The Not-so-art of Bowing

My mom sent me a link to this article about the way the Toyota corporation, in particular the president Toyoda-san, has been criticized for his failure to show proper contrition over his company's failure, in particular with respect to the apology bow he made. It also talks a lot about bowing in general, and it is actually a very well written article with some interesting information, which I feel is framed in a kind of unfortunate, destructive way. She asked me what I thought of it, and my e-mail response kind of turned into an article, which I figured some of you might be interested in. You should go read the article at any rate, but if you're in a hurry the gist of it is "Toyoda-san has been accused of offering a short, insincere bow for a fairly serious f-up, and the company has suffered for his failed bow."

Sigh. I mean, there are certainly parts of it which I agree with, but as I said I think the way the article as a whole is framed is kind of problematic. The truth is bowing, almost all of it, is pretty involuntary. You don't really sit around going "Oh gosh, I really should hit about 80 degrees on this one", you just bow to a level and duration, and in a style, appropriate to the situation.

For big, awkward foreigners this seems like it would (and does) take a fair amount of thinking, which is coincidentally why big, awkward foreigners are not expected to bow appropriately. But for Japanese people, they've witnessed these complex hierarchical interactions like...a hundred billion times by the time they are an adult. That number is probably not an exaggeration. You bow like, every 30 seconds. It means "hello", "let's begin", "thank you", "I'm sorry" or sometimes it's just an acknowledgment that the other person exists. We do the same thing in America, nodding at someone on the street if you make eye-contact.

The problem is that when you read articles like this, you get the idea that Toyoda-san f-ed up his bow. Like, he was thinking too hard and screwed up the gesture. That seems to be what the article is focusing on, but this just isn't what happened. Toyoda-san misread the severity of the situation, and his bow reflected this misread. It wasn't "his bow wasn't deep enough" it was "His apology wasn't deep enough. His mortification wasn't deep enough. His shame for his company wasn't deep enough." The bow merely reflected this.

So what the article does is it portrays the situation from a big, awkward foreigner's viewpoint, and ultimately ends up doing the whole "Ohh, Japan is so exotic and foreign. Look at the elaborate social custom of bowing, you sure couldn't understand that could you?" shtick which is ultimately harmful to the general cause of mutual understanding. Think of some of the JETs over here who haven't been studying the country for years now. They feel awkward as hell just about every day because they're not used to bowing, I sure did at first, and when they read something like this and it just reinforces their belief that they can never learn how to bow properly because it's just too complicated. Trust me, you could, if you spent 20 years growing up in Japan.

Anyone could.

Shit, I understand bowing for the most part and I've been here a combined year at this point. I even know how to bow sarcastically. It's not that hard, and you can always always get away with the gaijin "basically a head-nod" bow. Eventually you will start to get instincts for "oooh, I f-ed that up, they're all way lower than I am", and your bows start to instinctively reflect the social situation, along with your way of speaking, and your way of moving. We do the last 2 in America, we just don't realize it because it's not as much of an overt part of our culture. You don't talk to your boss the same way you talk to your kids. You also don't bow to your boss the same way you bow to your kids. Eventually, you'll learn. And chances are you are significantly smarter than the average gradeschooler, which means that you'll be able to learn it faster.

Nothing in the world is so complicated that you cannot learn it with enough time and exposure. The danger, perhaps the only danger, is in convincing yourself that you cannot.

Chindogu

珍度具 (Chindogu) is a Japanese word defining an invention which on the surface appears to solve a problem or serve a useful function, but in fact creates additional problems or would be incredibly embarrassing or cumbersome to actually use. All sorts of fantastically weird inventions have been produced, from slippers for your cat so that it can help with the housework, to an all day tissue dispenser which essentially amounts to a roll of toilet paper attached to your head. One of the chindogu I seriously considered putting together while living in Tokyo was a plunger that attaches to your head, which you can then attach to a train window, to prevent you from slumping into any number of the hilarious yet oh so embarrassing positions in which Tokyo train-goers are often found. Here's a website I found with some examples. Read the linked to articles about the feud between a random Chinese Jessica Alba lookalike and Jessica Alba at your own peril.


At any rate, I was lead to believe that chindogu is somewhat of an enthusiasts hobby here in Japan. People do it basically for the thrill of making something completely, to use their lingo "unuseless". or at least this is what I was lead to believe until about 10 minutes ago. I'm watching Japanese infomercials, or rather something like "the top 30 most seemingly useful but actually totally chindogu kitchen appliances". From the combination shabu-shabu, yakiniku plate, to the home yogurt maker, to the "mysterious plate" which allows you to fry things in the microwave, these are some of the most chindogu things I have ever seen, presented in such a questionably serious fashion. They even have the little Japanese "tarento" in the corner gasping and wowing along, although to give them credit half the time the look in their eyes is certainly one of "If I hold the laughter in for another second I may die." Oh man, it just ended and now they're talking about it all. First comment: "well, the names of the products were really good."

There is pretty much nothing good on Japanese TV, ever. It's like an elaborate satire, a meta-satire even because eventually you have to start reminding yourself just how ridiculous it is to be watching a team of questionably famous people answer questions while running back and forth between a toy train track where a train with a needle on the front threatens to pop a balloon unless you lift the balloon out of the way every 15 seconds or so when it makes a lap. It gets normal.

But for all its inherent fluffiness, it is absolutely fascinating, and man does it ever make for some amazing background noise. I could half-watch Japanese tv forever. Maybe that's what it's designed for. Having on while you do other things. I think that actually explains a lot about the way Japanese tv tends to operate. Very small, independent chunks. A lot of back and forth banter between an ever revolving cast of tarento, just long enough that you come to know them, and be familiar with them, but don't have time to get bored of them.

Either way, as soon as the weather warms up and it stops raining (as it has every day for about 2 weeks now) I am mowing a 6x3 patch of my lawn, laying down a towel, and reading in the sun. I got through about 200 pages today, granted of manga but still a pretty substantial amount of words. I'm getting faster, and having to skip less. I'd almost call myself literate at this point...almost. As long as I don't have to read aloud I'm pretty much golden. I'm very excited to see where I am at the end of my 2 years here.

It's not you, it's me

Posts have been infrequent lately, and I just want you all to know that it's not permanent. I have stumbled upon great truths to happiness and success, and am going through a long process of meditating on, and integrating them into the way I run my life. It feels fantastic, but some things are getting turned down low while my focus is elsewhere. There will still be posts, but until I can sit down and rework the way I treat this blog to make it less of a chore and obligation more or something I actually want to do, I just don't feel right throwing stuff up just to fulfill my Operational Blog Quota, or whatever you want to call it.

Kikai has just entered into what the locals call "the dead of winter" and I call "the first day of spring". Funny, that. It's over 20 C, and we got a rare break in the weather because whoever is doing the forecasting scribbled a whole line of angry storm clouds all over my week, and today was sunny and pleasant. Island - 1, Science - 0. Take that weather prediction!

I took the opportunity to ride around on my increasingly broken bike, and take some photos.








There, those are some of the things I'm seeing. Sunset over the harbor, the island Sakura (Japanese cherry trees) are just about in full bloom, and for it being the "dead of winter" there is alarming amount of fruit, and greenery.

I'm going to go be alarmingly productive now. If any of you have any specific questions or concerns about my charming little patch of island real-estate feel free to leave a comment with some questions, or send me an e-mail. I think you all know the address. It might strike a chord and inspire an actual post, or I might just write you back.

これからだよ

On the virtues of Japanese television

I believe that the world at large is beginning, in our modern age of youtube, to get some idea of exactly how surreal Japanese television is on any given day. The popularity of shows like Ninja Warrior and the whole human-tetris phenomenon speak to some level of the warped world of Japanese pop entertainment appealing to the world at large.

When I first got here, I neither understood, nor enjoyed Japanese television on any level. It was frustrating, impossible to keep up with even with the subtitles, and for some reason they kept putting these little picture in pictures of Japanese celebrities who seemed to do nothing except gasp and laugh at the show, which they were not actually participating in.

Lately, as part of Project Literacy, I have actually been watching a fair amount of tv. I didn't even touch the thing for the first 4-5 months here, but now that I can't go to the beach every day I'm spending more time in my house, and can't always muster the wherewithal to focus on reading something. At these times, tv provides useful background noise, especially when I'm doing something in English and music would be too distracting. It was profoundly useful as something that was interesting, but entirely ignorable.

At least until today. So I'm watching a show which I actually struggle to describe in English. Japan really likes "The top X" type shows, varying from "Top x weirdest animals!" "Top 3 most popular meals at every train station along a route!". Today's top x, is "Top 30 instant noodle meals".



It is literally two guys, getting served bowl after bowl of instant ramen, eating it, and talking about how awesome it is in a fashion which is so Japanese it makes my teeth hurt.

But for me, this particular moment in Japanese televised oddity, will always hold a special place. So I'm sitting here, trying to study my kanji while the dudes on screen slurp down bowl after bowl of ramen, and I'm getting all frustrated because for some reason I just cannot focus on the kanji! Damn dudes and their ramen just keep on distracting me! It's not even that interesting! Most of the noodles probably taste exactly the same!

And that's when it hit me. I'm being distracted by Japanese, and not in like a "screaming children way". Even when I'm not focusing on it, trying to understand it, my brain is deriving substantial meaning from it. My brain is starting to understand Japanese passively.

This. Is. Crazy.

My god if manzai starts being funny I am going to shit a brick...