My Entrepreneur Friend

I met with my friend in Nagoya. He works for a consulting company and came to the area on a business trip. We talked for five hours over food and drinks. He told me about a blueprint of his own business. (He is planning to start up a company in a few years.) I liked it a lot because his enterprise is different from typically capitalist and ruthless pursuit of profit but ultimately aims to transform Japanese culture and social structures in an ethically responsible way. I don’t think there are many entrepreneurs like him. I hope I will be able to match his achievement in the future.

The Athletic Festival

Elementary and junior-high schools in my hometown have so-called “Athletic Festivals” every year. The festival is a sort of amalgam of an athletic meet, physical exercises, dancing performances, and other random competitions. I don’t think there is anything like this in the United States.

This year’s athletic festival at F Elementary School was different from those in my days. First, they introduced competitions among parents and neighbors into an athletic festival of the school. The festival thus created an occasion in which the school, the family, and the neighborhood could interact with one another. Second, there were some 1st and 2nd graders who pumped up their arms when they won competition. I don’t know whether they learned those gestures from TV coverage of sports games, but we didn’t do that at athletic festivals. (That is, they are emotionally more expressive than we were, which I think is a positive change.) Third, I saw at least three or four non-Japanese students and parents. To have foreign friends was unthinkable when I was an elementary-school student. I envy these youngsters who are growing up in this exciting age of globalization.

The Phantom of WWII

My cousin and I went to A University of Education to meet with Professor N. He is a former advisor of my cousin as well as a principal of the junior high school attached to the University. He turned out to be a very nice and generous person (like my cousin). We talked about various educational issues and laughed together. By listening to my cousin and the professor discussing present conditions of junior high schools, I also learned a lot about “insider information.” I think professors in education tend to be more mature and sociable than those in other disciplines. With his help I will carry out a survey sometime in June or July.

News headlines in the evening were dominated by two Japanese soldiers who were discovered in Mindanao Island of the Philippines. (It seems that they have been fighting with Muslim fundamentalist guerrillas, but they decided to return to Japan as they got old.) TV stations also aired video clips of the two other Japanese soldiers who were found in Guam and the Philippines in the 1970’s. I wonder whether this event will trigger discussion about Japan’s war responsibility against a backdrop of the escalating tension between China and Japan over Yasukuni Shrine.

Does Japan Have a Future?

I watched the TV program called “Close-up the Contemporary.” Today’s program was about foreign students in Japan—Japanese-Brazilians in particular—who have difficulty continuing their education in Japan. At Japanese schools, they have hard time keeping up with classes taught in Japanese. (Although there are Brazilian-Portuguese schools in Japan, poor families cannot afford them.) To help these foreign students, some municipal governments hire bilingual teachers and NPOs organize classes to teach them Japanese; however, these political and civic actions still lag behind the fast-changing reality of Japan—a huge influx of immigrants since the 1990s.

Anybody can see that the number of immigrants will continue to increase in Japan, as the “ethnically Japanese” population is shrinking. The critical task now is to set up political and cultural frameworks to accommodate immigrants as assets to Japanese society instead of seeing them as liabilities. If Japan fails to start evolving into a multiracial/multicultural society in the next few decades, it will sink to the status of an insignificant country within the “Asian Union.” (I think there will be something like the Asian Union to counter other regional powers, such as the EU.)

The Importance of Living in Japan

Since Monday news headlines in Japan have been dominated by the Chinese Vice-Premier Wu’s cancellation of her scheduled meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. Today the two biggest national newspapers—Yomiuri and Asahi—published editorials about this incident. Their arguments are almost identical: while the last-minute cancellation by Ms. Wu is indeed rude, Mr. Koizumi’s insensitivity to Asian countries (i.e., his repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine where 14 Class-A war criminals of WWII are enshrined) is also problematic.

I began appreciating the importance of actually living in Japan in order to understand what is going on in this country. Now I can see more clearly what preoccupies Japanese (adults) than when I was in the U.S. By watching TV programs, reading newspapers, listening to radio, and having conversations with people, recurrent themes inevitably emerge: to name only a few, the relationship with China vis-à-vis the UN Security Council, fear of Japan’s future decline, anxiety about social and mental problems, such as “abnormal” crimes committed against (as well as by) children.

Material-Semiotic Environment

Since I came back to Japan, I’ve been wondering why I feel differently in Japan than in the U.S. Although this is a complex sociological-psychological problem, I think one of the most important reasons for this felt difference is that material-semiotic landscapes—horizons of human communication and practice—are organized differently in Japan and the U.S. (though I cannot specify exactly how). Among various elements that constitute a local material-semiotic environment, I am recently interested in “architecture”—the way in which spaces are configured to make a person move, perceive, and feel in a certain manner.

My Friends in Paris and Tokyo

While I'm not very good at keeping in touch with people, I somehow manage to maintain contact with two friends from college. One of them works for a small company in Tokyo. His goal is to start his own company and ultimately establish a foundation to help the needy all over the world. Although he is in business and I’m not, we share the same aspiration, to make contributions to humanity—no matter how small they are.

Another is a businesswoman working in Paris. She is married to a Frenchman. I'm a little jealous of her not only because she lives in Paris but also because she can witness on a daily basis the process of "European integration," a sociologically and psychologically fascinating phenomenon. I hope I will be able to become a famous sociologist/psychologist in the future and go to many countries, including France.

In Front of More than 300 Students

The principal introduced me to more than 300 students at a school assembly this morning. While he underscored that I am studying in the U.S., I hope it will not have primed the students’ cognition when they answer my survey within a couple of months. I also went up to the stage—about 1-meter higher than the floor on which the students were sitting—and made a very short speech about myself and my research. I must confess that I was nervous... I'm afraid that my voice was shaking!

Afterward I wandered in the school building and looked around classrooms. Almost every student whom I met greeted me with either “good morning, sir” or “hello.” I chatted with a few of them, but I noticed that our conversations were fairly awkward because we didn’t quite know how to communicate with one another. As I start coming to the junior-high school regularly, I hope students will feel comfortable with me and become willing to talk with me about various topics. At this point, I am still an outsider; however, I will soon have to become an insider who is nonetheless a little strange.

I also need to make friends with teachers. Some of them may well perceive me as a potential distraction for their teaching and, at worst, as an American snob who looks down upon their work. But I need their help in gathering “local knowledge” about the school and students. So I will try to communicate to the teachers that I appreciate their feedback on my research. Since social interactions in Japan are often structured by a hierarchy of educational attainment, I should make an effort in making both teachers and students feel equal to me and thereby feel free to express their opinions while I am around. But the truth is that they are probably too busy to give a s%$t about my research!

A Rainy Day

A city-wide cleanup was scheduled for this morning. Since it rained, a “neighborhood leader” came to my parents’ house and informed that the activity was cancelled. (In my hometown, each neighborhood has one or two leaders who administer community activities and help implement municipal-government policies.)

I spent the whole day in my parents’ house reading comics (which my brother left) and working on Japanese translation of my instrument. It has been only a week since I arrived in Japan, but I feel like my departure from Ann Arbor is ages ago. A lot of things happened, and I hope a lot more things will happen by the end of my fieldwork.

Commodore Perry and Japan in the 21st Century

Since last year, there has been a series of events and exhibitions to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the coming of Commodore Perry (with the U.S. Navy), which ended Japan’s self-seclusion. What I find strange about a dominant discourse of the commemoration is its celebratory tone and a lack of reference to the unequal treaty imposed by Perry as a representative of the United States. Hmm, what is so celebratory about the past encounter with the colonial-imperial power (which ultimately led to WWII)? Do some Japanese love the United States so blindly that they fail to notice the “dark side” of the history of the U.S.-Japan relation?

This Japanese fixation on the U.S. may prove fatal in the 21st century. When I went to the AEon Shopping Mall, which is probably the most popular commercial space in the city, I saw at least 30 foreigners: most of them are Brazilians, but there were also Chinese and Indians. That is, people from three of the superpowers of this century—Brazil, China, and India—are living even in my provincial hometown. And yet, they are not as well treated as Americans, and some of them are even looked down upon. This is really very strange.

Those Who Bully Their Aging Parents

I sometimes wonder what makes some people treat their aging parents badly. My mother’s friend Mrs. K is an 80-something woman who has been bullied by her stepdaughter for years. Recently--according to Mrs. K--she became penniless because her stepdaughter withdrew all the money from her and her husband’s bank account without her permission. This incident finally made her decide to leave her house and live alone. My mother has been helping Mrs. K and will go with her to the city hall tomorrow to find an appropriate housing for her.

I happened to witness a similar case two years ago while I was back from the U.S briefly. A 70-something woman came to visit my mother. She no longer wanted to live with her daughter and grandchildren because they had been treating her harshly. (She then spent at least two nights at my parents’ house.) I heard from my mother that she is now in a hospital; she was sent there about one and a half years ago after she called the police and told them that her grandson was going to kill her.

These two cases make me think that Japan (or at least my hometown) does not have institutions necessary to adapt to a new social formation. While more and more Japanese are losing family ties on which they can depend in their old age, public institutions for social welfare of the elderly have not changed accordingly. (Private facilities for the elderly have been expanding drastically, but only the rich can afford such services.) For example, the city does not have enough professionals to provide mental and social counseling for people like Mrs. K. (Why are there so few social workers in Japan?) Of course, it would be the best if children always took care of their aging parents. But if that is not the case—and increasingly so—I think we should collectively create a social safety net for the unfortunate, though exactly how is beyond my grasp at this point.

Nationalism is Good...?

Mrs. N came to visit my mother in the afternoon. She is a former schoolteacher who knows many people in the school system here. In fact, it turned out that Mrs. N and Mr. I (who coordinates logistics of my research activities at F Junior-High) are good friends and she visits the school every week. Until now I haven’t really thought about the fact that there are many teachers around me. (I have three uncles and two cousins who are schoolteachers as well as my mother’s good friend Mrs. N and her husband.)

I told Mrs. N about a cross-national study that showed that Japanese children had negative opinions of Japan 30 years ago. She looked at my mother and said, “That’s why bad things are happening in Japan right now, isn’t it? If people cared about their own country, those things would not happen.” I was caught off guard by her words: While I am worried that Japan is heading to the wrong direction, I have never thought of the possibility of inquiring the relationship between social problems in Japan and the absence of nationalism. I always dismissed conservative politicians as anachronistic nationalists who would drag Japan into their own graves. Although I think I am right about their anachronism, they may have a point in trying to make people care about their own country more seriously. Hence my gratitude to Mrs. N who helped me acquire a new perspective.

Japanese Comics and Banal Nationalism

I thought it would be interesting to study “banal nationalism” in comics popular among Japanese children. But I’m not so sure any longer. Yes, there are a few comics that explicitly incorporate (inter)national themes (e.g., comics about soccer); however, most comics do not contain references to nationalities. Their dominant themes are ethics and morality—friendship, fairness, good and evil, etc. So, if I study the comics, I can understand representations of the nature of the social world to which children in Japan are exposed. To delineate what is distinctly Japanese about the representations, however, I will need a comparative perspective; for instance, Indian comics of the Mahabharata and American comics of superheroes.

Is My Mother a Nationalist?

Yesterday my mother told me that she dislikes China and North Korea. Her statement surfaced against a backdrop of the radio news about North Korea’s nuclear activities. She added that she doesn’t want to buy products made in China and criticized her relatives who have bought Chinese pumpkins. (My mother is obsessed with quality products. She seems to believe that the made-in-Japan are always the best.) When I asked her why she doesn’t like China, she expressed her disdain for the recent violent anti-Japanese protests.

Coincidentally, while I was writing my blog last night, my father was watching a TV show (called “TV Tackle”) hosted by the well-known film director Takeshi Kitano. This week’s topic for the show was about Japan’s war responsibility. A Chinese professor and a German (I couldn’t catch his occupation) who live in Japan were debating with a Japanese politician and a professor. They exchanged fierce arguments and assertions regarding history textbooks in Japan and China, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki vis-à-vis other war crimes, differences/similarities between Germany and Japan in terms of war responsibility, apologies offered in the past by Japanese prime ministers to Asian peoples, etc.

One of the Japanese said that Germany and Japan are different because while Germans were able to attribute war responsibility entirely to Nazis and move on (which I think is a totally inaccurate description of the postwar German history), Japanese were not “lucky” enough to enjoy such a clear-cut recourse. To turn his assertion against itself, however, Japanese could have simply condemned the emperor for the war. But they didn’t, and none of the guests on the TV show mentioned the emperor in discussing responsibility for WWII. In a sense, the emperor in the Japanese public discourse of war responsibility is the Barthesian “zero signifier” that structures a given discursive economy through its absence or the Lacanian Real that frames the Symbolic through its absolute resistance to symbolization.

Anyway, I went to F Junior-High School today and met with the principal Mr. S. I also discussed logistics of my research activities with Mr. I who took responsibility for coordinating my research with the school schedule. We decided that next Monday I should introduce myself to students and teachers at a school assembly as well as at a stuff meeting.

Tomorrow I will visit a board of education and try to make arrangements that allow me to use two educational research facilities in the city. (One of the facilities houses videotapes of classroom activities that the city has complied over years.)

My First Visit to Schools

I visited F Elementary and Junior High Schools. At the elementary school I talked with Mr. H about logistics to implement my research. As we went over details of my study, it seemed possible to give survey questions to all students in 2nd and 6th grades; if I can do that, N for each age group will exceed 100. Then I can conduct additional in-depth interviews with some of the students in the two grade levels.

F Junior High School was closed for a holiday. So the principal, who has all the letters that I have sent, was not around to talk with me about arrangements for my research. But one of the school administrators Mr. I received me warmly and we had a pleasant talk. He encouraged me to visit the school anytime I want. In fact, I will go to the school tomorrow morning to meet with the principal.

My father called my cousin who is a junior-high school teacher in another city. He works with a professor at a nearby teachers college who is also a principal at a college-affiliated junior-high school. According to my cousin, this professor is willing to help me recruit college seniors for my research. I hope to meet with him through my cousin by the end of this month.

For the past two days—I was busy preparing to move from Ann Arbor to Japan—I started taking notes of my presuppositions about how Japanese develop cognitions of their own and other countries. I believe that it’s important to dwell upon and therefore uncover one’s preconceptions. As Heidegger and Gadamer convincingly argued, our presuppositions are not the obstacle but the very condition of possibility of understanding. (Later in his life Husserl reached the similar conclusion by abandoning phenomenological reduction in favor of investigation of the lifeworld. Interestingly, “Wittgenstein II”—of Philosophical Investigation—also sought the grounding of understanding (of rules of language games) in socially shared presuppositions in our everyday life.) In the next few weeks I will try to post in this blog presuppositions that I have about Japan/Japanese and, in particular, the field in which I am conducting research. In this respect, my blog shall be a “counterpoint” to my fieldnotes (which I cannot post here for privacy and confidentiality reasons); it shall enable me to self-reflexively examine my hermeneutic horizon through which I take fieldnotes. (And, of course, I hope to write down transformations of my horizon throughout fieldwork.)