Formalisms and Formalities

[I'd like to use this post to introduce a new feature on this website: Apture.  You may notice that there are no links at all in this post.  That is because Apture allows easy lookup of words and phrases: simply highlight any word or phrase on this page and move the cursor over to "learn more".  A pop-up window from Wikipedia or Google or some other source should appear...]

The Japanese are often stereotyped as being excessively formal.  This stereotype I think is true for the Japanese (although necessarily oversimplified and commonly misused); but America is full of formalism too.  Our formalism is qualitatively different than that of the Japanese, but in my experience formalism has a quantitatively equal role in each country.  In Japan, formalism is often associated with the most mature expressions of traditional arts: kata in karate; shodo; even the infamous Japanese bureaucracy has its roots in the formal rigors codified in Confucianism.  Formalism lies at the received base of the culture (especially with Shinto), and this is difficult for the American in Japan to grasp.

American formalism on the other hand is a modern invention, unrefined, and even wild: Taylorism and scientific management; organizational theory and Edward Bernays; the elaborate dance sequences associated with modern finance and commercial banking security protocols; outsourcing and automated customer services; the grand and complex American healthcare system; and finally (corporate) job applications.  This kind of formalism is as American as apple pie.

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Why People Hate Government

A few months ago, I came home on my bike from my afternoon lessons to see that somebody had built a shed with a proudly-displayed fucking union flag of some sort on the corner of our property over by the rice fields.  I asked my wife's family about it, and nobody seemed to know anything.  The next morning a construction crew suddenly showed up at my house where I usually work during the day and announced that they would be tearing up the sidewalk in front for the next six months.  They would be using the shed for rest and relaxation between shifts.

The crew began work immediately after informing me (probably the lowest-ranking member of the household) and leading me around to inspect some stuff I had never even seen before - like the outside of the wall around Chiyabappa's garden - to make sure everything was as it should be.  After my "inspection" and inferred "approval" of the "plan", one of the workers asked if he could cuddle my baby to prove that I could trust them or we had bonded or something.  I ignored him.  No, I will not give you my baby, stranger.

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Priorities, Priorities...

Taro Aso, the W of Japan, is angry.Here's a good article from the Times, describing the tendency of crotchety older Japanese to blame all the country's problems on its straightlaced and well-behaved youth.  Although I generally don't think it's that simple. 

The writer, Leo Lewis, begins the article by describing a sign advising people not to litter, because littering is apparently immoral.  The sign is next to advertisements for a brothel, gambling facility, and a money laundering service.  The intended effect is to point out the hypocrisy of the Japanese: something as small as littering is immoral, and this needs to be taught to the youth of the nation via loud, in-your-face propaganda.  Meanwhile the big sins of prostitution, gambling, and money laundering through the yakuza are allowed to continue, because the older generation apparently likes those.

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Let's Not Go Down this Path...

"Please cancel all my afternoon meetings."Throughout the infamous Lost Decade of the 1990's, the Japanese government tried to stimulate the economy by lowering the interest rate, federally subsidizing and mandating unwelcome contruction projects in rural areas, and creating new government busy work.  The results of this were as follows: (1) the interest rate was lowered repeatedly with no effect until it reached zero.  The Bank of Japan's hands were tied: it couldn't raise the interest rate without hurting the economy, so it effectively had used up all of its resources on that front and was rendered impotent; (2) rural areas were overwhelmed with gradiose tunnel systems and multi-purpose/non-purpose halls, which went unused and fell into decay.  In my city, Fukushima, the ruralist of the rural (When the Beverly Hillbillies was dubbed into Japanese, they gave the characters Fukushima accents to emphasize the fact that they were uneducated hicks.), there are several pedestrian tunnels built to go under one-way streets, as though people couldn't just use the crosswalks.  These go unused, and in general have become unofficial homeless shelters.  There are also walls built to prevent mudslides in uninhabited areas and, of course, tetrapods; (3) government positions have spiralled out-of-control.  There are so many government workers that they've become their own demographic that politicians try to sex up for votes. 

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