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a l r e a d y : hatachi Monthly Archives
Backwards? Tuesday February 21
I've spent almost six of the past years of my life in some sort of higher education program. So why is it that I feel so clueless, and unable to put any original ideas together on my own?
Last night, a conversation came up about fidelity. I offered -- without really thinking about the consequences of saying as such -- that I felt that on a cultural basis, cheating on one's partner is more recognized in Japan, and thus, in a way, more permitted. Of course, you can't say such things without offering some sort of basis, and so I attempted to find one. No, really, I guess it was just a feeling. There is no basis.
What occurred to me after the fact is that I've spent so long learning how to learn (which, in an of itself is a good thing) that I've taken relatively little time to just, well, learn. Thus, while I do believe I have a good overall sense as to how things "are", I can't use concrete evidence to back up my assertions. This is frustrating.
Even in English I can't put it into words, really. It's just a feeling. Sure, people throughout the world cheat, but. When I see what women tolerate here, I feel like some of it wouldn't jive back home. A hundred years ago, it was more common for men to have mistresses. Maybe I have my sense of history wrong, but that just doesn't seem to fit for the States.
I need to think about this point more. I hate it when I say something I can't back up. If I thought it was just a plain, unfounded statement that I could simply retract, I would retract it, but I still feel it to be the case.
子育て Friday February 17
今週、アヤがニューヨークにいるから、「バイト」としてカズヤを学校に送ったり迎えに行ったり晩御飯を作ったりすることになった。確かに、料理するのが好き。一方、自分のために生活している感じじゃなくて、今週中子供の面倒ばかり。楽しかったところもあった。子供がほしいけど、言うまでもなく、まだまだ。
九歳のカズヤは「黙れー」って言いたかったほど生意気だけど、年齢のことで、しょうがない。
A little intellectual snobbery Monday February 13
Todd sent me an e-mail including a link to a website of a guy who's been working the JET program in Japan for the last few years. He's a writer, and thus the site contains amusing antecdotes about life in Kansai.
I spent about thirty minutes this afternoon reading the adventures of this ALT (Assistant Language Teacher; often dubbed Human Tape Recorder or, more colloquially, Somebody's Bitch). Good times, definitely, this site. To a foreigner who lives in Japan, it's downright hilarious, actually.
Yet, to perpetuate the perception that I am an intellectual, I am forced to take up at least one issue critically. You see, intellectuals never actually agree entirely with anything. Everything has caveats, and thus you can never say anything with any certainty. Intellectuals who search for this seemingly non-existent certainty are often dubbed "philosophy students", and they tend to become, by common standards, crazy. Thus, I accept the omnipresence of the caveat.
Moving on.
This guy's writing is clever, and he definitely hits right on some points about living in Japan. I was nodding in agreement as I read about his description of the differences between veteran foreigners versus the new ones at the public bathhouses, and how Americans are so afraid to get naked with other members of the same sex. True, true. Then there's a bit about how the Japanese guys stare at you, because, well, you stick out.
On a factual basis, that may be true. People might just be looking. I'm actually ignored more than anything, but that's only in my experience. The truth of the matter is that it doesn't matter whether or not people are looking. What matters is that one chooses to make an issue of it. I'll return to this point later.
Japan is a homogenous society. To be a Japanese citizen, you need to have Japanese blood. A lot of it, usually half. If you have a quarter, you can get permanent residence. However, following World War II, many Koreans and Chinese, not to mention the American occupation forces, remained in Japan. Since that time, we've become the foreigners, or the gaijin (literally meaning "outside person"). I have no doubt that foreigners (and among this lot, Americans actually have it easy) are prejudiced against in Japan. We do not totally fit in to the homogenous society. We take our trash out on the wrong day. We enter houses with our shoes still on. We don't get the culture. Those of us that try to understand it are often considered cute -- you know, much in the way that one would look at a kitten trying to grab at a piece of string it will never actually get.
Anyway, one of Japan's sources of social stability is reliability. It is said to be a risk-averse society. Certain circumstances are expected as a course of habit, and those habits allow people to predict an outcome. Knowing an outcome tends to make humans feel at ease: comfort and familiarity, two instinct-level devices of goodness.
This reliability actually isn't a Japan thing. This is the definition of a society: there are guidelines (rules), and members usually obey those guidelines. When you don't, you diminish predictability, and thus lower the overall probability that the predicted outcome will occur. Society is merely a tool in creating human stability. We're not there yet, but we've gotten a lot more organized since the Middle Ages.
Let's have an example. If I never tipped at restaurants in the States, I'd not only anger the wait staff when I leave, but I'd also have a hand in destabilizing their income. In a way, their economic well-being (a base-level human need) is tied to my behavior, and if I fail to leave some tip, I create a very negative association in that person's head. They'll be less likely to treat me -- or more importantly, people who share characteristics with me -- well at that restaurant. This is a very concrete example, but hopefully you can see the connection between the diversion from societal expectation and feelings of reliability generated in non-agents.
As foreigners in Japan, often never realizing it, we destabilize the homogenous society just by being who we are. Look at my face. I'm American. What am I doing here? I must be an English teacher. There's no other reason. Maybe I work at an American company? Wait! Look! I'm holding hands with a Japanese woman! Certainly, she's learning English from me. Wait, but I'm speaking Japanese, and she doesn't speak any English.
Sure, stereotypes are stereotypes. The point is that the basis for the societal stereotypes is usually relative to the compared society. America tips, Japan doesn't. Japanese people bathe with each other naked, Americans don't. In short, how are we supposed to define ourselves if we don't point out how others are different? Inside America, New Yorkers act like New Yorkers, Californians are so laid back and superficial, and Texans talk like, well, you know. It goes down to the nth degree, as part of our existence as humans relies on our ability to differentiate similar objects.
To return to Japan and America, the problem with the attention that we foreigners receive (either as a stereotypical model or as a deviation from it) is that we foreigners are cognizant of it. This leads us to write funny quips which actually inherently emphasize the line that keeps us from being them by basing the humor on the differences themselves. Americans and Japanese do often value different things. One should also recognize that these values are based in the context of that society. While all societies have developed with different characteristics, they still maintain reasonably similar goals in human existence: stability, propogation, and prosperity. Thus, with similar goals, I wish to introduce that we are only in "different cultures" as a function of our operating environments. Amazing.
Yet, the world is no longer so separated as it was even thirty years ago. We have country borders, still, certainly. Idealistically, though, it is time that humans recognize each other as humans. I'm tired of all this country crap; borders are a man-made invention. As humans, we all want the same things, and that we just have different methods (and scales of degree) to which we obtain those things.
As such, the consistent emphasis of the differences in ways of doing things is productive for the sake of deciding which is more appropriate in comparison (for example, if the context were to suddenly change), but otherwise, I believe it just works to keep the systems separate for the sake of being separate.
Certainly, I am not in a position to decide the course any society, and thus it might sound haughty to say that there are cases where we should decide which method is "more appropriate in comparison". Keep in mind in considering that, we're looking at the current circumstances; we're not valuing one history over the other. Contexts do change. In fact, we might as well call that history itself. As these contexts change, we should be actively looking forward to the new status, not sitting there mulling over how the old one was different.
The only constant is change.
And as a contradictory afterthought (my snobbery has come to conclusion), I would recommend Outpost Nine to anyone. It made me laugh very, very hard. The guy's a brilliant writer.
Karaoke Saturday February 11
I did karaoke again last weekend with the Japanese crowd. It's always a challenge: with a relatively small English selection, my lack of pop song prowess, and my low voice, I am pretty much limited to Green Day's Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). Well, not necessarily a bad tune to be limited to, though. I rawk out.
Anyhow, to combat this deficiency, I've decided to learn some Japanese songs good for karaoke. The problem, as Miss Chee and I have discussed, is that most Japanese pop music is terrible, or rather, just as bad as American pop music in its lyrical and choral predictability, and thus is not interesting to me.
I will always respect artists who write their own music more than I'll ever respect these so-called "performers".
Did you know that the guy who wrote most of Kelly Clarkson's songs is the same guy who did the Backstreet Boys' Millenium album? It's an industry, and it's all written by the same people. Japan is similar. Heavily produced. It all follows the standard conventions of music theory, and thus doesn't do anything to further music as a form of art.
This weekend at karaoke, I counted the number of times dakishimeru (to hold someone tightly) and itoshii (dear, beloved) came up; I stopped counting after four or five. Mind you, I don't mean four or five times in the same song, I mean four or five different songs that all talk about tightly holding on to their darling.
Hrmm, maybe that's not bad Japanese to know.
あれ Friday February 10
前には日本語を勉強していたけどさ、今はやりがいがあるというより、すぐに上手にならなければならない気持ちになった。無意識で適切な答えが言えるように、反応が遅くないように。しなければ何もならなくて、特に仕事や人間関係。
植物 Friday February 3
僕は残酷な人間じゃないけど、アパートの中で植物をどうも育てられない。今持っている植物はしばらくしっかりしていたけれど、だんだん弱くなっているのが明白だ。寒気の所為。もし少し暖かくなったら、カーテンが開けられて太陽光でまた良くなるかも。植物に話しかけるといいと聞いた。日本で買った植物なので日本語で話しかけてやれば成長してくれるかな？
十月、十一月にバジルもあった。最初には、成長した後、もっと大きなつぼに移動させてやった。ところが、その後調子が悪くなって葉が散り始めた。バジルは残念なんだけど（料理で使っていたからだ）、その経験に重要なことを覚えさせられた。栄養たっぷり土、太陽光が十分、お水いい、つぼが大きい。足りる状況があっても成長しない場合もあるらしい。逆にアパートの外の雑草に何もやらないで生命力が強い。
それはそれなりに素晴らしいと思う。
Revolving Sushi
I went to revolving sushi on Wednesday afternoon (since there's no class then, it's developed into a "thing" at school). Pouring rain outside, it was nice to sit inside with good company, eating sushi, and drinking hot tea.
During the conversation, though, I learned that a few classmates have started dating people here. The details of those situations aren't mine to give, and I'll stick to the point here: These details came out in the conversation rather subtly; both of these guys are really good at keeping their mouth shut about personal things -- something that, for the longest time, I have wished to be able to do.
I don't know why I've always felt some sort of need to share what's going on with those around me; it's not even so much gossip, but rather just that I enjoy making note of the funny ways in which life just is sometimes, and what better way to exemplify that than by the ridiculousness of real-life events?
I guess it's also partially that I'm very open, and I'm willing to share my world with other people. Since other people are more reserved about sharing their world with me and others, it gives me the impression as if I'm overbearing, and thus that would explain why I view my behavior as unfavorable. I wonder?
