Japan: The Small Print

i never bothered to read the small print before coming here. but something seemed mighty odd. all the wincing smiles, the bowing, and the tweaked stress levels. 

there was something more than just a few Polite Lies being told. no, this isn't about that book, but the comments are worth a read. if you've got a moment to skim, you'll probably see why. 

Some Japanese and japanophile readers could be offended by the revelations about Japanese culture. -MoTisch

oh yeah, there was compassion, but that seemed to happen on very rare occasions and usually between the elder and the young, between the innocent and the retired, the newly arrived and the soon to be departed.

what was skewed? something was funny...

in one of those what's-it-like-to-live-in-japan conversations, it happened:

“Oh, you’ve just described something that sounds remarkably familiar.”

“What? Excuse me?”

“Read this book…it might help you in at least understanding what you see. Try out this lens. Here...”

“Thank you.”

so began the journey. the well-worn book. couldn’t put it down. and had to mark the pages that whacked me across the face. by the time it was finished, an ego had suffered a thoroughly refreshing beating.

when i first started asking people questions about this place, having a straight conversation was extremely difficult. the locals i was surrounded by were more focused on praising my chopstick abilities while in some kind of silent agreement with each other, an entire town maybe, an agreement that they don’t talk about the invisible high school, just like that junior high, the one with all the problems.

“Like the drunk, the Addictive System is fundamentally dishonest; it is just more subtle about it.” (50)

yeah, subtle or polite, but not always...

Here’s a set of three… Levels of Lying: to ourselves, to others, and to the world. (51)

while reading this next part, it was too easy to replace family with country and community with world.

“Often, the alcoholic family is perceived as on of the most stable and upstanding in the community. They put on a good front even though chaos reigns at home. Meanwhile, family members are expected to support the lie they live. They get confused and crazy and gradually come to distrust their own perceptions. They lose their ability to distinguish between truth and lying, and the potential for honesty becomes even more remote.” (51)

and about that tatemae facade, yeah, there’s something there too that rings a bell.

“Asking a question when one does not want to know the answer is dishonest.”(56)

at one point, i had to put the book down and ask myself. is this just a case of my seeing patterns in the noise, making connections where there are none? apophenia? damn, so it does have a name after all.

“Distorting reality requires that we deny our own experience, the messages our bodies send us, and our inner selves. Our behavior gets progressively crazier, but we think we are behaving more logically and rationally.” (63)

okay, so the denial thing, that i can relate to. and i do think that i have witnessed some crazy behavior. no, not in the stark-raving-mad kind of way…a little more subtle, sometimes just. 

feeling confused? me too.

“The Role of Confusion”

“Confusion…plays an important role within [the] system. First, it keeps us powerless and controllable. No one is more controllable than a confused person; no society is more controllable than a confused society. Second, it keeps us ignorant…Third, it keeps us from taking responsibility for our own lives…Fourth, it keeps us busy.” (65)

and so it goes.

yeah, not only do we got us some confusion here, we got some denial to go along with it.

“Denial allows us to avoid coming to terms with what is really going on inside us and in front of our eyes…When we refuse to see what we see and know what we know, we participate in a dishonest system and help to perpetuate it.” (67)

dropping down through perfectionism, effortlessly falling through forgetfulness, slamming through dependency…and not even halfway down that hole…

“As long as we refuse to see what we see and know what we know, we can accept the system and actively support it. When we lower our defenses and start trusting our own perceptions, we become a threat.” (81)

nothing to fear but fear itself...temperature's starting to drop now

well...after having dealt with isolation that comes with trying to have a simple conversation, a simple dialogue maybe, about what i thought i saw, the day has finally arrived. 

only a few years ago, i would have been seriously confused if someone told me that technology is not really welcome in japan. 

so, back to the opening statement. no, i never read the small print before coming here. probably because of all the beautiful and oh so subtle lies that were being spread.  

whatever...
 
 All quotes provided with page number are from When Society Becomes an Addict, by Anne Wilson Schaef.