Lately, I've noticed that my strongest impulse to make blog posts seems to come within 15 or fewer minutes of a lesson starting with one of my students. In fact, as I write this, I have a lesson 10 minutes away. This seems like a pretty absurd thing to have happen as it guarantees I won't be able to finish before the student shows up, so I've wondered what this is all about.
I'm a relatively nervous and compulsive person when it comes to preparation for a task and I tend to want to have all my ducks in a row (so to speak, no actual ducks are used in my lessons though it'd be a lot cooler if they were) long before the lessons are due to start. I'm guessing the timing of my posts being started is connected with the fact that I get the preparation out of the way and find that there is still a bit of time left. The mind starts tiptoeing through the tulips of my thought fragments and trips over one that hasn't been discussed yet and I sit at the keyboard and start working.
In my experience, creativity cannot occur unless one has periods of idleness. In fact, I've noticed that a lot of my blog pieces and my Carl pieces tend to gestate while I'm standing in the shower waiting for the conditioner to penetrate my hair. The fact that I can measure my idle moments in minutes rather than in hours (or half hours even) is slightly disturbing and something I believe I should attempt to rectify sooner rather than later.
The irony is that, as a "housewife" who works freelance and part-time, it'd seem that I should have a lot of free time, but it doesn't work that way. Being female and being in the house all day is an invitation to spending more time cleaning. Also, I suffer from something I'd term "Japanese housewife syndrome". This is when your household tasks take a lot more time because of the limits of living in a culture which makes labor saving of all sorts much more difficult because there's not enough demand for it in a culture where women are expected to use their "free" time for housework.
Additionally, there's something about being in a space a lot of the time (in addition to working in it) which makes me even more compulsive about keeping it clean and tidy than I otherwise might be...and I'm already pretty compulsive. So, time is being vacuumed up in large chunks by all the myriad of "little" things I need to get done and all the piecework I do leaving only the finest dusty fragments in the corner for me to spend on creative pursuits.
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Saturday, March 01, 2008
(Quite) A Few Words for the Haymakers
For several years, I was part of an on-line (Usenet) community for a particular on-line multiplayer game. I started off as an outsider in an established community of players and gradually became better known. I went from being a little fish in a little pond to being a big fish in a little pond. On the surface, the attention and “status” (irrelevant and meaningless as it may have been) were rewarding. My posts and ideas got plenty of replies, people wanted to give me things in games and play in games with me. I also made a very treasured friend who I regularly keep in touch with to this day (about 7 years after we met in this group).
The flip-side to all of this attention and “celebrity” status was that for every 10 people who were happy to talk to you and liked you, there was a person who decided he or she had a problem with you. In the case of this particular Usenet community, there was a woman who felt that, as the high-ranking female of a group mainly comprised of males, my rising “status” was a threat to her position as queen bee. There was also a man who grew quietly and increasingly offended because I never responded to his particular posts and took to responding to me in a passive aggressive manner at every turn in retaliation for the slight he imagined was at work. The truth was that there were a lot of people I never replied to since the group was very active and not every topic thread interested me or was something about which I felt compelled to comment. And there were some other folks who loved nothing more than to take what I said and pretend I said something else or implied something I did not so that they’d have an excuse to attack me and my position.
The last group of people were the most maddening because they were so persistent in their efforts to argue with distortions of my posts rather than what was actually said. Such folks were expert at taking things out of context and setting up straw men so they could conveniently knock them down. They could argue for weeks if you gave them the attention they wanted. As time went by, I found myself having to killfile (that is, set my reader software so I didn’t even see these people’s posts) more and more to avoid these people. The problem with being a big fish in a little pond was that it made you a juicier target for aspiring little fish.
The problem for me at the time was that I needed this group as a social outlet. I was working in almost complete isolation much of the time in a job which was very repetitive for long stretches of time. I was also at a point where all of my friends had already left Japan and my lack of time and small number of coworkers made it virtually impossible to expand my social network. I was likely addicted to the group and found it very hard to walk away despite the increasing amount of frustration I felt over the drama and personal and unprovoked attacks.
The thing that finally set me free was that I had lost interest in the game and I had an intense aversion to hanging around the group when I had nothing to say about the topic the group was formed around. I had witnessed a lot of people who hung around making pointless (and often witless and boring) contributions because they couldn’t leave and vowed not to become one of them. I walked away and I did it without making any big proclamations about my departure as I didn’t want to invite people to beg me to stay (as it was something I’d seen others do and detested as well). I actually felt withdrawal for awhile, but I got over it and, as time went by, I felt better about not being in a social dynamic full of people with issues that they were acting out on by projecting their fantasies, illusions, aggressions and imagination on me (and other prominent group members).
Why am I writing about this here? If it hasn’t become obvious already, it’s because I’ve discovered that the problems I experienced in the Usenet community are little different from those in blog communities. It seems pandemic in all tendrils of the beast that is the internet that there will be people who can’t help but be competitive, argumentative, or delight in nothing more than arguing with distortions of what you say rather than what you actually say. Apparently, I was at the center of some brouhaha that I missed entirely because I hadn’t been reading various blogs lately (and I never do trackbacks). At the heart of this was a controversy over the Charisma Man post and a lot of people either never read what I said or had a complete inability to read what I said. Somehow, a complex post was distilled down into some distorted conclusions. One big conclusion some people seemed to make was that the post was omindirectional and pasted the "Charisma Man" label on any male who was dating or interested in Japanese women when it certainly was not (and it was made clear in more ways than one in the post but, hey, why read what I said when you can get upset about something I didn't say). Apparently, some felt my writing was an indication that Western women were bitter that Western men in Japan didn’t want them. The irony is, of course, that the whole concept of a “Charisma Man” (which I didn’t invent and predates my post by decades) is that these are men Western women find unappealing. They wouldn’t want them if they offered themselves. It also apparently got simplified into my saying that men who wanted to practice Japanese or date Japanese girls were tagged as “Charisma Men”.
I’m forced to wonder if I’m starting to see a repeat of my past from my Usenet days and it’s not something I’m keen to put up with. If there are bloggers out there who read my blog and have nothing better to do than invent some sort of adversarial drama to draw attention to themselves or to drum up content when they have nothing of their own to say, then I’m not sure that I want to be the focus of their distortion and projections. Perhaps all these folks who have nothing to post about and feel the need to piggyback on my content and make hay by pretending I’m saying something I’m not should reconsider whether they have anything unique and meaningful to offer as bloggers.
The flip-side to all of this attention and “celebrity” status was that for every 10 people who were happy to talk to you and liked you, there was a person who decided he or she had a problem with you. In the case of this particular Usenet community, there was a woman who felt that, as the high-ranking female of a group mainly comprised of males, my rising “status” was a threat to her position as queen bee. There was also a man who grew quietly and increasingly offended because I never responded to his particular posts and took to responding to me in a passive aggressive manner at every turn in retaliation for the slight he imagined was at work. The truth was that there were a lot of people I never replied to since the group was very active and not every topic thread interested me or was something about which I felt compelled to comment. And there were some other folks who loved nothing more than to take what I said and pretend I said something else or implied something I did not so that they’d have an excuse to attack me and my position.
The last group of people were the most maddening because they were so persistent in their efforts to argue with distortions of my posts rather than what was actually said. Such folks were expert at taking things out of context and setting up straw men so they could conveniently knock them down. They could argue for weeks if you gave them the attention they wanted. As time went by, I found myself having to killfile (that is, set my reader software so I didn’t even see these people’s posts) more and more to avoid these people. The problem with being a big fish in a little pond was that it made you a juicier target for aspiring little fish.
The problem for me at the time was that I needed this group as a social outlet. I was working in almost complete isolation much of the time in a job which was very repetitive for long stretches of time. I was also at a point where all of my friends had already left Japan and my lack of time and small number of coworkers made it virtually impossible to expand my social network. I was likely addicted to the group and found it very hard to walk away despite the increasing amount of frustration I felt over the drama and personal and unprovoked attacks.
The thing that finally set me free was that I had lost interest in the game and I had an intense aversion to hanging around the group when I had nothing to say about the topic the group was formed around. I had witnessed a lot of people who hung around making pointless (and often witless and boring) contributions because they couldn’t leave and vowed not to become one of them. I walked away and I did it without making any big proclamations about my departure as I didn’t want to invite people to beg me to stay (as it was something I’d seen others do and detested as well). I actually felt withdrawal for awhile, but I got over it and, as time went by, I felt better about not being in a social dynamic full of people with issues that they were acting out on by projecting their fantasies, illusions, aggressions and imagination on me (and other prominent group members).
Why am I writing about this here? If it hasn’t become obvious already, it’s because I’ve discovered that the problems I experienced in the Usenet community are little different from those in blog communities. It seems pandemic in all tendrils of the beast that is the internet that there will be people who can’t help but be competitive, argumentative, or delight in nothing more than arguing with distortions of what you say rather than what you actually say. Apparently, I was at the center of some brouhaha that I missed entirely because I hadn’t been reading various blogs lately (and I never do trackbacks). At the heart of this was a controversy over the Charisma Man post and a lot of people either never read what I said or had a complete inability to read what I said. Somehow, a complex post was distilled down into some distorted conclusions. One big conclusion some people seemed to make was that the post was omindirectional and pasted the "Charisma Man" label on any male who was dating or interested in Japanese women when it certainly was not (and it was made clear in more ways than one in the post but, hey, why read what I said when you can get upset about something I didn't say). Apparently, some felt my writing was an indication that Western women were bitter that Western men in Japan didn’t want them. The irony is, of course, that the whole concept of a “Charisma Man” (which I didn’t invent and predates my post by decades) is that these are men Western women find unappealing. They wouldn’t want them if they offered themselves. It also apparently got simplified into my saying that men who wanted to practice Japanese or date Japanese girls were tagged as “Charisma Men”.
I’m forced to wonder if I’m starting to see a repeat of my past from my Usenet days and it’s not something I’m keen to put up with. If there are bloggers out there who read my blog and have nothing better to do than invent some sort of adversarial drama to draw attention to themselves or to drum up content when they have nothing of their own to say, then I’m not sure that I want to be the focus of their distortion and projections. Perhaps all these folks who have nothing to post about and feel the need to piggyback on my content and make hay by pretending I’m saying something I’m not should reconsider whether they have anything unique and meaningful to offer as bloggers.
Make the World a Better Place (and you a better person)
Before any of my readers are mislead into thinking this is going to be a list of well-worn "dos" and "don'ts", let me say that that's not the way my mind works. I don't think people need hear more about giving money to the poor, meals to the elderly, or to pick up trash. There are more than enough public service announcements and non-profit agencies encouraging such acts. My suggestions are about improving you and by association, making the world a better one that you will be happier living in.
1. Mind you own business.
When you see that fat guy chowing down on a piece of cake, remember that what he eats has nothing to do with you. When you see that woman wearing lot of makeup and tight dresses, remember that her fashion sense has nothing to do with you. Either as part of "human nature", self-centeredness, or as part of our socialization, we make a myriad of little judgments of strangers everyday. With a glance, we size them up, judge their choices, and reach conclusions. When challenged about how it's our business, we invent an elaborate chain of connections that smugly allow us to conclude that their behavior harms us because it harms society as a whole as a way of justifying our stance.
When we do this, we trivialize people and distill them into mere results of their choices rather than see them as people who, like us and those we love, have multi-faceted characters, feelings, and needs. In doing so, we are attempting to elevate ourselves and diminish them. We're also appointing ourselves the authority on what is right, best, or acceptable. The actions of others don't lead back to you unless they are acting upon you. You wouldn't want someone doing this to you, so try hard not to do it to them. When you catch yourself doing this, try to stop yourself in mid-judge and break this pattern.
2. Don't act out of selfishness (or anger at the selfishness of others).
Most of the acts of discourtesy that one experiences in public spaces are the result of one person acting selfishly in a competitive situation and then the other retaliating. From pushing for a seat on the subway to stealing a parking space to rushing to get in front of someone who is about to get in line before you, these acts are putting your needs before the needs of someone else. It's taking away from them because you've decided you're more entitled. Sometimes, that entitlement is justified by fatigue, frustration, or the idea that 'everyone does it'. If you don't do it, then that's one less 'everyone' who does it.
When someone does one of these things to you, try not to be hostile as it serves no purpose other than to prove that you cannot control your emotions and are taking the low road in a power struggle you feel you have just lost. You're not going to "teach someone a lesson" and have them stop doing it in the future. People who do these things know what they're doing (just as you do when you do it) and it makes them feel smaller inside and they put up an angry defensive posture. Even in a victory of scoring that last parking space in front of the shop, that person feels defensive knowing that their pettiness may invite a confrontation. Remember that not acting on your frustration is a bigger battle won over your temper and worse impulses, than winning some petty one-off competition for a social benefit.
3. Don't consume or talk about entertainment that feeds off the misery of others.
Everyone complains about celebrity gossip and reality T.V. Both of these types of "entertainment" are offered by the bottom feeders of media who hope to draw in an audience of bored people filling their lives with empty information about the lives of famous folks. This type of content takes little creativity to produce, contains no deep, high, or subtle messages or stories, and panders to a need to judge others in order to feel better about someone else. Some of them are the equivalent of bread and circuses. Anything you consume which has a voyeuristic element reflects an emptiness in your life which you're trying to fill with the more exciting or titillating lives of others.
If you want these things to go away, avoid consuming them at all costs and don't complain about them. When you complain about them, you are giving them free publicity and driving interest up for such content. In fact, complaining about the excessive coverage of the celebrity of the moment tends to drive folks to that coverage to see what you're on about.
Similarly, don't get your jollies from reading about the stupidity, misfortune or carelessness of others. Enjoying mean-spirited humor like the Darwin Awards or making fun of others for actions you think are "stupid" reflects your insecurity and anger. You should be feeding your needs to improve your self-esteem in ways which are lasting and positive rather than doing so at the expense of others.
4. Stop justifying your bigotry.
No one believes he or she is a bigot because bigots are "bad" people. People believe their belief that all Americans are rude or all Christians are intolerant fanatics are justified by the behavior they read about. If you read a story by way of Digg about how a little boy was denied access to a Christmas party because he didn't believe in Jesus and smugly shake your head as you reinforce your certainty that Christians are hypocrites, you've entered the bigot club. The very essence of prejudice is using anecdotal or isolated experiences to justify a negative set belief and not allowing other anecdotes or a vast array of contrary information to dissuade you, or worse yet, to form an opinion based on anecdotes without looking deeper into the situation. Thousands of Christians may be doing missionary or charity work and express tolerance, but their behavior is off the radar for those who are determined to justify their prejudices.
What's more, it's not OK to hate a group of people just because they aren't oppressed. Hate is hate and it's bad for you and it's bad for your relationship with the world. It also infects all your interactions with people and warps your digestion of information. You're encouraging yourself to become a person with a highly-distorted world-view just to prop up your bigotry. You won't even know it, but you'll end up being one of those people no one wants to interact with and who makes others uncomfortable. The world could use fewer of these sorts of folks, don't you think? Why not start with not becoming one yourself.
5. Use honesty wisely and kindly.
There are always going to be times when we can't be honest because it could be detrimental to our jobs or our relationships. Honesty isn't a license to be a jerk or to abandon the white lies that smooth over social encounters and being honest all the time doesn't make you "strong" or prove your ego is durable enough to withstand the disapproval of others in the face of your blunt honesty. Honesty which serves your desires and in no way helps the object of your candor makes you insensitive and rude. If you go to dinner and the hostess's cooking isn't to your liking, you don't tell her you didn't like it. Unless you have a close relationship with her where such candor is acceptable, you offer a white lie to spare her feelings. This sort of lie does no damage to you and it protects her from damage. That is not to say you should pretend you loved the food either, but rather that you be gracious for the social opportunity and the effort.
On the other hand, sometimes people lie even when they seriously don't want to do something or like something. They are asked to do tasks they don't want to do, but pretend it's not a problem for them to do it. They fill themselves with anxiety or get mad at having even been asked to do such things and often ultimately build resentment toward the person who put them in that position. Be honest when it means something to you even if it's difficult for you to do so. If you don't, you misshape the relationships around you and mislead others in terms of their expectations of you.
6. Know when to care and when it's best not to.
It's interesting how many people make a big deal out of their latte not having enough foam or too much foam. They get worked up and charge up to the counter to complain. There's this tiny little insignificant thing which they use an excuse to spread negativity to another person. Sometimes they'll even go so far as to get people in trouble with their bosses because some small thing doesn't suit them. This is the life in nations where ordinary citizens live the life of kings and queens in past centuries. Whims must be anticipated and the smallest of expectations must be met, or there is hell to pay.
Getting worked up about such minutiae is not only harmful to the object of your ire as it starts to build up a hostile resentment toward the customer that will be transferred to other customers and sets off a chain reaction of negativity, but is also bad for the angry party. Every time you invest thought and energy into being angry about tiny little things that don't go your way, you reinforce a pathway in your mind to being angry about such small things. It's one thing to get upset by people treating you poorly or very shoddy work when you pay for a service of goods, but it's quite another to get worked up over small things which are accidents or simply not a reflection of the way you personally believe things should be.
Ask yourself what sort of world we'd live in if everyone followed my advice above. While not everyone will, it has to start with someone and, if not you, then who? If you want to live in a world with people who behave in a more civilized fashion, the changes need to start with you.
If anyone thinks I'm elevating myself as being high-minded and above everyone in giving out this advice, please keep in mind that there's not one point on this list that I don't struggle with myself. I'm not perfect, and I know I never will be, but I do believe we can all live in a better world if we try to fight our worst thoughts and impulses. That's really all we can ask of ourselves.
1. Mind you own business.
When you see that fat guy chowing down on a piece of cake, remember that what he eats has nothing to do with you. When you see that woman wearing lot of makeup and tight dresses, remember that her fashion sense has nothing to do with you. Either as part of "human nature", self-centeredness, or as part of our socialization, we make a myriad of little judgments of strangers everyday. With a glance, we size them up, judge their choices, and reach conclusions. When challenged about how it's our business, we invent an elaborate chain of connections that smugly allow us to conclude that their behavior harms us because it harms society as a whole as a way of justifying our stance.
When we do this, we trivialize people and distill them into mere results of their choices rather than see them as people who, like us and those we love, have multi-faceted characters, feelings, and needs. In doing so, we are attempting to elevate ourselves and diminish them. We're also appointing ourselves the authority on what is right, best, or acceptable. The actions of others don't lead back to you unless they are acting upon you. You wouldn't want someone doing this to you, so try hard not to do it to them. When you catch yourself doing this, try to stop yourself in mid-judge and break this pattern.
2. Don't act out of selfishness (or anger at the selfishness of others).
Most of the acts of discourtesy that one experiences in public spaces are the result of one person acting selfishly in a competitive situation and then the other retaliating. From pushing for a seat on the subway to stealing a parking space to rushing to get in front of someone who is about to get in line before you, these acts are putting your needs before the needs of someone else. It's taking away from them because you've decided you're more entitled. Sometimes, that entitlement is justified by fatigue, frustration, or the idea that 'everyone does it'. If you don't do it, then that's one less 'everyone' who does it.
When someone does one of these things to you, try not to be hostile as it serves no purpose other than to prove that you cannot control your emotions and are taking the low road in a power struggle you feel you have just lost. You're not going to "teach someone a lesson" and have them stop doing it in the future. People who do these things know what they're doing (just as you do when you do it) and it makes them feel smaller inside and they put up an angry defensive posture. Even in a victory of scoring that last parking space in front of the shop, that person feels defensive knowing that their pettiness may invite a confrontation. Remember that not acting on your frustration is a bigger battle won over your temper and worse impulses, than winning some petty one-off competition for a social benefit.
3. Don't consume or talk about entertainment that feeds off the misery of others.
Everyone complains about celebrity gossip and reality T.V. Both of these types of "entertainment" are offered by the bottom feeders of media who hope to draw in an audience of bored people filling their lives with empty information about the lives of famous folks. This type of content takes little creativity to produce, contains no deep, high, or subtle messages or stories, and panders to a need to judge others in order to feel better about someone else. Some of them are the equivalent of bread and circuses. Anything you consume which has a voyeuristic element reflects an emptiness in your life which you're trying to fill with the more exciting or titillating lives of others.
If you want these things to go away, avoid consuming them at all costs and don't complain about them. When you complain about them, you are giving them free publicity and driving interest up for such content. In fact, complaining about the excessive coverage of the celebrity of the moment tends to drive folks to that coverage to see what you're on about.
Similarly, don't get your jollies from reading about the stupidity, misfortune or carelessness of others. Enjoying mean-spirited humor like the Darwin Awards or making fun of others for actions you think are "stupid" reflects your insecurity and anger. You should be feeding your needs to improve your self-esteem in ways which are lasting and positive rather than doing so at the expense of others.
4. Stop justifying your bigotry.
No one believes he or she is a bigot because bigots are "bad" people. People believe their belief that all Americans are rude or all Christians are intolerant fanatics are justified by the behavior they read about. If you read a story by way of Digg about how a little boy was denied access to a Christmas party because he didn't believe in Jesus and smugly shake your head as you reinforce your certainty that Christians are hypocrites, you've entered the bigot club. The very essence of prejudice is using anecdotal or isolated experiences to justify a negative set belief and not allowing other anecdotes or a vast array of contrary information to dissuade you, or worse yet, to form an opinion based on anecdotes without looking deeper into the situation. Thousands of Christians may be doing missionary or charity work and express tolerance, but their behavior is off the radar for those who are determined to justify their prejudices.
What's more, it's not OK to hate a group of people just because they aren't oppressed. Hate is hate and it's bad for you and it's bad for your relationship with the world. It also infects all your interactions with people and warps your digestion of information. You're encouraging yourself to become a person with a highly-distorted world-view just to prop up your bigotry. You won't even know it, but you'll end up being one of those people no one wants to interact with and who makes others uncomfortable. The world could use fewer of these sorts of folks, don't you think? Why not start with not becoming one yourself.
5. Use honesty wisely and kindly.
There are always going to be times when we can't be honest because it could be detrimental to our jobs or our relationships. Honesty isn't a license to be a jerk or to abandon the white lies that smooth over social encounters and being honest all the time doesn't make you "strong" or prove your ego is durable enough to withstand the disapproval of others in the face of your blunt honesty. Honesty which serves your desires and in no way helps the object of your candor makes you insensitive and rude. If you go to dinner and the hostess's cooking isn't to your liking, you don't tell her you didn't like it. Unless you have a close relationship with her where such candor is acceptable, you offer a white lie to spare her feelings. This sort of lie does no damage to you and it protects her from damage. That is not to say you should pretend you loved the food either, but rather that you be gracious for the social opportunity and the effort.
On the other hand, sometimes people lie even when they seriously don't want to do something or like something. They are asked to do tasks they don't want to do, but pretend it's not a problem for them to do it. They fill themselves with anxiety or get mad at having even been asked to do such things and often ultimately build resentment toward the person who put them in that position. Be honest when it means something to you even if it's difficult for you to do so. If you don't, you misshape the relationships around you and mislead others in terms of their expectations of you.
6. Know when to care and when it's best not to.
It's interesting how many people make a big deal out of their latte not having enough foam or too much foam. They get worked up and charge up to the counter to complain. There's this tiny little insignificant thing which they use an excuse to spread negativity to another person. Sometimes they'll even go so far as to get people in trouble with their bosses because some small thing doesn't suit them. This is the life in nations where ordinary citizens live the life of kings and queens in past centuries. Whims must be anticipated and the smallest of expectations must be met, or there is hell to pay.
Getting worked up about such minutiae is not only harmful to the object of your ire as it starts to build up a hostile resentment toward the customer that will be transferred to other customers and sets off a chain reaction of negativity, but is also bad for the angry party. Every time you invest thought and energy into being angry about tiny little things that don't go your way, you reinforce a pathway in your mind to being angry about such small things. It's one thing to get upset by people treating you poorly or very shoddy work when you pay for a service of goods, but it's quite another to get worked up over small things which are accidents or simply not a reflection of the way you personally believe things should be.
Ask yourself what sort of world we'd live in if everyone followed my advice above. While not everyone will, it has to start with someone and, if not you, then who? If you want to live in a world with people who behave in a more civilized fashion, the changes need to start with you.
If anyone thinks I'm elevating myself as being high-minded and above everyone in giving out this advice, please keep in mind that there's not one point on this list that I don't struggle with myself. I'm not perfect, and I know I never will be, but I do believe we can all live in a better world if we try to fight our worst thoughts and impulses. That's really all we can ask of ourselves.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Cross-Cultural Attention Needs
My previous post was a caveat for the answer I'm about to give to this question that I was asked in the comments section of a former post:
"NINPO said...
Hello Shari,
I enjoyed reading your blog. I am a Japanese male living in Japan who had some experiences overseas. I'd like to state that its the social dating expectation that guys react to. When I was in Canada I would usually say the jokes that girls wanted to hear and be gentle and all that. Its because the dating scene expects that from guys.
When Im in Japan, I do not have to worry about pampering girls etc (although, Japanese girls love being pampered) and can relax more. I am not sure if that's because I am Japanese. I find that if I am with a western girl I always would have to give her attention and satisfy her and it kinda tires me. I have an Italian friend who married a Japanese and he says that Italian girls always asks for attention and its too much.
Why are guys in the west expected as a norm to pamper their woman and give her attention all the time? or am I being too general? What do you think. Would love to hear your opinion."
I loved this question because it got me thinking all evening and I want to thank Ninpo both for taking the time to read my blog and writing this comment. It offered a perspective on women I would never have considered and brought up an issue I'd never read about before.
I believe that the differences in the attention women in America (I can't speak for other Western countries) and Japan are the effects of several different broad factors.
1. The type of woman you are pursuing.
There are high maintenance and low maintenance people. One of my husband's former girlfriends in the U.S. didn't require that much attention or interaction. In fact, she sometimes felt overwhelmed by his demands on her attention. They were simply rather mismatched on their attention needs. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with either of them, but just that they were different.
I also believe that the age and attractiveness of the woman being pursued is an issue. Younger women require more attention than older ones. Women who consider themselves very attractive in their culture will feel as though they are due more attention because, frankly, they often get more of it as men compete for their favor. From a cultural viewpoint, I wonder if Japanese aesthetics may play a part in this. That is, I think Japanese people aren't quite as shallow when it comes to imperfections as Western folks and the bar isn't set so high on being considered "acceptably attractive" (good enough to marry or date) in Japan compared to the West where the consumerist culture is constantly encouraging everyone to scrutinize their appearance and find every last little detail lacking so they'll buy products to improve themselves.
I base my assertion about Japan on the fact that not everyone has to have perfect teeth (and I've been told that some people think crooked teeth are "cute") and the general aversion to plastic surgery in Japan. It has always seemed to me that the Japanese were more realistic about what people should look like and that Western standards are getting more and more out of hand to fuel various cosmetics industries.
Attractive women in the West may feel they deserve and can command more attention based on how many standard deviations they are above other women whereas women in Japan may not see themselves as so significantly different from other women on an attractiveness scale. That's not to say there aren't women who are clearly more attractive than others but just that the most beautiful Japanese women may see themselves as two cuts above average whereas the most beautiful Western woman may see herself as 5 ranks higher than average.
2. The communication styles of the country.
Ambiguity is something which is not only a part of Japanese communication, but actually sometimes admirable and desirable. One of the greatest frustrations for Western folks is the tendency among Japanese people not to say what they mean, but rather to be vague and figure we will reach the proper conclusion based on commonly known interpretations for particular types of vague language.
Generally speaking, I believe you can say also that this comfort with ambiguity breeds a tolerance for incomplete understanding and communication. Japanese people may be more comfortable not knowing exactly where they stand in a relationship because they are used to dealing with such "fuzzy" boundaries.
In regards to attention and American women, receiving attention is a constant stream of communication that you are cared about and important. Since Western folks like clear communication and firmly understood boundaries (without them, some people get anxious about the status of a relationship), constant attention, especially early on in a relationship or during the courtship phase, keeps it clear that you maintain a strong interest in the other person. If the attention starts to wane, the communication will be that you are losing interest. I will note that this is a situation that changes with greater security and experience in a relationship though it never goes away.
3. The status and power of women relative to men in the country on the whole.
While the lot of women in Japan has improved a lot, they still are not equal or even seen as as valuable to society as men. If your culture informs you that you have less value, you will sublimate your needs to the needs of the person who is seen as more valuable. You can see women constantly yielding to men on many levels in life in Japan and men asserting their right to come first. From serving tea and coffee to being relegated to support work in companies to women being expected to move aside while walking on a crowded street so the man can walk on through uninterrupted, women's needs often come second to men's. In that sort of culture, women don't even think about asserting their needs. In fact, I think that their primary mindset is not about themselves but about serving others. That is absolutely not a statement that women are subservient. However, I do believe that women are indoctrinated in all cultures (though more so in Japan) to think first of others and last of themselves.
Additionally, people without power, and the unequal situation for men and women in Japan means women have far less power than men, do not go around making demands. Women are still seriously economically disadvantaged if they do not marry and that means men have the power in relationships. The men give the support. The women need it. If you're in the position, you're hardly in a place where you can demand attention as you know your options are limited.
I think American women feel that they have the power to demand what they want because they can make their way economically on their own without serious disadvantage. If they don't get what they want, they'd just as soon be alone or move on to someone who will give them what they want. The more equitable situation (though still not equal) gives them the power to act on their needs and wishes.
4. The expectations and ideas of a relationships and marriage that are common in the culture.
Marriage in Japan is really quite different from that in the U.S. First and foremost, and I know people are going to take issue with me for this, but I can't go against a tide of discussions about this topic with Japanese people, Japanese people view marriage more pragmatically than Americans. They see it as a life partnership for creating a successful family. It is more akin to a "business" linking when you compare it to Western ideals.
That is not to say that there is no love or passion in Japanese marriages. I'm only saying that the primary consideration is the success of the partnership. Every time I discuss this topic with a Japanese person, the idea of a "love" relationship to them is "ideal" but is second to forming a partnership with someone who is capable of fulfilling their necessary role for a successful future family. That is, men have to be capable of being good breadwinners and women have to be capable of supporting the men as needed (by doing whatever suits their mutually-agreed upon goal). For Japanese people, by and large, the future is the focus, not the passion of the moment.
For American folks, the passion of the moment is the focus and the future will fall into place later. They feel that "love will find a way" and often discard notions of obstacles and pursue their feelings in even the most imprudent situations (such as falling in love with married people or people with fatal character flaws and problems). With this focus on passion comes the need for attention. If you aren't paying attention, you aren't passionate and the other person doesn't feel special or that you're really loving them.
Tangentially related to this, I believe that the nature of men's and women's roles in the culture also play a part. American society has very flexible roles. People tend to relate in individualistic and idiosyncratic ways whereas the roles in Japan are more traditional and easy to fit into. A good husband in Japan knows what he must do to be a success in that role as does a good wife in her role. The benefit of this situation is that each party can fulfill the others expectations by fulfilling society's commonly-held expectations. There's no need for husbands or boyfriends to deliver flowers and chocolates or go out for romantic dinners on a regular basis to be a "good husband" as both parties accept that his role is to work hard so his family can live well and be a kind person. In the U.S., each couple defines their relationship as they see fit and that often requires a lot more communication. The American situation is fraught with insecurity because of this lack of solid boundaries for what is "good" or "bad" in a relationship. That insecurity leads to the need for a lot more attention.
In Japan, the other main point I think is that the women's future focus is on their children rather than their husbands. Women here tend to get their emotional satisfaction as mothers more so than as wives. In the U.S., the relationship between the husband and wife is the one that primarily fulfills needs, not the one between parent and child. This is because the family in Japan is seen as an eternal unit with interconnecting responsibilities that will last throughout lifetimes, but in the U.S., kids are expected to become independent after 18 or college. American parents can't rely on an emotional bond with their kids that will sustain them, but they (hope to) rely on their spouses. Generally speaking, husbands and wives or life partners rely on each other more for their happiness in the U.S. and that means they need a lot more interaction and attention.
One final note I'd like to add is that, I don't think it's only women in the U.S. who need more attention. I think men in the U.S. need more attention as well, but men in general are more self-absorbed and tend to be content with non-verbal attention. Men essentially require a different form of attention so they don't recognize it as being any special need, but it is there as well. They recognize it in women mainly because it's not what they need so it strikes them as a hassle to provide. The perception that women require more attention than men is compounded by the fact that women tend to more readily and seamlessly offer men the forms of attention they need without complaint or prodding since they are socialized to be more other-directed. That being said, there is almost certainly a relationship between men's need for certain types of "attention" and complaints about women not wanting to have sex often enough and not "nurturing" them well enough (e.g., cooking, cleaning). The only difference is that men see what they need as being "natural" and what women need as being "unusual."
"NINPO said...
Hello Shari,
I enjoyed reading your blog. I am a Japanese male living in Japan who had some experiences overseas. I'd like to state that its the social dating expectation that guys react to. When I was in Canada I would usually say the jokes that girls wanted to hear and be gentle and all that. Its because the dating scene expects that from guys.
When Im in Japan, I do not have to worry about pampering girls etc (although, Japanese girls love being pampered) and can relax more. I am not sure if that's because I am Japanese. I find that if I am with a western girl I always would have to give her attention and satisfy her and it kinda tires me. I have an Italian friend who married a Japanese and he says that Italian girls always asks for attention and its too much.
Why are guys in the west expected as a norm to pamper their woman and give her attention all the time? or am I being too general? What do you think. Would love to hear your opinion."
I loved this question because it got me thinking all evening and I want to thank Ninpo both for taking the time to read my blog and writing this comment. It offered a perspective on women I would never have considered and brought up an issue I'd never read about before.
I believe that the differences in the attention women in America (I can't speak for other Western countries) and Japan are the effects of several different broad factors.
1. The type of woman you are pursuing.
There are high maintenance and low maintenance people. One of my husband's former girlfriends in the U.S. didn't require that much attention or interaction. In fact, she sometimes felt overwhelmed by his demands on her attention. They were simply rather mismatched on their attention needs. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with either of them, but just that they were different.
I also believe that the age and attractiveness of the woman being pursued is an issue. Younger women require more attention than older ones. Women who consider themselves very attractive in their culture will feel as though they are due more attention because, frankly, they often get more of it as men compete for their favor. From a cultural viewpoint, I wonder if Japanese aesthetics may play a part in this. That is, I think Japanese people aren't quite as shallow when it comes to imperfections as Western folks and the bar isn't set so high on being considered "acceptably attractive" (good enough to marry or date) in Japan compared to the West where the consumerist culture is constantly encouraging everyone to scrutinize their appearance and find every last little detail lacking so they'll buy products to improve themselves.
I base my assertion about Japan on the fact that not everyone has to have perfect teeth (and I've been told that some people think crooked teeth are "cute") and the general aversion to plastic surgery in Japan. It has always seemed to me that the Japanese were more realistic about what people should look like and that Western standards are getting more and more out of hand to fuel various cosmetics industries.
Attractive women in the West may feel they deserve and can command more attention based on how many standard deviations they are above other women whereas women in Japan may not see themselves as so significantly different from other women on an attractiveness scale. That's not to say there aren't women who are clearly more attractive than others but just that the most beautiful Japanese women may see themselves as two cuts above average whereas the most beautiful Western woman may see herself as 5 ranks higher than average.
2. The communication styles of the country.
Ambiguity is something which is not only a part of Japanese communication, but actually sometimes admirable and desirable. One of the greatest frustrations for Western folks is the tendency among Japanese people not to say what they mean, but rather to be vague and figure we will reach the proper conclusion based on commonly known interpretations for particular types of vague language.
Generally speaking, I believe you can say also that this comfort with ambiguity breeds a tolerance for incomplete understanding and communication. Japanese people may be more comfortable not knowing exactly where they stand in a relationship because they are used to dealing with such "fuzzy" boundaries.
In regards to attention and American women, receiving attention is a constant stream of communication that you are cared about and important. Since Western folks like clear communication and firmly understood boundaries (without them, some people get anxious about the status of a relationship), constant attention, especially early on in a relationship or during the courtship phase, keeps it clear that you maintain a strong interest in the other person. If the attention starts to wane, the communication will be that you are losing interest. I will note that this is a situation that changes with greater security and experience in a relationship though it never goes away.
3. The status and power of women relative to men in the country on the whole.
While the lot of women in Japan has improved a lot, they still are not equal or even seen as as valuable to society as men. If your culture informs you that you have less value, you will sublimate your needs to the needs of the person who is seen as more valuable. You can see women constantly yielding to men on many levels in life in Japan and men asserting their right to come first. From serving tea and coffee to being relegated to support work in companies to women being expected to move aside while walking on a crowded street so the man can walk on through uninterrupted, women's needs often come second to men's. In that sort of culture, women don't even think about asserting their needs. In fact, I think that their primary mindset is not about themselves but about serving others. That is absolutely not a statement that women are subservient. However, I do believe that women are indoctrinated in all cultures (though more so in Japan) to think first of others and last of themselves.
Additionally, people without power, and the unequal situation for men and women in Japan means women have far less power than men, do not go around making demands. Women are still seriously economically disadvantaged if they do not marry and that means men have the power in relationships. The men give the support. The women need it. If you're in the position, you're hardly in a place where you can demand attention as you know your options are limited.
I think American women feel that they have the power to demand what they want because they can make their way economically on their own without serious disadvantage. If they don't get what they want, they'd just as soon be alone or move on to someone who will give them what they want. The more equitable situation (though still not equal) gives them the power to act on their needs and wishes.
4. The expectations and ideas of a relationships and marriage that are common in the culture.
Marriage in Japan is really quite different from that in the U.S. First and foremost, and I know people are going to take issue with me for this, but I can't go against a tide of discussions about this topic with Japanese people, Japanese people view marriage more pragmatically than Americans. They see it as a life partnership for creating a successful family. It is more akin to a "business" linking when you compare it to Western ideals.
That is not to say that there is no love or passion in Japanese marriages. I'm only saying that the primary consideration is the success of the partnership. Every time I discuss this topic with a Japanese person, the idea of a "love" relationship to them is "ideal" but is second to forming a partnership with someone who is capable of fulfilling their necessary role for a successful future family. That is, men have to be capable of being good breadwinners and women have to be capable of supporting the men as needed (by doing whatever suits their mutually-agreed upon goal). For Japanese people, by and large, the future is the focus, not the passion of the moment.
For American folks, the passion of the moment is the focus and the future will fall into place later. They feel that "love will find a way" and often discard notions of obstacles and pursue their feelings in even the most imprudent situations (such as falling in love with married people or people with fatal character flaws and problems). With this focus on passion comes the need for attention. If you aren't paying attention, you aren't passionate and the other person doesn't feel special or that you're really loving them.
Tangentially related to this, I believe that the nature of men's and women's roles in the culture also play a part. American society has very flexible roles. People tend to relate in individualistic and idiosyncratic ways whereas the roles in Japan are more traditional and easy to fit into. A good husband in Japan knows what he must do to be a success in that role as does a good wife in her role. The benefit of this situation is that each party can fulfill the others expectations by fulfilling society's commonly-held expectations. There's no need for husbands or boyfriends to deliver flowers and chocolates or go out for romantic dinners on a regular basis to be a "good husband" as both parties accept that his role is to work hard so his family can live well and be a kind person. In the U.S., each couple defines their relationship as they see fit and that often requires a lot more communication. The American situation is fraught with insecurity because of this lack of solid boundaries for what is "good" or "bad" in a relationship. That insecurity leads to the need for a lot more attention.
In Japan, the other main point I think is that the women's future focus is on their children rather than their husbands. Women here tend to get their emotional satisfaction as mothers more so than as wives. In the U.S., the relationship between the husband and wife is the one that primarily fulfills needs, not the one between parent and child. This is because the family in Japan is seen as an eternal unit with interconnecting responsibilities that will last throughout lifetimes, but in the U.S., kids are expected to become independent after 18 or college. American parents can't rely on an emotional bond with their kids that will sustain them, but they (hope to) rely on their spouses. Generally speaking, husbands and wives or life partners rely on each other more for their happiness in the U.S. and that means they need a lot more interaction and attention.
One final note I'd like to add is that, I don't think it's only women in the U.S. who need more attention. I think men in the U.S. need more attention as well, but men in general are more self-absorbed and tend to be content with non-verbal attention. Men essentially require a different form of attention so they don't recognize it as being any special need, but it is there as well. They recognize it in women mainly because it's not what they need so it strikes them as a hassle to provide. The perception that women require more attention than men is compounded by the fact that women tend to more readily and seamlessly offer men the forms of attention they need without complaint or prodding since they are socialized to be more other-directed. That being said, there is almost certainly a relationship between men's need for certain types of "attention" and complaints about women not wanting to have sex often enough and not "nurturing" them well enough (e.g., cooking, cleaning). The only difference is that men see what they need as being "natural" and what women need as being "unusual."
Anecdotal Lives
Sometimes I get very interesting questions from my commenters (and luckily I almost always get excellent comments as well). The questions which get me thinking rather deeply about something sometimes spawn their own post are among my favorites, but they also place me in a somewhat precarious position when answering.
Recently, I got a truly excellent question (which I'll address in a subsequent post) which I'm keen to answer, but I felt obliged to place a lot of caveats in front of the answer. In fact, I think so many "warnings" needed to be put in place that I figured it'd add about a quarter to the length of the answer, and my posts are already pretty long!
When I answer questions which have broad applications (and implications), I want the reader to keep in mind that I'm speaking in general and not about anyone specifically. While generalities are very useful in forming a theoretical framework and developing an overview of the world, they don't apply to any one person or situation. All of our lives are anecdotal, and I don't wish to lay claim to dispensing all encompassing wisdom.
And, honestly, I also don't want to come across as asserting that I'm "right". Like everyone else on the planet when considering an issue, I take all my experiences, ideas, and thoughts and collect them into a little pile, then sort them out into what seems to be the best answer available to me at the time. It's not the only answer. It's not the best answer among all the people you could possibly ask in the world. It's not even the same answer I'd give 10 years from now, but it's what makes sense to me right now at this moment.
Recently, I got a truly excellent question (which I'll address in a subsequent post) which I'm keen to answer, but I felt obliged to place a lot of caveats in front of the answer. In fact, I think so many "warnings" needed to be put in place that I figured it'd add about a quarter to the length of the answer, and my posts are already pretty long!
When I answer questions which have broad applications (and implications), I want the reader to keep in mind that I'm speaking in general and not about anyone specifically. While generalities are very useful in forming a theoretical framework and developing an overview of the world, they don't apply to any one person or situation. All of our lives are anecdotal, and I don't wish to lay claim to dispensing all encompassing wisdom.
And, honestly, I also don't want to come across as asserting that I'm "right". Like everyone else on the planet when considering an issue, I take all my experiences, ideas, and thoughts and collect them into a little pile, then sort them out into what seems to be the best answer available to me at the time. It's not the only answer. It's not the best answer among all the people you could possibly ask in the world. It's not even the same answer I'd give 10 years from now, but it's what makes sense to me right now at this moment.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Charisma Men
Image pinched from the Charisma Man home page where one can order a comic book of the strips. Click this version to see a more readable size, or, visit the web site.Back when I first started working in Japan, there was a young Canadian man working at Nova who worked the same morning shifts as I. He was only 20 years old and had come to Japan when he was 19. Somehow, he managed to get a work visa despite only having some junior college under his belt. (For those who don't know, the minimum requirement for a work visa is (usually) a Bachelor's degree.)
On occasion, I interacted with him either when no lessons were scheduled or in the conversation lounge when we were scheduled in there together. Unsurprisingly, he was sometimes pretty immature. Somewhat surprisingly, he was prone to emotional outbursts on the job. The main things I noticed were that he was prone to chatting with young female students in Japanese whenever the least opportunity presented itself, even when he was supposed to be helping them practice English.
As time went by, he developed a crush on a British coworker who I was friends with. He interacted with her like a lovesick puppy until she agreed to go on a trip to Tokyo Disneyland with him a few young Japanese women. Upon returning from this foray, my friend told me that his behavior was extremely childish and overtly attention-seeking and boastful. She said she was both embarrassed to be with him and as a witness to this behavior in front of the Japanese women. She also said that she was told by the Japanese girls that his speaking was very much like that of a Japanese schoolgirl because he'd honed his skills on young girls.
This young man didn't tend to socialize much with the foreign coworkers between classes or at lunch time. He tended to spend most of his time chatting with secretaries or lunching with students. At that time, socializing with students was not prohibited, or, if it was, it wasn't enforced. Eventually, he seemed to develop a superior and contemptuous attitude toward the other foreigners and wanted little to do with them, particularly after my friend was forced to overtly reject his interest in her.
I didn't know it at the time, but I'd just had my first experience with a classic "charisma man" type of foreign male. This is the type of guy who lacks sufficient social skills and emotional maturity in his home culture that he would have a lot of difficulty cultivating a romantic relationship with a woman in his home country, but cross-cultural differences allow him to form relationships in Japan. His "foreignness" explains his awkwardness and lack of grace in a manner which allows Japanese women to forgive him. They can't tell the difference between someone who doesn't conform to their cultural expectations because he doesn't know how to and someone who is an oafish dork. Also, Japanese people value tolerance and "enduring" hardship silently as a part of their culture so the women feel that part of being in a relationship is accepting the rough patches in their mates to a far greater extent than foreign women do. Previously, I talked about how Japanese women also generally have different expectations of a mate and that's part of the situation as well.
Fast forward 12 years and the "charisma man" I worked with at Nova shows up as an employee at the company which bought out my former company. The interesting thing is that his arrogance, disdain for foreigners and tendency to suck up to the Japanese haven't changed. He says he actually hates foreign employees over a decade down the road. I avoided him as much as possible and am relieved that he didn't work in the same office as I, but rather in a branch office.
Among the men who fit the category lampooned in the cartoon above (and please don't misunderstand, I am not asserting that all men who pursue relationships with Japanese women fit this category...they don't, not by a long shot), I've noticed they tend to have certain things in common. Before undies get balled up in large, uncomfortable wads, keep in mind, sensitive male readers, that even if you fit every item on this list, I'm not saying you're one of these losers. After all, I don't know you so I can't possibly be talking about you. I can only talk about the men I've actually met.
- Most of these men came to Japan at a relatively young age and had limited social experience back home. They tend to be here for the vast majority of their young adult socialization and maturation process.
- Most of them met their wives or girlfriends in Japan, not in their home countries. I've noticed a serious difference between men who meet Japanese women in their home countries and marry them then come to Japan as compared to men who meet their wives here initially. The former tend to be a lot nicer group of guys.
- All of them (in my experience) are good at speaking Japanese as it is a high priority to become proficient enough to chat up girls, but also they prefer socializing with Japanese people as they can easily impress them simply by being foreign. They also vigorously throw themselves into practicing as it gives them more interaction with women.
- Few of them have ever had a Western girlfriend.
- Most of them have extremely stereotypical and derogatory opinions about Western women. They tend to view them as lazy, pushy, controlling, demanding, and opinionated.
- Most of them have stereotypical and shallow opinions of Japanese women and emphasize the physical assets of Japanese women in opposition to their stereotypical views of the physicality of Western women. That is, they talk about how naturally (and eternally) slim, beautiful, nurturing (as in willing to do all the cooking and cleaning without complaint), and feminine (quiet, demure) Japanese women are whereas Western women are all going to end up fat and ugly.
- Most of them base their relationship from an emotional viewpoint on trivialities such as Japanese pop culture and light social activities like karaoke, pub crawling, travel, and sports. Few of them value deep or meaningful dialog with their significant other as an important part of a relationship.
- Most are very arrogant and have difficulties when their ideas, opinions or knowledge are challenged. Personally, I believe that is because debate where ones assertions are disagreed with is not common in Japan and since most of these men came here at a young age, they have never developed the ability to handle disagreement well, particularly if women have been a large focus in their socialization here.
- Most of them dislike other foreigners and tend to regard most of them with contempt. In some cases, part of this contempt involves constantly measuring other foreigners' language ability, work type and status and cultural knowledge against theirs and smugly concluding they are better.
In many ways, there's nothing wrong with these guys as they are succeeding in a manner which harms no one and often makes the Japanese women they couple with (seemingly) happy enough. In fact, they have essentially traded in social failure in one country for social success in another. The only problem comes when you're a fellow foreigner and are forced to work or interact with one of these sorts and put up with the attitude. It's a real test of your better nature to be around one of them for any length of time and to not start returning the contempt they exude at you in kind.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A Peck of Pickled Plums
When I was a child, I was sleeping over at my grandmother's house and had been relegated to the sofa for lack of any other space to sleep in. My grandfather, who was bedridden, was set up in an adjacent room. As I slept, I had a dream in which a vicious raccoon-like animal was growling at me and considering attacking me. I woke up and continued to hear the "growling" sound. This noise was the hum of a clunky and old-fashioned humidifier being used in my grandfather's room and it had insinuated itself into my dream.
Last night, I did a lesson with a student about sleep which included the topic of dreams and particular types of dreams including those where ambient stimuli insert themselves into the dream as a part of it. She told me that she had had a dream where a phone was ringing, but she couldn't reach it to answer it and, when she awoke, the phone was actually ringing (within arm's reach). We also talked about sleepwalking and, though she never had such an experience, she had a friend who had and she told me his story.
When her friend was a child, he adored Japanese pickled plums (umeboshi). His mother only allowed him to have two of them at dinner, but he wanted more. During the night, he went to the kitchen and consumed the entire contents of a jar of pickled plums from the refrigerator and had no recollection of having done so the next morning. However, his mother, upon opening the fridge, discovered a jar with nothing but brine in it and her son was incredibly thirsty and his mouth was stained red. It turns out the jar contained about 50 pickled plums and he got so sick from the salt in them that he had to go to the hospital. From that day forth, his mother let him eat as many umeboshi as he liked at meals to try and forestall any sleep-induced wanderings to fulfill a craving.
After she told this story, I asked if she had any recurring dreams. Interestingly, she said she did not. I mentioned to her that it's common in the U.S. for people to dream that they have to take a test for a class they didn't know they'd signed up for and hadn't taken any of the classes for. I told her that it's also common for people to dream they are in front of a crowd and either need to go to the bathroom (but can't because of the audience) or aren't wearing any clothes. She told me that she never had any of these sorts of dreams and that she wasn't aware of any shared dreaming experiences among Japanese folks. Mind you, this was just one student, so I can't say she is representative in any way, but I found this lack of similar and recurring dreams interesting.
The student then volunteered that, while she didn't have the types of dreams I mentioned, she did sometimes dream of mundane experiences before they happened. For instance, she mentioned that she dreamed of playing with her friends in the yard in front of a school, but she had never been to that school or seen that play area. Awhile later, she passed an entrance test and entered a school where she found herself playing on the lawn just as she'd dreamed.
On more than one occasion, I've had the same sort of dream which was a premonition of something relatively unimportant. About a month ago, I had a very striking and memorable one where I dreamed that I had broken a black coffee cup (which we only have one of) and the next day, I broke a clear water glass (I hit it on the side of a dinner plate in the dish drainer as I was attempting to add it to the drainer) while the black coffee cup was the only thing that remained to be washed in the sink. This was very striking because the dream was slightly inaccurate yet the elements were similar enough to carry a heavy implication of prognostication with a slight misalignment.
I don't know if either my student or I are having premonitions. Since I don't believe in time except as a necessary and illusory construct in this reality, I tend to think that this is not so much telling the future as having moments where we can see through the walls that block off our access to seeing all that has happened, is happening or will happen. If you think of your life as a movie that exists in its entirety as a completed work, but has to be experienced from beginning to end by watching it through time, you can sort of get the idea of what I mean. The fact that you don't know what happens later in the movie until you get to that point doesn't mean that portion doesn't exist. It just means you can't access it yet because you are forced to experience it in a linear fashion.
When I hear about premonitions and past lives, I always think that it's not so much about remembering or prognosticating, but more about accessing, like skipping ahead or behind to other chapters on the DVD, but not being aware that you can do it or quite knowing that that's what is being done. I think people do this more in dreaming than at other times because that's the only time their minds aren't completely occupied by the realities of daily life.
Last night, I did a lesson with a student about sleep which included the topic of dreams and particular types of dreams including those where ambient stimuli insert themselves into the dream as a part of it. She told me that she had had a dream where a phone was ringing, but she couldn't reach it to answer it and, when she awoke, the phone was actually ringing (within arm's reach). We also talked about sleepwalking and, though she never had such an experience, she had a friend who had and she told me his story.
When her friend was a child, he adored Japanese pickled plums (umeboshi). His mother only allowed him to have two of them at dinner, but he wanted more. During the night, he went to the kitchen and consumed the entire contents of a jar of pickled plums from the refrigerator and had no recollection of having done so the next morning. However, his mother, upon opening the fridge, discovered a jar with nothing but brine in it and her son was incredibly thirsty and his mouth was stained red. It turns out the jar contained about 50 pickled plums and he got so sick from the salt in them that he had to go to the hospital. From that day forth, his mother let him eat as many umeboshi as he liked at meals to try and forestall any sleep-induced wanderings to fulfill a craving.
After she told this story, I asked if she had any recurring dreams. Interestingly, she said she did not. I mentioned to her that it's common in the U.S. for people to dream that they have to take a test for a class they didn't know they'd signed up for and hadn't taken any of the classes for. I told her that it's also common for people to dream they are in front of a crowd and either need to go to the bathroom (but can't because of the audience) or aren't wearing any clothes. She told me that she never had any of these sorts of dreams and that she wasn't aware of any shared dreaming experiences among Japanese folks. Mind you, this was just one student, so I can't say she is representative in any way, but I found this lack of similar and recurring dreams interesting.
The student then volunteered that, while she didn't have the types of dreams I mentioned, she did sometimes dream of mundane experiences before they happened. For instance, she mentioned that she dreamed of playing with her friends in the yard in front of a school, but she had never been to that school or seen that play area. Awhile later, she passed an entrance test and entered a school where she found herself playing on the lawn just as she'd dreamed.
On more than one occasion, I've had the same sort of dream which was a premonition of something relatively unimportant. About a month ago, I had a very striking and memorable one where I dreamed that I had broken a black coffee cup (which we only have one of) and the next day, I broke a clear water glass (I hit it on the side of a dinner plate in the dish drainer as I was attempting to add it to the drainer) while the black coffee cup was the only thing that remained to be washed in the sink. This was very striking because the dream was slightly inaccurate yet the elements were similar enough to carry a heavy implication of prognostication with a slight misalignment.
I don't know if either my student or I are having premonitions. Since I don't believe in time except as a necessary and illusory construct in this reality, I tend to think that this is not so much telling the future as having moments where we can see through the walls that block off our access to seeing all that has happened, is happening or will happen. If you think of your life as a movie that exists in its entirety as a completed work, but has to be experienced from beginning to end by watching it through time, you can sort of get the idea of what I mean. The fact that you don't know what happens later in the movie until you get to that point doesn't mean that portion doesn't exist. It just means you can't access it yet because you are forced to experience it in a linear fashion.
When I hear about premonitions and past lives, I always think that it's not so much about remembering or prognosticating, but more about accessing, like skipping ahead or behind to other chapters on the DVD, but not being aware that you can do it or quite knowing that that's what is being done. I think people do this more in dreaming than at other times because that's the only time their minds aren't completely occupied by the realities of daily life.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Reflections
A home-style design on the 1959 book.Teaching students privately is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, you tend to get a better quality of student who is diligent, more personable, and more goal-oriented. Teaching such students is several cuts above the dead-eyed, lifeless experience of teaching in fast food English conversation schools which are quite often catch-alls for people who have to study rather than a large group of people who really want to.
One of the two books my student has (from 1961), with whimsical artwork.On the other hand, there's a lot more time spent in preparation for such students which is off the clock. While you don't have to do extra work for such students, depending on their specific needs, you really should if you want to give them a good lesson. However, there's often something in this extra preparation for the teacher if she approaches it with the attitude that learning for the sake of the student is also a form of learning for the teacher.
As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my students wants to be a journalist and she wants to write about Betty Crocker for a lifestyle magazine. To that end, I've been investigating Betty Crocker cookbooks so that I can help her (hopefully) develop an article that will be accepted at some point. Since she's particularly interested in the '60s books because of their style, I've also been researching what are considered the hallmarks of 1960s style.
A book from 1972 with rather funky text (reflecting '60s psychedelic style).Doing this has actually been more difficult than one might imagine since the focal point of most articles is on the psychedelic and drug-based counterculture of the late '60s and not on more mundane aspects of domestic life among the non-hippie generation. While those elements were certainly a big part of the '60s, there was also a strong thread of transition from the '50s leading into the early '60s that tends not to get any attention, but you can see it reflected in the items targeted at housewives throughout the decade. Also, a lot of what is considered '60s style is actually early '70s style.
A book from 1980 which is starting to see a cleaner look, but still using relative bold text elements. Most interestingly though, by looking at the covers of the cookbooks and the titles, you can actually make a very good guess as to when they were made. The style of the era is reflected not only in the artwork, the photographic style, and types of dishes, but also in the fonts used. You can see a definite trend from somewhat plain with country or home-style designs with a bit of a flourish to overly-stylized to sophisticated in the text styling and layout. There's also a transition from a focus on entertaining and catering to guests in the book's titles to a focus on faster meal preparation for the family that reflects the changing roles of women from the '50s to the '90s.
White tends to be used more in the most modern layout styles as it has been accepted as more of a use of space for design purposes rather than a byproduct of not wanting to do full color printing. This book from 1996 reflects that.I'd like to persuade my student to make the article she's writing about either the way the books reflect their times in terms of food, style, and women's roles, but I believe she's fixated on the two cookbooks she has and the artwork in them. The main problem with this is that I'm not sure there's enough to say in this regard, especially after I had to disabuse her of the notion that those two books represented the entirety of "Betty Crocker" styling throughout the decades of the company's release of cookbooks. If nothing else, I now have a deeper understanding of why her original article was rejected. The suppositions she made and the claims she asserted were simply based on too little research and a lot of erroneous conclusions.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
In the Dark
Back in my former company's former office, we had a tiny little kitchen that barely two people could squeeze into for food-related tasks. It was often the case that foreign staff, who had a set schedule for conducting lessons by phone, would find themselves log-jammed into that small space at about the same time setting up drinks for the upcoming session of telephone speaking.
Since my boss and I are both tea aficionados, we found ourselves, once again, jockeying for positions in that small room as we made our teabag and milk applications and dealt with some lunch-related dish-washing. We went about our business in the kitchen with the light out because there was a single window through which sufficient light was passing for us to take care of such mundane ministrations in a relatively dim setting.
A salesman wandered over to the postage meter that was inconveniently planted in front of the office refrigerator and said, "You're in the dark. Why are you working in the dark?" Both my boss and I said that we could see just fine and didn't need to use the light. The salesman, nonetheless, walked over and turned on the kitchen light. He decided to substitute his assessment of the needs of the situation for ours.*
This experience illustrated something which I've seen time and again in all areas of life. That is, people approach life as if their perspective and judgment are the appropriate ones and that the solution to the problem is the one that suits their sensibilities. It doesn't occur to them that different people may have different needs and there isn't a "one size fits all" solution that oh-so-conveniently just happens to be in their "size" (all the time, no less).
Awhile back, there was a lot of hubbub in the foreign community about instituting a language proficiency "requirement" for people who work in Japan on long term visas. A lot of the fretting about this was misplaced and based on ignorance of the situation and inadequate research into what the details of the proposed change. (Incidentally, I have no interest in debating the merits and demerits of this potential requirement and any comments addressing this point will not be replied to and may in fact be booted by my moderator - it's already been discussed to death everywhere else.) The interesting thing about all the commentary regarding this situation was that, in debating what level of Japanese language proficiency was sufficient, everyone set the bar where they would be most comfortable setting it. People who can read and write Japanese well felt high levels were fair. People who knew little Japanese felt basic communication should be enough. Those who have studied for and taken standardized tests (JLPT) chose whatever level test they'd already passed. Those who could speak but not read and write felt only oral ability should be tested.
Except for a few rare cases (my blog buddy Penguin for one, who is quite proficient in Japanese, but had concerns about the practicality of instituting such a policy at all), most people set the bar right at where their proficiency was settled. Their "size" was the one they felt was just right for everyone when it came to Japanese ability.
My intent with this post is not to assert that I know what solutions are best or what is right and others do not, but simply to encourage people to be be less rigid about what they believe is "right", "sufficient", and "acceptable". Everyone is different and has different needs. The way you live your life and view your world from how good your language skills have to be to cope with your particular job in Japan right down to things as small as how much light you need to see to do a task can be different from person to person and you shouldn't place your judgment above everyone else's.
*I will note that blue eyes allow in more light than brown eyes and both my former boss and I have blue eyes, though clearly the salesman didn't think about what we could see. He only thought about what he could see.
Since my boss and I are both tea aficionados, we found ourselves, once again, jockeying for positions in that small room as we made our teabag and milk applications and dealt with some lunch-related dish-washing. We went about our business in the kitchen with the light out because there was a single window through which sufficient light was passing for us to take care of such mundane ministrations in a relatively dim setting.
A salesman wandered over to the postage meter that was inconveniently planted in front of the office refrigerator and said, "You're in the dark. Why are you working in the dark?" Both my boss and I said that we could see just fine and didn't need to use the light. The salesman, nonetheless, walked over and turned on the kitchen light. He decided to substitute his assessment of the needs of the situation for ours.*
This experience illustrated something which I've seen time and again in all areas of life. That is, people approach life as if their perspective and judgment are the appropriate ones and that the solution to the problem is the one that suits their sensibilities. It doesn't occur to them that different people may have different needs and there isn't a "one size fits all" solution that oh-so-conveniently just happens to be in their "size" (all the time, no less).
Awhile back, there was a lot of hubbub in the foreign community about instituting a language proficiency "requirement" for people who work in Japan on long term visas. A lot of the fretting about this was misplaced and based on ignorance of the situation and inadequate research into what the details of the proposed change. (Incidentally, I have no interest in debating the merits and demerits of this potential requirement and any comments addressing this point will not be replied to and may in fact be booted by my moderator - it's already been discussed to death everywhere else.) The interesting thing about all the commentary regarding this situation was that, in debating what level of Japanese language proficiency was sufficient, everyone set the bar where they would be most comfortable setting it. People who can read and write Japanese well felt high levels were fair. People who knew little Japanese felt basic communication should be enough. Those who have studied for and taken standardized tests (JLPT) chose whatever level test they'd already passed. Those who could speak but not read and write felt only oral ability should be tested.
Except for a few rare cases (my blog buddy Penguin for one, who is quite proficient in Japanese, but had concerns about the practicality of instituting such a policy at all), most people set the bar right at where their proficiency was settled. Their "size" was the one they felt was just right for everyone when it came to Japanese ability.
My intent with this post is not to assert that I know what solutions are best or what is right and others do not, but simply to encourage people to be be less rigid about what they believe is "right", "sufficient", and "acceptable". Everyone is different and has different needs. The way you live your life and view your world from how good your language skills have to be to cope with your particular job in Japan right down to things as small as how much light you need to see to do a task can be different from person to person and you shouldn't place your judgment above everyone else's.
*I will note that blue eyes allow in more light than brown eyes and both my former boss and I have blue eyes, though clearly the salesman didn't think about what we could see. He only thought about what he could see.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Few Are the Choices We Make - part 2
Part 1 is here.
The way in which our lives are shaped by environment is something which happens not only on an individual level, but on a cultural level as well. People place the choices one culture makes on a pedestal and deride the proclivities of another, but it's very often the case that the "good" in a great culture or the "bad" in a less refined one have nothing to do with any sensibility of the members of that culture. The choices the culture makes are shaped by factors beyond personal aesthetic taste or sophistication and the individuals involved are neither to be praised nor "blamed".
As an example, we can look at food culture. Food culture is shaped by a variety of factors. Primary among them is available food sources, agricultural options and techniques, and food preservation technology. The first item is often recognized but the last one is probably one of the much bigger shapers of what people grow accustomed to and enjoy eating. Why does Japan have a culture with a lot of raw, super fresh food, dried food and pickled food? It's because refrigeration and newer forms of food preservation technology have not been around for a lot of their long history. Their tastes have ridden the tide of history to the present with small adjustments as each generation passed on the tastes of the former one to its children. There's a solid base of food culture though in what history and environment have yielded which will likely echo for centuries to come.
Conversely, why do Americans favor mushy, overcooked, overly salty or sweet food? It's because a lot of America's short history of food culture includes canning as a food preservation technology and the country is sprawling. There was a need for food that could go the distance during expansion and growth as well as keep it free of spoiling as it is carried from areas it is grown in to areas where it is consumed as a non-indigenous food. The first canning factory in America appeared in the early 1800's and canned food saw America through the Civil War through two world wars and into the present. Canned food meant a great deal to American troops in the past. It is also notorious for being overcooked, preserved in sugary liquids, or preserved in salty brine.
The favored cuisine of most people is built around what they grew up with. We like what we ate as kids for the most part and tend mainly to embrace variations on what we already like. While some people diversify their tastes, they are many people for whom food is not important enough to be worth the investment in time, effort, money and research to sample other more adventurous dishes.
On a massive scale, it's unrealistic to expect an entire culture to transcend its roots in a historically-speaking brief period of time. It's also absurd to go around judging any culture for such choices as they are mired in their culture and aren't responsible for either its general negative or positive aspects. Food, of course, is only one example of this. And there are exceptions, but they tend to be based on large scale disruptions to a culture from wars, occupation, major technological or economic breakthroughs, etc. You don't tend to see wholesale replacement of basic cultural elements such as language, religion, or food.
That is not to say that individuals can't break free (as many do), but the overall shape of a culture as mirrored in overall trends and options is molded by what came before and what is around its people, not by any innate superiority or inferiority of the people who populate a culture. To believe otherwise is to place unwarranted faith in the ability and energy of great numbers of individuals to actively seek and accept change en masse. It's unrealistic to expect people to chase down the best elements of other cultures and seek to actively adopt them as replacements for the "lesser" elements of their cultures. That doesn't make them narrow-minded or unsophisticated as it's natural to live in the environment in which you are surviving comfortably and to enjoy the things which bring easy satisfaction. It just makes them human.
The way in which our lives are shaped by environment is something which happens not only on an individual level, but on a cultural level as well. People place the choices one culture makes on a pedestal and deride the proclivities of another, but it's very often the case that the "good" in a great culture or the "bad" in a less refined one have nothing to do with any sensibility of the members of that culture. The choices the culture makes are shaped by factors beyond personal aesthetic taste or sophistication and the individuals involved are neither to be praised nor "blamed".
As an example, we can look at food culture. Food culture is shaped by a variety of factors. Primary among them is available food sources, agricultural options and techniques, and food preservation technology. The first item is often recognized but the last one is probably one of the much bigger shapers of what people grow accustomed to and enjoy eating. Why does Japan have a culture with a lot of raw, super fresh food, dried food and pickled food? It's because refrigeration and newer forms of food preservation technology have not been around for a lot of their long history. Their tastes have ridden the tide of history to the present with small adjustments as each generation passed on the tastes of the former one to its children. There's a solid base of food culture though in what history and environment have yielded which will likely echo for centuries to come.
Conversely, why do Americans favor mushy, overcooked, overly salty or sweet food? It's because a lot of America's short history of food culture includes canning as a food preservation technology and the country is sprawling. There was a need for food that could go the distance during expansion and growth as well as keep it free of spoiling as it is carried from areas it is grown in to areas where it is consumed as a non-indigenous food. The first canning factory in America appeared in the early 1800's and canned food saw America through the Civil War through two world wars and into the present. Canned food meant a great deal to American troops in the past. It is also notorious for being overcooked, preserved in sugary liquids, or preserved in salty brine.
The favored cuisine of most people is built around what they grew up with. We like what we ate as kids for the most part and tend mainly to embrace variations on what we already like. While some people diversify their tastes, they are many people for whom food is not important enough to be worth the investment in time, effort, money and research to sample other more adventurous dishes.
On a massive scale, it's unrealistic to expect an entire culture to transcend its roots in a historically-speaking brief period of time. It's also absurd to go around judging any culture for such choices as they are mired in their culture and aren't responsible for either its general negative or positive aspects. Food, of course, is only one example of this. And there are exceptions, but they tend to be based on large scale disruptions to a culture from wars, occupation, major technological or economic breakthroughs, etc. You don't tend to see wholesale replacement of basic cultural elements such as language, religion, or food.
That is not to say that individuals can't break free (as many do), but the overall shape of a culture as mirrored in overall trends and options is molded by what came before and what is around its people, not by any innate superiority or inferiority of the people who populate a culture. To believe otherwise is to place unwarranted faith in the ability and energy of great numbers of individuals to actively seek and accept change en masse. It's unrealistic to expect people to chase down the best elements of other cultures and seek to actively adopt them as replacements for the "lesser" elements of their cultures. That doesn't make them narrow-minded or unsophisticated as it's natural to live in the environment in which you are surviving comfortably and to enjoy the things which bring easy satisfaction. It just makes them human.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Few Are the Choices We Make - part 1
I remember the day the nail went in the coffin of my Christian beliefs. I was sitting in a history class with one of the most boring teachers in our high school and there was excited talk amongst the students about that date being the day that the world was supposed to end according to one prognosticator or another. Back in the 70's in rural neighborhoods, it seemed like everyone was a great fan of predicting the end of the world. My grandmother liked to talk about it more and more as she aged, and all the parents who were frightened by the infiltration of heavy metal music into youth culture that they burned records were sure this was a sign that Satan was about to take over. As an unsophisticated kid who grew up indoctrinated in a particular belief system, such talk really scared me.
On this particular day, my class was supposed to be reading silently and one of the students decided to say something to the teacher about this end of the world prediction. This particular teacher was all business most of the time. He never shared his personal life or joked or showed any sign of being anything but a date-writing, history-talking drone. I recall how odd his response was because he showed more emotion than I'd ever seen before or after. With great earnestness and conviction, he said that we'd know it wasn't the end of the world if we had read the bible as the signs of the apocalypse had not unfolded as had been foretold.
Besides being very surprised by the way in which this teacher showed he was a human being in his response, I also felt relieved. End of the world talk genuinely scared me when I was in my early to mid teens. Though my memory may be hazy on this point, I believe I was 14 or 15 at the time of this experience. This experience set off a thought process which concluded with my considering that people who grew up elsewhere and didn't have experience with the bible would have no idea about such theories or signs regarding the end of the world. How was it that we were so blessed with knowledge that would "save" us while they were damned because of random factors?
This thought pretty much severed whatever tenuous hold Christian doctrine and dogma had on me. I don't wish to be misunderstood in what I'm saying though. I have no problems with Christianity or Christians. I believe all spiritual philosophies from Paganism to Christianity to Atheism have good points and bad points and I'm not about knocking any of them. However, I understood at that point with great clarity that who you are, what you like and dislike and what you believe is shaped far more by where you are born and how you are raised than by the conscious choices you make.
I'm sure that a lot of folks will take issue with that final statement because we have a strong desire to believe we make the lives we live through our choices. While that is true to some extent, the breadth and composition of the palette of choices we're offered is shaped by factors beyond our control. For instance, if you grow up in a culture which is dominated by one particular faith and you grow up only educated in the principles of that faith the chances that you'll adopt another one which is practiced only by people on the other side of the planet is pretty slim. There are some options that you simply aren't going to be presented with or even find through active searches. And let's say you do find some of those options. Their roots may be so esoteric that you can't understand or relate to them sufficiently to embrace them.
(To be continued in part 2)
On this particular day, my class was supposed to be reading silently and one of the students decided to say something to the teacher about this end of the world prediction. This particular teacher was all business most of the time. He never shared his personal life or joked or showed any sign of being anything but a date-writing, history-talking drone. I recall how odd his response was because he showed more emotion than I'd ever seen before or after. With great earnestness and conviction, he said that we'd know it wasn't the end of the world if we had read the bible as the signs of the apocalypse had not unfolded as had been foretold.
Besides being very surprised by the way in which this teacher showed he was a human being in his response, I also felt relieved. End of the world talk genuinely scared me when I was in my early to mid teens. Though my memory may be hazy on this point, I believe I was 14 or 15 at the time of this experience. This experience set off a thought process which concluded with my considering that people who grew up elsewhere and didn't have experience with the bible would have no idea about such theories or signs regarding the end of the world. How was it that we were so blessed with knowledge that would "save" us while they were damned because of random factors?
This thought pretty much severed whatever tenuous hold Christian doctrine and dogma had on me. I don't wish to be misunderstood in what I'm saying though. I have no problems with Christianity or Christians. I believe all spiritual philosophies from Paganism to Christianity to Atheism have good points and bad points and I'm not about knocking any of them. However, I understood at that point with great clarity that who you are, what you like and dislike and what you believe is shaped far more by where you are born and how you are raised than by the conscious choices you make.
I'm sure that a lot of folks will take issue with that final statement because we have a strong desire to believe we make the lives we live through our choices. While that is true to some extent, the breadth and composition of the palette of choices we're offered is shaped by factors beyond our control. For instance, if you grow up in a culture which is dominated by one particular faith and you grow up only educated in the principles of that faith the chances that you'll adopt another one which is practiced only by people on the other side of the planet is pretty slim. There are some options that you simply aren't going to be presented with or even find through active searches. And let's say you do find some of those options. Their roots may be so esoteric that you can't understand or relate to them sufficiently to embrace them.
(To be continued in part 2)
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Competition
While sitting on my bike at a pedestrian crosswalk, waiting for the little man to go from red man standing patiently at attention to change to the happy green man in mid-stride, I had an experience I have had many times in the past. A pedestrian came up behind me and paused at the light. He made sure to stand in front of my bicycle wheel and just to the right of me. He watched the opposite traffic light and jumped off the mark just before the green man made his appearance. He strode quickly for a grand total of 5 seconds then slowed down to a turtle's pace and blocked the sidewalk by standing in as central a position as possible.
Common sense tells everyone that a bicycle rider is going to go faster than a pedestrian yet I constantly find that male pedestrians, particularly middle-aged and older ones, will position themselves such that my moving at all soon after the light changes will guarantee I collide with them as they cross, or have to half shortly after moving to prevent doing so. What is more, it's almost always the case that the fast pace which they start off with dies a rapid death once they get out ahead of me by about 10 yards.
After years (literally) and hundreds of experiences (again, literally) with this phenomenon, I've concluded that this is a pointless act of competition. It's not important that these men get going as they always slow down. It's only important that they get ahead of me and block me so that they get across first.
As of late, male competitive urges have been a topic which has been on my mind lately as I've noticed that I tend to prefer female bloggers over male ones, by and large. There are some very notable exceptions (you know who you are - many of your regularly comment here), but I've noticed that male bloggers tend to be far more aggressive and competitive in how they handle themselves. For one thing, they are far more likely to boast about site traffic statistics. For another, they are much more likely to post reactive and argumentative content. That is, they don't tend write about their lives, thoughts or experiences but go find something someone else wrote or said and take issue with it. On occasions when they do address something original, the posture is often one of "informing" people of the accurate way of seeing or understanding something. They're also far more likely to leave nasty, condescending, or snotty comments when they disagree rather than to simply present another explanation or viewpoint.
It's well-known in psychological circles that males are generally more competitive than females, though I think it's a tendency that women experience far less in the real world than in anonymous Internet-based forums. Personally, I'm growing pretty tired of this competitive nature in some males. It's irksome to deal with other folk's negative energy over petty little things because they have an ego issue and need to "win" at a non-existent competition just like it's tiresome to have to wait for or navigate around those guys who feel they have to stop me from getting across the street first. I guess that it's a little harder for a man to be aggressively competitive to a female in person and still feel like a big, puffed-up "winner" than it is to do it through the ether.
Nonetheless, just like the men who cut off my bike and stride ahead, it's all pointless and proves nothing about a man's superiority. I'm just going to go sailing by them either way and go about my business.
Common sense tells everyone that a bicycle rider is going to go faster than a pedestrian yet I constantly find that male pedestrians, particularly middle-aged and older ones, will position themselves such that my moving at all soon after the light changes will guarantee I collide with them as they cross, or have to half shortly after moving to prevent doing so. What is more, it's almost always the case that the fast pace which they start off with dies a rapid death once they get out ahead of me by about 10 yards.
After years (literally) and hundreds of experiences (again, literally) with this phenomenon, I've concluded that this is a pointless act of competition. It's not important that these men get going as they always slow down. It's only important that they get ahead of me and block me so that they get across first.
As of late, male competitive urges have been a topic which has been on my mind lately as I've noticed that I tend to prefer female bloggers over male ones, by and large. There are some very notable exceptions (you know who you are - many of your regularly comment here), but I've noticed that male bloggers tend to be far more aggressive and competitive in how they handle themselves. For one thing, they are far more likely to boast about site traffic statistics. For another, they are much more likely to post reactive and argumentative content. That is, they don't tend write about their lives, thoughts or experiences but go find something someone else wrote or said and take issue with it. On occasions when they do address something original, the posture is often one of "informing" people of the accurate way of seeing or understanding something. They're also far more likely to leave nasty, condescending, or snotty comments when they disagree rather than to simply present another explanation or viewpoint.
It's well-known in psychological circles that males are generally more competitive than females, though I think it's a tendency that women experience far less in the real world than in anonymous Internet-based forums. Personally, I'm growing pretty tired of this competitive nature in some males. It's irksome to deal with other folk's negative energy over petty little things because they have an ego issue and need to "win" at a non-existent competition just like it's tiresome to have to wait for or navigate around those guys who feel they have to stop me from getting across the street first. I guess that it's a little harder for a man to be aggressively competitive to a female in person and still feel like a big, puffed-up "winner" than it is to do it through the ether.
Nonetheless, just like the men who cut off my bike and stride ahead, it's all pointless and proves nothing about a man's superiority. I'm just going to go sailing by them either way and go about my business.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Mistakes We Make
One of my students attends a U.S. college on a military base. The people she meets in her classes are mostly from poor areas of the southern part of the United States or urban centers. The class is made up of (by an overwhelming majority) African American men as is the teacher who conducts most of her core courses. Though it may seem irrelevant, this fact is actually an important one in mulling over the point I'm about to make.
No one would deny that the experiences of black folks in America differs from that of white folks, Hispanics, or Asians and it would seem that a lot of the fellows who end up in her class come from areas with a lot of crime and poverty. Their world is one where plenty of people grow up surrounded by violence, gang activity, and prejudice which shuts them out of opportunities to improve their lot in life. They paint this picture of a "usual life in America" for her on a regular basis. To her, America is a place riddled by violence where everyone has a gun, many people have done time in jail, and minorities are routinely and overtly mistreated.
The mistake my student makes is that she believes that the experiences and perceptions of a handful of people who she shares classes with on a regular basis are accurate representations of life in the U.S. While I would not argue at all that the world her classmates describe is a real part of life in America, it's certainly not the entire experience or even necessarily a representative, generalized picture. Somewhere between bucolic, crime-free rural life where there is little or no racial strife and urban lives of squalor and violence is a more average picture of life. I'm not saying I can even paint that picture, but rather that it's a mistake to believe everything an individual or small group of individuals tell you about their culture is an accurate picture of that culture.
One of the main reasons you can't believe everything you're told about cultures which you don't grow up in is that people color their observations with their emotional reactions. Their bitterness or anger can skew their views just as an affluent person who grew up with a silver spoon can be skewed into thinking life is a pie-in-the-sky lark where life is a choice of amusements on a playground. Another reason you can't believe what you're told about other cultures is that people simply do not know everything about their own culture and are generally inclined not to admit it, particularly if they think they know the answer and figure you won't know if they fudge it.
The latter was a fact I was reminded of when I re-read "Dave Barry Does Japan." While the book is a humor book, and does not represent itself in any way as an authoritative guide to Japan, it is a good example of a foreign person coming to Japan and accepting answers given by individual Japanese people at face value. When Dave doesn't understand, it's a joke, but he earnestly quotes the Japanese about what things are really like and sometimes, the information he's given is misleading, incomplete, or incorrect for people living in urban (or rural areas). Additionally, some of the information you get from Japanese people has to be considered in light of the fact that they wish to present Japanese culture in the most positive light. Conversely, some of the information you get from Americans reflects the fact that, in an effort not to look like flag-waving zealots or to illustrate how bad their life there was, they often portray American in a more negative light.
A lot of foreign people make the same type of mistake that Dave Barry did. That is, they feel that whatever Japanese people tell them is factually accurate. After all, who knows Japan better than a Japanese person? The problem is that, just as the Americans who tell my student America is a modern Wild West full of prejudice, any particular person's perceptions are the reflection of selective experiences and subjective editing. It's not enough to believe one person or even 10 people who tell you something, particularly if those 10 people grew up in the same sort of circumstances and similar locales.
The main problem is that after they've asked a question and gotten an answer, most people tend to move on and ask different questions rather than proffering the same one again and again to test the overall validity of the information they've been given. This is understandable considering the wealth of new information to be gathered when faced with a wide, fresh world of culture to learn and understand, but it also leads to a lot of "authorities" on a culture which propagate skewed views.
The gaijin living in Japan tend to be one of the most combative and territorial groups when it comes to accepting any sort of perspective which doesn't mesh with the one they currently hold. Often, there is no "right" or "wrong" but a variety of situations, experiences and facts which vary based on geography, economic level, and social status, but the authoritative foreigner will challenge you to a verbal dual to the death to prove he knows better than you.While none of us can be totally versed in any culture (including our own), the important thing is to keep an open mind and egos in check when presented with opposing experiences and information.
The "truth" about a given culture is a bit like infinity. You can approach it, but you're incapable of actually reaching it.
No one would deny that the experiences of black folks in America differs from that of white folks, Hispanics, or Asians and it would seem that a lot of the fellows who end up in her class come from areas with a lot of crime and poverty. Their world is one where plenty of people grow up surrounded by violence, gang activity, and prejudice which shuts them out of opportunities to improve their lot in life. They paint this picture of a "usual life in America" for her on a regular basis. To her, America is a place riddled by violence where everyone has a gun, many people have done time in jail, and minorities are routinely and overtly mistreated.
The mistake my student makes is that she believes that the experiences and perceptions of a handful of people who she shares classes with on a regular basis are accurate representations of life in the U.S. While I would not argue at all that the world her classmates describe is a real part of life in America, it's certainly not the entire experience or even necessarily a representative, generalized picture. Somewhere between bucolic, crime-free rural life where there is little or no racial strife and urban lives of squalor and violence is a more average picture of life. I'm not saying I can even paint that picture, but rather that it's a mistake to believe everything an individual or small group of individuals tell you about their culture is an accurate picture of that culture.
One of the main reasons you can't believe everything you're told about cultures which you don't grow up in is that people color their observations with their emotional reactions. Their bitterness or anger can skew their views just as an affluent person who grew up with a silver spoon can be skewed into thinking life is a pie-in-the-sky lark where life is a choice of amusements on a playground. Another reason you can't believe what you're told about other cultures is that people simply do not know everything about their own culture and are generally inclined not to admit it, particularly if they think they know the answer and figure you won't know if they fudge it.
The latter was a fact I was reminded of when I re-read "Dave Barry Does Japan." While the book is a humor book, and does not represent itself in any way as an authoritative guide to Japan, it is a good example of a foreign person coming to Japan and accepting answers given by individual Japanese people at face value. When Dave doesn't understand, it's a joke, but he earnestly quotes the Japanese about what things are really like and sometimes, the information he's given is misleading, incomplete, or incorrect for people living in urban (or rural areas). Additionally, some of the information you get from Japanese people has to be considered in light of the fact that they wish to present Japanese culture in the most positive light. Conversely, some of the information you get from Americans reflects the fact that, in an effort not to look like flag-waving zealots or to illustrate how bad their life there was, they often portray American in a more negative light.
A lot of foreign people make the same type of mistake that Dave Barry did. That is, they feel that whatever Japanese people tell them is factually accurate. After all, who knows Japan better than a Japanese person? The problem is that, just as the Americans who tell my student America is a modern Wild West full of prejudice, any particular person's perceptions are the reflection of selective experiences and subjective editing. It's not enough to believe one person or even 10 people who tell you something, particularly if those 10 people grew up in the same sort of circumstances and similar locales.
The main problem is that after they've asked a question and gotten an answer, most people tend to move on and ask different questions rather than proffering the same one again and again to test the overall validity of the information they've been given. This is understandable considering the wealth of new information to be gathered when faced with a wide, fresh world of culture to learn and understand, but it also leads to a lot of "authorities" on a culture which propagate skewed views.
The gaijin living in Japan tend to be one of the most combative and territorial groups when it comes to accepting any sort of perspective which doesn't mesh with the one they currently hold. Often, there is no "right" or "wrong" but a variety of situations, experiences and facts which vary based on geography, economic level, and social status, but the authoritative foreigner will challenge you to a verbal dual to the death to prove he knows better than you.While none of us can be totally versed in any culture (including our own), the important thing is to keep an open mind and egos in check when presented with opposing experiences and information.
The "truth" about a given culture is a bit like infinity. You can approach it, but you're incapable of actually reaching it.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Cultural Limits
One of my students works creating subtitles for whatever television shows and movies come her way. Sometimes she works with bad B-movies (or worse) which go straight to DVD and are of extremely dubious quality. At others, she works with American television shows or documentaries. In her most recent lesson, she was working on subtitles for an episode of a BBC series for the first time.
My job when working with her is to take the parts of the script which she can't understand due to the obscurity of the reference or the cultural connotations. In most cases, this isn't much of a problem for me. However, dealing with a British-made show brings more challenges to the experience as there ultimately are references to things I'm not familiar with like the names of specific establishments that have not been popularized in America (or Japan). As one example, I can say that before this lesson, I'd never heard of "The Baron of Beef."
I'm actually quite a great fan of British television and these days spend more hours watching British drama than American thanks in large part to the Mystery Channel (for which, not so coincidentally, my student was subtitling the show we discussed) and the fact that I'm not keen on much current American drama aside from House and Lost. I'm particularly keen on A Touch of Frost (which I recommend strongly to anyone who can find it in their T.V. listings) and Poirot, though both of these are rather old now. It does take awhile for things to make their way to Japan from any country.
Despite a fair amount of viewing experience with both drama and comedy made in England, I can't say that I'm very well-versed in some of the jokes and their references. At times, the only thing I can do is guess then turn to Google during the lesson to confirm my suspicion. I'd say I'm correct about 90% of the time. For instance, I'm still not sure why someone would say "hello, sailor" when encountering a drowned dead body in the water except that being in the water is connected with sailing. My only exposure to the phrase "hello, sailor" has been through Monty Python and the context for the joke was quite different.
I think my students figure that we all speak English so we all understand anything said in English, but there are clear cultural differences. Actually, I'm pretty sure my British friends wouldn't even agree that "we all speak English" in regards to Americans. If you watch enough of another country's popular media, you can start to see some of the threads which commonly run through their collective consciousness to which they can relate and to which you may not. One of the biggest examples of this that I've noticed is that Oscar Wilde's life or quotes make an appearance far more often in British shows than an American might expect. He was mentioned in the crime drama I just saw a bit of in my students's lesson and also in The Thin Blue Line which I saw last week (and, of course, is in a Monty Python sketch and mentioned in Black Adder). I'm not sure that I've ever heard him mentioned or quoted in an American show except obliquely as a reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I imagine similar references to politicians and presidential peccadilloes which run through many U.S. shows in particular may be a little obtuse for some.
In Japanese job advertisements for teachers, some schools will request a "North American native English speaker" or a "British native English speaker" and this can get feathers ruffled amongst those who want to apply for the job and don't fit this seemingly arbitrary criteria. While I'll grant that some of these preferences are a bit frivolous, I can also see where sometimes a particular person or group of people may be better served by someone who grew up in one particular cultural environment or another. In the case of my student and for this one lesson, she may have been served a little better by a British teacher, but only this one time. ;-)
My job when working with her is to take the parts of the script which she can't understand due to the obscurity of the reference or the cultural connotations. In most cases, this isn't much of a problem for me. However, dealing with a British-made show brings more challenges to the experience as there ultimately are references to things I'm not familiar with like the names of specific establishments that have not been popularized in America (or Japan). As one example, I can say that before this lesson, I'd never heard of "The Baron of Beef."
I'm actually quite a great fan of British television and these days spend more hours watching British drama than American thanks in large part to the Mystery Channel (for which, not so coincidentally, my student was subtitling the show we discussed) and the fact that I'm not keen on much current American drama aside from House and Lost. I'm particularly keen on A Touch of Frost (which I recommend strongly to anyone who can find it in their T.V. listings) and Poirot, though both of these are rather old now. It does take awhile for things to make their way to Japan from any country.
Despite a fair amount of viewing experience with both drama and comedy made in England, I can't say that I'm very well-versed in some of the jokes and their references. At times, the only thing I can do is guess then turn to Google during the lesson to confirm my suspicion. I'd say I'm correct about 90% of the time. For instance, I'm still not sure why someone would say "hello, sailor" when encountering a drowned dead body in the water except that being in the water is connected with sailing. My only exposure to the phrase "hello, sailor" has been through Monty Python and the context for the joke was quite different.
I think my students figure that we all speak English so we all understand anything said in English, but there are clear cultural differences. Actually, I'm pretty sure my British friends wouldn't even agree that "we all speak English" in regards to Americans. If you watch enough of another country's popular media, you can start to see some of the threads which commonly run through their collective consciousness to which they can relate and to which you may not. One of the biggest examples of this that I've noticed is that Oscar Wilde's life or quotes make an appearance far more often in British shows than an American might expect. He was mentioned in the crime drama I just saw a bit of in my students's lesson and also in The Thin Blue Line which I saw last week (and, of course, is in a Monty Python sketch and mentioned in Black Adder). I'm not sure that I've ever heard him mentioned or quoted in an American show except obliquely as a reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I imagine similar references to politicians and presidential peccadilloes which run through many U.S. shows in particular may be a little obtuse for some.
In Japanese job advertisements for teachers, some schools will request a "North American native English speaker" or a "British native English speaker" and this can get feathers ruffled amongst those who want to apply for the job and don't fit this seemingly arbitrary criteria. While I'll grant that some of these preferences are a bit frivolous, I can also see where sometimes a particular person or group of people may be better served by someone who grew up in one particular cultural environment or another. In the case of my student and for this one lesson, she may have been served a little better by a British teacher, but only this one time. ;-)
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Tips for Becoming a Happier Blogger
Before I started blogging, I carefully considered a lot of aspects of the experience and purposefully set out to avoid certain behaviors which I felt would undermine my enjoyment. Keep in mind that I'm not looking to be a "successful" blogger, but a happy one. If you're blogging for personal fulfillment rather than financial success, you may find this list of tips helpful:
- Don't put a counter on your page or monitor page views or access from unique IP addresses. Once you start thinking about who and how many people are reading, you will start to feel sorry for yourself if your audience isn't big enough or pressured to write even when you don't feel like it to maintain your audience.
- Don't write everyday because you feel you have to have a steady track record of writing continuously. If you don't feel like you have anything to say, don't coerce yourself. If you pressure yourself to write, it'll feel like a job. Conversely, don't slack off entirely because you aren't on a daily schedule. When you have the thought, "that would be interesting to blog about," or think you've had an experience you'd like to remember, make sure you act on the impulse to blog about it.
- Moderate your comments and don't post rude or offensive ones. It's fine if people disagree with you in a civilized way, but a great deal of disagreement on the Internet tends to be expressed with hostility and at times includes ad hominem attacks. If you are sensitive and find comments upsetting you or spoiling your blogging experience, disallow comments. If you really want comments and are sensitive to anonymous people writing you abusive messages, have someone you trust moderate them for you to shield you from them. Note that, in blogger, you can selectively allow or disallow comments to individual posts so you can decide not to accept feedback on certain types of posts.
- Never belittle your subject matter or your thoughts. Don't write about something in your life and tell your readers that it's boring or mock yourself about how "exciting" your life is. If you want to talk about something and enjoy doing so, then that is all that matters.
- Try to research the topics you write about which seem to reach a dead end or feel somehow incomplete. You'll find that learning more about a subject will help you flesh out your ideas and assist in building a more gratifying post.
- Seek balance in your rants and learn more before carrying on about an issue. If you focus excessively on the negative, you will be dwelling on how angry or unhappy you are as your write. Seeking mainly to justify that anger as you write rather than trying to get past it may be cathartic, but it won't serve you well emotionally in the long run. It'll also invite people to disagree with you because it's much easier to take issue with a heavily-slanted viewpoint than a balanced one. If you try to take the time to research and consider the flip-side of an issue, you may find your anger dissipating and your understanding growing. You'll also write a better post.
- If a topic interests you but you can't seem to get the ball rolling on talking about it, save it and go back to it later. If it feels flat when you look back on it 3 months later, abandon it. There's a good chance though that the impulse that inspired you to start writing about it initially will re-visit you and you'll get your momentum back.
- Don't check search engines to see if you are showing up in them as a means of determining if readers can find you. Since you have no control over what shows up in search results, it will only make you feel disheartened, ignored, and powerless if your posts are on the 3rd page or later when searches are conducted.
- The most positive way to increase your readership is to read other sites and post interesting or insightful comments and to link to your blog. A lot of my readers have found me through my comments on other sites. You not only bring readers who are already interested in what you specifically have to say, but you also make someone else happy by commenting to them.
- Never use (full) real names for yourself or others. If your blog is a business one or meant to generate money, it may be useful to use your full name, but using real names can introduce the threat of "discovery" by people who know you (and open you up to stalking). The chances that you'll feel anxiety related to blogging (or possibly even decide to delete the blog or posts in fear later) increase if you use real names. Remaining anonymous will allow you to talk about relationships that interest or trouble you as part of your blog should you like to do so.
- If you don't have a digital camera, consider buying one so you can add pictures to your blog. Your posts will feel more interesting (even to you) and you'll have a visual record of the things in your life which were occupying your attention when you track your personal history through your posts. However, don't put up personal photos (same reason as the previous tip). If you want to put up a site or gallery to share with distant family members, make it a separate one from your serious blogging site so your writing can be free of the fear of "discovery".
- When considering topic fodder for a blog, don't dwell only on "news" or experiences. You'll find writing about thoughts and opinions more fulfilling then simply being a news anchor to your life's events. Most people's inner lives are much richer than their outer ones. Using your posts as a means of exploring your internal processes can be very fulfilling and more enjoyable. It'll also reduce the chances that you'll find yourself having to follow tip #4.
- Don't be competitive with other bloggers or think about how your writing, content, or readership stacks up to theirs. Focus on self-fulfillment and how your writing helps you grow personally and explore life.
- Try not to be self-conscious and judgmental about speaking about your feelings. If you keep things anonymous, you can express any idea on any topic you want including what makes you incredibly happy or sad. While my blog is not "hidden" from family and friends, I'm probably about as uninhibited as a person can be about telling those around me who know me in real life about the things that make me happy or trouble me. Most people aren't that comfortable putting themselves out there in front of people who know them. If you wall off writing about your life in this personal way, you have to write around your life in an awkward and somewhat stifling way. This forces you to contort your content or gut it of its essential elements to sanitize if for the consumption of those who know you. This can feel like wearing a straight jacket and undermine your enjoyment of blogging.
- Don't let your blog consume your life or define you in any way. It's an outlet for creativity, logging your personal experiences and developing ideas, not your real life.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Being an HSP
When I was working in an office in Japan, I worked in a little cubicle alone much of the time. When my boss came into the room and spoke to me from behind my back, I nearly jumped out of my skin. This didn't happen a few times. It happened nearly every time. To his credit, he did what he could to try and warn me that he was coming and even resorted to knocking lightly on the cubicle frame as a last resort to stop from startling me (this worked but he couldn't always remember to do it).
All of my life, I have been hyper-sensitive to changes in my environment. If it is a strong change, like headlights in a dark night, it is often physically painful for me. If it's a mild change, like my boss walking into the room unexpectedly, I get startled. I've also always been very aware of very subtle things which others do not experience. I smell scents others cannot detect until the threshold increases. I can also tell mood changes with extremely subtle cues and the moods of others have a profound effect on me.
In the case of my husband, I can even predict what he is thinking by looking at his face. I'm not talking about generalized thoughts but specific ones. One evening as he prepared to hop into the shower, I knew by his movements and face that he was going to think about a story he was writing while he showered. When he came out, I said, "you were thinking about your story, weren't you?" He said that he was and wondered how I knew since we hadn't said anything about it in the recent past. I could just tell by his state of mind as reflected in his body language.
This state of hyper-awareness can be both a blessing and curse. While I can read people easily, the messages I detect can easily send my mood veering off into a negative direction. I also find that being in a noisy, bright, or visually "busy" place to be overstimulating. The commute to and from my office, which used to be about 12 minutes when I worked in Nishi-Shinjuku, became almost unbearable when it was extended to 45 minutes when my office moved to Kudanshita.
Quite some time ago, I came across a book by Elaine Aron called "The Highly Sensitive Person" (or, HSP). The theory and content of this book was a revelation for me because it explained so much about why I was different from most other people in terms of my propensity to be exhausted, depressed, or overwhelmed when others in my situation were apparently unfazed. Prior to reading this book, I didn't know that others weren't having the difficulties I had because their nervous system didn't process stimuli in the same manner as mine did. I just believed there was something wrong with me psychologically and that I was inferior in my inability to handle daily life.
For me, life is like living in a noisy room with overly-bright lights and a wall paper pattern which is so ugly and fussy that it gives me a headache to look at it all the time. This isn't an emotional short-coming on my part (though people around you like to view it that way), but just a difference in my biological wiring. People who called me oversensitive or thought I was a big baby for getting stressed out under conditions which annoyed them but didn't push them over the edge aren't living in my skin and have no idea what I go through because they are comfortable in their certainty that everyone experiences the world exactly as they do.
The best thing about knowing you're an HSP isn't that it gives you an excuse to withdraw or react badly. The best thing is that knowing it puts you in a position to monitor your responses to stimuli and to see an overload coming. You can derail an emotional short circuit before it happens and stop yourself from lashing out at others when the pain overwhelms you. If the people you live with understand what life is like for you, they can know that withdrawing to some place dark and quiet isn't a form of punishment or a means of expressing anger in some sort of passive-aggressive way, but a method of coping with how overwhelmed you feel. It also allows you to know your limits and plan your activities around what you know you can handle. Best of all though, you can stop beating yourself up for feeling somehow less adequate than people who were born with the sense-equivalent of a suit of armor. You know that you were born with the sense-equivalent of a paper dressing gown and you had no damn choice about it.
All of my life, I have been hyper-sensitive to changes in my environment. If it is a strong change, like headlights in a dark night, it is often physically painful for me. If it's a mild change, like my boss walking into the room unexpectedly, I get startled. I've also always been very aware of very subtle things which others do not experience. I smell scents others cannot detect until the threshold increases. I can also tell mood changes with extremely subtle cues and the moods of others have a profound effect on me.
In the case of my husband, I can even predict what he is thinking by looking at his face. I'm not talking about generalized thoughts but specific ones. One evening as he prepared to hop into the shower, I knew by his movements and face that he was going to think about a story he was writing while he showered. When he came out, I said, "you were thinking about your story, weren't you?" He said that he was and wondered how I knew since we hadn't said anything about it in the recent past. I could just tell by his state of mind as reflected in his body language.
This state of hyper-awareness can be both a blessing and curse. While I can read people easily, the messages I detect can easily send my mood veering off into a negative direction. I also find that being in a noisy, bright, or visually "busy" place to be overstimulating. The commute to and from my office, which used to be about 12 minutes when I worked in Nishi-Shinjuku, became almost unbearable when it was extended to 45 minutes when my office moved to Kudanshita.
Quite some time ago, I came across a book by Elaine Aron called "The Highly Sensitive Person" (or, HSP). The theory and content of this book was a revelation for me because it explained so much about why I was different from most other people in terms of my propensity to be exhausted, depressed, or overwhelmed when others in my situation were apparently unfazed. Prior to reading this book, I didn't know that others weren't having the difficulties I had because their nervous system didn't process stimuli in the same manner as mine did. I just believed there was something wrong with me psychologically and that I was inferior in my inability to handle daily life.
For me, life is like living in a noisy room with overly-bright lights and a wall paper pattern which is so ugly and fussy that it gives me a headache to look at it all the time. This isn't an emotional short-coming on my part (though people around you like to view it that way), but just a difference in my biological wiring. People who called me oversensitive or thought I was a big baby for getting stressed out under conditions which annoyed them but didn't push them over the edge aren't living in my skin and have no idea what I go through because they are comfortable in their certainty that everyone experiences the world exactly as they do.
The best thing about knowing you're an HSP isn't that it gives you an excuse to withdraw or react badly. The best thing is that knowing it puts you in a position to monitor your responses to stimuli and to see an overload coming. You can derail an emotional short circuit before it happens and stop yourself from lashing out at others when the pain overwhelms you. If the people you live with understand what life is like for you, they can know that withdrawing to some place dark and quiet isn't a form of punishment or a means of expressing anger in some sort of passive-aggressive way, but a method of coping with how overwhelmed you feel. It also allows you to know your limits and plan your activities around what you know you can handle. Best of all though, you can stop beating yourself up for feeling somehow less adequate than people who were born with the sense-equivalent of a suit of armor. You know that you were born with the sense-equivalent of a paper dressing gown and you had no damn choice about it.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
The Perfect Picture
My first visit to Japan was for a one-month vacation and to meet my (then) pen pal and future husband face-to-face for the first time. My husband had arranged for us to do some typical sight-seeing in Japan during my stay. This included, among other things, the obligatory trip to Tokyo Disneyland and a bus tour of Nikko. For those who don't know, Nikko is one of the more temple-rich areas of Japan.
In the opinion of most Japanese people, the best time to visit Nikko is in the fall because it's got a lot of trees and the leaves change color at that time of year. Of course, part of the reason the Japanese get so excited about it is that they don't seem to realize that people in other countries also have heavily-forested areas which also see a burst of autumnal colors annually. In my home area, there's an Autumn Leaf Festival each year because of the rich concentrations of trees. I guess that the whole "Japan has four seasons" notion also plays into it because they don't seem to realize that other areas actually experience a picture perfect autumn. Given that my vacation was in March (1988) and the fact that colorful leaves, appealing as they may be, aren't exactly a novelty for me after at least a decade of Autumn Leaf Festivals which I was old enough to attend, I saw Nikko in spring-like weather.
If you've never taken a bus tour in Japan, the experience itself is a very good reflection of how things work in Japan and what sort of experience people will pay for and accept with good grace. The tour guide runs around with a little flag and all the patrons are expected to dutifully follow her as she sets a brisk pace. If you're interested in seeing anything for any length of time, you can forget about it as the tour moves on unhindered by your desire to spend more than two minutes at each point of interest and the guide prattles on at break-neck speed in Japanese. Back then, we didn't understand a word she was saying so the entire tour was pretty much conducted with us ignorant of the historical details she was (no doubt) offering. At one point, we lagged behind a little too much and got separated from the group. There was a famous temple at the top of a huge amount of steps which the group was permitted to climb up to and we caught up with them there. I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't been able to reconnect with them, but I'm guessing they'd have had no compunctions about leaving us behind, particularly because we were always trying to linger and actually have a good look at the blur of landmarks the tour was trotting us past.
The temples in Nikko are interesting and the landscape lovely. It's a good spot for anyone to visit on a stop to Japan. There are wild monkeys roaming about in some areas and we saw a few in the trees as the bus sped along to one of it's multiple destinations. The whole experience was quite exhausting though and rather un-fulfilling because of the speed with which we were shuttled past everything. Nikko is simply far too vast an area to really be enjoyed completely on one of these types of structured tours and I think we'd have been better off venturing there on our own. However, we didn't have the skills to manage it at the time, and we haven't had the impulse to return.
At one point during our whirlwind tour, we (my husband and myself) and about 25 Japanese tourists, were grouped together for a tour group picture. That picture is currently in storage in the U.S. so I don't have it on hand to post. The group was crammed relatively close together to get us all in the shot and my husband (who wasn't my husband at the time, mind you) put his arm around my shoulder and I put my arm around his waist. After we did this, the tour staff bustled over and chattered away and indicated with gestures that we were not to do this in the picture. They made us stand there with arms at sides like everyone else. The resulting picture is of a large group of Japanese people looking somewhat grimly at the camera and two smiling foreigners in the back row. Not one of the Japanese people in the picture is smiling.
In this day and age, I believe that people would smile though I don't know if the age of the people being photographed is a factor. It's my feeling that the photographer objected to our display of affection in the picture, and perhaps people didn't smile, because it was a group picture of which everyone was going to get a copy. Perhaps he felt that it'd be distracting or offensive to the mostly middle-aged folks who would be getting the picture if there was a wanton display of lust as evidenced by my husband's arm around my shoulder.
While I often see personal photos from my students' vacations, I rarely see any with couples expressing affection for one another in the shot. However, one of my students was showing me her vacation photos from a visit to Yosemite in the U.S. and she and her husband had their arms around each other. I remarked that I thought it looked very sweet. She told me that she wouldn't have done it if the picture had involved anyone except the two of them and she wouldn't have done it in front of other people in Japan. I got the impression that she felt that the picture would be spoiled for other people if they expressed affection physically in the photo. I guess this is why my husband and I were restrained in the group photo that was taken of us at Nikko.
In the opinion of most Japanese people, the best time to visit Nikko is in the fall because it's got a lot of trees and the leaves change color at that time of year. Of course, part of the reason the Japanese get so excited about it is that they don't seem to realize that people in other countries also have heavily-forested areas which also see a burst of autumnal colors annually. In my home area, there's an Autumn Leaf Festival each year because of the rich concentrations of trees. I guess that the whole "Japan has four seasons" notion also plays into it because they don't seem to realize that other areas actually experience a picture perfect autumn. Given that my vacation was in March (1988) and the fact that colorful leaves, appealing as they may be, aren't exactly a novelty for me after at least a decade of Autumn Leaf Festivals which I was old enough to attend, I saw Nikko in spring-like weather.
If you've never taken a bus tour in Japan, the experience itself is a very good reflection of how things work in Japan and what sort of experience people will pay for and accept with good grace. The tour guide runs around with a little flag and all the patrons are expected to dutifully follow her as she sets a brisk pace. If you're interested in seeing anything for any length of time, you can forget about it as the tour moves on unhindered by your desire to spend more than two minutes at each point of interest and the guide prattles on at break-neck speed in Japanese. Back then, we didn't understand a word she was saying so the entire tour was pretty much conducted with us ignorant of the historical details she was (no doubt) offering. At one point, we lagged behind a little too much and got separated from the group. There was a famous temple at the top of a huge amount of steps which the group was permitted to climb up to and we caught up with them there. I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't been able to reconnect with them, but I'm guessing they'd have had no compunctions about leaving us behind, particularly because we were always trying to linger and actually have a good look at the blur of landmarks the tour was trotting us past.
The temples in Nikko are interesting and the landscape lovely. It's a good spot for anyone to visit on a stop to Japan. There are wild monkeys roaming about in some areas and we saw a few in the trees as the bus sped along to one of it's multiple destinations. The whole experience was quite exhausting though and rather un-fulfilling because of the speed with which we were shuttled past everything. Nikko is simply far too vast an area to really be enjoyed completely on one of these types of structured tours and I think we'd have been better off venturing there on our own. However, we didn't have the skills to manage it at the time, and we haven't had the impulse to return.
At one point during our whirlwind tour, we (my husband and myself) and about 25 Japanese tourists, were grouped together for a tour group picture. That picture is currently in storage in the U.S. so I don't have it on hand to post. The group was crammed relatively close together to get us all in the shot and my husband (who wasn't my husband at the time, mind you) put his arm around my shoulder and I put my arm around his waist. After we did this, the tour staff bustled over and chattered away and indicated with gestures that we were not to do this in the picture. They made us stand there with arms at sides like everyone else. The resulting picture is of a large group of Japanese people looking somewhat grimly at the camera and two smiling foreigners in the back row. Not one of the Japanese people in the picture is smiling.
In this day and age, I believe that people would smile though I don't know if the age of the people being photographed is a factor. It's my feeling that the photographer objected to our display of affection in the picture, and perhaps people didn't smile, because it was a group picture of which everyone was going to get a copy. Perhaps he felt that it'd be distracting or offensive to the mostly middle-aged folks who would be getting the picture if there was a wanton display of lust as evidenced by my husband's arm around my shoulder.
While I often see personal photos from my students' vacations, I rarely see any with couples expressing affection for one another in the shot. However, one of my students was showing me her vacation photos from a visit to Yosemite in the U.S. and she and her husband had their arms around each other. I remarked that I thought it looked very sweet. She told me that she wouldn't have done it if the picture had involved anyone except the two of them and she wouldn't have done it in front of other people in Japan. I got the impression that she felt that the picture would be spoiled for other people if they expressed affection physically in the photo. I guess this is why my husband and I were restrained in the group photo that was taken of us at Nikko.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Know It All
When I was about 12, my cousin and I were making cupcakes at my grandmother's house. We mixed the batter up in a big plastic bowl and were about to tip the bowl so that we could pour the contents into the individual slots in the muffin tin. As we went to pour it, my grandmother told us that we were never going to manage to pour the batter into the small holes of the tins without it overspilling because we couldn't pour a thin enough stream from such a wide bowl.
Since we were every bit the insufferable, know-it-all snots that most pre-teens are, we said we were sure that we could manage it. My grandmother, who knew a good bet, told us that she'd give us a dollar if we managed it and we'd each owe her a dollar if we failed. Confident in our ability to carefully pour the batter into each muffin cup, we made the bet and tipped the bowl over only to pour a not insignificant amount outside the first cup. Being cheap, insufferable, know-it-all snots, we claimed that the terms of the bet were not clearly defined and refused to pony up the dough.
Any person who is honest with herself is going to remember a time and an age when she thought she knew it all and the wisdom of those with more age and experience fell on her very deaf ears. Any person who has lived long enough will remember being that person more than once. I particularly recall spending a few college years thinking I knew as much as I was ever going to need to or could and that no one had much left to teach me nor was I far from being fully self-actualized. My cluelessness is quite striking in retrospect.
At this point in time, I'd say that the only true wisdom we can all possess is the irrefutable knowledge that there are serious limits to our wisdom and knowledge. This is a notion which is sadly lacking in the population of the Internet. The recent flap over (another) school banning Wikipedia for academic purposes reminded me of this. You will never meet as big a group of know-it-alls as you will find on the Internet. There are a good many people who appear to believe the collective knowledge of layman who sit behind their keyboards digesting tidbits of information on the web sites they browse makes them authorities on the topics they have a passing interest in. Mind you, most of these people don't even read a newspaper site on a daily basis and are gaining information in a way not too dissimilar from reading the backs of Trivial Pursuit cards. These people are outraged that Wikipedia isn't considered a legitimate source of information. They delight in deriding the validity of their textbooks and sniff at the indignity of having to go to some musty, old cavern of a library. Personally, I get the feeling these people haven't been to a library since the late 1800's since I haven't seen one that was dark, musty, or out-dated in my life-time. Most of them look very modern and have banks of computers.
The scary thing about the people who believe they know it all is that they lack awareness or understanding of what the difference is between the people who write textbooks and the people who make Wikipedia entries. They believe that the notion that information in books and journals has more academic value than what is freely available on the Internet is an elitist sentiment and implies that only intellectuals can offer up useful information. They fail to see that there's a difference between people who devote their lives to exploring a corner of a field and apply research principals to their work, write it up at length (taking years sometimes to complete their work), submit it for professional editing and peer review, and have it published and people who edit Wiki entries when they have some free time.
Recognizing the authors of scholarly journals and texts as credible and Wikipedia information as far less credible isn't a matter of believing knowledge can only be imparted by the well-educated and elite. It's about quality control and depth and recognizing that Internet sources are, by and large, lacking in both. When it comes to finding out what a word or concept you never heard of means for curiosity's sake, Wikipedia is your place to go, but it's not the place to research term papers or mine for thesis material.
The main problem with Wikipedia is that it's fast food information. It isn't even a really good source for pointing you to other good sources as its references are to other shallow Internet information sites. If you've ever done any real research in a college library, you'd know that the citations you get from journals are far better ways of pointing you to other sources than checking out links on Wikipedia. Those who feel Wikipedia is a first stop on the road to research don't have any idea how poor a resource it is because they don't know how vastly superior other resources are.
Wikipedia (for academic purposes) advocates are little different from my cousin and I trying to pour that batter out of a huge bowl into a small muffin tin slot for the first time. Our grandmother knew better than us because she had cooked and handled her bowls more than us. People who have actually done true research know how much better it is than researching on the Internet but, you're never going to convince the know-it-alls that they don't know it all. That includes knowing that banning Wikipedia for academic paper writing is probably a very good idea.
Since we were every bit the insufferable, know-it-all snots that most pre-teens are, we said we were sure that we could manage it. My grandmother, who knew a good bet, told us that she'd give us a dollar if we managed it and we'd each owe her a dollar if we failed. Confident in our ability to carefully pour the batter into each muffin cup, we made the bet and tipped the bowl over only to pour a not insignificant amount outside the first cup. Being cheap, insufferable, know-it-all snots, we claimed that the terms of the bet were not clearly defined and refused to pony up the dough.
Any person who is honest with herself is going to remember a time and an age when she thought she knew it all and the wisdom of those with more age and experience fell on her very deaf ears. Any person who has lived long enough will remember being that person more than once. I particularly recall spending a few college years thinking I knew as much as I was ever going to need to or could and that no one had much left to teach me nor was I far from being fully self-actualized. My cluelessness is quite striking in retrospect.
At this point in time, I'd say that the only true wisdom we can all possess is the irrefutable knowledge that there are serious limits to our wisdom and knowledge. This is a notion which is sadly lacking in the population of the Internet. The recent flap over (another) school banning Wikipedia for academic purposes reminded me of this. You will never meet as big a group of know-it-alls as you will find on the Internet. There are a good many people who appear to believe the collective knowledge of layman who sit behind their keyboards digesting tidbits of information on the web sites they browse makes them authorities on the topics they have a passing interest in. Mind you, most of these people don't even read a newspaper site on a daily basis and are gaining information in a way not too dissimilar from reading the backs of Trivial Pursuit cards. These people are outraged that Wikipedia isn't considered a legitimate source of information. They delight in deriding the validity of their textbooks and sniff at the indignity of having to go to some musty, old cavern of a library. Personally, I get the feeling these people haven't been to a library since the late 1800's since I haven't seen one that was dark, musty, or out-dated in my life-time. Most of them look very modern and have banks of computers.
The scary thing about the people who believe they know it all is that they lack awareness or understanding of what the difference is between the people who write textbooks and the people who make Wikipedia entries. They believe that the notion that information in books and journals has more academic value than what is freely available on the Internet is an elitist sentiment and implies that only intellectuals can offer up useful information. They fail to see that there's a difference between people who devote their lives to exploring a corner of a field and apply research principals to their work, write it up at length (taking years sometimes to complete their work), submit it for professional editing and peer review, and have it published and people who edit Wiki entries when they have some free time.
Recognizing the authors of scholarly journals and texts as credible and Wikipedia information as far less credible isn't a matter of believing knowledge can only be imparted by the well-educated and elite. It's about quality control and depth and recognizing that Internet sources are, by and large, lacking in both. When it comes to finding out what a word or concept you never heard of means for curiosity's sake, Wikipedia is your place to go, but it's not the place to research term papers or mine for thesis material.
The main problem with Wikipedia is that it's fast food information. It isn't even a really good source for pointing you to other good sources as its references are to other shallow Internet information sites. If you've ever done any real research in a college library, you'd know that the citations you get from journals are far better ways of pointing you to other sources than checking out links on Wikipedia. Those who feel Wikipedia is a first stop on the road to research don't have any idea how poor a resource it is because they don't know how vastly superior other resources are.
Wikipedia (for academic purposes) advocates are little different from my cousin and I trying to pour that batter out of a huge bowl into a small muffin tin slot for the first time. Our grandmother knew better than us because she had cooked and handled her bowls more than us. People who have actually done true research know how much better it is than researching on the Internet but, you're never going to convince the know-it-alls that they don't know it all. That includes knowing that banning Wikipedia for academic paper writing is probably a very good idea.
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