A dangerous sweatshirt

Though pictures and shenanigans of the overall awesome semester break trip will be put up soon, first some musing.

I feel like Kelly must be a little bit prescient when he sends the Light Fellowship email because the latest question about running into a clash of cultures came at exactly the time my group did such a thing. Really, nothing that scandalous, but for the sake of not repeating gossip there's no need to recount the actual events here. I wasn't involved, but in short, various flirtations and cuddles between the Japanese college students we traveled with over the weekend and our group escalated to the point that friends of the Nihonjin involved got defensive and angry.

The words used: "We have different cultures. We're not like you, and we don't do that." I took it upon myself to try to repair things, since a combination of sobriety and language skills left me more capable than the friends actually involved. I apologized in the most humble keigo I could muster, full of わたくし達s and お間違いいたしましたs。I hate keigo. As I said the words, I felt the shame inherent to the language of groveling so lowly. I understand the reasons to speak in exultant language regarding the person to honor, but see no reason why this must be accompanied with talking degradingly about oneself, or why one in the position of 先輩 is entitled to speak down to the other. Even daily Japanese is full of such language: when entering a home, "おじゃまします"means I'm being a nuisance, when you leave "失礼します" means I have commited rudeness. As ritualized expressions, the literal meaning hardly matters, but when ways of negating the value of the self through constant self scorn are so deeply ingrained into speech I wonder if it doesn't impact the general mindset of native speakers.

Of the three incidents of the night, two set off drama, and the third had absolutely zero repercussions. The difference? Two were known by all, and one was discreet. Not secret, because certainly a lot of my friends knew about it, but it was out of sight enough that we could all assume that even though everyone "knew" about it, it wasn't "visible" and therefore was a non-issue.

I'm about to go on a tangent- bear with me, because I'm coming back to this.

I was recently shown some materials prepared for post-grad JET Fellows dealing with handling their sexuality as anything other than heteronormative in highly normative Japan. A few lines from it really struck me:

"In the West, you are either gay or straight (or maybe bi). But here I’ve noticed that it’s not uncommon for men to have a wife and kids, and also have a male lover “on the side,” or engage in anonymous, random gay sex on occasion. In some respects, I think it’s more acceptable for people (men especially) to engage in homosexual sexual behavior – as long as it’s not discussed or mentioned in public. It’s sort of an “anything goes” culture – as long as you don’t talk about it! "

In western culture, the "immorality" of sexuality, whether impure thoughts or premarital or queer, stems heavily from the Judeo-Christian tradition that is inexorably tied up in our culture, mores, and politics. In Japan, the Chrisitian influence is there (my host mom is presbyterian) but never puritanical or evangelical. The predominant religions, Buddhism and Shinto, are not dogmas in the same way as the bible and its commandments. And in my admittedly limited knowledge of Japanese history, religion wasn't really used as justification for political acts the way it has been in the west. Example- most of the crusades can be argued to be more the driven by the plunder of war or a corrupt papacy or territorial struggle rather than the holy mission they claimed. In contrast to that, the closest case I can think of to a Japanese war of religion is when the Shogunate 幕府 government prohibited Christianity at the penalty of death, actively persecuting believers through the use of 踏み絵. But this religious genocide was not excused by saying it was the religious duty of the dominant power, but rather the shogunate was much more candid about the necessity to consolidate its own control by crushing opposing factions and prevent foreign influence.

Now that I've weaseled all over the mulberry bush, back to the previous story of the weekend's events. I feel like the negative reaction to やらしい behavior was not based in moral decency, but rather the visibilty of propriety. When the Japanese man involved in the discreet incident professed his love and offered to break up with his current girlfriend so that he could get with the American girl, suddenly I have a hard time accepting "we have different cultures, we don't do that" as this universal blanket statement of the moral and cultural superiority of Japan.

It seems like some things that the West professes to be driven by a moral consideration, Japan would attribute to the much more practical measuring tool of social order. Even when the West uses moral excuses to justify more pragmatic reasons (ie the crusades), it seems that for once Japan is direct in its thinking and argues immediately to the end result of pragmatism (ie the expectation of social propriety). In some ways I appreciate this comparative candor, but take some gripes with how it seems the moral issue isn't given full worth. The discreet event had more potential than the other two to be morally bad, but because it wasn't brought up in public it was perfectly acceptable.

Of course, it's entirely possible I'm overattributing significance to things, too. Everything turned out alright in the end, and when I apologized the Japanese insisted everything was fine (though the finer points of the explanation I couldn't translate). In the morning, they all acted as though nothing had ever happened.

Another perspective- James was talking with Shunsuke and learned a Japanese fable where the Wise Old Man gives advice on cherishing the earth and the Lying Man tells people how to cheat their way to more money. Those who listened to the Lying Man end up broke and miserable, and those who listened to the Wise Old Man have bountiful harvests and are happy. At the end, James said, oh, so it's about valuing what's important and not being materialistic. Shunsuke corrected him, no, it means you're supposed to listen to your elders. Hmm. Ponder this distinction in viewpoints.