Culture-shock depressurization chamber

[imomus]

Where solo is sociable, my latest Wired column, continues the individualist-collectivist dialectic that's been going on here at Click Opera over the last couple of weeks. "Shouldn't individualist societies cater better to the needs of individuals, and collectivist societies cater worse to them? How come it seems to be the other way around?" the article asks. "In a truly individualistic culture, you shouldn't have to feel "quirky" when you're out and about alone, should you?" (By the way, thanks for helping me "collectivize" the writing of the article, all those who commented last week! In the end, though, being the hopeless maverick I am, I just submitted it as originally written. To fit in all the issues you raised would have needed book-space, and a whole chapter of acknowledgements. And the idea of collectively-written articles is a pretty grey one, morally and legally. Writing an article for a magazine isn't folk music, even if blogging kind of is.)

My article concludes: "Given current U.S. trends toward living, working and playing alone, the infrastructure of American cities could benefit from resembling a little more the monad-welcoming floating world of the Japanese city". It's a rather provocative statement, and I'm not at all sure how possible it could be. I mean, sure, one aspect of America has always been its genius at incorporating bits from other cultures into its mosaic. Just as they've been Italianized, Irishized or Lithuanianized, bits of American cities have certainly been "Japanized": sushi bars have sprung up, Japanese bookstores and supermarkets appeared, whole parts of the West coast have become Pacific Rim Asia Towns.



Like the Bowie character in "The Man Who Fell To Earth", some people have even opted to furnish their American homes in Japanese style. This week I'm staying in just such a place here in New York, a kind of culture-shock depressurization chamber between Japan and America: it's the apartment I mentioned in a previous Wired column:

"A grad student named Karl Haley read a blog entry I wrote entitled Japanize your ass! and decided to kit out his tiny apartment in New York's Lower East Side with Japanese technologies: a Toto S300 Jasmine washlet toilet, a Zojirushi 3-liter "Panorama Window" Micom Electric Dispensing Pot, a Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker, a kotatsu (a low table incorporating an infrared heater and canopy), and a robotic iJoy 100 massage chair."

The apartment does indeed contain these Japanese marvels, and others. It's all the more reassuring to me because it's on the same side of the same street where I lived between 2000 and 2002, though slightly further north than the Chinatown block I lived on. A mere three blocks south, most of the signs on the street are in Chinese, most of the faces you pass Chinese. And although it may seem unreasonable or unfair to ask a society as multi-ethnic as the US to "Japanize its ass", it's precisely this chameleon side of the US -- the fact that it's a huge patchwork quilt of ever-shifting immigrant groups, loyalties, languages -- which allows it to be the subject of all sorts of speculations and projections, including my own orientalist ones. And since immigration, wholesale importation, ethnic and special interest lobbying has always played a part here, Americans by and large take recommendations like "Japanize your ass!" in good sort. After all, what could be more American than being... less American?

Comments

Alone in Japan

[jannem.livejournal.com]

First, I think one reason it's so easy to be alone here in Osaka is that everybody assumes that of course you're part of a group (several groups, in fact) - you just don't happen to be physically close to the rest of the members at the moment. Since you have your groups implicit backing, nothing you do alone is strange anymore. And on the other hand, since you are your groups' representative, you can be counted on to behave so as not to embarrass them all.

Which, I think, is part of why obvious western foreigners are a bit scary to japanese - you don't have a group as a guarantor of your behavior (or worse, you're part of the Badly Behaved Drunk Caucasian Language Teacher group, guaranteeing embarrassment or worse).

Re: Alone in Japan

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I notice that when I'm with Hisae most Japanese will address her rather than me, as if she's my minder, ward or guardian. Which I suppose she is. In restaurants it's not unusual for the waiter to ask her "Does he know the Japanese way of doing things?" They'll even address compliments on my chopstick technique to Hisae: "Ah, he's very skillful, isn't he?"

Re: Alone in Japan

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

I'm still shocked that you haven't learned the language.

Re: Alone in Japan

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

To do so would be so common and base that it would shiver his very soul in twain. An artiste, you see, must always skirt the realm of legitimacy in order to solidify the cachet of his random proselytizing. For him to learn Japanese would render his credibility as an avant-garde artist null.

Re: Alone in Japan

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

But there's always another Other, if you're not afraid to carry on.

Re: Alone in Japan

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear him sing a song in Japanese with an exaggerated Scottish accent.

Re: Alone in Japan

[jannem.livejournal.com]

Well, they do because you (and she) signals that that's what they should do. The waiter sees a mixed couple and envisions a near future of linguistic disaster, where the discrepancy between the English skills they claimed on the job application finally catches up with reality. So they hesitate, and look to you both to see who's taking charge. And of course, since you're both used to her doing so, that's what you'll signal, with your gaze, attention and posture.

This very rarely happens when I'm out with my girlfriend. She and I both signal that I'm the speaker of our little group. I want to practice the language, and so does she (and I believe she has a latent sadistic streak), so I usually end up being the one trying to order, or explain something impossibly complicated.

Re: Alone in Japan

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a lot of fun!

Re: Alone in Japan

[hitori-photo.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha.