No Machine Can Do My Job As Resentfully As I Can

indeed!

A machine can break down mechanically, but can it break down emotionally, mentally, and spiritually?

I can, and I have. Every day, a little piece of me dies. Could a machine say the same?

I've worked at this unventilated shit-prison 12 hours a day for nearly 25 years. I have developed no skills other than that of silently counting down the minutes of each workday while cursing my misfortune.

No matter what else they take from me, my utter and total hatred of this nightmarish fish-stick factory will always be mine. After all, isn't that what makes us truly human?

Interpretation

Clifford Geertz, for those not in the know, is an anthropologist famous for writing about "interpretation". One of his best known examples is the difference between a wink and a blink. According to him (actually, according to someone else he borrowed this example from... Gilbert Ryle I think), these two things have completely different meanings but the same behaviour. A blink is a just a physiological response, whether voluntary or not. A wink indiciates something, say irony or seduction. Or it can be an ironic wink based on the meaning of an ordinary wink... and so on. From this, he argues that anthropologists job is to do the "thick description" which allows us to interpret the meaning behind the wink or the blink. Simple observations won't due. You need to understand the "web of symbols". Thats my cliff note version from what I recall by memory.

Anyway, so a couple months ago I came across this article in the New York Times. Basically it is talking about New York/Wall Street types who have lost their jobs with the economic recession but still, everyday, get up in their best work clothes and go out, sort of "pretending" that they are still working. The article then jumps off into psychology and how this can be a good thing, "an effective social strategy [for coping]".

“I have a new client, a laid-off lawyer, who’s commuting in every day — to his Starbucks,” said Robert C. Chope, a professor of counseling at San Francisco State University and president of the employment division of the American Counseling Association. “He gets dressed up, meets with colleagues, networks; he calls it his Western White House. I have encouraged him to keep his routine.”

It then goes on to discuss lots of psychological research on "pride." At the time, what really struck me is how radically different I thought this would be interpreted if you had the same behavior/"data" in Japan, while also being something I could easily envision happening here. I figured if you had a story about Japanese white collar workers, who had lost their job, waking up everyday and putting on their suit, but not to do anything in particular, it would be not cast at all in terms of universalist psychology of pride but of the specific and unique culture of Japan, with particular attention to a "culture of work". On the other hand, it was somewhat amusing because its a good example of how similar the US and Japan really are in some ways, as I kind of also thought this seems like the sort of phenomena that would happen much more there than, I don't know, Canada or Italy. The discrepancy I can't help but feel is partly about how these are interpreted through certain kinds of (orientalist) prisms. To clarify the part about orientalist, that means it is based on the fact that the West (especially the US) is powerful and sort of dictates what is "universal" and thereby relegating everyone else to "particular"--like Japan. This universal/particular dichotomy is sort of ubiquitous, and Japanese help it along by themselves. So much, so, I figured, that identical behaviours would be split along these lines and interpreted radically differently. Its not so simple as "webs of meaning" when those meanings also come from somewhere (like colonialism in a broad sense, though Japan was never officially colonized, as well as nationalist projects of state-building spread through the education system and mass media).

Anyway this is just an inkling I had. Then today I was reading this article in New York Review of Books (gated unfortunately) by Ian Buruma. Partly it is a review of a new movie Tokyo Sonata. According to him, the movie is about a middle-ranking Japanese salaryman who gets laid off work, who "like so many of his real-life counterparts...prefers to spend his days on a park bench rather than tell his family about his lost job". This is not an uncommon occurrence, Buruma says:

[A] common sight these days in public parks, as well as libraries, are men in dark business suits quietly reading the papers, for hours on end. These are the middle-ranking corporate men who cannot face the humiliation of letting family and neighbors know that their companies have no more use for them. So they pretend to go to work, even after being laid off. Economic misery and rising unemployment are hitting older people especially hard.

Buruma's bone to pick is really the "Japanese system" as such, with all the main tropes that this includes: so-called lifetime employment, powerful bureaucrats, a stagnant democracy, US patronage. He traces this to post-war recovery but specifically the Yoshida deal:

The middle class was offered a deal: material wealth in exchange for political acquiescence, a virtual one-party state with no more protests, and the dutiful army of salarymen would be taken care of. Labor unions had been pretty much tamed, sometimes with the strong-arm help of gangsters. And Japanese pacifism was guaranteed by a constitution, written by Americans in 1946, which banned the use of armed force...
This system, put in place in 1955, when the LDP [Japan's main political party and in almost constant control for the last 50 years] was formed, and cemented in 1960, suited the Japanese political and business elite who could now concentrate on industrial expansion. It suited most Japanese, who wanted nothing more to do with war...And it suited the US, which wanted Japan to be a reliable bastion against communism. So CIA money stocked coffers of the LDP for several decades, to make sure all signs of leftisim were kept at bay.

Buruma basically links these macropolitics together with the laid off salaryman and his park reading together quite tightly:

There is in this behavior a link, I believe, with the unemployed salarymen reading their papers all day on park benches. It is a deliberate rejection of reality, a flight into make-believe. And this, in turn, is echoed by the behavior of the Japanese government itself. One of the most commonly cited reasosn for the depth and length of the economic slump that started in the 1990s was the refusal of the government to acknowledge the diastrous state of Japanese banks, as though problems would go away if everyone pretended things were all right.

So there it is. The Japanese salaryman, a stagnant relic of the bubble years, is just like the Japanese government. Of course, China is also in here somewhere, as the rising superpower in Asia who will soon (perhaps inevitably) eclipse Japan. Rather puzzlingly, Buruma then seems to focus a lot on Japan's pacifist constitution, almost hinting that a re-militarized right would be just the thing for Japan. This is somehow mixed in with the call for a more vibrant, dynamic democracy. The latter sounds nice like apple pie, but its hard to see how that relates much at all to economics when you compare Japan to China and the US.

This article is not really so much cultural troping as I imagined such a thing would be. In fact its quite right in a number of ways about Japanese history and politics, at least it seems to me. On the other hand, still I think it does do a number of things. First off, as it relates to America, and despite this article acknowledging the recent failure of the "America model," it seems to miss a few things. Like a militarized right? How did that work out in the US the last 8 years? Or perhaps the last 30? And while Japan has some trouble with banking, perhaps, this doesn't seem to be so serious as banks in one other country in particular. The current Japanese slump he correctly points out is based a lot on Japan's heavy reliance on exports. But that just means Japan is slumping because the US is slumping. Further, since he is then comparing Japan to China, China is also an exporter and is also slumping (recent factory closures and resultant protest action in Guangdong). Not being an economist, and with China such a closed place, I can't say for sure, but I really can't think China can still be the same darling-child now that everyone has been pegging it as for the last few years. In fact, its comical that he could blame the "Yoshida deal"---trading middle class political activity for economic prosperity---when if there is one single place on earth where, as a tacit agreement between the state and the citizenry, political freedom is exchanged for a rapidly expanding economy, it seems that place would be China.

That's the economics and politics. But also, even though it is quite light, it does seem like some cultural imagery is slipped in there. None of it is explicit in the vulgar way such things often are: "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down", so-called collectivism, "saving face". But these are all referenced implicitly---salaryman and politicians don't try to be exceptional or challenged things, laid off workers can't tell their family and friends because of humiliation. But overall the main troping is that Japanese live in a fantasy world, one of manga and anime, of melodrama, of ignoring economic problems. It reminds me of when sometimes people say that Japanese are immature/child-like because they like cute things or whatever. This seems to completely miss the point that a Japanese might think a Westerner is child-like because they can't properly control their emotional outbursts, or any number of other things. And the infantilizing also I think has a lot to do with exoticism mixed with fear.

So it does reinforce stereotypes of Japanese. Meanwhile, the New Yorkers each have their therapist telling them that pride is a good, healthy thing.

One last thing:these interpretations have a hint of truth. In fact, work is quite important in Japan, in the sense of work as making you a certain kind of valuable person. That is that working itself is a value, relatively speaking to an American, rather than the results as such (in a grossly generalized way). The motive for hanging out in the park may be more about other people's opinions of you as a person for a Tokyoite while more about personal feelings of failure and fufillment for the New Yorker. Or another way of putting it---maybe the Tokyoite is worried about not having a job as such, the New Yorker is worried about not having an income as such. Slightly different things. So how do you mix Clifford Geertz with Edward Said (and other post-colonial theorists)?

The ethnographer's mask

Swine flu has now landed in Osaka. This has resulted in a fair amount of panic. Yesterday, the homestay family went to visit grandparents and I was originally planning to go into Osaka, but my plans got cancelled. So I was sitting at home, watching downloaded TV shows on my laptop when I got a cellphone email: "Please put the mask in Osaka. Watch a news program". I think I let out an audible sigh, lucky I was by myself. Apparently they are selling or sold out of masks now. Of course I was told to wear mine on the train this morning. About 25-30% of the people, I'd say, were wearing them. My language teacher told me the other day that when Japanese people went to Canada and came back (I heard Canada is where a couple of the people up in Tokyo got swine flu) they were being asked (on TV?) why didn't you wear the mask??? I told her that Japanese people wearing masks in Canada may reinforce unflattering stereotypes of the Japanese. On the other hand, a friend I bumped into today on the bus, when I asked her about wearing a mask, she laughed and said no, and don't I think it's a little bit crazy? Yeah, a bit. 7000-8000 people have been infected in the world, and what? 70 people have died? And aren't all those people in the Americas, and most of them because they were old or ill otherwise? kawai [scary]?... I'm more scared of second-hand smoke in the bars.

Anyway, so I can't help, again, to feel a bit of, well, contempt for the hysteric. But then I was reminded of something someone said to me about a year ago. He was a PhD student in philosophy, but supervised by an anthropologist. Anyway, he told me, after we had been discussing something which I no longer remember, that I need to work on my "ethnography face" because I have a tendency to give away, in my expression, that I think what people are telling me is sort of idiotic. Like it's in my eyes, mouth, this look of "what you are saying is complete bullshit". He said, really, this is not good for an ethnographer and that his supervisor, for example, has the correct anthropologist's expression mastered. He can just sit there, with a straight and agreeable face, nodding along, while people tell him the most absurd things. At the time this struck me that perhaps he has a bit of a point. He's right, I think, that if you look at people like they are stupid, they're not going to want to talk to you!

So I feel a bit guilty thinking that everyone wearing these masks are acting paranoid. And really trying to bite my tongue. Like I guess its ethnocentric or something. For me, discussions in anthropology about ethnocentricity tend to be more multiculturalist platitude than actual thinking. But is there any thing to do other than just keep telling yourself, a bit stupidly, "when in Rome..."?

Different Masks; The example of swine flu

At Julie's spurning, I'll try to write a post. A timely topic would seem to be the swine flu. Perhaps I'm just not taking things seriously enough, but I can't help but feel that this is a kind of irrational global panic. Almost makes me buy into the conspiracy theorists screaming "They want you to live in fear so you don't know the TRUTH!". Almost. Okay not really. But still I've received, on both my University email account and on my company email account, notes that basically tell me I should try to be careful not to catch swine flu. Where's the emails telling me to be careful when I cross the street? This is not to say we shouldn't have disease control by medical professionals, quarantines of infected patients, whatever. Its more the spread of panic throughout the general populace that seems disconcerting. For example, why such the buzz in Japan when there have been no reported infections of swine flu in the entire country (last time I saw). Yesterday, getting ready for work, my homestay parents came to me with a mask to wear on the train. They had already pushed me to wear the mask on the train before, and in this instance I (relunctantly) decided to concede to their request. It wouldn't be very nice for me to contract the virus and spread it to them, after refusing their simple request to wear a mask for a few minutes on the train.

On the masks: I can't remember if I've blogged about it before, but in Japan it is very common practice for people to be wearing these masks out in public. They are exactly what you imagine a surgical mask is: a white thing that wraps around your ears and covers up your mouth, nose, and much of the bottom half of your face in a way that reminds me vaguely of a Ninja. Usually they are used when people have a cold and don't want it spread to others, when they travel on the train and don't want to catch anything themselves, or when suffering from seasonal allergies (which are quite bad in Japan). This seems quite logical to the (Japanese) people I've asked. They were, in fact, quite surprised that people in other countries don't do this. One interesting thought was that in Japan, when you get sick, you are still expected to go to work. Therefore the mask helps to stop the spread of the disease among coworkers. This contrasts with Canada, where usually the boss prefers you to just stay home, get better quickly, and avoid spreading illness throughout their entire work force.

Anyway, partly what I find quite interesting about the face masks is not just the use of them, but the explanations that these invariably trigger from Western people (whether anthropologists or otherwise). I've read a bit on the internet, some blogs, talked to some Americans or Europeans I know here about it. As you might imagine if you have some familiarity with stereotypes of Japan, a quick explanation is that Japan is a "collectivist" or "communal" culture. The logic is simple. In Japan, you must be always thoughtful of other people. So you wear the face mask (which I really found uncomfortable--makes it stuffy and hard to breath). This is a sign of respect towards others. Of course, the tone is that in Japan it is obsessively so. That is "obsessively thoughtful" or "obsessive respect".

At first glance that seems a plausible explanation I suppose, though its not one I've gotten exactly from Japanese people. They tend to focus on the actual "natural" or "scientific" reason for wearing it. You've got allergies. The mask stops the pollen. So why wouldn't you wear a mask? It just makes sense. The same with illnesses. There's no reason to spread your sickness to other people if you can help it. That just makes sense. The train is filled with people coughing all over you. Its packed full of people, since Japanese trains are very busy. Its the same thing as when you fly and you always get sick from that recycled air. Again, it just makes sense to wear the mask. I must admit, it kind of does. If thats the case, why don't we wear the masks in Canada or England?

I don't think too many Westerners would say because we are callous people and/or we are too stupid to protect our own bodies. My bit of experience would be that people will debate the actual practical benefits of these masks. Maybe they don't help. Maybe you catch the flu or cold because you touch things on the train and don't wash your hands. It has nothing to do with breathing in germs, so the face masks are superfluous. But washing your hands and "gargling" are also ("obsessively") stressed in Japan, definitely in my homestay family anyway. A quick response would be to return to a cultural explanation of that: Japan is a society that stresses cleanliness (not exactly wrong). That's why people wash their hands. Add back in the old cultural explanation: people wear the masks in order to fit into a group. That's a Japanese thing to do! Again, maybe not exactly wrong. Face masks are Japanese culture.

But this to me really represents an interesting question about social and cultural "explanations" of behavior. Because, like I said, people wear the masks because they think it protects them. Surprisingly often when I ask why a Japanese person why they do something a certain way, they will say "culture" (another interesting issue). But facemasks are not one of those times.. So I was really curious whether there have been actual studies on the effectiveness of masks. I saw a few, but nothing really conclusive. It would probably be hard to really map the epidemiology of such common and undocumented illneses as colds and flus on an entire society anyway(I would imagine, not being an epidemiologist I couldn't say). But, as a thought experiment, it seems perfectly reasonable that you could find the masks really do help. On the other hand, you could find the masks are useless. Both are completely plausible.

What do these two possibilities do for the kinds of explanations we would probably find, though? In the first case, the impetus would therefore be: how do we combat the "cultural" resistance of, say, Westerners, where people refuse to wear masks, for whatever superfluous reasons as aesthetics, comfort, machoism, etc. How can we clear their minds so they are like the logical, naturalistic, scientific Japanes?. But if its the second, you get a situation where the Westerners are being common sensical and the Japanese are burdening themselves with social and cultural fluff. "Obsessive" again.

It's kind an inflection of the Universal, with a capital U. Sombody needs to be on the side of Reason. But who can it be, when everyone seems to have their reasons? I think it presents a big problem for instance in the way anthropology is done (and how it comes up with explanations for various kinds of behavior). One anthropological way of looking at is just to go relativist and say well we all just do it our way because that is what our culture "tells" us to do. But that, to me, seems to underestimate basically everyone's intelligence. On the other hand, I think this issue with universalism also presents different kinds of problems for the strategies and assumptions that I think development agencies use when they are working on something like health policy in Africa. Maybe I am being unfair, but it seems like they tend to assume simply that they have the "universal" medical knowledge and they need to lift the fog of custom. But, like I pointed out before, it is neither simply that nor its straightforward negation that is quite right.

Anyway, I still don't like having to wear a face mask on the train.

Olivia Harris

Professor Olivia Harris

We are very sorry to announce that Olivia Harris died in her sleep at University College Hospital on the morning of 9th April. She had been suffering from cancer.

Olivia's funeral will be held at 2:30pm on on Tuesday 28 April at Southwark Cathedral. Everyone is welcome to attend.

The department will be closed from 1.00pm on the afternoon of Tuesday 28th April and all teaching will be cancelled.

Sad news from LSE Anthro

Tourism

In Kyoto, a Call Not to Trample the Geisha

Interesting, when I was in Kyoto I was too shy to ask take photos of geisha/maiko I saw, though I did notice other foreigners (wish there was a more nuanced term but whatever) had no qualms just taking out their big DSLR, snapping a photo on some taken aback or shy group of maiko without asking, and continuing along.

In the article, what really strikes me are the quotes:

• “They have lived through the ages and remain to this day,” said Ponkka. “They are unlike anything else you see in Japan. Most of Japanese culture today is just a mixture of things from overseas.”
• “You don’t know who they are and what they do, and so much of them is hidden,” said Anna Kalshoven, a visitor from Amsterdam. “They are like the exact opposite of what we are and what we know” in the West.

What the hell? Okay, I guess they picked the most sensationalist quotes they could find and a fine understanding of the critique of cultural essentialism and orientalism shouldn't be expected. But still... What the hell?

Anyway, this was interesting:

• Yuji Nakanishi, professor of tourism at Rikkyo University in Saitama near Tokyo, said that the friction over tourist behavior arises from a perception gap. “Japanese tend to associate tourism with historical landmarks, but foreigners are interested in people’s lives and their lifestyles,” he said. “Places like the fish market were never really considered a tourist site until quite recently, so both sides are really confused.”

Now I can see this when you are talking about tourism IN JAPAN. Japanese people, as tourists in Japan, go to temples or shrines or so on. But I'm not sure this is true when they go to other countries (in fact it flatly contradicts the stereotype of camera-trigger-happy Japanese people taking pictures of dogs and Subway fastfood joints, problematic as that image may be). Even in Japan, its not unknown for someone to subtly try to take a picture of me. And, while I do have my occassional bouts of egomania, I don't consider myself to be an historical landmark. Plus, I also thought it interesting how they are saying the foreigners treat Gion/Kyoto as a theme park, which made me really think I need to get around to reading this book which is on the creation of "foreign-themed" parks inside Japan.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Japanese 'villages' and their exotic occupants delighted and mystified visitors to the Great Exhibitions and Worlds' Fairs . At the beginning of the 21st Century, Japanese tourists have reversed the gaze and now may visit a range of European 'countries', as well as several other cultural worlds, without ever leaving the shores of Japan. This book suggests that these and other exciting Asian theme parks pose a challenge to Western notions of leisure, education, and entertainment.

Is this a case of reverse orientalism? Or is it simply a commercial follow-up on the success of Tokyo Disneyland? Is it an appropriation by one rich nation of a whole world of cultural delights from the countries that have influenced its twentieth-century success? Can the parks be seen as political statements about the heritage on which Japan now draws so freely? Or are they new forms of ethnographic museum?

Examining Japanese parks in the context of a variety of historical examples of cultural display in Europe, the U.S. and Australia, as well as other Asian examples, the author calls into question the too easy adoption of postmodern theory as an ethnocentrically Western phenomenon and clearly shows that Japan has given theme parks an entirely new mode of interpretation.

Well, off to Bangkok tomorrow. Let the tourism begin!

The Singularity

Amazing these both appear on the same day:

Computer Program Self-Discovers the Laws of Physics

First Robot Scientist Makes Gene Discovery

Let's see them do anthropology...