Racist / Eurocentric World Maps

The world maps we are accustomed to were drawn using a rather ancient (year 1569) Flemish mapping model (a man by the name of Mercator). Please take a look at the following pictures and captions. Strangely, the world maps haven't changed much since then. Sure, some new places were discovered or some slightly more accurate land sizes were found, etc. But, almost all of the Eurocentric distortions remain.

I showed this to a friend, and in turn he showed it to a friend. His friend's reply was "Mercator's way of mapping was amazing for the time, think about it, 1569!" He is right. It was amazing (it is very difficult to map a 3d object (the earth) onto a 2d surface (a map). One of the glaring distortions is the size of Greenland - It is actually about the size of Texas but appears on maps as about the size of the entire US. This is because distances over the ocean would be completely distorted and so on, the problems with mapping 2D onto 3D.

But there are two questions to ask.

1) Have not new techniques and measurements come about in the past 450 years, i.e., why are we still using them?

and the more important question

2) Why are all land sizes and importances distorted in favor of northern and european countries while asia, africa, and so on are curiously shrunk and moved away? (Well the answer is obvious)

Please take a look at the following pictures and captions. (note these came from http://www.heliheyn.de)


The equator isn't at the center of the map! Two-thirds of the map shows the Northern hemisphere.



The Soviet Union (22.4 million square km) appears incredibly larger than Africa (30 million square km).



Greenland appears with its 2.1 million sq km considerably larger than China, which is 9.5 milliom km in reality, much more than four times as large.

Scandinavia (1.1 million square km) appears larger than India (3.3 million square km).



Europe (9.7 million square km) appears larger than South America (17.8 million square km)


And a few more dealing with countries!


Great Britain (244,000 square km) appears as large as Madagascar (587,000 square km)



Italy (301,000 square km) appears as large as Somalia (637,000 square km)



France (547,000 square km) appears as large as Niger (1,267,000 square km)



Sweden (752,000 square km) appaers twice as large as Egypt 1,001,000 square km)


By the way, I bet you didn't know that Japan from northeast to southwest is about the same length as the entire East Coast of the US (from at least NY and more down to the tip of Florida).

Christmas in Japan

Japan takes christmas decorating pretty seriously. Lots of cities and sections of Tokyo have huge light displays (called 'illumination' here), usually sponsored by some company/corporation/government.

I got the chance to see the "Starlight Pageant" in Sendai in Miyagi prefecture on a trip I had to take. About 20 city blocks are filled with all sorts of Christmas lights and a truck playing Christmas music driven by Santa makes the rounds. At exactly 6pm, every light (700,000 of them) switches off simultaneously for "Starlight Twinkle" and they come back on after one minute for the rest of the night.

Here's a collection of photos and videos from the evening. Click on the photos to see larger versions!

Shinkansen Bullet Train Window View Tokyo Heading North

I had to head up North through a few prefectures from Tokyo the other day. After awhile on the bullet train, I realized I should video, so here it is. About four minutes looking out the window on the shinkansen. I think I was in Tochigi prefecture when I decided to take the camera out. Unfortunately the earthquake and sound walls block the view a bit in the middle. Anyway, here's some basic views of Japanese towns and such. I think it might be possible to understand the speed of the train (at about 200mph at points). You can see that close objects just appear and disappear in 1 frame of video. It looks like that when you're riding as well. This isn't sped up video or anything, just a standard, very convenient and expensive trip on Japan's bullet train.

"The Other"

I've decided to post an old paper (3 years ago) that I wrote about the concept of "The Other." It's old, and it's before I moved to Japan, but I think it's probably 99% correct, as I was studying a lot about ways of thought, ways of thinking, cultures, and I had a lot of Japanese people to speak with at that time. It hints at some of the things I've written in previous posts as well (the way for a person to change, etc.) I've also written a follow-up paper to this that I will probably post parts of as an addendum, as some of the references in this are specific to the class I was attending (the references to a native american book). Anyway, if anyone is reading this I'd appreciate some thoughts as this post should incite questions.

This is probably the most critical post I've made of Japan here so far, but that is not the point. If you search on the internet for things like "teaching in Japan" you'll find more than your fair share of Japan criticism. In fact, part of the point of my blog is to point out the fallacies and misunderstandings of a lot of that criticism. My point with this is for you to explore the ways that you use "the other" in your day to day life.

"The Other"

There are many differences between individual-based and group-based cultures. In fact, the chasm is deeper than it seems, and that inevitably leads to disharmony. I would like to discuss some misunderstandings that seem to pervade cross-cultural exploration. This discussion should make the differences very obvious. There are two specific areas in which I’d like to write. First, is the relationships between freedom, ethical scope and the Other. Second, I will write about culture and the language that is tied to it. I hope to infuse some of my personal culture crossing experiences in Japan, and take a contemporary look at how technology is involved in the shaping of culture.

It seems that personal freedom is the basic notion behind an individual-based society. Critical theory makes note of the fact that this freedom does not really exist. In American society there are multitudes of choices we are given, from car color and hair color to menus of hundreds of food items and public debate on issues of non-import. This abundance of meaningless choices helps to obscure the fact that we are not making any meaningful ones. How much say has the public had in cases such as the genome project, genetically engineered foods, animal experimentation, stem cell research, or any of the myriad environmental concerns? There are pre-set parameters of choice from within which we are simply to choose an option.

If any such freedom truly exists, then the next question to be asked is, “freedom from what?” Aldo Leopold notes that, “all ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts” (Leopold 236). With that in mind, I propose that we are championing our freedom from interdepence and from responsibility to a community! The problem with taking others into account is one of convenience. Like Kant’s deontological ethics (wherein acts should be committed in reference to the categorical imperative), Leopold’s idea is that ethical behavior resides somewhere above individual preferences. So, if we are to be ethical, we should at least acknowledge the community, our environment to some degree.

Once we take focus off of ourselves as individuals, we must decide where the community begins and where it ends. A line is usually drawn somewhere. This is exemplified by the case of the ethical treatment of animals. The general approach taken to ethics is that it is a strictly human affair. That is, the general assumption is that only humans are capable of proposing and adhering to ethical theories (or having a sense of moral obligation or duty). So, do animals fit in somewhere? It is possible to construct a theory where the cruel treatment of animals is simply not an ethical concern. To the modern mind, it is not even desirable to protect all species (cockroaches and mosquitoes should be swatted, viruses should be eliminated). So where is the line drawn?

Leopold’s position (and it seems the Native American’s position in general) is that the land itself is to be included in the ethical scope of the community. The community, including the land, must be loved, admired, respected and honored in an interdependent relationship. It would be interesting to ask how the individual-based cultures have drifted from such an idea. Leopold states, “true modern man is separated from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow” (Leopold 244). I’d like to look into this technological influence via reference to Heidegger.

Heidegger, in his essay on technology, distinguishes two types of bringing forth or revealing in the world: poiesis, the phenomenological method of revealing truth and Being, and techne, the bringing forth of challenge. “The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such… a tract of land is challenged into the putting out of coal and ore” (Heidegger 14). This instrumental view of land seems to be part of the problem of letting the land into the community. Heidegger continues, “The hydroelectric plant is not built into the Rhine River as was the old wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather, the river is dammed up into the power plant… the Rhine is still a river in the landscape, is it not? Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry” (Heidegger 16).

The role of the Other signifies an impenetrable difference that, throughout the years, has been responsible for both demonization and fascination. “A society’s treatment of strangers mirrors the individual’s attitude to his/her unconscious fears and desires” (Cavallaro 129). I would like to briefly examine how the role of the other works in the group-based society of Japan.

Japanese culture epitomizes the idea of identity based on the Other. In fact, it codifies it. Japan is a vertical group society. It is hierarchical and consistently arranged from great to small – all Japanese are part of the large group, siblings are part of a smaller family group, etc. Everyone strives to be part of the main group and ostracization is no small thing. This is summed up perfectly by the proverb “Deru kugiha utareru” (“The protruding nail gets hammered down”). From the ground up, the society is based on whether you are part of the in-group or whether you are the Other. Groups are called “zoku” (“family” or “tribe”) and anyone outside your group is called “tanin” (literally from ideograms: “other” and “person”). “Tanin” is generally translated as “stranger.” One time, speaking with a friend, I mistakenly (and shockingly) referred to myself as kochira (“this direction”). This word by itself is not the problem – Japanese doesn’t have personal pronouns so such words are used. The problem was, as friends we are both part of the same group. Therefore, the two of us together are “this direction” while the Other is “that direction.” So I had inadvertently turned her into the Other, castigating her from my group.

Obviously, people of other races or ethnicities are the Other. Caucasians that first came to Japan were called Tengu (a red-faced, long-nosed demon from Japanese folklore). The term used today for Westerners is gaijin (literally, “outside person”). The line between in-group and Other for foreigners is still distinctly drawn. It is notoriously difficult for any non-Japanese to become a Japanese citizen. People of African descent are still looked down upon and feared. They are “black person” first and “outside person” second. Note how Crow Dog presents a variation of this: “I think it significant that in many Indian languages a black is called a ‘black white man’” (Crow Dog 77).

If it can be pointed out that individual freedom doesn’t exist in our individual-based society, then what else are we mistaken about? What do we really know about group-based societies? Zizek says we only know fantasies, “myths of reference” (Zizek 1). Sure, we know that inside group societies there is, “caring for each other, for the ‘helpless ones,’ the old folks and especially the children, the coming generation” (Crow Dog 12). Sometimes it is hard to understand their behavior. We know that they behave like communistic ants. We know they aren’t individuals. We know they are slaves to conformity. Or is that us?

We should not be looking at behavior. The main difference that leads to disharmony between individual-based and group-based societies is found in the ways of thinking. “Unfortunately the psychology of white children… is different from ours” (Crow Dog 29). “Culture consists of ideals, values, and assumptions about life that guide specific behaviour” (Brislin 23). It is my contention that cultural ideals, values, beliefs, and so on are inextricably linked with language. I plan to detail Japan’s language and ways of thinking to point out an amazing contrast with American culture.

“The Japanese are well aware that something which may appear superficial and unnecessary, has a much deeper structural function” (Zizek 1). Rituals serve function to structure. As such, ritual cannot be overlooked. For Japan, the structure is harmony (wa). This is where it gets tricky for the Western mind. A ritual seems to be just a meaningless image. But to the Japanese, the meaningless image is the meaning. It sounds cryptic but I will expand upon it after explaining a bit about the structure of their language.

Japanese language is heteronomic (for Western concepts, 2nd-person centered, although it's slightly different from that). The center of the language is outside of the self. In English and other "I" languages, you can definitely see the self at the center (try having any conversation without use of the word). The Japanese center floats around elsewhere. As mentioned above, there are no personal pronouns in Japanese – “I” doesn’t exist. As a simple example of heteronomy, they would say "cold, right?" rather than "I'm cold.” At a bit more complex level, it involves the fact that Japanese are constantly thinking of the state of the person with whom they are engaged in discussion. They are not paying attention to their own state – that is, after all, the other person’s job. The instant response to “cold, right?” would be to look around for a window to close or a thermostat to adjust to make the room warmer. A simple contrast of conversation should illustrate this point a bit further. Let’s imagine that you’re talking with someone who has never seen Star Wars.

The English version
You: You've never seen Star Wars?
Them: Nope.

The Japanese version
You: You've never seen Star Wars?
Them: Yep.

In English, we refer to our own state: "No, I've never seen star wars." In Japanese, the person is centered on your state – your question: "Yes, you're right that I've never seen star wars."

With heteronomy in mind, let’s continue moving towards the idea of the meaningless image as the meaning. A traditional Japanese person acts towards others with tatemae (a built-front). That is, with ritualistic politeness, etiquette and form. That is what creates harmony. The mere appearance of harmony is the harmony. This is at the very foundation of their culture; the structure itself is an image. It seems inside out. They believe you change yourself by mimicking the desired behavior or pretending on the surface that you have changed. Change happens from the outside in.

I will finish up with a personal example which I believe epitomizes the completely different ways of thinking. My Japanese friend once told me she doesnt believe in any religion, but she might believe in animism. I asked her why she might believe animism. In Japan there are animal spirit statues at forks in the road. The ritual is to ask the spirit for guidance in choosing the safe passage at the fork. She answered, "Because when I come to a fork in the road I ask the statue." If we are to ever really relate as cultures based on different foundations, we must understand ourselves first, as well as try to understand them with openness to change (even if it comes from the outside in).

The Food Post

Well, I figured I'd show what I'm eating. I'll try to take photos for about a week and send them to this post, so please check this post every few days (Not higher up in a new post in the blog, just added to this one).

So, today I felt like Italian...

First we have lunch. This is the so-called Japanese lunch box (bentou). Clockwise from the left purple - Japanese pickled vegetables, homemade potato salad, rice with Japanese seasoning, egg, salad with cabbage, corn and tomato, and a 11 ounce Japanese hamburg with italian cheese and sauce. Yum!



Then for dinner, this gourmet pasta. Spaghetti, cheese, herbs, sauce.. The tomatoes come from a famous tomato farm in Japan, they're delivered twice daily to the restaurant, and because of this, the restaurant can only make about 15 plates of this in a day.

Language is a Fight! part 1

Quoting from Horvat's "Japanese Beyond Words"

"On a Japanese airline, customs declaration forms are tucked in plane seat pockets for the benefit of passengers. But since the airline expects only Japanese nationals to make customs declarations, the forms made available are only in Japanese.
Recently a Japanese-speaking foreign passenger was spotted by a cabin crew member filling out the customs declaration in Japanese. The junior cabin crew member asked if the passenger would prefer to have an English-language form. The passenger said no.

"At that point, a purser arrived on the scene and again offered the foreign passenger an -language customs declaration form. "English-speaking passengers find the English forms more convenient," the purser insisted. At this point, the Japanese-speaking passenger lost his temper and a verbal altercation ensued in which the English-speaking Japanese crew spoke only in English and the Japanese-speaking foreign passenger spoke only in Japanese.

"Virtually every foreign speaker of Japanese has an arsenal of such stories. Mechanically trained cabin crew regularly give Japanese newspapers to passengers with Asian physical features and English newspapers to all others. When a passenger who does not have Asian facial features is found by Japanese cabin crew members to be engaged in the unnatural act of reading a Japanese newspaper, such a passenger is invariably asked, "Can you read Japanese?" The question is always asked in English.

"In the past, when Japanese was spoken by more than a hundred million people with Asian features and no more than a handful with slightly different physical features and cultural backgrounds, the blurring of linguistic boundaries presented little difficulty for anyone except perhaps the few thousand non-native speakers who had reached unexpected levels of competence."

"Since many such speakers were so-called "mishkids" (sons and daughters of missionaries), most had been brought up in a bilingual and bicultural environment and could accommodate themselves both to the exaggerated positive and the occasionally negative reactions of native speakers reacting to the invasion of what they perceived to be sacred, cultural space."

Big Crime News in Tokyo

Today's big crime event courtesy of the Mainichi newspaper:

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20061213p2a00m0na018000c.html

Q&A: Teaching English in Japan

I answered a lot of questions from a lot of people about the whole 'teaching in japan' thing. Teaching in Japan was certainly not for me, not my cup of tea by a long shot, but your mileage may vary. I did it shortly, but it was just to get my foot in the door in Japan.

I'll probably make some more posts on it later, but I figured it would be a good idea to collect all the questions and information and put it here. The questions are about teaching in Asia in general, but mostly about Japan.

Are you required to have any of the ESL certificates? (English as a 2nd language teaching certificates, etc.)

If you're looking at it as a career, then going for TEFL or whatever is a good idea. My university offered one of those courses but it woulda added another 1.5 years of school onto the 4 I'd already done, so I said forget it. (yeah, the one i thought about at least comes after you have a bachelor's degree). ESL certs are worthless for the general english teaching jobs. Occasionally you see an ad that requires a cert, or prefers one, but the general jobs dont require one, and there's plenty of jobs to be had.

Which country is best?

You should pick the country you're interested in. If you're not interested in any, then pick the one where you can save money (korea is better than tokyo for that because the pay is close but korea is quite a bit cheaper than japan).

Is it hard to move back home?

Some people end up staying, sure I met a guy that had been a NOVA drone for 7 years, never picked up japanese, etc., but that year he was making about $40k/year working only 3 days a week. That's not too bad, but if you're not thinking about staying your life in asia, it can feel like a prison, especially if you don't return home soon.

Where's the good money at?

The real money is to be made in private teaching. At a regular company like Nova, you make about $2k usd a month. Public schools pay a little less. It works out to about $15/hour. However, if you teach privately, the going rate is around $40/hr. And if you can, on your own, get with a company that places teachers for corporations (I taught for the Komatsu construction machine company), that works out to about $60/hr ($80-90 for a 1.5 hour lesson).

Can I get hired while living outside Japan?

I applied for jobs in person and online in the states. I ended up getting a job in the states, and moved to japan a few months before the job started. During that time, I had a few meetings with the company that employed me, and we didn't see eye-to-eye at all, so I left before I'd started the job. There I was on a 90-day passport visit, already 3 weeks in (i.e. 60 days or so to find a job in a foreign country or return home on an expensive plane ticket). It was easy to just pick up the paper (Japan Times) and look on the net each day and send resumes. I had about 10 interviews and ended up with 4 offers. So, the answer is yes, but they might not want you signing a contract until you arrive, meaning you might not actually have the job til you get there.

Do you need a university degree to teach?

Technically and legally, yes. However, I have a friend from canada that worked in japan for 4 years without any college degree. Japanese immigration only requires a high school diploma to offer a visa (this is a point of contention, but my friend did it, so anyway). And there are companies that place you into public schools as an ALT (assistant language teacher), basically covering up the fact that you don't have a degree. Of course you should have a degree to be teaching at a public school so this is definite grey area. Credentials are checked by many companies. 2 companies asked for my actual university diploma as well as an official copy of the transcripts (unopened and sent from the university, etc). Many companies look for people with NO EXPERIENCE. They think experienced people are jaded, less energetic and enthusiastic, and maybe filled with preconceptions and ideas about what teaching should be like. So boasting or overfilling your resume and such might be counterproductive.

What's the pay like in Japan?

Here's a _rough_ breakdown of the pay (i'm sticking with yen which you can basically convert by dropping 2 zero's and subtracting a few hundred dollars). i.e. 250,000yen to $2,500 to $2200. (The actual rate today is $2131, but it basically changes quite a bit everyday). Working for almost any "eikaiwa" (english conversation school)- Nova, ECC, Geos, Aeon, etc. is going to be 250,000yen a month. Working for public schools (mostly elementary school, some junior high schools, some high schools) is going to be 170,000 to 250,000 a month. Working a job that requires a certificate: 250,000 to 290,000. There isn't much difference, and there are other pluses and minuses to figure in (NOVA requires you first move in with a roommate, AEON requires many working days that go until 9pm, public schools involve mostly teaching giant classes of kids, planning lessons, helping the japanese teacher who's always in your class, etc.etc.). As for pay, South Korea is generally #1. The salary is generally the same or a little lower than Japan ($2200/month), but housing in South Korea is usually provided whereas you generally. have to pay (usually about $400/month) for rent in Japan. Next is Hong Kong and Taiwan (about $1800/month, not sure whether apartment is provided but rent would be cheap anyway). China looks like only about $600-1000 a month, though I didn't look very far into it. Thailand seems to fall into this range as well. Obviously living expenses make a huge difference. And there can be a huge difference between various areas of one country. But for example, you could save $1000/month in a bank account in Korea while also having fun, but that would be more than your whole salary in Thailand.

Can a non-native English speaker do it?

You can be a non-native english speaker and teach english in japan or in other countries. Just tell them you are native (mother is from america or whatever) to be sure. There are many non-native teachers here. In fact, I often see non-native people freelancing as proofreaders and that kind of work, with absolutely horrid english.

So what after teaching?

It's possible to move out of english teaching here into another profession, but truth is, most people never do (because they don't have job skills, they don't have anything - except for english teaching experience). Truthfully, the best way to get a great job in Japan is to be hired by a big company in your native country and apply with them to get transferred to Japan. Otherwise, you're going to probably need to start by teaching english here (this can be bad depending on your personality - english teaching here is generally just being a goofy cheerful entertainer), increase your japanese language skills (a japanese office will require business level japanese, a mixed office will require good conversational skill), and find a company generous enough to sponsor your visa (mostly a big hassle for them).

What kind of people get hired at the big eikaiwa schools?

This is a really loaded question. There is a big range of types of people. However, I have found it very true (and it's obvious just from looking at other parts of Japanese culture) that they look for certain ridiculous criteria. We'll probably have people look at my list and go "thats not true! i have a short chinese friend that got a job!" but these are the real priorities. ***You don't need all of them, but the more of them you have, the better.*** Here they are (in no particular order): blond hair, young, blue eyes, tall, thin, cheerful. Just go to the japanese page for any of the companies and look at the pictures of the westerners they use to advertise the company.

What should I write or say when they ask why I want to teach in Japan?

Say nothing about anime or martial arts. I made the mistake of thinking Japanese people would understand my interest in japan if i mentioned judo. It gave them an impression of me as violent. Expressing too much of an interest in japanese language can be bad as well. Life experience? Japan seems like a neat place? I've always wanted to live in another country and experience a different way of life? I've always liked teaching and think it'd be really great to teach Japanese people English, etc. If you don't know the answer, I'd ask you to think a bit more seriously about this. You also have to think about if you have any interest in where you're going. If you don't know much about it, I mean about the place you're going, if you don't have a genuine interest, then it will surely be exciting but there's the end of the 'honeymoon period' where you realize you're just working in another place, nothing is special, easy to burn out.

What are the interviews like?

NOVA has you do a surprise demonstration lesson at the end of the interview, even if you interview in the states or wherever you live. A lot of people choke on it. The other companies generally state in advance that you'll have to do one. Some people interview with NOVA without this, but it's good to be prepared for it. AEON interview, they tell you well in advance of the date of the interview to plan out like a 40 minute lesson, give them the lesson, and demonstrate 5 minutes of it while your competition acts like your students. My NOVA interview, the lesson part was just with 1 interviewer present (some had 2 people present). I was given a middle-school-level story to "use as a lesson." So I decided to have the person listen and repeat the story after me, sentence by sentence, correct their pronunciation and rhythm, ask them if there are any words, phrases or sentences they don't understand, ask them if there are any other questions, move on to the next sentence, finish it, then ask them their feelings/thoughts/ideas on the story. there were 2 NOVA people in the group interview. 1 person doing most of the talking, 1 person doing most of the watching/writing. impressing the 2nd person is key. i watched him scribble notes every time someone broke a silence or made a joke. i basically learned from when he was writing about what they were looking for and keyed off that to make my comments (the jokes got me the job i think).

(Pop) Cultural Absence of Knowledge 3 - Karate Kid

Last week, trying to fall asleep, I decided to put on the movie Karate Kid 2. I don't mean to point this movie out, it's just a good example of how pop culture distorts the worldview. If we were to look at the movies made concerning Japan, we'll find Yakuza crime, Samurai, Martial Arts, and the occasional horror movie, etc. That itself skews things.

So, Karate Kid 2. The name itself and the basic story - Martial arts, simplistic Eastern philosophy/zen/buddhism, Daniel in his headband, Miyagi as the old master, the whole thing reeks of false imagery.

Anyway, at one point, sitting in my apartment here in Tokyo watching the movie, I just cracked up laughing. This point in the dialogue after Daniel and Kumiko have finished dancing and Daniel decides to pull some moves.

Kumiko is the stereotype of Japanese attractiveness at the time - small, meek, wispy fine black hair, kimono, and the unfortunate ability to switch from perfect English to awful Miyagi-like English to keep her framed as "The Other" etc. A few quotes from Zizek on the other:

"For the West, Japan is the ambiguous Other: at the same time it fascinates you and repels you. Let's not forget the psychological cliche of Japan: you smile, but you never know if it is sincere or if you are mocking us - the idea of Japan as the impenetrable Other. "

Alternating between recognizing them as human and also as something else, a non-understandable "something else" that "dances fascinating dances."

Here's the dialogue between Daniel and Kumiko:

Daniel: Hey, can I ask you something?

Kumiko: Sure.

Daniel: It's, you know... it's kind of personal, though. Are you--...........
Are you arranged like, you know?

Kumiko: Arranged?

Daniel: To marry somebody?

Kumiko: Oh! No. That's an old custom. Whoever I marry is up to me.

Daniel: Well, that's good.

Kumiko: Are you arranged?

Daniel: What, are you kiddin'? I'm a free agent.

Kumiko (in Miyagi mode): What is free agent?

Daniel: That just means that I'm available.

Kumiko: That's good.

Daniel: Yeah.

(Pop) Cultural Absence of Knowledge 2 - Modern Japan

On my second trip to Japan, when I was going back to Narita airport, I met a Canadian guy sitting next to me on the train. He had come to visit friends that moved from Canada to live there. So he basically only had the cultural learnings from Canada/Western pop culture about Japan to go on.

He told me he was really surprised that Japan has McDonalds and things like that. "I didn't expect Japan to be so modern." were some of his words. His idea was like Japan is still slanted roof little buildings, everyone wearing samurai gear and kimonos, oaring little wooden boats and pulling little wooden carts around and so on.

At first, I thought "wow you don't know anything." But lately I see that's pretty normal. How would someone from the West have an accurate picture of Japan without delving into it? Pop culture distorts it and that's what everyone sees. Well, it's not only pop culture - my middle school world history class focused the classes on Japan by watching "Shogun."

Later, the Canadian guy wasn't sure which terminal of the airport to get off at, there's 2 of them at Narita, each is a different stop on the train. I asked a Japanese guy in Japanese about which one, then told the Canadian guy the answer. But he didn't trust me so when we arrived at the next stop he ran around outside the train in a panic yelling for someone that speaks English.

(Pop) Cultural Absence of Knowledge 1 - Language

When I ask the average Western person what they know about Japan, if I subtract the complete misses (Kung Fu from China, etc) and subtract the war, what we're left with is usually a sort of strange and twisted and inaccurate version of Japan. I believe this is part to do with pop culture, with it selectively pulling from other cultures while ignoring certain other parts.

But first, let's look at the English language. The words imported from Japanese into English (so-called loanwords) are also telling of this phenomenon. Here's a list I found online (of some) of what has been imported into the English language from the Japanese language with some cultural notes by me:

banzai - here's the 50s 60s coke bottle glasses and headband image.
futon - ok standard living thing, but a futon in japan is a thin mattress, not these weird wooden contraptions you see in the west.
geisha - a bit outdated, mysterious misunderstood mispronounced. there's a common pattern of these words that refer more to a japan of hundreds of years ago.
go - games and i'm sure some videogame words have made it outside Japan too.
haiku - nice poetry form, if a bit outdated, enjoying its height in the 1700s. hibachi - food, wow we take a lot of these.
judo, jujitsu, karate - what would the East be without fighting styles?
hara-kiri, seppuku - from this we learn that all japanese are suicidal sword wielding maniacs, again this is history.
kabuki - i don't really have a comment.
kamikaze - here we learn that all japanese are suicidal airplane wielding maniacs
kimono - you'll be hard pressed to find 1 person in 1000 people here wearing kimono rather than typical western dress.
ninja - yeah.
ramen - the fuel of salarymen, japan's junk food.
rickshaw - how many centuries ago?
sake - ok, food and drink again, though this just means 'alcohol' in japanese.
samurai - oh this is a big one. old again, this could make a book.
soy - food.
sukiyaki - food.
sumo - traditional japanese sport, fighting style, giant fat guys. of course.
sushi - food again.
tempura - food.
teriyaki - food.
tofu - food.

I'm sure I'm missing some words here, feel free to add any you can think of.

If you can put those words together into a meaningful picture of Japan, I'll send you some sushi. Ancient floor-sleeping suiciding raw-fish-eating video-game-playing wooden-cart-pulling kabuki ninja something or other.

Cars and parking in Tokyo

Here's a close-up photo I took from across a very big street. It shows the advertisement for a parking garage in Tokyo.



The garages themselves are amazing. They're generally robotic, and shuffle the cars around on elevators or carousels to fit the maximum number of cars into the minimum amount of space.

Anyway, the sign says 100yen/10 minutes. So, to park your car here is about $6/hour or about $100/night, or about $3000/month if you're commuting. That said, keeping a car in Tokyo is very expensive. Another time I'll post pictures of all the ferraris and other imported sports cars that I can't even name parked along the streets.

Crime again

A number of people were surprised about the previous thing I posted concerning incarceration rates (as something of an indicator of crime rates).

I've heard Japanese people complain that Japan (and Tokyo) is becoming much more dangerous and so on. They cited the amount of crime they see on television news and so on. But the truth is, in the US, most of these crimes wouldn't even make it onto TV because they're too common. In Japan a murder is still a big enough thing to let the entire nation know about that it happened.

Recently, this chart of crime in my neighborhood was posted in the lobby of my apartment building.

As I explain the chart, there are 2 things to keep in mind.
1) This is the amount of reported crime for all of 2006, virtually an entire year, for 15 large, some major, streets in central Tokyo.
2) This is a city with 12 million people surrounded by the burbs making greater Tokyo a population of about 30 million people.



The numbers are the number of cases reported. Orange/red is something stolen from a house or apartment when nobody was home. Dark blue is theft of something from inside a car. Green is stolen or missing bicycle.

The one large spike of 52 for bicycle, I suspect, partly involves that the NEC headquarters is on that street, and salarymen that are drunk at night and miss the last train home grab a bicycle from the street to make their way home. Add that to the NEC and school bicycle parking areas there, and that probably makes up a good sum, so they're not really stolen as more temporarily displaced, and the police do their duty of checking bicycle registrations (numbers on the bicycle) so it's possible to get the bicycle back pretty painlessly (or buy a used one for $40).

The crooked nail gets hammered down

There's an "infamous" proverb in Japanese, "deru kugi ha utareru" - as the dictionary translates as:

"the nail which sticks out gets hammered down (used to encourage conformity)"

This sounds frightening to a westerner, and makes one think of the usual stereotype that Japanese people are all the same, think the same, look the same, dress the same, have no creativity, and here's this maxim of their culture "encouraging conformity."

Of course, that is just a stereotype, and quite inaccurate.

To make a comment on the "Japanese copy everything, but never innovate" thing, well it's obvious from recent history that that is not true. The difference between innovation and renovation is a really minute issue that's up to a lot of philosophical debate to begin with. Then we add in that Japan was "modernized" very late in the game. Sure, they started to implement western schooling and things like that in the Meiji restoration period (late 1800's to early 1900's), but their true "modernization" was not until after the second world war.

The end of that war and the subsequent "modernization" started a mere 72 years ago, short enough for your parents or grandparents to remember. And we compare this with the Western project of centuries or millennia. So in 72 years (including dealing with the aftermath of the war, with most of Tokyo burnt to the ground etc), Japan has emerged as a world power, a huge economy, and tons of technological renovation and dare I say innovation.

To quote zizek, "What interests me in Japan is that it is a good argument against the vulgar, pseudo Marxist evolutionary notion that you have to go through certain evolutionary stages. Japan proves that you can make a direct short circuit. You retain certain elements of the old hierarchical superstructure and combine it very nicely with the most effective version of capitalism as it pretends to be. It's a good experience in non-antropocentrism. It's a mystery for Western sociologists who say that you need Protestant ethics for good capitalism."

In the fields of robotics, animation, comics, it is obvious the whole world is watching Japan. I think this takes care of the "no creativity" issue.

Next, "look the same." That's a joke if you've ever been to Japan. If you want some pointers as to some really innovative, creative (and usually home-made, home-designed, etc) people, then check out the magazine Fruits

http://fashion.3yen.com/2005-07-08/fruits/

or the site:

http://www.japanesestreets.com/

I have a lot to say on that, but for another time.

Next, we have the "think alike / behave alike" thing. That's going to really be another post.. But I wanted to share something minor that struck me in this regard.

eBay pulled out of Japan very early. Yahoo took over here. So if you talk about auctions in the US, you say "we have this junk, let's ebay it" and the Japanese say "let's yahoo it."

I think japan's way of doing business was pretty opposite ebay's. Part of it is.. japan is small so everyone is used to ordering delivery stuff, and theres a billion ways to pay for it without resorting to evil like paypal or nonrecoupable money orders etc. There's also the trust issue and the level of manners (see previous posts about this) involved.

Anyway, I've been looking at a japanese auction, and the terms for it struck me. This person was encouraging conformity. Encouraging everyone to think alike. And here's a brief translation of what his terms are for his auction:


"Recently it's been seen that some people win an auction but then make no contact, they're just silent. I don't think that is the right way to be as a human being. Then, they make a claim saying, 'yes, but i have things to do in life, there are things that come up that have to be dealt with, etc.' but isn't it really true that "there are things that come up that have to be dealt with SO you should make contact"? It's not that those things get in the way of dealing with a seller. the seller is another thing you deal with in life. So please contact. If you were to arrive late to work or school and say 'yes, but i have things to do in life, there are things that come up that have to be dealt with, etc', would that be acceptable? i don't think so."

Some interesting links on Japan

First, is a little fun. This Japanese car company, Mitsuoka, I'm in love with their "Orochi" car which is an expensive (only 1,000 a year are made and there's a waiting list) car. The design is based on this ancient mythical serpent. It's quite cool. I'm sure googling could find it for you.

I saw today that they have these mini-cars that are sold as kits. Mini-cars, scooters, half-bike/half-scooters, all kinds of small vehicles are all over Japan. They drive fast enough, they have springs and gyrators and stuff to keep things from tipping or breaking, they get great mileage. The mini-car kits start at about $3,000 and are available as gas or electric. They arrive in about 500 parts I think, and it takes about 3 days to put one together. Here's the link:

http://www.mitsuoka-motor.com/english/lineup/microcar/index.html

Next up, something I've always found interesting. Here's a chart of the amount of people in prison in various countries for 1995. I suppose it's not that different today, though I didn't find a picture chart. This is by population, so the numbers aren't skewed in that way. Before looking at this, please remember that Japan has a conviction rate of near 99%, i.e., if you get arrested, you've got a 99% chance you're being convicted, therefore a good chance you're going to prison.

http://www.hr95.org/pix/world.GIF

And on a fun and interesting note, here's a great site of Japanese vending machines. This is a very incomplete collection, but has a few standouts that you'd probably only find here (girls' used panties, dry ice, rice, etc.)

http://www.photomann.com/japan/machines/

Short video of Mita in Tokyo

I was walking from the train station today and decided to grab my camera out and video a bit. It's hard to make anything out, but you can kind of get a feel for the place. In the video are restaurants, restaurant signs, convenience stores, basic Tokyo stuff.

I really want to talk about Japanese convenience stores but I'll save it for later.

The video should appear below. If not, please use the link.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1P2d_RDnark

Second Language, The First

I was reminded yesterday of something I debated with a group of "philosophers" some years ago. It was on learning a second language.

The main topic came when a person said that "You can never truly learn a second language."

It's probably the topic of a lot of philosophy courses and talks.

His idea was "When we are growing up, we learn how to label things with language. When we see a ball or a nipple or our mother at first, we just see it, but later we learn through our parents and society that that ball or nipple or mother is called "ball" and "nipple" and "mama." So, we have objects and feelings and all sorts of things that exist in the world, and then we have labels attached to those."

The idea is something like this rough illustration:

__We see a round object__ ============= ball.

But when we learn a foreign language, the second language only refers to the first language. For instance, in Japanese, ball is "tama." So learning a second language is like this rough illustration:

__We see a round object__ ============= ball. ----------------- tama.

It is abstracted from our original perception of the object itself, filtered through our "first language." We have some primal language that is directly associated with the objects, and then when we learn a second language, we "translate" hmmm.. I see a ball.. what's that in Japanese? hmmm. .. ah yeah, tama!

Since it is abstracted in this way, it is never truly _our_ language. It is something that we refer to outside ourselves. However, I am quite sure it is the case that words, phrases and sentences from as many languages as you can know will be directly linked to objects "out there" by a star shape rather than the line as above.

Of course, this is a somewhat strawman version of the argument, but it's easy to see that it's incorrect from a few viewpoints:

#1) The person espousing this viewpoint could not speak any other language than English. Far be it from me to take advice about polyglotism from a monolinguist, sorry.

Ok, that was easy.

#2) There was a time in the past, as a part of a personality quirk, I thought it would be fun to always say in Italian, "thank you, hippopotamus" whenever a "thanks" would be required in social circumstances. Soon enough, it came without thinking. I never thought "hmm I should say thank you to this person, how do you say it humorously in Italian?" It became a standard part of speech. Which leads me to #3.

#3) If you forget about certain things like pronunciation and grammar, You could replace a word from your native language with a word from any other, and simply say THEY ARE SYNONYMS. Even in your native language there are synonyms, I.e. words that refer to the same thing. It makes the second illustration ridiculous if you think about this. Sure, there are different connotations, but a ball is also a sphere. If you see a sphere, do you then observe it, think 'sphere' and then 'translate' 'sphere' to 'ball'?

#4) Our languages themselves contain words from other languages and flexible enough grammar to imitate almost any other language. To take Japanese for example, we often use ninja, sushi, kimono, and so on as English words, while they are Japanese in origin.

So, 4, that's pretty good. But most of them deal with replacing words and phrases but not really "owning" the second language like you own the first. And that's where my personal experience comes in. Can a second language directly refer to objects and feelings without translation and so on?

Yes. And this is part of why I brought up that the person who created that philosophical topic only knew one language. As a person that understands more than one, I have had countless experiences that simply show that position not to be true.

#1) I experience a change in personality, in way of thinking, in the way of handling the most simple of grammatic/syntactic forms (yes or no questions, positive and negatives in statements, etc.) when I switch into the "other language mode."

#2) At work today I was trying to express a concept on paper, and like countless times before, I couldn't think of the English (my native language) word. What I _could_ bring to my mind was the Japanese word for it. So what did I do? I opened the dictionary on my PC, and typed in the Japanese word, to get some ideas as to what the English word is I was looking for.

#3) I dream in foreign languages. That's big. For years now. Not all the time, just sometimes. Even when I have a dream of something that happened in my past in real life, all of a sudden the conversation will be happening in another language. In a dream, I might meet someone new (not something from my past) and we'll converse in Japanese. I understand it as its happening, and when I awake I can remember the Japanese we used, etc. If this doesn't prove the no-second-language theory wrong, I don't know what would.

#4) When I stub my toe, I bark "itee" rather than "ow" or "ouch."

"To have another language is to have a second soul". (Charlemagne).

Lunch at Hie Jinja - Sequential Photos

Click the photo for a larger version!

Gaijin - part two

I was asked some questions today about what "foreigner" means as far as Japan, so I figured it was a good time to write a bit more about "gaijin" - probably the most hated Japanese word by Western foreigners living here, in my opinion, out of misunderstanding.

First, I think that most people have trouble understanding that different places do things differently. It sounds very simple, but I find that people tend to just use what they learned wherever their home is, home country, the way of thinking, etc., and then they use that perspective to look at things elsewhere, and it just doesn't work.

If you think of words like foreigner/immigrant/migrant worker in the states, there are a whole lot of bad connotations to those words, in fact, I'd venture that the latter 2 probably have no positive connotations whatsoever (foreigner can also imply exoticism, like the romantic french). With "gaijin" meaning foreigner (literally, outside person), I can see why someone at first glance would consider it a negative word.

However, let's look at Japan. It is 99% full of Japanese people. They're literally running the place! Well, actually I believe it's a little bit over 99%, putting the foreign population here at a little less than 1%. The Japanese that live here, they have basically always lived here. Their parents, aunts, uncles, children, grandparents, their grandparents' parents, going back generally centuries and centuries and millennia - they are all from Japan, they are all nationally and ethnically Japanese. This is entirely different from Western countries.

I, as a white person, do not appear Japanese. There must be a name for me. One could be an idealist and say "we're all human," but the reality of things is obviously different from that. Should I be called non-Japanese? But what if I become a citizen of the nation? Then should I be called an ethnically-non-Japanese Japanese national?

Let's look at it from another perspective.

When I go to a restaurant or famous shrine or something, a Japanese booth worker will look at me and hand me the English version of the menu/brochure (if one exists), or they will try to speak English with me.

Imagine, in America, if a shop worker saw someone of seemingly Latin or African features and so on, and the shop worker walked up to the person and started speaking Spanish or Swahili! It'd be cause to sue the company and win big discriminatory money. However, in Japan, you do not look Japanese in any sense of the word, so that person is actually trying to bridge what is most likely a language gap (yes, most Western foreigners here don't speak Japanese), and help you. There is the possible misunderstanding - I could be from some small Italian village where no one speaks any English - but still the odds are if I am not Japanese looking, I probably can speak English. So, it's a good bet - and it helps a WHOLE LOT of people out here - the same people that will complain about "gaijin" being discriminatory!

OK, that's all fine and good. But is "gaijin" discriminatory? Yes. Is all discrimination bad? No. Just like classifications in science, we need names for things. Is this a cop-out? No. I'll explain further.

Not only that, while a shop worker would get sued over the above "discrimination," most "minorities" in America prefer to be called Asian American, Latin American, African American - they _WANT_ discrimination - because they want to keep their identity. Japanese is, likewise, the identity of this entire nation... And that brings us to...

"Gaijin" is made from two Japanese kanji characters - the first meaning outside/outer and the second meaning person. Japanese culture is group based. Your are either part of a group or you are not. These groups are pervasive - Japanese people themselves are a group. You are outside that group, you are an outside person - just as a Japanese person that works for Sony is outside the group that works for Kikkoman. These in-group and out-group relations are extremely important in Japan. Yes, you are being told you are not Japanese. You will never be Japanese. It's not in your blood, it's not in your genes, it can't be seen on your face. They are telling you something you already know.

Of course, you may say "but isn't that discriminatory - keeping you out of the group?" And that is true. Japan is a tough nut to crack as far as belonging to any Japanese group. However, many many people have seen and have said that the more Japanese language and culture you know, the more the Japanese start treating you like one of them - and holding you to responsibilities as deeply as they hold them for other Japanese. Above that, the people that reallly have good Japanese knowledge are held in very high esteem and wind up in many prestigious/important/etc Japanese groups.

Next, are gaijin discriminated against? Maybe we need a new term for this - "discriminated for!" Westerners are generally treated here as something like royal visitors, movie stars, etc. Native English speaking ability is almost worshipped here. The benefits of being a foreigner in Japan are greater than those of being a Japanese person in Japan! Discriminated against? No! Discriminated for!

Next, are Japanese racist/discriminatory against foreigners? Well, like everything, that depends on the person. Some people all over the world are, some aren't. Are they in general? Well, I'd say this depends on where you are in Japan. I was in rural areas where Japanese hadn't had much experience with foreigners - and there was mostly fear. This is the definition of ignorance - they have no idea how to interact with a foreigner, they've never met one so how could they? When Japanese people are used to foreigners, I think that everything I've said above basically applies. Discrimination exists in a mostly positive way.

There is another thing - crime statistics. Many Japanese have argued that foreigners are responsible for a great amount of crime - wow, only less than 1% of the population yet this much crime? And there have been reports debunking this.

However, I was one of the translators for the official Japan Crime White Paper 2005. I could see the actual statistics for all sorts of crime, marked by age, ethnicity, gender, everything. And while on the whole, on the average, foreigners commit about as much crime as Japanese do (proportionally), certain types of crime are only committed generally by certain races, (By the way, Iranians are responsible for like 97% of the marijuana/hashish related crimes here) and to be honest about it, if you look as Asian foreigners here, you'll find that they commit alot more crime than Japanese or Whites or what-have-you. Asian foreigners are surely lumped in with the word "gaijin" but once again, based on simply looking at you, you can be "discriminated" or "discerned" to not be a Chinese paint sniffer or what-have-you.

I hope that clears things up at least a little. I have more to write but I'll wait til it's brewed a little while and comes out more structured than it would now. This is the end of part 2 on 'getting to love "gaijin"'.

Next post will be pictures from the shrine I went to today for lunch.

Pictures of one of my neighborhoods

Well, I took 5 minutes to try out the new camera around my apartment near the NEC headquarters. You can click on the pictures to see more detail.

Tokyo Tower is a symbol of Tokyo that you find in almost every film/show/anime that you see. Just like an American movie taking place in NYC will show the statue of liberty or times square. Its image is ingrained in my head, so when the realtor starting driving into this area and I saw the tower, I started thinking this would be a great place. Here we have the view from my apartment:

















Next, this is where all the restaurants, drinking places, pachinko parlors, and all the basic night entertainment happens. This is about an 8 x 8 street grid of pedestrian-only roads for having a good time at night. The people there are about half NEC workers and half Keio University students, and me. Here's two pictures of two roads, though at this size its difficult to see how long they are and full of places to go.



































And here are two pictures of the outside of Japanese pubs (called Izakaya). A great place to relax, drink, and eat. The second picture is one of my absolute favorite places, too bad it's blurred. I'll get more pics and video of all this later. Anyway, it's hidden away down a curvy natural stone set of pathways and the whole area looks like the old Eda era of Japan. Great area, great atmosphere and food, only they sometimes play American oldies music which really doesn't fit.