Changing Impressions of Japan

I started this blog with my impressions of contrasts- between Japan and France, and within Japan itself.  It’s easy to think about Japan in light of its visible contrasts, modern and traditional, insular and globalized, homogenous and multi-faceted.  In the film The Japanese Version, they explored some of these oppositions by looking at what is globalized and ‘glocalized’ in Japan.

In a sense, putting culture into oppositional categories can be useful to revealing its dynamism.  But even looking at ‘both sides’ of a culture can be limiting.  Also, in highlighting the opposition between cultures.- you are creating an impression of necessary difference.

In my anthropology theory class, we watched this video during our discussion of Orientalism. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k4iZqbDsMs

While the video may not be directly offensive, we were asked to question the humor.

It is only implied that the mixture of Korean and Scottish is uncommon, but the humor is derived from the strangeness of the uncommon.  (And of course, stereotypes are used to create this effect).  It raises an important question~ in a highly globalized world, what is the utility of highlighting difference?  Since anthropology is very much about recognizing patterns of cultural differences and similarities, it clearly cannot be avoided altogether.  But can anthropology be responsibly represent difference that isn’t ethnocentric or superior?

Anthropology is stuffing something very BIG, into a tiny box- an ethnography, a film, a story.  I hope that this blog can be a tiny cut-away window into my experiences of Japan, as part of the larger whole that is Japanese culture.

As a result of time constraints and travel restrictions this semester, I missed out on having some of the important well-known Japanese experiences.  I didn’t go to Tokyo or Fuji or Hokkaido.  But in no way will I ever feel like I missed out on ‘Japan’.

To me, Japan has been the old apartment in the winding neighborhood, the unexpected acquaintances and the frequent Nabe dinners.  It was the street dancers, the nightlife, the parks, the food, the celebrations, and the people.  My exploration of Japan has been far from conclusive, but I have had the opportunity to observe Japan from my mimic of an ordinary daily life.  I got an apartment (that according to my Japanese friends, probably would only be rented by a foreign student), I learned how to ride a bike (better late than never,) and I got to go to college in Japan (if only an international student program).  Maybe this blog only provides a blurry window view into Japanese life, but it is the fragment as I have experienced it.  Japan can be comparable to other cultures only as a reference, but to really understand, I lived here and let the culture speak for itself.

An unlikely croud

Windows 

Watching

"Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love." - Jonathan Safran Foer

As another long neglected post topic…

Food ranks second to dance in importance, and is debatably more critical to my survival.  I have no future as a chef, but my love of food is still unparalleled.  Luckily, the ritual of eating frequently comes under the gaze of anthropology. 

Throughout my travels, meals have been one of the most beneficial social learning experiences.  At the table, (around the fire, on the couch, on the floor,) you quickly learn do’s and don’ts of cultural eating.

In France, one of my best learning experiences was a dinner in Strasbourg.  

A Japanese classmate invited me to a house-party dinner with some of her coworkers.  The meal was Fondue bourguignon, courtesy of an elderly French chef she had met in the supermarket.  Fondue lends itself well to a social atmosphere, as it doesn’t require just one chef.  It is cooked and consumed simultaneously by everyone at the table.  This being said, it is easy to find yourself eating for six straight hours.  During that time, I learned a lot about the rituals of Fondue, shared meals, and hospitality in France.

1.    1. Not a shocker, everyone contributes something to a dinner.  More often than not, ‘something’ is a bottle of wine.

2.    2. If there is food, its ‘faux pas’ not to keep eating until its gone.  Even if it takes significant time.

3.    3. Unique to fondue bourguignon; if you drop your meat in the oil, you are open to a dare from the other guests.  (Even adults play truth or dare.)

4.     4.The relaxed atmosphere of food and wine open the room up to honest conversation, the best time to learn from participant observation.

Of course, this blog is about JAPAN.  (Don’t worry, I didn’t forget).  So, when I came here, I was happy to find that there is a similarly useful shared meal- Japanese Nabe or Nabemono.  (Nabe meaning cooking pot, mono meaning things.)  Traditionally, Nabe or Shabu Shabu is eaten during the winter, around a kotatsu table with family or friends.  Clay or iron pots can be used on a gas heater, allowing everyone to sit around the pot and share the cooking.   Since I don't live with a host family, this is one of the best opportunities to experience Japanese meals.  Going to Nabe parties with Japanese friends, I began to draw comparisons with other shared meals.

While arguably, American rituals (oxymoron?), like summer barbeques involve social bonding, Nabe meals are significantly more intimate.  Sitting on the floor, sharing food from the same pot, eating and cooking in tandem, you get the feeling of a smaller, closer community.  There are of course, many types of Nabe, so it appeals to almost any setting or food preference.  To my unrefined understanding, it could be ‘whatever you throw in the pot,’ but watching my Japanese friends deftly prepare, I know that this isn’t quite doing the process justice.  Here is a better description of the process

http://www.bento.com/rf_nabe.html

It’s regional, its preferential… it’s cultural.  You can learn a lot about how people eat what they eat… while they eat.  Food as a mediator of social dynamics?  It's a damn good excuse to study anyway.

べつばら

Process

Kimchi Nabe

踊るあほうに観るあほう、同じあほなら踊らにゃそんそん

"We're fools whether or not we dance, so we might as well dance"

I'm finally getting around to writing about a topic that has both great personal significance and relevant to visual anthropology- dance.  The anthropology of dance is a growing branch of anthropology that examines the dance as a form of cultural knowledge.  It looks at how the choreography, representation, and social practice of dance are means to understanding identity and cultural behaviors, often relying on the visual spectacle of performance.

In Japan, my experience with dance has been quite diverse.   It's easy to find almost any kind of dance here, often in unexpected places.  For instance, Kansai Gaidai has its own flamenco club, and there is a thriving swing scene in Osaka.  And, if you happen to end up in Hirakata's Hawaiian restaurant on the right day, you may even be lucky enough to watch or participate in a hula performance. 

In Japan, the idea of dance anthropology may elicit ideas of traditional dance, which are still very present in Japanese culture.   These are easy to find in the Kansai area, such as Kyoto Maiko performances and festival dances.  A few weeks ago, Kansai Gaidai gave students the chance to see a performance of Bonodori, a traditional summer festival dance.   After the performance, students got a chance to learn the dance and participate.  This demonstrates one of the principal tenants of anthropology, that culture is learned and shared.  In a globalized world, this 'sharing' often crosses international borders. 

In light of the dynamism of Japanese culture, we can also see other forms of dance that are adopted and fitted to Japanese life.  By far one of the most interesting to me is the B-boy culture of break-dancers that practice around the train stations, notably Hirakata and Osaka.  After weeks of timidly watching the dancers practice in the stations, I got a chance to speak with them and take some photos.  While choreographed dance takes the interest of many anthropologists, it is also useful to interpret movement that is less calculated, more natural.  When you watch a practice, you see more than a finished product.  You see the progress made and the social relationships that create that are involved.

The dancers I talked to in Hirakata station have been practicing for years, and to my eye, all seemed very talented.  Some dancers go alone to practice, secluded by their headphones.  However, the students I spoke with practiced in a group, and even the audience of foreign spectators didn't seem to inspire any competition.

This is a pretty useful description of the Osaka street dancing culture:

http://www.osaka-brand.jp/en/kaleidoscope/topics/index5.html

"Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness." ~Ray Bradbury

 A few weeks ago, I moved from the seminar houses into an apartment.  I thought that this would be a good opportunity to put up an addendum to my last 'neighborhood post,' which I admit, which I used for a rather prolonged Tanuki rant.  Hopefully, here is a more methodological way to represent my neighborhood- outlined by our class readings of Ted Bestor.  Its interesting to see which method has worked best so far...

“Mapping the Scene”

To me, this took to be wandering aimlessly down the web of dangerously narrow streets behind our apartment block.  My apartment is located off of a main road, but much more interesting than the neighboring chain restaurants and parking lots is the mess of residential streets.  In an attempt to find a shortcut to the seminar houses, I have gotten quite impressively lost here.  This has given me a chance to get at least a superficial feel for my makeup of my neighborhood.

You can tell quite a bit from the size and design of houses, and the disrepair in my immediate area is telling.  I know for certain that most of the buildings surrounding mine are rented to other international students, which is often means a cheap steal. One of the first things most of my friends mentioned coming to my apartment was how humble the area was.  The house next to mine has a gaping hole in the front wall that reveals a spine of rotting boards.  The next question then, is usually about safety.  But, I have never really considered it to be a problem.  Initially this was simply because I am living in Japan, but I am beginning to get the feel for my small neighborhood.  I recently discovered my proximity to the elementary school, which may explain the number for young children who walk by my house every day.  

From what I have seen so far, almost all of my neighbors are students or families, which gives me the feeling of a very small community.  

“Studying Labels”

As we discussed in class, this is a challenging endeavor when one has a limited ability to read Kanji.  However, labels aren’t always written.  A lot of ‘reading’ is interpretation of surroundings. 

I may not be able to be able to tell 人(person) from 入(enter)  on a good day, but I do recognize the Real Estate signs that are dotted around many of the houses in the area.  I know for certain that over the past weeks since the earthquake, many international students have been moving in and out of the surrounding apartments.  And from all of the real estate signs, I can deduce that the rest of the neighborhood is in a similar state of change.

“Cueing up conversations”

So far I haven’t succeeded engaging my neighbors in much more than small talk; things about laundry, weather, why I’m asleep in the sunny parking lot behind my house, (apparently not done in Japan, especially when you are in someone’s parking space).  But when it comes down to it, so far, I have been most successful in Bestor's spirit of networking; taking advantage of both encounters established by chance and by effort.  My landlady has been the best source of prolonged information.  She tells me about the flux of international students who have rotated through her houses and apartments for tens of years.  She also has given me a window into her life, which I hope will allow for a more formal interview in the future.  She drops in (mostly unannounced) a few times a week to check in, and often stays to talk.  Although she doesn’t speak English, we can communicate enough to understand each other on a basic level and I am finding our brief conversations to be one of the best sources of japanese practice.  

And then, perhaps one of my favorite methods of networking so far in Japan- chance.  It has opened up doors to late night pizza delivery, unexpected french exchanges, and most recently... an invitation to watch an Aikido practice.  As I was headed to class the other day, the men who pick up our garbage stopped the truck and confronted me.   Orientation was successful in scaring me- I knew that they had caught me for not sorting my trash, and I was probably going to get an early field-trip to Japanese prison.  Instead they handed me a pamphlet to an Aikido school and asked me to encourage other international students to come watch the practices.  This could be an opportunity for an adventure, and maybe another blog post...

Headers from:

Bestor, T.C., P.G Steinhoff and V.C. Bestor, phd.  2003 Doing Feildwork in Japan.  Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.  p. 315-334

Last week we watched documentaries on photographers: Annie Leibowitz and James Natchwey.  Both are known as masters in their prospective fields; Annie shoots celebrities, models, and other portraits and James captures the devastation and horrors of war and poverty.  While neither of the two are anthropologists by trade, we can learn a lot from both of them about the methods and ethics of capturing and reproducing images of people.

At the most basic level, visual anthropology is intrinsically connected with the image, what is seen by and of cultures, the visual depiction and understanding of peoples.  However, as we have seen through other short videos this week, not all photography and video is visual anthropology.  The act of recording someone’s image is an act of power, which can easily be exploited.  We have discussed hidden cameras, unauthorized distribution, and manipulation as examples of this representational violence.  Photography can also simply be artistic, or for personal or sentimental value.        

That being said, neither of the photographers I will discuss make a living as visual anthropologists.

Then what is it that makes these two relevant to our subject?

Both Annie and James represent people through photography. 



Accurate?  What kind of representation?
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/annie-leibovitz/images/1518850/title/pocahontas-photo



Annie does not always represent directly, she sometimes bends realities and depicts with metaphors.  Her subjects are often meticulously posed, using props and surreal effects.  However, Annie claims that she uses these methods to get the heart of her subjects. She says, “In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view.  The image may not be literally what's going on, but it's representative (Leibowitz, 2008)” While Annie has room to take great liberties with ‘exact representation’, this makes us aware that even in visual anthropology, you can never recreate reality.  At best, you have a visual representation.





http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

James’s representation takes a more subjective approach.  He claims that his work “gives them (the subjects of his work) a voice in the outside world that they otherwise wouldn’t have.”  In a way, he believes that through his photographs, people are “making their own appeal to the outside world.”  Similarly, as anthropologists, we hope that our work will not just be our representation of others, but include peoples conceptions of themselves.  By shooting a photo and selecting and image, we are immediately imprinting our own desires- selections of space and time, lighting and angle.  However, James suggests that through his work, what those image conveys to the world can very much be the subject’s representation. 

Both photographers engage in participant observation of sorts.



http://hayleyprairieview.blogspot.com/



Leibowitz spent months touring with the Rolling Stones intending to capture authentic moments.  By engaging deeply in their lives, including drug use, her participant observation even raised a common anthropological question of ‘going native’~ when have you crossed the line between participation and observation?

http://rsemel.wordpress.com/

Natchwey introduces another angle of participant observation; an extended dedication to one subject.  He spent months with a single family who was living between the train tracks in Indonesia.

Ultimately, while I believe that much of these photographers’ works can be likened to anthropology; I still don’t feel comfortable labeling these photographers ‘visual anthropologists’.  The two take photos that they hope can independently evoke emotions and convey largely interpretational messages.  James Natchwey has some of themost moving and powerful photography I have ever seen.  However, I still don’t believe that snapshots are enough to accomplish what life histories and extended ethnographies convey.  I am more familiar with visual anthropology as the accompaniment of both images and words.  As a comparison, take a look at Righteous Dopefiends, an ethnography that uses images to reinforce a textual narrative.  Which do you find more effective?   

I guess this leaves the open question; is it possible to do visual anthropology entirely without words?  Can images standing alone achieve the same thing as text?



Chisa, my Home Visit Partner

Chisa is my weekend home visit partner.  I was a little nervous about meeting her at first- my utter inability to make small talk can be difficult.  I was also afraid, without need, that a pair of heels and a layer of makeup might stand between our ability to initially relate.  I was happy to be proved wring, and our first meeting turned out to be easy.  While I am entirely not athletic and Chisa enjoys sports (basketball, badminton, and soccer,) we could connected over many of our interests: movies, travel, and most importantly, food.

Chisa's Boots- I told her that they would work well in Maine...

I didn’t get a chance to go over to Chisa’s home until last week, but we went to 鳥貴族 with one of her friends.  Here is a classic example of japanese politeness; I didn’t know if we were all sharing portions so I let my friends order and decide.  I was hoping to try maybe one or two things on the menu, and wasn’t worried that two small Japanese girls would get portions I couldn’t handle.  After I don’t-know-how-many servings of every thing on the menu, I realized that I may have met my match.  That girl can EAT. There is nothing like a well-earned food coma to bring people together. 

I had a meal with Chisa’s family last week, and got to enjoy again the experience that food and company bring together.  The discomfort of going to someone’s home (and inversely, inviting a stranger into one’s own home), was lightened by laughter; a shared sentiment in any language.  Laughter at Chisa’s small dog, who was determined to make my presence known to EVERYONE in the neighborhood, or my attempts to master “Osaka-ben” by inserting Nandeyanen at inappropriate moments, I eased into my home visit family.

I regret that I didn’t think of taking photos during these experiences, but I got a sequence of good photos at Kansai Gaidai that show these changing comfort levels.  I think it was a bit of a challenge to get photos that were dually for MY project and were photos that reflected Chisa’s personality.  With questions “What do you want me to do?” Or, “where should I stand?” and it is hard to take a photo that is of someone truly being themselves.  I think a sense of humor about these miscommunications helped ease up the process.

"It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute. " Tom Robbins

This opening line of Tom Robbin’s novel, Villa Incognito, doesn't specify where Tanuki landed, but this pot-bellied invasion hit Hirakata city hard.  I spent a lot of my first weeks in the neighborhood around the seminar houses wondering why the hell this big-balled canid was posted sentinel in front of hundreds of homes and shops.  It took some questioning and a little old fashion ググるing (Googling) to discover that, unlike the American ‘lawn gnome’ the tanoki isn’t popular for his good looks alone.  The tanuki, a wild badger-dog, is part of Japanese folklore.  He is depicted as a shape-shifting troublemaker, and was historically placed in front of Soba shops that sold tanuki soba noodles.  When I asked some Japanese students, they told me that tanuki is a symbol of luck.  However, like many cultural symbols, his image seems to have many meanings.  His image represents mischief, virility, and overindulgence on sake. A veritable shape-shifter, Tanuki is both comic and heralding, linked to the traditional and the commercial.

Of course, this is only one facet of neighborhood Hirakata.  It was difficult to narrow down my description of the area to a more intimate and individual experience in such a short period of time, so what I write now is still very much based off of first impressions. I can at least describe my neighborhood through individual experiences.

Early morning Ambassadors

To do any complex anthropological study of my neighborhood, I knew that I would have to speak to the people who lived there.  My challenge was to break through the barrier of language and wariness with the residents and shop owners around seminar house one.  I easily see 15 people on my way to and from school every morning, but there is no easy way to make strangers want to give you their time.  By the end of last week I was beginning to get desperate for a patient translator and the courage to politely harass strangers around my house when a man confronted me one morning, to my surprise, in French.  He told me that he always tried to greet gaijin in French, in case he got a response.  He had lived in Paris for four years for work, and now lived down the road.  Our ability to communicate in French was enough to hear his reasons for living in France, for work, and a bit of his life story, (although hardly enough for a personal narrative).

This was my first challenge dealing with visual anthropology ethics, but I explained to him the purpose of my blog first in French, and then translated in Japanese.  He was happy to take a picture with me, and took over the set up of the photo.  He explained that we would pose shaking hands- to show the relationship between Japan and France.  Through a series of chance and observation I am beginning to discover more about the area I live in.