Blog Entry 3

Blog Entry #3

“Gambari” is patience and working hard.  The ideal Japanese citizen is expected to work diligently in all areas, often without breaks.  Overtime at a job is not a reward for something done above and beyond, it is expected and even enforced – those workers that refuse overtime hours can be laid off.  This goes for school children as well.  Suicide rates among retirees is climbing: because work ethic is so strongly enforced in society, those who now have no work to do are restless to the point of frustration and depression.  However, this policy of over-working is starting to decline; the negative effects it can have are growing more apparent as students drop out of school and as death from being overworked becomes more and more common.

Although the text spoke of Western society embracing vacations and leisure time, saying “there are some expressions that are often used in America but seldom in Japan, such as ‘take it easy’” (86), I feel that, in the US, society is slowly becoming more like the Japanese in terms of working hard.  Work days are becoming longer and longer, and paid leave time is an ideal that companies are leaving by the wayside.

“Kenkyo” is the idea of modesty or humility.  This is again tied back to “aimai” and “chinmoku”, in that it is strongly tied to the Japanese way of presenting oneself in a lesser light than one may necessarily be.  Due to the hierarchal system that all of Japanese society has shaped itself into, it is necessary that one always knows exactly where one stands, and how to address one’s co-worker, classmate, teammate, or even neighbor.  It is safer to be more humble than the situation requires than to accidentally assert oneself over one’s conversation partner.  It is from these principles that the different forms of language are created (including the vast system of honorifics).  This ideal is also undergoing change, as “people tend to make more of what they communicate to others than how they do so” (148) and as students are taught more individuality and the importance of striving for personal success.

“Amae” is (a particularly Japanese idea of) dependence.  “Self-indulgent behavior by an infant of either sex in presuming on the love of its parents” (17).  This is the one I least understood; it is (I think) the idea of appreciating what someone has done for you – if it is someone “uchi”, this treatment is expected, presumed, although no less appreciated; if it is someone “soto”, then the treatment is not expected, and can be used as a form of forced bond (i.e., if someone pays for your meal you feel uncomfortably dependent on them; it is likely that they have done this in order to create that feeling intentionally).  Yet, “amae” is built into the naturally group-dependent Japanese culture and lifestyle, so one may feel a sense of “amae” with one’s community, as a way of keeping the community strong.  If the entire community is dependent on one another, then no part is inessential and one must strive to not “rock the boat”, as it were.

                This particular concept was hard for me to wrap my mind around; in the US, independence is so valued that something like “amae” is naturally confusing for us.  I hope I’ve managed to summarize the basics of the concept accurately.

“Honne” and “Tatemae”: “These two words are often considered a dichotomy contrasting genuinely-held personal feelings and opinions from those that are socially controlled.  Honne is one’s deep motive or intention, while tatemae refers to motives or intentions that are socially-tuned, those that are shaped, encouraged, or suppressed by majority norms” (115) – often, what one really wants (“honne”) is not always in agreement with what one says out loud (“tatemae”).  This is yet another way the Japanese maintain group harmony.  Although this concept of hiding one’s true feelings in order to be socially accepted is common across cultural lines, the Japanese embrace it and it is commonly understood and accepted that one may only be saying what is expected of them and not what is actually thought.  Therefore a range of formulaic questions and responses that sound polite but are always interpreted differently than they seem on the surface have been created – for example, if one is visiting another’s home and meal time approaches, the host will ask if the guest will stay for the meal: although it sounds like a polite invitation, any Japanese person would read the intended meaning of “I need you to leave because it is time for a meal”.  The guest’s formulaic answer is “no thank you, I’m not hungry”, which, in reality means that they have understood the message and will leave shortly.

                I understood this concept, but the idea of constantly analyzing what the other person in a conversation might or might not mean by what they are saying would drive me crazy!  I know that’s just because of the society that I grew up in, and that I am used to living in a society that values open speech and speaking one’s mind, but double-thinking everything would make me paranoid!  Of course, I’m sure there are those in Japan who study our culture and think we are rude for speaking so openly all the time.  To me, that kind of opposing views of nature based on culture is fascinating.

Blog Entry 2

1.            “ Although the Japanese may not be conscious of aimai, its use is regarded as a virtue in Japan…” (p.9). In the film, find the scene that you think that aimai is regarded as a virtue and explain why you think so.

The scene where teachers and students are gathered to open the Blue Bird Box for the second time exemplifies aimai as a virtue – when Sonobe asks the teacher in charge if disliking someone is bullying, Sonobe is told to be quiet rather than ask the question.  It seems to me that the teacher in charge would rather that Sonobe had not brought up a question that might cause friction in the quiet setting of reading the notes inside the box.

2.            Considering Aimai, ambiguity is a big part of bullying in Japan and the film.  Describe the scenes of them and explain why you think so.

None of the students seem truly certain about who was the real bully, or if even what they had done was considered bullying.  There was a cloud of ambiguity surrounding the entire affair, with student’s names blocked out from the suicide note to the faculty’s desire to pretend it had never happened.  It seems to me that, rather than address what might still be happening in the classrooms, and telling students what kind of behavior is hurtful and what is harmless, the administration of the school would rather pretend that nothing was wrong for fear of upsetting parents and the normal rhythm of everyday life.  This sounds like the use of “aimai” as a way of avoiding painful subjects.

3.            What are the differences between bullying in Japan and US?  What kinds of American characteristics would cause the kinds of bullying in the US?

There is one part, when the students start arguing amongst themselves, where the “central bully” character (I can’t remember his name) accuses a girl of telling all the other girls in the class to ignore one particular student.  This form of silence bullying is one I have heard of before in other Japanese literature and TV shows I have seen, although I have never seen it in Western classrooms.  Most bullying is physical; students are generally beaten up as a form of bullying in the US, because our culture and media focuses on physical prowess as an acceptable form of authority.

There is, of course, still social bullying in the US.  With the advent of social media, more and more bullying is taking place outside of the classrooms and on the internet instead.  Because of the vast nature of social media, internet bullying (or cyberbullying) is a more international form of bullying that I am sure is experienced not just in Western society.

4.            Considering Uchi to Soto, what kinds of concepts of Uchi to Soto are Noguchi’ bullying caused? What kinds of characteristics make the other students bully?

Noguchi’s bullying was a form of what is called “hazing”, or asking a person to do a set of actions in order to be accepted in the group.  Because he was in their class, Noguchi should have already been part of the “uchi”, one of the group.  But instead (perhaps because he was a transfer student who had only recently moved to the area), the other students decided he was “soto” and did not treat him like one of the group regardless of the things he did for them.

5.            Considering Danjyo Kankei, the textbook mentioned roles of male and female in Japan. What kinds of relationships exist between male and female in the classroom.

It seemed to me that the male students were expected to speak more in the classroom, and that the female students were by nature quieter.  They also seemed to expect to be treated as a separate entity from the male students; in the scene where one teacher finds some of the boys fighting in the classroom, he orders everyone to the counselor’s office.  One of the female students asks if he wants the girls to go as well, suggesting that they expect to be seen as a different group than the ones who were fighting, when, in reality, they are all part of the same class, the same social group.

6.            What did reflection papers differ for students from the first paper and the second paper?

The length of the papers seemed the most important change.  Whereas the first papers were required to be a certain length, the second ones were allowed to be whatever the students felt best encompassed their feelings.  Often, when a demanding limit is set, students (in the US as well as Japan) will write “filler” content, content that is repetitive or unimportant, in order to fill the space they are required to.  Without that limit hanging over them, students were free to express their feelings more naturally. 

Also, it is important that the second papers were not required.  The school forced every student to write an essay the first time, so that students who may not have had much to say or would be embarrassed to say anything felt forced to make something up to fill the assignment and not be embarrassed.  However, when that threat of punishment was taken away, the students who chose to do so were able to write honestly and earnestly on their feelings.

7.            Considering Chinmoku, what affect do you think the stuttering teacher had on the students?

I felt that his stutter really didn’t matter as much as I expected it to.  It introduced the theme of “speaking earnestly”, but I expected it to be more prevalent.  The students never seemed to learn that it was not acceptable to make fun of Murauchi-sensei’s stutter.

8.            MOVIE---Who is the 3rd person that Noguchi wrote in his will?

He wrote “everyone else”.

9.            MOVIE---What is bullying? What did the stuttering teacher, Murauchi-sensei tell to Sonobe?

Murauchi-sensi tells Sonobe that bullying is an act that hurts or harms another person.  If you do something that you know harms another person, you are bullying them, regardless of the act.

10.          What did you think about the film? Have you had similar experiences?  Share anything that you thought about this film.

I really enjoyed this film.  The amount of silence in it was unusual, but I soon found myself enjoying the reflective pauses in the film; it gave me a change to digest what I had just watched.  It wasn’t like anything else I’ve watched, but I would enjoy more films like it.

11.          Reflective inquiry----How do your brain work in regard to watch this movie? What is the most difficult concept for you that it showed in film very well but you truly don't understand? Why is that?

I honestly didn’t understand the references to the Blue Bird (I had to look it up).  I also struggled with the male-female relationships within the classroom, and within the staff of the school.  There was clearly something significant between Murauchi-sensei and the female counselor’s assistant, but I’m not entirely sure what it was.

Blog Entry 1

Blog Entry #1

First, let me say that I’ve found this absolutely fascinating so far.  I look forward to reading more!  Below are my reading notes, my “putting this into my own words” the concepts we read for this week.  I think I understand the concepts fairly well, and hopefully I’ve explained the various nuances correctly.               

“Aimai” is defined as “a state in which there is more than one intended meaning, resulting in obscurity, indistinctness, and uncertainty” (9); it is a kind of socially-enforced ambiguity.  It is built so deeply into a culture that, by necessity, values close-knit communities and fears any sort of impoliteness that may cause social friction that many native Japanese speakers do not realize they are being ambiguous at all.  Born from the physical necessities of living on a mountainous island, this ambiguity “has contributed greatly to the economic development of Japan, the need for strong emotional unity has also resulted in an inability to criticize others openly” (11).  While this might seem a refreshing change of pace for Americans (who spend much of their time being offended), in reality “aimai” causes trouble with international relations, especially because the Japanese regard any concrete, direct language impolite – by saying something concretely, one either appears to be bragging or else putting the other person in the conversation below oneself.  A direct “yes” or “no” would be almost non-existent.

Reading this, after watching Aoi Tori, helped me make sense of the movie.  While watching, I wondered why the substitute teacher so often did not respond to questions directed towards him, why he paused so frequently in conversation.  I started to wonder “what if a Japanese viewer would interpret this differently than I would?  How exactly do I interpret silence?”  It took me a few minutes to realize that, if I had addressed the substitute and been met with only silence, I would assume he was either angry with me or thought I was being foolish.  Reading this confirmed my idea that the Japanese do think differently about silence, although I had no idea it was so concretely built into their culture.

“Uchi” and “Soto”, to put it simply, mean “inside” and “outside”, respectively.  Because the whole of Japanese culture is based firmly on family dynamics, this system of “those who belong” and “those who do not” is built into the conscious mind of its people: “the Japanese clearly distinguish insiders from outsiders in daily life, depending on whether the others belong to an uchi or soto group” (217).  On the most basic level, the family units are extremely tight-knit; the family is “uchi”; those who are not family are “soto”.  The best way to describe this concept is to look at a traditional Japanese household, although the concept expands to other levels of society as well: “In the traditional Japanese pattern, each household is a distinctly isolated unit of its own, complete with walls and a high fence around the house to insure privacy.  Yet inside, walls consist of sliding doors made of paper so that privacy is kept to a minimum” (218).

This also applies to other social groups that people necessarily fall into – school classes; clubs; coworkers; and other such groups where it is easy to identify who is “soto” (not one of the group) and “uchi” (one of the group).  This extends to even international relations – the entire Japanese nation is “soto” while those who are not Japanese are “uchi” (or, more specifically, “gaijin”). 

This also made sense in regard to Aoi Tori, and in regard to other Japanese film and television I have watched.  It is a universally human trait to try and find security in a group, and to want to be accepted, but the “uchi” versus “soto” concept goes much farther than I have seen in my own culture, especially when it comes to family life.  The idea that the family spends all of their free time at home together was surprising; it is certainly not what happens in my household.  But it does fit in with an idealized version of “family time” that our media and culture expresses in many ways: in TV shows, the families always watch TV together, although that’s not what my family does; game companies advertise “family night” as a way to sell their games, although my family rarely has time for something like that.   

                “Danjyo Kankei”, the concept of changing female roles within Japanese society, made the most sense to me.  The historical pattern of women becoming more and more independent as time goes on is one that is seen in Western culture as well; the struggles that Japanese women have been through is familiar.  I took less notes when reading this section because it was one I understood well.

“Chinmoku” is the idea of using silence as means of communication.  In Japanese culture, silence is utilized in myriad forms.  As already mentioned, the “aimai” ambiguity can lead to more silence in a conversation, because speaking up may come across as bragging or overstepping one’s bounds.  Historically, the Japanese consider silence to be a part of “truthfulness”, an idea that goes back to Zen Buddhism and states that the internal, non-physical is “true”, whereas the external, physical is tainted and to some degree “false”:

“[The Japanese] believe that the truth lies only in the inner realm as symbolically located in the heart or belly. Components of the outer self, such as face, mouth, spoker workds, are in contrast, associated with cognitive and moral falsity.  Truthfulness, sincerity, straight-forwardness, or reliability are allied to reticence.  Thus a man of few words is trusted more than a man of many words” (52).

There are several forms of silence. There is a silence that indicates one is carefully thinking over one’s ideas before responding in conversation (“enryo-sasshi” – reserve and restraint); silence can also smooth over a tense situation: it is better to be silent than to offend someone (i.e. married couples often spend more time in silence than in expressing their feelings verbally).  Silence can also be negative – a purposeful, ignoring silence is a common form of bullying in Japan, and one that often goes unreported, because even children not engaged in the bullying are afraid to step up and say what they know is going on.  Silence is also used as a way of hiding the truth; politicians, school principals, and other forms of authority remain silent in order to avoid self-incrimination.  Obviously, silence also has an effect on international relations, because many cultures interpret silence differently.