Reading is Believing?
I have a problem. Whom do I believe?
I am trying to perform some kind of cultural research, which usually involves trying to define, you know – a culture (of some kind). Every book I read seems to flatly contradict what people tell me. These peoples’ ‘tales’ then go ahead and conflict with other peoples’. How do I edit all this information into something palatable? Do I then go and read more books, and speak to more people about how to perform cultural research? I am being given advise like ‘follow your heart’, which to me is synonymous with ‘don’t think about thinking, just do it (yeah man)’. One of the most important lines sang by any artist is, ‘believe what you see, not what you read’ (The Jam). If I was to follow this maxim surely I am receiving such a small view of what is Japan, and that information would inevitably be edited by the limitations of my own mind. Do I trust the experts who have ‘been around the block’, and have devoted their lives to study of this specialised area? Or do I ‘make up my own mind’ by talking face to face with people?
There is also a difference between being erudite around a subject and actually being informed. If I started reading ‘The Japanese Mind’ before last week, I would have been looking for those mentioned ‘Japanese traits’ to fulfil my expectation, I would have noticed the differences a lot more than the similarities, I would only be looking for those pieces of ‘that’ puzzle rather than questioning the puzzle actually is. The Lonely Planet has a relatively small section on ‘Japanese people and culture’, and I did read that before coming here, as does everybody else. I have had conversations whereby we are quoting the Lonely Planet guide, ‘oh it’s just like this…’, ‘remember what it said…’ etc, and these are the conversations which stay in my mind, because they are reinforcing that expectation/prejudice. It is all too easy for expectation to shape an experience.
However, we have had other conversations involving the Lonely Planet that go along the lines of, ‘what a load of bollocks, it’s just not true’, ‘that is definitely such a load of crap’, and ‘I’m going to write to the Lonely Planet and tell them they’re out of touch with modern Japan’ etc. I can’t help thinking that, ‘no, it’s you and me who are speaking crappy bollocks’. Like likes Like – and we are hanging around with arty students, all probably middle-class, and only the confident, ‘eccentric’ ones are speaking to us. It’s true, nearly every time I meet someone they blow the Lonely Planet’s social guidelines right away, but then when I see ‘everyday’ people in ‘everyday’ situations I realise that my friends are the ‘strange ones’. I have also been informed by an English speaking tutor here that University is seen as a ‘break time’ for students, it’s allowed for them to mess around constantly because the school system before them, and the employment that awaits are so oppressive. I think (yes, think) that this tutor is only taking Nagoya University, a second or third choice for most students’ parents, as his only example.
Do I employ techniques such as only applying information gleaned from people personally to them, or do I extend this further to apply it their social cross-section, or yet more to ‘Japanese culture’? Do I perform something so clinical as a questionnaire to a wider cross-section? Do I look at writings and try to prove what they are stating, or do I do the opposite just because I have a personal distaste for ‘the cannon’, and expectation? Maybe it’s a combination of many peoples’ hearts and heads working together?
Wakaranai (‘I don’t know’).
I am trying to perform some kind of cultural research, which usually involves trying to define, you know – a culture (of some kind). Every book I read seems to flatly contradict what people tell me. These peoples’ ‘tales’ then go ahead and conflict with other peoples’. How do I edit all this information into something palatable? Do I then go and read more books, and speak to more people about how to perform cultural research? I am being given advise like ‘follow your heart’, which to me is synonymous with ‘don’t think about thinking, just do it (yeah man)’. One of the most important lines sang by any artist is, ‘believe what you see, not what you read’ (The Jam). If I was to follow this maxim surely I am receiving such a small view of what is Japan, and that information would inevitably be edited by the limitations of my own mind. Do I trust the experts who have ‘been around the block’, and have devoted their lives to study of this specialised area? Or do I ‘make up my own mind’ by talking face to face with people?
There is also a difference between being erudite around a subject and actually being informed. If I started reading ‘The Japanese Mind’ before last week, I would have been looking for those mentioned ‘Japanese traits’ to fulfil my expectation, I would have noticed the differences a lot more than the similarities, I would only be looking for those pieces of ‘that’ puzzle rather than questioning the puzzle actually is. The Lonely Planet has a relatively small section on ‘Japanese people and culture’, and I did read that before coming here, as does everybody else. I have had conversations whereby we are quoting the Lonely Planet guide, ‘oh it’s just like this…’, ‘remember what it said…’ etc, and these are the conversations which stay in my mind, because they are reinforcing that expectation/prejudice. It is all too easy for expectation to shape an experience.
However, we have had other conversations involving the Lonely Planet that go along the lines of, ‘what a load of bollocks, it’s just not true’, ‘that is definitely such a load of crap’, and ‘I’m going to write to the Lonely Planet and tell them they’re out of touch with modern Japan’ etc. I can’t help thinking that, ‘no, it’s you and me who are speaking crappy bollocks’. Like likes Like – and we are hanging around with arty students, all probably middle-class, and only the confident, ‘eccentric’ ones are speaking to us. It’s true, nearly every time I meet someone they blow the Lonely Planet’s social guidelines right away, but then when I see ‘everyday’ people in ‘everyday’ situations I realise that my friends are the ‘strange ones’. I have also been informed by an English speaking tutor here that University is seen as a ‘break time’ for students, it’s allowed for them to mess around constantly because the school system before them, and the employment that awaits are so oppressive. I think (yes, think) that this tutor is only taking Nagoya University, a second or third choice for most students’ parents, as his only example.
Do I employ techniques such as only applying information gleaned from people personally to them, or do I extend this further to apply it their social cross-section, or yet more to ‘Japanese culture’? Do I perform something so clinical as a questionnaire to a wider cross-section? Do I look at writings and try to prove what they are stating, or do I do the opposite just because I have a personal distaste for ‘the cannon’, and expectation? Maybe it’s a combination of many peoples’ hearts and heads working together?
Wakaranai (‘I don’t know’).
posted by Shaun at 07:45
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