Lost In Translation

Japanese Generalizations

It's interesting that even cultural anthropologists are weary of perpetuating stereotypes. Sawa Kurotani looks at the fine balance between cultural descriptions and generalizations/stereotypes in her latest Behind The Paper Screen colum in the Daily Yomiuri:

The founder of anthropology in the United States, Franz Boas, was the strong and vocal advocate of an approach to cross-cultural understanding that is often referred to as "cultural relativism," the idea that cultural beliefs and behavior can be understood and judged only in their own cultural context, and not by imposing outside standards. Behind this concept is Boas' belief that every culture has its own internal logic, and customs and beliefs that may seem outlandish or nonsensical from an outsider's point of view all "make sense" once you understand this internal logic.

For an outsider to come to understand this internal logic of a culture, long-term cultural immersion and careful study are essential. This is why, in the discipline of cultural anthropology, fieldwork of over one year has been the established norm. Even then, anthropologists have struggled with the self-doubt that, no matter how hard they try, they can never really "get it." Some have concluded that the best anthropologists can hope for is a reasonable outsider's interpretation of it.

I also keep wondering what "Japan" really is. Is it about age-old traditions or about contemporary social realities? Is it about a coherent "cultural whole" or the lived experience of individuals who consider themselves Japanese? Is it about official rules and normative values or their infinite variations as practiced in everyday life? And how do we convey all of these things in 30 class sessions or less?

I always struggle in my classroom to strike a balance between the generalizations and the particulars. There are certainly general patterns or tendencies that we may label typically "Japanese."

For example, many anthropologists of Japan have analyzed that the Japanese sense of self is more "relational" and less "individualistic," and argued that the distinction between uchi (inside/home) and soto (outside/strange place) is a key concept in the Japanese worldview. While these generalizations have explanatory values, they gloss over the particulars that makes the actual experience of being Japanese or living in Japan more complex.

My own lived experience of Japan is limited by the fact that I grew up in the Yokohama area, a very large city only about 50 kilometers from Tokyo's city center, in the family of a "salaryman." I have no idea what it is like to grow up on a rice farm, or be the daughter of a small business owner, or live in a small town in Hokkaido. When I travel within Japan, or meet someone who grew up in a different social environment in Japan, I am struck by how different it means to "be Japanese." All these internal differences are key to understanding how actual "natives" live their lives and how the rest of the world appears from their points of view; yet they get erased by theoretical generalizations.

It's interesting that at a recent Entrance Examination meeting where we were critiquing questions for next year's test, one of the Japanese professors objected to a question that he felt was stereotyping Japanese people (Unfortunately I forget the question). I found his objection hilarious, if not accurate, "That sentence sounds like it was written by Ruth Benedict!" (Benedict was the author of the seminal anthropological work, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, the study of the society and culture of Japan that she published in 1946).

After Dark Book Review

Haruki Murakami's latest novel, After Dark, is now availiable in English, however, I think I'll wait for ti to come out in paperback this time around. Laura Miller at Salon reviews it:

Think of "After Dark" as a choice literary palate cleanser, one of the slender novels Haruki Murakami releases between the publication of major works like "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" or "Kafka on the Shore." It takes place over the course of a single night in Tokyo, and its inspiration is clearly the nocturnal paintings of Edward Hopper (a comparison the author himself draws). All but one of the novel's characters have chosen to stay up all night -- working, playing, roaming and engaging in those less than savory activities that customarily shun the light of day. These are Murakami's people, lonely wanderers and misfits parked under the fluorescent lights of all-night diners and cafes, listening to old jazz and lost in their own unfathomable thoughts.

Riyo Mori, Miss Universe

It looks as if the world is starting to appreciate the beauty of Japanese women. Mori follows, Kurara Chibara the runner up in last year's paegent. Apparently Mori, 20 from Shizuoka, studied ballet in Canada, some have cited her ability in English as a reason for doing so well.

In The iPod: Spring 2007

I read this article about the new Rufus Wainwright album, Release the Stars, and decided to check it out since I really liked his two songs on Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man tribute album (“Chelsea Hotel No. 2” and “Everybody Knows”).  I think I’ve listened to it twice and already I can tell it’s going to be on heavy rotation.  “Going to a Town” is the infamous track with the lyric “I’m so tired of America”, but there isn’t a bad track on the album.  I also like the tracks, “Between My Legs,” “Sanssouci,” and “Release The Stars.”  Actually, I’m so impressed with it that I’m going to seek out some of his other albums. I have to admit I’m a little bit disappointed in the new Wilco, Sky Blue Sky. Is it “Dad Rock”? I don't know, but it is veering too much into classic rock territory (one of my least favorite genres), which was one of the reasons I wasn’t really into Loose Fur. If they are going for a traditional rock sound I would prefer something closer to AM or Being There than this. That being said there are some good, tracks, but despite the flaws of A Ghost is Born I prefer it to this album. But i have ot admit latley, it has been growing one me. I also have been lsitening to Uncle Tupelo's 89/93: An Anthology, which has some gems that I had previously unaware of since I only had Anodyne, a great album. By the way, it is represented with three tracks on the anthology. "Graveyard Sgift" is a classic. It also contains the previously unavailable album cuts "Outdone," "I Got Drunk," "Sauget Wind;" cover tracks "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and Effigy; an alternative accoustic version of "Looking for a Way Out" and a live version of "We've Been Had." I’m still not sure what to make of Kings of Leon’s album Because of Times.  I think the music is pretty cool, but the lead singer sounds like Randy Newman to me and that's not cool. I’d also put Damon Albarn’s latest band The Good, the Bad, and the Queen in this category. This may be the first project he has been involved in that hasn’t blown me away. I need to listen to these two albums more before making my final summary judgement. A while back I got the Marie Antoinette soundtrack and it has some really cool stuff.  Old new wave favorites like “I Want Candy” Bow Wow Wow, “Kings of the Wild Frontier” Adam and the Ants, “Ceremony” New Order, and “All Cats Are Gray” by The Cure.  In addition, I’ve discovered some old new wave classics like Bow Wow Wow’s “Aphrodisiac, ” “Natural Not It” Gang Of Four, and “Hong Kong Garden” by Siouxsie & The Banshees. I also discovered a new band that has three songs on the soundtrack, The Radio Dept. as well as a cool new song from The Strokes’ latest album, “Whatever Happened.”

The Frugal Traveler Goes On A Road Trip

The Frugal Traveler, Matt Gross, is going on a road trip, actually similar to one I did back in college (Spokane to Conneticut), but with more money and in a less crappy car:

The great American road trip is an adventure everyone dreams about: roving the scenic byways of this vast country, stumbling on new vistas and obscure cuisines, making friends in dust-speck towns and glittering metropolises, and joining the pantheon of legendary crisscrossers —Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, William Least Heat-Moon, Britney Spears. (What, you haven’t seen “Crossroads”?)

This summer I’m making it happen — on a budget of about $100 a day, including food, lodging, occasional splurges and gas. But unlike Kerouac (who hitchhiked) and Steinbeck and Heat-Moon (who slept in their vehicles), I’m out to prove that driving across America doesn’t have to mean roughing it. The Frugal Traveler is no backpacker; he seeks out affordable comfort, skimps when possible and splurges when he spots a relative bargain. His Mandarina Duck suitcase holds everything but a hair shirt.

BONUS: There was also a recent article by the Frugal Traveler about Dubai, somewhere I plan to go to within the year.

Return Of The Whopper

It is kind of sad, but I am actually excited about this from Japan Today:

Good news for burger lovers. The world’s No. 2 hamburger chain, Miami-based Burger King, makes its long-awaited return to the Japanese market on June 8 when it opens at Nishi-shinjuku (Shinjuku i-Land). A second restaurant will open June 22 in Ikebukuro.

Burger King was forced to quit the Japanese market amid a price war in 2001, but is now back as a group company of Lotte and Revamp. The ever-popular Whopper will be the mainstay of the menu, which is almost the same as in the U.S. The size of the Whopper will be the same, too. Burger King will be using 100% New Zealand beef in its patties which are flame-grilled.

Lady Vengeance

Lady Vengeance is the third film of a revenge trilogy by Korean director Park Chan Woo. I am only familiar with the second installment the entertaining and graphic Old Boy. That being said he employs several of the effects that helped make Old Boy so remarkable: interesting camera angles and impressive editing. However, this film feels a bit darker in that it concerns a young woman who gets caught up in a kidnapping that ends in murder. Then she is forced to take the blame for the murder of the child in order to save the life of her illegitimate child. However, while in prison she gains the confidence of several women for selfless acts including the murder of a lesbian bully. Once she is released she is dead set on revenge, and her confidents contribute toward her revenge in one way or another. In some ways the film is very reflective of the Korean way in the group enactment of the revenge of the killer. The killer has killed other children in spite of getting his ransom, and once the protagonist tracks him down; she invites the parents to take part in the retribution. I found it interesting that there is an English element in the film; the murder was an English tutor of children in wealthy neighborhoods. After the protagonist takes the blame, he sends her away to Australia and at one point the heroine makes him translate for her.

They Eat Horse Sashimi In Tokyo, Don't They

The New York Times has a long article about eating in Tokyo in T Style Magazine:

Tokyo is pure overload, too much to consume, too much to digest, the unknowable hugeness of the place one of its defining pleasures. You come here to eat and you are swallowed up. For depth and sheer variety of dining options, Tokyo has no equal. To describe a “restaurant scene” would be impossible here. The city's highly evolved culinary ecosystem is a reflection of Japanese culture itself, in which traditions are infinitely rehearsed and refined, foreign influences are explored and adapted, and there's constant interplay between ritual and invention, between the subtle and the carnivalesque.

Against Interpretation

Susan Sontag recently died and I have heard a lot about her referenced as a critic over the years and saw her seminal book of criticism, Against Interpretation, at a used bookshop and picked it up. It was a visionary book, published in 1966; many of the essays and subjects are among the intellectual obsessions of the later half of the 20th century. She writes about existentialism, psychoanalysis, anthological theorists, film, avante garde writers, painters and playwrights. These include people like Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Beckett, and Levi-Strauss. I think she legitimizes film study long before it gained acceptance as a critical field of study. Here she looks at French new wave directors as well science fiction movies. Her two most famous essays from this collection are the title piece, “Against Interpretation,” and “Notes On Camp.” However, I also found “On Style” and “Piety Without Content” referred to in the past and seminal in their own right. It is an interesting book of essays that challenges conventional concepts and ideas about criticism as well as what is art and what is important about art. Her role as a public intellectual will be missed.

Lost Empathy?

A recent Daily Yomiuri article asks whether or not Japanese people have lost their ability to empasize with other peope. I wonder if this isn't a global reaction to modern urban living and consumer society in general. The bonds of community seem more tenuous than ever. That being said it seems as though concepts like avoidance of meiwaku (to cause trouble for others) still drives a lot of individual behavior. I think living in a densely populated scoiety where your personal space is constantly being encroched may also promote a sort of public withdrawl where you try to find your personal space through little acts of escapism with music on your headphones or imersing yourself in a book on the crowded train as you try to forget that there's a breifcase jammed into your back.

There is widespread concern today that traditional Japanese modes of behavior and thought are breaking down.

The government's Education Rebuilding Council considers the collapse of ethical standards among students to be one of the biggest problems facing the country. In response, it is likely to propose that ethics be taught as a regular subject at school.

However, traditional mores are faltering in other ways, too, and the public has various opinions on how to rebuild them. In this article we look at some examples of moral decline, as well as people's efforts to rebuild the high ethical standards that they feel have been lost.

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The Japanese once were said to hold altruism in high regard, but that may no longer be the case.

Yoshimasa Nakazato, professor emeritus at Toyo University, has been researching altruism among the Japanese.

In one of his experiments, Nakazato, a social psychologist, has measured the degree of compassion for others by getting primary school students to play a game, then studying how winners used the game chips they gained.

Reviewing the records of such experiments going back to the mid-1980s, he says 80 percent of winning students used to give some of the chips that they won to the losers. However, after the late 1980s, the percentage suddenly dropped to the 40 percent level.

"My concern in those days was that our society would become a very brutal place in the future if we left such problems unattended--and I see signs that this is coming true," Nakazato warns.

Makoto Kurozumi, a professor at Tokyo University who specializes in the history of Japanese thought, says that compassion for others was long one of the most important characteristics of the Japanese people.

"The origin of this is a tradition of animism that teaches that everything, including plants and trees, has a spirit," Kurozumi explains. "That has cultivated a compassion for all living creatures, including human beings, in the Japanese."

Even during the process of modernization that began in the Meiji era (1868-1912), animism remained a core part of Japanese spiritual culture. Over the past 20 years, however, all aspects of life have been computerized and mechanized, depriving people of any relationship with Mother Nature, Kurozumi said.