Applying for Fellowships

I am now working on my application for a fellowship from a certain educational foundation. I believe this is a very good chance for me to narrow down the focus of my research; writing a 2000-word description of my research surely forces me to articulate a coherent narrative about what I want to do and how I want to do it.

Right now representatives from seven parties are debating policies on Asashi TV. Since last Sunday, candidates have been engaging in heated--sometimes nasty--debates on TV. I hope they will continue policy discussions even after the general election on 9/11.

I often see ordinary people on TV complaining about politicians using difficult language to explain policies. I agree that Japanese politicians are not very good at explaining things. But I also think that those ordinary Japanese must try to learn more actively about policies, even though it is true that they have not received good civic education at school.

Shut Up...!

Hmm, I seem to speak too much when I get excited. I hope I won't compromise confidentiality of my subjects.

Today I interviewed two college seniors. One of them impressed me with her thoughtfulness. I then ended up telling her acquaintances that she was very thoughtful and planning to go to grad school--just after I parted with her and saw them. I didn't say more than that. But, really, I shouldn't have said anything... I'm so stupid!!!

I Must!

I must learn not to speak more than necessary. I tend to say stupid things when I try to break a seemingly uncomfortable silence. Oh well, I will keep trying to grow up.

Global Standards

I just watched yet another NHK special on International Organization for Standardization. It seems that Japanese lack visions and strategies to make their technological innovations. (But Americans are a little (?) too selfish and stubborn in insisting their standards be global.) I wonder what on earth the Ministry of International Trade and Industry has been doing. If they continue to import/imitate policies from the US (as they have been doing since who knows when), Japan will always remain subordinated to the US.

Here again, I should like to relate this problem to education: we need to transform the Japanese educational system to produce people who can analyze issues at hand comprehensively and articulate strategies to make best of them.

A Safe School

Last night I watched the NHK special about the school where several students were stabbed to death by a man. What I didn't like about the program is that it focused only on the school--how teachers have been struggling to create a safe learning environment. But the problem is that what happens inside the school is not unrelated to what happens outside the school. Can any school be improved without cooperation with families and neighbors? (It can, but not as effectively as otherwise.) I hope more parents in Japan will grow up to become partners of schools instead of totally depending on them.

Where is My Research Going?

In the next few days, I must start thinking seriously about how to assemble fragmented ideas and findings that I've got so far into a somewhat coherent framework. I need a clearer chart to guide my data collection (and, to be honest with you, to finish my dissertation in a timely manner!).

September is Approaching

Lately I'm a little worried that maybe I am trying to accomplish too much. In the fall, I will be doing interviews and observations simultaneously at the kindergarten, the elementary and junior high schools, and the college, as well as tutoring a high school student once a week. I must start working on applications for a few fellowships for the next year, too! Oh well, I will be careful not to overburden myself, but I hope this will give me a chance to become a both physically and mentally tough person who is capable of dealing with multiple tasks.

Back Home

My father and I came back from Hokkaido last night. This trip helped me increase my self-understanding. First, for me, sightseeing must be derivative of my life-long commitment, to investivate the working of human society. Second, I like museums. Although the ones I visited in Hokkaido could have been better organized, they were quite educational, for I didn't know much about the history of the nortern island. Third, I enjoy sightseeing with an informant (e.g., my brother)--not a tour guide--though I wish I could have met and talked with natives of the island.

Hokkaido Day 3

My father and I visited the Historical Museum of Hokkaido and the Museum of Sapporo Beer Company. (My brother didn't come with us because he had to work.) I learned a lot from the former. I didn't know that the military conflict between the Ainu and the mainland Japanese dated back to the 13th or 14th century. (Trading between them back much further.) I also found in this museum moments where histories of the two people intersected and influenced each other.

BTW, I think I prefer rich and fat beer, which Japanese beer companies don't seem to produce a lot. The Sapporo Beer Museum was a little too small, but it was interesting for me to learn processes of making beer and a history of Japanese beer. (Next time I travel somewhere, I want to visit a museum of wine.) During this trip to Hokkaido, I realized that I love historical museums where I can learn histories of whatever by reading explanations and actually looking at (replicas of) historical artefacts, as well as by assessing structures of representations of histories.

Hokkaido Day 3: A Hot Spring

Today my father, my brother, and I went to Porotokotan Museum of the Ainu People in Shiraoi and a hot spring in Noboribetsu. After I have visited three museums of both the Ainu people and the Japanese colonialists in Hokkaido, I cannot but wonder why these museums don't have a space in which histories of the two different sides can intersect with each other. I feel these commemorative practices are a little problematic because they minimize the past and present antagonism between the Ainu and the mainland Japanese who have settled in Hokkaido.

Anyway, the Noboribetsu Hot Spring was awesome. They have several different types of waters. These waters have different chemical compositions; for example, one of them is good for skin, another for nervous systems, and so on. My favorite was the "sleeping hot spring" where I could literally lie on the bottom of the bathtub. This was my first experience of a hot spring and I loved it. I felt that I could stay healthy if I bathed in a hot spring every day.

Hokkaido Day 2

My father and I flied to Chitose Airport and met up with my brother in Sapporo yesterday. After having lunch together, we took a train to go to Ebetsu, a small city next to Sapporo where my brother is working.

Today we went to see a few sites in Sapporo. One of them is a museum of the history of Hokkaido--the so-called "red-brick" building that used to be a prefectural office. Since this is an official (that is, governmental) history museum, there is little reference to the Ainu people. But tomorrow we will visit the Ainu museum in Shiraoi before going on to a hot spring in Noboribetsu!

Theory and Practice

I had the following conversation with my father O.
H: “I think those guys who have experienced what is really going on at the place should make policies when they get older.”
O: “No, no (smiling). If you know the place, you can’t draw a pretty blueprint. They [bureaucrats] can draw a pretty picture precisely because they don’t know the place. And when people at the place fail to produce expected results, they blame them.”
H: “But they should make policies after they have experienced and analyzed what is really going on at the place.”
O: “But that is really hard.”

Yes, I can understand that difficulty. It was relatively easy for me to write two theory papers (now under review at sociology and psychology journals) while I was in Ann Arbor. But, as I began fieldwork in Japan, I realized that theoretical frameworks on nationalism (among others) that I had constructed would not work neatly in trying to make sense of what is really going on in Japan and, what is more, in trying to propose some educational policies. Yes, it is “really hard” to accomplish all this, but I will do my best.

Tomorrow I will go visit my brother in Hokkaido. I will be back next Wednesday.

Playing Baseball with Junior High School Students

I will practice with the junior high school baseball team tomorrow. So far this summer I have practiced with the baseball team for four times. I don’t want to sound voyeuristic, but it is very informative to listen to students’ conversations while they are taking a break from practice.

Nationalism is Too Easy a Solution

I am a little concerned that nationalism may be taking hold of younger generations: “It’s a lack of nationalism that has caused troubles of this country!” (That’s what typical conservative/nationalist old-timers have been saying since the 1990s.) In my opinion, it is somewhat simple-minded to blame a lack of “love of the country” for everything wrong with Japan right now. Instead of resorting to such a simplistic diagnosis, we should analyze the current situation more patiently and thoroughly. But, of course, doing that is particularly hard for Japanese because they didn’t learn how to do it--to solve problems--at school.

My Father at Work

My mother went to stay with her mother and siblings in Tokushima on Saturday. (She will come home tomorrow.) So, I’ve been living with my father for the last few days. To my surprise, my father is pretty good at housework. Except for cooking (and sewing), I think my father is better than my mother in taking care of housework! (And he doesn’t complain. He works very calmly.) In fact, I have been impressed with his skills and resourcefulness since I came back here.

The Future of Japan: Problem-Solvers Wanted

I've been watching NHK’s special program “The Future of Japan” since 5pm today. “Ordinary” Japanese, journalists, Asians living in Japan, and others are debating how to envision the future of Japan in relation to Asia (in particular, China and South Korea) vis-à-vis how to resolve diplomatic issues concerning memories of WWII. I am a little surprised to hear nationalist opinions (often based on misunderstandings of facts as well as on ignorance) among younger participants who are in their 30s.

What struck me more about these participants is that they can’t speak coherently, that is, they can’t construct logical and cogent arguments. I think we need a new educational system that can produce better problem-solvers who can grasp problems accurately, analyze their causes comprehensively, and articulate means to solve them effectively.

Yasukuni and Post-Nationals

I just finished watching NHK’s special program where several intellectuals discussed various political issues surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine. Because tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, a few TV stations aired similar programs today.

What I noticed is that almost all discussants in these debates were in their 60s. So I cannot but wonder how younger generations of Japanese think of the Yasukuni Shrine and political/diplomatic problems revolving around it. My guess is that younger generations are not as nationalistic as older ones. What young Japanese have is at best “banal nationalism,” to support Japan at international sports competition. I dare to hypothesize that they are post-nationalistic rather than banal-nationalistic: among elementary and junior-high school students, only about 30 percent of them answered “Japan” when they were asked, “Which country would you choose if you could choose a country where you were born and grew up?”

I believe this post-nationalism offers Japanese a chance to become citizens instead of nationals. It seems good not to be subordinated to a nation, an imagined community, that commands nationals to sacrifice their lives. But, for Japanese to convert this chance to create a more participatory-democratic country, they do need a better civic education curriculum. Right now lessons of civic education are devoted to memorization of laws of the state and rights and duties of citizens; they don’t teach students experientially what it means to be a citizen and help them develop skills and dispositions to actively think about social problems and participate in collective actions to resolve them.

Sociology of Generational Differences?

I've been discussing with my father causes for social problems in Japan. First, school-age Japanese kids and adolescents who refuse to go to school and seclude themselves in their own rooms. I hypothesize that those men who sustained the rapid growth of the Japanese economy in the 1960s were not good fathers; they spent little time with their kids, so that their kids, who are now in their 40s, are not very good at parenting their own children, either.

Second, prefectural bureaucrats who are ineffective and inefficient, obstructing reforms that are (urgently) necessary for Japan. Here, I can use a generational perspective once again. Through the 1960s to early 90s, businesses trained university graduates on their own; they did not expect that those graduates received kinds of education that could be utilized for "real" work. (Indeed, Japanese universities have been the place where many students who were exhausted after entrance exams took break.) But, unlike businesses, prefectural governments didn't train university graduates properly. And whatever Max Weber said about bureaucracy, I think that prefectural bureaucracy is an apex of inefficiency.

The Japanese Langauge

Today is the 20th anniversary of the crash of the JAL airplane that killed 520 passengers. Again, I wonder why Japanese commemoration of tragedies (e.g., the atomic bombing, etc.) sentimentalizes or aestheticizes human sufferings by isolating them from larger economic, social, and political contexts. For instance, a couple of my questions about the crash is, “Why was the rescue of survivors delayed? Why didn’t the US military and the Japan Self-Defense Forces help locate the crashed airplane? (There was no appropriate law to allow such an action?)” We shouldn’t dwell too much on intense emotions that tragedies provoke but try to redeem the lost lives by transforming culpable systems so as to prevent any more tragedies.

I think one of the reasons many Japanese lack critical/analytical reasoning is the way the Japanese language has been taught at school. During lessons of Japanese too much time is spent for reading and composing poems, tanka, and haiku, to use the language for aesthetic purposes. I don’t think they spend enough time developing skills to deploy Japanese to engage in critical/analytic discussion.

MLB and the High-School Baseball Tournament

I am now watching sports news on NHK BS1. MLB players are definitely bigger than their Japanese counterparts. They have more muscles (presumably without using steroids) ... hence more power and strength. I don’t think their physical differences are caused only by genes and diets. My guess is that MLB players have been training more systematically according to sports science. As the high-school baseball tournament is going on in Japan right now, I cannot but wonder how many high-school baseball teams in Japan incorporate sports science into their trainings.

LDP and Yomiuri Giants

There will be a national election in a month. I sometimes wonder whether there is a homology between the popularity of the Liberal Democratic Party and that of the baseball team Yomiuri Giants. I mean, don’t Japanese tend to support the strongest without “good reasons”? (But, I must point out that the Giants has been struggling in recent years.) I think Japanese politics will be better off if we have more--yes, more!-- (young) people who are willing to think and act outside of the hegemonic, challenging and transforming the inertia of the postwar social system that is now undermining the prospect of Japan in the 21st century.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Japanese

Today I watched Nagasaki Peace Memorial Ceremony. But, hmm... I wonder whether there is a disjunction between commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and anti-nuclear movements that claim to have been inspired by the tragedy. Japanese commemoration of the bombing focuses on human suffering, whereas abolition of nuclear weapons--the slogan of the anti-nuclear movements--demands Japanese develop intellectual, social, and political skills to articulate visions, formulate strategies, communicate and negotiate with political actors from other countries in tenaciously pursuing the ideal of the nuclear-free and peaceful (by the way, these two states should not be conflated) world. And as we all know, most Japanese lack these skills.

Children as Naive-Native Sociologists

I wonder whether girls are more precocious than boys in developing naïve sociology. My impression is that preschool girls tend to spend more time than boys in elaborating and negotiating rules of the game they are playing. (I think the nature of the game partly determines players’ orientations. Even when they use the same toy, say Legos, preschoolers can play within different social frames, that is, games. Some use Legos to build complex objects (e.g., an airplane) by themselves, and others use them to play house together.) So my question is why girls tend to play more social/communicational games than boys. I don’t think it’s either biology or socialization. It’s both. We can then start asking how various mechanisms cause the observable.

Japanese of Different Ages

Today I taught English to Ms. N (my mother’s friend) and her daughter who are 60- and 30-something, respectively. So, since I came to Japan in May, I have established contact with different generations of Japanese--preschoolers, elementary, junior-high, high-school, and college students, teachers, and housewives, and so on--between ages 3 and 60-something. And I am now convinced that analysis of generational differences is necessary for any sociologist to understand a given society accurately.

What strikes me as something common among different generations of Japanese is their contentment with Japan. Most of them seem to think that Japan is wealthy and peaceful, even though they feel the number of crimes is rising. I wonder whether this contentment is partly responsible for the country’s impending decline.

Sex and the Town

My hometown had a firework festival this evening. I watched the firework from the outside stairway of the building where I was tutoring a high-school senior. While I was on my way to and back from the workplace, I saw a lot of young couples watching the firework in the crowded street. Naturally, I wondered whether they were going to have sex afterwards. This is because according to a certain statistics, the number of sexual intercourses that the average Japanese couple has in one year is by far the lowest in the world. The less frequent sex, the fewer children...?

Remembering/Forgetting "Hiroshima"

Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In the past few days there were newspaper articles and TV news about how memories of Hiroshima have been fading as survivors--living testimonials--get older and younger generations are less informed about the event.

But, as far as I can tell, they didn’t discuss why Hiroshima is getting “forgotten” among Japanese. (Put the other way round: what is necessary for Japanese collective memory of Hiroshima to be sustained?) It seems to me that one of the reasons that less and less Japanese remember Hiroshima is that the hegemonic commemorative frame fails to connect to the contemporary issues, both national and international. I believe that collective memory of “Hiroshima” will be well and alive if it is articulated with legacies of WWII (including current anti-Japanese sentiments in China and South Korea), potential proliferation of nuclear weapons among terrorist groups, problems of the US military domination of the world (including the Japan-US Security Treaty), and so on.

Tutoring Continued

I taught English to an 8th grader today. He is a son of my mother’s friend. To be honest, I was a bit hesitant to tutor this boy because I heard that he was not only struggling academically but also lacking motivation to learn. I felt like my mother’s friend was trying to force me to take care of a trouble that she could not resolve for herself. But, at the same time, I thought it could be useful for me to develop skills to work with a student who is not motivated (because I will probably encounter such a college student in the future).

In Japan there are a fair number of school-age kids who seclude themselves in their rooms and refuse to come out. Usually, parents of these kids are a little strange, at least from my perspective: they bring meals everyday to doors of rooms where their kids shut themselves in even when they no longer talk to each other. That is, these parents don’t seem to know how to communicate with their kids. I suspect that a number of self-secluding kids has been increasing. (It’s not simply due to growing attention from mass media.) But why? I wonder whether the postwar Japanese social system, which enabled the rapid reconstruction and economic growth, had various flows, one of which may be the production of uncommunicative youths who became uncommunicative parents. Ugh, what a simple-minded answer!

Anyway, the 8th-grade boy turned out to be all right. He speaks little, but he doesn’t look thoughtless. I will do my best to help him during the summer vacation, but I believe it’s ultimately up to his parents to support him both emotionally and academically.

Why Should I Blog Everyday?

From today I will try to update my blog every day. I believe that it will help me keep my senses fresh, which is helpful for me during fieldwork.

The summer vacation for elementary and junior high schools began at the end of July. Since then, I have been tutoring two high-school seniors, training with the junior-high school baseball team, and teaching my mother’s friends English, in addition to my weekly visit to the kindergarten and daily data entry.

I just came home from tutoring one of the high-school seniors. (I teach English.) I am hoping that I can teach them basics of English and learning in general that will enable them to go beyond constraints of entrance exams. I mean, I want them to be able eventually to think critically, construct their own arguments cogently, and communicate with others coherently in English as well as in Japanese. This is not something that is systematically taught at Japanese schools, but I believe this is what younger generations of the Japanese must develop if they are to resolve many social problems that confront this country.