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Reverse Culture Shock Thursday December 29
I actually went to bed at a reasonable hour last night, so when Dochi woke me up at seven this morning for breakfast, I was rather cheery. After a quick meal, I read the paper in the kitchen. Nakayama-san came in and turned on the television. Apparently, the kitchen TV has cable, so as what I take to be a measure to make me feel more comfortable, he turned on CNN Japan.
CNN Japan is the same as CNN, except that the commercials are for things in Japan -- usually related to foreigners; the broadcasts are in English with no subtitles or dubbing. I'll skip the long, winding story this time and get to the point: I experienced major reverse culture shock.
I almost wanted to laugh at first. Everyone on the screen was trying so hard to be cutting-edge and serious that it ended up coming across as ridiculous. The anchorwoman had these weird bugeyes and way too much makeup; I thought I was watching a parody. That habit of saying the anchor's name when you're ready to go "back to the studio", when you think about it, is absolutely useless.
On to the content.
Some guy just wrote a book called "China, Inc."; it talks about how the Chinese government may be doing some pretty rotten things via its state-owned corporations. Particularly, there were comments about trading weapons for oil in places like Sudan and Iran, which of course doesn't seem to sit well with Americans. Moreover, he mentioned that most of America's "industry" these days is not in what we make physically, but things like software. Which Chinese companies merely pirate and use for free. A reasonable issue.
This guy did seem well-informed: he spoke slowly and reasonably, and was definitely not of the TV anchor/personality ilk. Yet, every time they flipped back to the studio so Bugeyes can ask another ridiculous question, she's got that one-eyebrow-arched face. People, I've done theatre. Let me tell you. These are the expressions you're supposed to use when people need to be able to judge your emotions from 50 feet away in the audience, not ones to be used on television when your ugly mug takes up three-quarters of my 30" television screen at eight in the morning. Let's get real here.
Anyway, I started listening to the words that they were saying. That's when it went from funny to downright upsetting.
As far as I recall, Miss Bugeyes did not once say "America" or "United States". I did keep track, though, of how many times she referred to the United States of America as "our country". "Our country's jobs are being exported to Latin America and India", "The yearly visa lottery allows potential terrorists into our country for free".
Thank you, Bugeyes. I felt all warm and squishy inside just thinking about how great it is to be a member of our country. Just watching your program made me feel quite patriotic, and now I also fully understand how grave the situation really is: I, too, must protect our country. Let me take a moment to reflect on this great country of mine.
(If you're not going to finish, I request that you stop here. Reading the following halfway is not recommended. In addition, I recommend printing the following, taking it to a public place, and reciting it loudly, preferably from a soapbox, in as fast of English as you can manage.)
Our country is overrun with Mexicans, our country is losing all of its low-skilled labor jobs (which are very important) to China and India, our country must succeed in giving freedom to the Iraqi people, no matter what the cost, our country must appear to be a functioning democracy despite only having two parties who merely exist to oppose each other. Our country has everday low, low prices, and our country loves guns, you see, gotta have my guns to protect our country from those immigrant thieves, because they're not just thieves, they rape our country's women, take the jobs from hard-working Americans in our country, and most of all, they rot away the moral fiber of what it means to be a upstanding citizen in our country: they don't drink Starbucks® Caramel Macchiattos, they've never met Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior®, and they're too poor to own big, big, big cars. Big cars with enough cup holders so everyone inside -- even one extra, in Jesus' name -- can have Starbucks® on the way to soccer practice, although we all know that football is the greatest sport our country has ever produced. Big players, big field, big stadiums, and big bucks.
Yes, our country specializes in big, our country specializes in excess, our country is particularly good at using its excess to do whatever those in charge want, our country has fifty percent of its wealth held by two percent of the population, and our country is damn proud of those people who worked very hard for the life of luxury that our country affords them. Our country does not have problems with education, and when our country does have problems with education, the root of the problem is the parents, the parents are no good because they're immigrant theives, and if they're not, then they're just low class, not rich enough to be able to shop anywhere else other than WalMart, who incidentally has everday low, low prices, but everyone knows that only poor people shop there in our country, and "poor people" is really just a synonym for "lazy" in our country, because everyone knows that the American dream affords a life of financial stability and success to anyone who tries hard in this great country of ours. That's why those top two percent got to where they are now.
Our country loves fun and games, too, and our country loves to play sports. We have two major teams, one's blue, the other's red, and people usually pick their favorite team based on locale or experience, or whether or not the players have bushy eyebrows. Once they pick a team, they develop an identity around that affiliation and begin to rely on it to make their decisions, but really it's better that way, you know, outsourcing, because you can let the teams decide who wins this year while you're out making money in our country, because the family has to have one of those new widescreens for Christmas, you know, the cool plasma ones? It doesn't matter that the set was made in Korea or China, because what matters is the content coming through -- you know, because our country has more television programming than anywhere in the world -- so much, actually, that you almost can't watch it all, but thankfully, in our country, we have TiVo® too, so you can.
In our country, some people say that commercialism has developed around Christmas. But, if there were ever a trend in the other direction, the retail sector in our country would suffer, and people in our country would lose jobs -- probably to China or India -- and then no one would have a Merry Christmas, so it's better off this way even though it doesn't seem like it at first in our country. This is a good example of why you should just be a sports fan -- pick red or blue -- don't try to play, because in our country, it's more fun to watch. If you're too busy and miss the game, you can always watch it on TiVo®, too. That's the beauty of our country, in a nutshell.
The goal of our country is to be so busy making money for the stuff we don't need, but think we need. Because we're so busy making money for stuff we don't need, we actually don't have that much time to think for ourselves, either, which is actually coincidentally useful for our country when we start to sell ourselves more stuff we don't need, because that just enables us to keep the ball rolling. Also, all of these things that we don't need but we want must have everyday low, low prices for our country, China or India can never be a threat to us, because we can just pound them into oblivion like we did to that terrible regime of Sad-damn Hussein's. And you guessed it: our country's powerful economy -- driven by all the stuff we think we need -- is what enables us to spend the money to rebuild a country we don't like. So don't mess with our country. You think you have the cajones to tangle with our country, China? If we didn't buy your bootleg copies of our country's movies, who would, huh? Our country does it out of pity for your sorry-ass bicycle economy. So someone pass me a big bowl of beef chow mein, and hurry, 'cause I'm hungry, and I forgot to set my TiVo®.
Al Fine
Most Mexican immigrants in the States have likely worked harder for the "American Dream" than Dick and Bush ever have. Anyway, this is how upset CNN made me this morning. It was literally surreal. The whole time I was thinking, "Do people actually watch this as a news source?"
Japan has national television news, NHK. NHK is much like other public broadcasting outlets: the BBC comes to mind. Both the BBC and NHK have decent reputations, and are good at reporting the facts without ridiculous eyebrow movements and slanted verbage. They don't insult the intelligence of the viewer, who is allowed, and encouraged, to take up the facts and take the time to make judgements for themselves. Why can't our country be like that?
偏見 Saturday December 24
私は二、三年前に友達からメールをもらいました。メールであるウエブサイトが指摘されて、このサイトでは無意識的偏見の傾向を量るテストがありました。殊に、テストはアメリカ人の黒人と白人向けでした。
やはり、私は無意識的偏見があるかどうかと考えている同時に、どうやって偏見を量るか、どんな方法だろう、ということがあって、価値があるかという疑問がありました。それに、サイトによると試験を始める前に、準備しないであなたのままに受けてくださいということが書いてありました。もちろん、ここまで読んだ私はどんなテストか、どんな質問が出るかを知りたかったですから、怪しそうであってもとにかく受けることにしました。
結局、テストというよりも、実験だということが分かりました。実験はこうでした。研究者は白人または黒人に対象する写真を百枚ぐらい集めて、英語の良くない意味をする言葉（例えば「殺人」「貧しい」）といい意味をする言葉（例えば「天国」「幸せ」）で構成されているリストを作りました。
実験が始まった後、写真一枚が言葉一つと共に現れてきました。受ける人が言葉と写真を見てから出来るだけ即時に言葉の意味を判断して、ケーボードを使って「A」か「L」を打つ実験でした。「A」キーは良い、「L」キーは悪い意味を代表して、ウエブサイトの実験ソフトが正解かどうか、またはキーを打つまで何秒ぐらいかかったかというデータを集めました。
やはり、言葉しか表れない実験でしたら、意味がなくなるでしょう。しかし、例えば黒人に対して偏見がありましたら、「天国」が黒人の写真と共に登場したら、頭脳が一時的に混乱させられて、打つ前、短い遅れがあります。比較的には、同じ天国が白人の写真と共に現れたらそういう遅れがない、ということで無意識的偏見を量るのが可能だと、研究者は前提しました。確かめるために、実験の間、四つの様式が平等にありました。白人といい言葉、白人と悪い言葉、黒人といい言葉、黒人と悪い言葉のパターンが出てきました。五十枚を見て打ってからウエブサイトは結果を計算しました。
私の場合、黒人に対する偏見がありそうでした。やはり、それを見たら私にショックでしたが、計算されたデータを見てから本当だということが分かりました。私は偏見なしで差別しないと思ったんですが、私は実験の結果にもう態度を再検討させられました。このように、差別と偏見の問題で、意識的なレベルしか検討しなければなりません。無意識的な傾向は行動や態度に影響を与えますので、毎日、無意識的なレベルでも人を差別しないように、わざわざ意識的に生きていかなければならないと思います。
Winter Holiday
Interesting pictures, stories, and news are likely to follow when I return from my travels to Kanazawa, Hong Kong, and Thailand over the next three weeks. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to update as I go, and I probably won't even take my laptop as far as Hong Kong, so please be patient while this site's content stagnates for a period.
I hope that everyone enjoys their family this holiday season -- please do so for my benefit, if for no other reason.
My family and friends: you know I love you all, thank you for the words of encouragement and support you offer me on a regular basis. It keeps me going when I feel lonely here.
That was some mighty fine food Wednesday December 21
Since coming to Japan, I've been eager to spend time with Japanese people. This makes sense, right? I'm studying the Japanese language and culture (which are reasonably intertwined), and thus spending time with people who live here permanently offers me the opportunity to learn both.
Of course, there are times where spending time with Japanese people also costs money. I absorb the expense as the "cost of doing business", and I assume that short of spending every night alone in my apartment, I am going to spend money on these sorts of things.
Every now and then, though, I get burned. What I mean by this is someone usually invites me to something, but does not take into consideration that I do not work like everyone else does. It's very uncomfortable for me to ask how much everything is going to cost all the time, so sometimes I make reasonable assumptions. And occasionally I'm wrong.
Like Saturday night, when I was invited to a year-end party (think Christmas party with 15 people). I took it easy on the drinks and ate lightly, focusing more on the conversation. Yet, when the bill came, the person in charge decided the best way to handle it was to split the bill evenly. No one took into consideration that the three gentlemen at the other end of the table were drinking pitcher after pitcher of beer, and I didn't even get enough food.
The net effect is that I was still hungry and paid $35. What's more, the conversation wasn't that interesting. I guess I've learned that I don't learn as much in a "group" setting as I do from one-on-one conversation. Moreover, everyone was over 30, and I think that also had something to do with it. Bob (the guy who invited me) really does enjoy having me, and I know that, but I have to face the reality that, well, I just get along better in a group of 20-somethings, not in a group of 30-somethings. I can be old in 10 years, as for now, well, I'm not there yet.
Anyway, I mentioned this experience to some students at school on Monday. One of the more seasoned individuals informed me that this is always the way it is at year-end parties: the men drink too much, the women don't, everyone pays evenly, and that's the way it goes. Which leads me to the greater point.
Why does the women's liberation movement seem so far behind in Japan?
It's been rough Friday December 16
I'm not going to lie, it's been rough the past couple weeks. Today, I turned off my alarm without realizing it, slept in until 9:30a, and was late to school. That's the first time it's happened. It was no big deal, but I think the larger point is that my body and mind are currently at odds with what I am attempting to do.
I get more frustrated when I can't make myself to do work, and I start that whole "well, this assignment is stupid anyway" rationalization. (I do swear, however, that dictation is stupid and it does nothing for comprehension when you compare it to how much classtime it occupies.) Basically, I stopped working as of about Wednesday this week, just waiting for the weekend. Considering that last weekend was spent very poorly, and I accomplished nothing (and rested little), this is probably why I feel this way now. Two weeks in a row with no break.
In other news, I found a public bath within five minutes of my apartment. It's quite nice, and it's only 400 yen per person. $3.75 isn't a bad price to pay for all the hot water, sauna, and hot tub I can take. This sauna isn't kidding around either: they keep it around 185 degrees. Oh, there's a scale too. Getting sick took some weight off, I now weigh 157 pounds. I couldn't believe that; I have never been that light. For the first time ever, I'm at my ideal weight. Now I just have to shape up a little.
One of the teachers here is good with a camera, and he just delivered a CD to everyone's mailbox with pictures from all the way from the beginning of the program. This weekend I'll go through them, at some point I'll put up another album worth looking at. It'll be fun to reflect back on the past three months. Most of the pictures are of people, so I could even go as far as to make a mini-album of my classmates. Hrm. Maybe that's a little too much.
Oh, and I implore you to check out some of the new pictures I put up. There are a few that show the Minato Mirai skyline, if you can say such a thing exists.
I don't know what I'm trying to say here Monday December 12
Okay, don't laugh. I'm feeling sentimental at the moment.
Trisha Yearwood's How Do I Live Without You has been in the playlist recently; I copied an old MP3 CD I made in high school to my laptop right before I left for Japan. I had downloaded this track in high school because of its connection to the China Palace: the only time I ever listened to it was on "Lite 107.3 WSJY, Southern Wisconsin Best Mix of Today's Hits and Yesterday's Favorites" after 9pm (when the restaurant had cleared out) while washing Sweet and Sour Sauce off of vinyl tablecloths.
While that memory is both vivid and dear, that's not quite why I'm feeling this way. What comes into my head, rather, are the friends that came and waited for me to get off before we all would go somewhere. Or, I'd rush home, shower, eat some Chinese food for dinner, run back out, come home late, upset my mother, and do it all over again the following weekend. Those friends have all gone their own ways, as was meant to happen. I could still contact most of them if I really had the desire to do so, thanks to Internet social networking.
Due to a bigger sampling pool, there was a lot less of a "group" in college, and everyone more or less did their own thing -- at least, compared to high school. Of course, I became close to people in my years at UIUC too, but now it's the same thing again: separate ways.
While we're young and unsettled, certainly, geography plays the a role in shaping the future: if both parties don't take an active effort in maintaining a physically-distant relationship, it just becomes another memory. Now, I'm looking at myself and my life, and I am doing something I have wanted to do for a long time. However, I also have to be careful as not to turn my back on the people who -- albeit being physically distant -- are close to me emotionally.
This is where the sentimentality comes into it: I look at my Dad, for example, who gets together almost every Friday night with Sharon & Dad's friends Rusty & Dave. They play Euchre, talk, and have a good time. They've done this for the past five years, and I'm sure they'll do it for the next five. As we all settle down, we can keep the friends we make close to us for much longer.
I spent last night out all night with two guys who have been in a (cover) band together for seven years. Before that, they'd gone to the same college. When I think about that, I just have to smile. Life's so much more fun when you can connect its various stages together not just in your own memory, but also in the lives of those around you.
The base case of this, of course, is family. I never like to draw a distinct line between family and friends. Is the reason I am close with Nathan because he is my brother, or because we've spent essentially 20 years living together? It doesn't matter to me, but I can say that one of my best recent memories would be this year's Saint Patrick's Day, when Nate and I sat for a good few hours talking about some good times in Champaign.
In my mind, growing with other people, and watching the others around you grow, is the best. That's why I'm feeling sentimental.
Mechanization Thursday December 8
Probably as a measure to reduce labor costs, certain services in Japan are mechanized. Train tickets (save long-distance trips), utility bills, concert tickets, and just about anything else you can think of can be paid for without ever having to interact with a person. These machines are physical units designed with specific purposes in mind. This makes sense when one considers that Japan is a cash-based society; in credit-minded America, you just use the Internet or phone to handle the same affairs.
Anyway, here's an example. I opened a bank account at a unit that had a video camera, telephone handset, scanner, printer, and touch screen. Talking to an attendant through the handset and screen, I went through the process of scanning my essential identification documents. After my account was opened, a door on the machine opened and my brand-new passbook came out -- with my name and account number printed on the cover.
The passbook is a checkbook, but instead of writing in it yourself, you insert the whole thing into the ATM when making deposits or withdrawals. The machine automatically flips to the appropriate page and prints records of your transactions. It makes my head spin when I think about all the machinery required to make that work. Stateside vending machines can't even take dog-earred dollars, but I can drop ¥100,000 ($920) into the ATM with full confidence it's going to count it all properly the first time. It's cool, but also wholly unnecessary. One benefit of this system, though, is that ATM deposits are credited immediately, not the next day or any other time. Anyway, enough about the bank. We're talking about the machines.
Then, last week, I walked into the convenience store, walked up to a machine, punched in the confirmation number for my bus ticket to Kanazawa, printed out a barcode, and took it to the register. I paid for the "barcode", and a laser printer behind the counter printed my bus ticket as soon as the clerk had scanned the barcode as "paid". Now that's cool.
Tonight, I had another "mechanized" experience -- while purchasing kerosene.
Sure, one doesn't need personal identification or a confirmation code to purchase kerosene, but as I learned today, one must indicate prior to purchase via a touchscreen (a) whether the transaction should be measured by money or by liters, and then (b) the details regarding the payment. So, I put in approximately $10.50 and pumped 18 liters. This was the smallest amount available, which is perfect for my 20 liter can. It is not perfect, however, given the distance and the hill between the gas station and my apartment. On the way back home, an old man called out to me and said he was impressed I was carrying the can; to be fair, so was I.
Firing up my heater for the first time, admittedly, my room warmed up much faster than I thought it would. However, after I turned the heater off, it also cooled off much faster than I thought it would. Japanese builders do not seem to share Americans' love of insulation. I warmed it up to 23°, and it has promptly (within an hour) returned to 17°. It was 14° when I first came home, though, so I consider this a tiny victory. We'll see what happens in the next hour.
The point of all this is to point out a certain ridiculousness. Err, "cultural value difference".
I bought bus tickets through a machine at the convenience store down the street and had them printed on the spot. The machine at the train station can figure out -- based on my magnetic-strip ticket -- where I came from, how much I paid to enter the system, and if that's not enough, how much I owe to get out, even if I transferred from a different line or company. Today I bought kerosene from a pump that is smarter than I am.
Yet, in all of this beautiful mechatronic (yes, that's the word) innovation, no one thinks it's a little strange that I bought kerosene (a rather antiquated fossil fuel), hauled it up a hill by hand, and fired up a fuel-burning space heater (mind you, it is electronic and features temperature control, self-timer, and economy mode)? Does anyone see what I'm getting at?
Spare the high-tech fuel vending machine, the high-tech space heater. Install such high-tech innovations like central heating or insulation. I feel like I am in Korea: high-tech consumer goods and services mixed with a relatively low-tech lifestyle.
However, this does have its sobering effects. It is my first real exposure to a (relatively) recently-developed consumer economy: developed consumable marketplace goods (you should see the cell phones!), but relatively undeveloped basic staple goods (insulation & heating). These technologies don't develop as rapidly because they have higher barriers to entry: usually construction. People don't move as often as they buy gas or bus tickets, and once you've built a structure, well, it's there. Once people are used to living in a place with certain conditions (i.e., going to buy kerosene), they don't seem to mind it: it is the routine.
It seems that people only start to mind once they've lived with the convenience of not having to do so, or seen or heard of someone else in that situation. And once that reaches a critical mass, the feeling of not wanting to be "old fashioned", or, simply, "poor", will pull the rest of the people into the era of central heating. Possibly most interesting to me is this "keeping up with the Joneses" effect as a motivating factor of change: if no one had central heating, no one would want it. If only the people who can afford to buy new construction have it, everyone else will start to want it.
In this way, it's not true to say that companies sell products that people that don't need: if people buy them, instead we can say that the people themselves have made, and continue to make, the mistake of symbolizing a product, convenience, or received service as a signal of their own class level, and thus pursue those things in an effort to stake out their societal rank.
Of course, this is a more general conversation: I still think that every new building should have central heat. It's a more efficient use of energy.
I hate it when that happens Sunday December 4
I hate it when I make some sort of quick decision, and then I realize immediately afterward that it was the wrong decision. Take tonight, when I got out of a cab. The cabbie asked me "do you want a receipt", to which I thought for a moment, realized that there was probably no need for record of this transaction, and then got out.
I realized about 30 seconds later that my cell phone had driven off with the cab. That receipt would have been mighty handy. Now I'll have to spend a good part of tomorrow calling up places that have black cab cars asking if a blue cell phone was found in the back seat of any of their vehicles last night at around 3:15am at Sannoshita.
It's like my momma once said, nothing good ever happens after midnight.
Per usual, it's not the cell phone itself that bothers me so much... it's all the numbers entered in it.
