those that approach their nests and sources of food.

Treatments for Choking in Oneself and Others
Here is a video showing how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre (abdominal thrusts) on yourself, should you wish to dislodge a mochi stuck in your throat when you are on your own. Back slaps are recommended as the first thing to do to others, alternating with abdominal thrusts and chest thrusts once the patient is unconscious. If both don't work the brave of heart may wish to perform an airway incision centrally into the cartilage one inch below the voice box. A doctor performed this successful with a steak knife and barrel of a ball point pen (Daily Mail article with instructions)

The Japanese have a mirror in their hearts that loves them.

I have started applying my theory of Japanese culture, which I call Nacalianism - Lacanianism backwards - in my English conversation classes. I argue that the Japanese move from the symbolic stage to the mirror stage and remain there (or would, were it not for the efforts of Japan's leaders to Westernise Japan).

This means that when forced to speak English, they feel as bad as Westerners do when they are forced to sit in front of mirrors. The experience of focusing upon their speech creates in them an "objective self awareness" similar to that created in a Westerner in front of a mirror. Since the Japanese do not enhance in the linguistic modality, nor Westerners in the visual, they find it unpleasant.

In order to make English class more pleasant therefore it helps, I believe to increase Japanese students' visual self awareness still further such that they are so visually aware of themselves that they do not become depressed by their objectification in English conversation. This has in the past been achieved in at least two ways.

Before the famous English conversation school, Nova, was forced into bankruptcy I noticed that one of the features of Nova classrooms was that they had glass walls. There was a Nova classroom in Kyoto station where passengers could see students taking English conversation classes at Nova. At other Nova establishments in less public places the students in one class could see students in others. This sense of seeing and being seen increased, I believe, their visual self awareness such as overcome the negative affect of verbal objective self awareness in the land without a verbal Other.

Another thing that I have noticed in those rare Japanese that speak English well is their tendency to move their hands a lot. This may be simply in emulation of foreigners and to get into the spirit or culture of the English language but often these gestures appear rather different to those of English speakers, and more like the speaker is conducting himself. I think perhaps that this self-conduction encourages Japanese English speakers to visualize themselves and again, combat the negative affect of verbal objective self awareness.

In my class today I failed to encourage students to conduct themselves, and could not take them to a glass walled classroom but I did set up a web camera so as to display a view of the students on the walls of the class. I found that this improved the overall atmosphere of the class and the students ability to speak English.

Video of the same class

Labels: blogger, els, englishconversation, Flickr, japaneseculture, nihonbunka, 日本文化, 英会話

One of the main reasons why Japanese can't speak English is because they are too kind and polite to ask difficult or unanswerable questions of their conversation partners. It is not so much they fear grammatical mistakes (which my students keep making) but putting their partner on the spot by asking them something that their partner can not, because it is impossible, to answer. This forces them to check out the question that they are about to ask in Japanese first, and verify that it can be answered. This in turn puts them back into the reverse, Japanese mode of thought (precisely the reverse of English) slows their English production to a snail's pace, and prevents them from increasing their fluency. In order to encourage them to fire questions, from the hip, like a river of sludge, and throw themselves away as all the best martial arts encourage one to do I have also to persuade them that their partner will be just fine.

To that end, I am having success with these nonsense questions to which students are instructed to answer in the negative.



I introduce these exercises as being as the equivalent of practising parrying or blocking in Karate. If someone asks you a question that does not make any sense, just answer in the negative. Once students know that they can do this, and their partner can do this, and "block" senseless questions, then they feel more able to ask questions freely and fluently, senseless or not, without censoring themselves, and checking out all their English production in Japanese first.

Image: Noh Masks by Rosewoman.

Why is that Japanese groups are so varied? At the earliest level groups are made of members made of different foodstuffs, and then soon in super-sentai (power ranger) and PreCure groups contain members coded with different primary colours. In Manga there are usually groups formed of people with disparate sizes, characters, and even colours of their hair. Yowamushi Pedal, the manga about cycling, contains a red head, a blond and a guy with green hair. Slam Dunk, like most super sentai groups, chose to focus upon a red hero. Japanese boy bands are formed by their managers with members with disparate appearances and characters. There is usually an especially handsome one, a sporty member, a macho member, and a mixture of other types such as withdrawn, effete, and jokey (this characteristic may be shared by famous Western boy bands too).

And even within real Japanese social groups, there is a lot more diversity with Japanese not considering their friends more similar than their enemies, nor their enemies more alien than their friends (Heine, Foster, & Spina, 2009).

Yuki (2003) explains the cultural difference primarily using the concept of social identity (Tajfel, 1982). Western groups are formed and cohere by virtue of their effect upon the self esteem of their members. The more similar the group is, the more the members will bolster each other's ego by noting and praising this similarity, and slagging off (the psychological jargon is downwards comparison) other groups. "We Brits are rational, level headed, gentlemen. Those XYZ are temperamental, hot-headed, rogues." The enjoyment of pride as motivation for group membership and cohesion, Yuki argues, assimilates and unifies Western groups towards central group ideals. Japanese groups are not, we are told, formed for this "Good-Us Bad-Them" ego-massage-purpose so they are not so uniform.

Yuki also seems to suggest that there is a further opposite tendency to be disparate due to the way in which Japanese group members depend upon each other, in which mutual help network, group membership diversity leads to greater synergy and mutual assistance benefits.

I was convinced by Yuki's explanation. However, this year, a final year student (Egawa, 2015) has demonstrated a strong positive correlation between similarity and perceived helpableness. Whatever the economic truth of the situation, as Plato argued in his Symposium, we, or at least Japanese students, feel we can help someone who shares our goals and ambitions more than someone disparate: even our other half.

So why then are Japanese groups so diverse to the point of being multi-coloured? I suggest that it is for the same reason that Western groups are similar -- ego massage -- except as always, the difference is in the modality, and the way that modality is enhanced. If groups are, like Western egos, narrated then they are enhanced by the value and superiority of their central attributes compared to those of other groups. But if groups are something that are seen and imagined then outgroups are absent, and groups simply look better if they contain a certain amount of diversity, since diversity makes the members conspicuous, stand out, or in Japanese, "hikitatsu." Colours are nowhere more beautiful than alongside other colours, such as in a rainbow.

Heine, S. J., Foster, J.-A. B., & Spina, R. (2009). Do birds of a feather universally flock together? Cultural variation in the similarity-attraction effect. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(4), 247–258. Retrieved from onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-839X.2009.0128...
Tajfel, H. (1982). Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge University Press.

Labels: blogger, Flickr, image, japaneseculture, lacan, nacalianism, nihonbunka, 日本文化

The late great scholar Edward Said, in his monementally influential work "Orientalism" (1978) argued that Westerners were always writing about the nature Orientals in order to stress Western superiority.
"the essence of Orientalism is the ineradicable distinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority" p 42.

He traces the myth of the Orient in Orientalism, to a male dominated sexual fecundity, but at least in a negative sense he also provides his own theory of the orient. In other words this Palestian born Scholar who worked at Cornell, was an Orientalist out of the Orient.

And like other Oriental orientalists Edward Said argued for a fundamental inexplicability, what Kawai had called the "empty centre" or Doi had described as a lack of independence, or Yamagishi theorises as a radical contextualism so radical that it becomes non-contextual in some contexts. Edward Said writes "not that it [orientalism] is a misrepresentation of some Oriental essence—in which I do not for a moment believe."

The act of Orientalism, and by implication Westerners, have an essence: continuously narrating, and negatively judging and evaluating their outgroups in Asia, but the Orient has no such essence or essences. In the end Edward Said seems even to espouse the myth that he rejects: orientals are simply plural and corporeal, but they lack any essence, proclivities, tendencies. Asians lack self.

I am an orientalist too. I argue that the Japanese at least, and probably other East Asians, have an essence remarkably similar to Westerners. They do the same sort of evaluation, but rather than narrate, they take photos, they judge evaluate by means of, and identify with, the visual, and take and imagine pictures also of themselves. It is my belief that visual self evaluation is preferable in that it is harder overly believe positive self evaluation and harder to keep it a secrete.

The above imagine is an amalgamation of a negative version of a portrait of Edward Said by Antoun Albert and an anonymous Venetian orientalist painting, The Reception of the Ambassadors in Damascus', 1511, the Louvre both on the Wikipedia page on Edward Said's famed monograph.

Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

My style of English teaching has been influenced a lot by taking up karate practice (just the stretching and forms) at the Arinaga Dojo in Yamaguchi. The effectiveness of Arinaga Sensei's teaching is a marvel to behold. He has five-year-olds performing high rotating kicks that would knock my head off. I do not take part in the sparring.

In line with Arinaga Sensei's teaching, my students need a lot more practice in forms (kata) and they need to stretch there minds (rather than their legs) at the very start of every the lessons. "Stretching the mind" means in this case, experiencing meaninglessness since that appears to be the biggest block to speaking. Recent psychological research has shown that experiencing meaningless is as scary as thinking about ones death (Heine, Proulx, Vohs, 2006).

My students also need to think of English as a martial art, and conversation as sparring, because politeness is almost as much a barrier to effective communication. I tell them to hit their partners with a barrage of questions, like a hail of ninja throwing stars.

Artwork of ninja and other figures provided by Miho Fujimura. Thank you very much.

Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(2), 88-110.

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

Labels: japanese, japanese culture, matriarchy

The above would be my entry for the Tokyo Olympic Logo competition. The last one which was withdrawn looked too Western and had no continuity with the previous Tokyo Olympic logo. As some one has said of the stadium, the Japanese should highlight their tendency to reflect and improve. It is this tendency that is expressed in the above logo, using elements from the previous Tokyo Olympics logo which was the "round sun" of the Japanese flag above the Olympic logo with the rings turned to Gold. This time the Round sun has been integrated with the other rings, to suggest the greater integration of Japan with the rest of the world, the gradient has been reversed to suggest a new dawn, and both have been superimposed with a "T" for Tokyo and the Roman numeral for 2, made to resemble the red iconic gate in the Miyajima Island bay in Hiroshima, reflected in the blue water. I have avoided adding a second horizontal lintel (bar) so as not to push the religious symbolism. I.e. the above can not be said to be Shinto mark.

The twin lintelled gate (torii) is a religious symbol but logos closely or vaguely resembling religious symbols have been used at Albertville (a Christian Cross) and the Seoul Olympics (a spiral reminiscent of the Taoist tomoe). Added to that, Shinto is an extremely inclusive religion, allowing of the enshrinement of Christian and Taoist Gods, and above all, the symbol simply represents the beauty of Japan, and the Japanese tendency to reflect and improve, rather than any religion.

Above all, I think that the Japanese should be brave and highlight their own culture rather than just a Western typeface. The above is the sombre version. A brighter version and the original idea are also uploaded. The five rings are copyright the International Olympic Committee, the use of a gradient round sun and gold rings was inspired by the previous logo of the 1964 Olympics by Yusaku Kamekura. Other than that, this is all my own work.

The central stem of the T could be a little longer.