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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Printable Version

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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - dizmox - 2013-11-05

I wonder if I can have a nice quiet life when I move to Tokyo without the high tension background music...

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - tashippy - 2013-11-05

Ume, I'd like to learn more about the sadistic elements in tea ceremony.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Tzadeck - 2013-11-05

JusenkyoGuide Wrote:
raharney Wrote:"I heard they don't talk to each other because they all play video games all the time. Is that true?"
Oh FO!
Er... this one seems to be well on its way... if you replace videogames with smartphones/cell phones. :p
Not at all--Japanese people don't talk to people they don't know because of culture, not because of electronic distractions.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - raharney - 2013-11-05

Tzadeck Wrote:
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:
raharney Wrote:"I heard they don't talk to each other because they all play video games all the time. Is that true?"
Oh FO!
Er... this one seems to be well on its way... if you replace videogames with smartphones/cell phones. :p
Not at all--Japanese people don't talk to people they don't know because of culture, not because of electronic distractions.
No way! I have seen plenty of obachans (inter alia), as strangers to each other, yapping away to each other impromptu. As anywhere else, depends on the context and setting and personalities involved.
Culture doesn't program people to be so predictable.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Tzadeck - 2013-11-06

raharney Wrote:As anywhere else, depends on the context and setting and personalities involved.
Generalizations aren't true all the time? Really?

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - raharney - 2013-11-06

Tzadeck Wrote:
raharney Wrote:As anywhere else, depends on the context and setting and personalities involved.
Generalizations aren't true all the time? Really?
Ehr, yes...that is what I was saying. What were you saying?

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - dtcamero - 2013-11-06

Tzadeck Wrote:
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:
raharney Wrote:"I heard they don't talk to each other because they all play video games all the time. Is that true?"
Oh FO!
Er... this one seems to be well on its way... if you replace videogames with smartphones/cell phones. :p
Not at all--Japanese people don't talk to people they don't know because of culture, not because of electronic distractions.
I found this to be so true... honestly one of the biggest reasons why the birthrate is falling. if you try to talk to someone you don't know, that you have no explicit reason to interact with, they act like you're crazy. the only way for young people to find a mate after college is a coworker / goukon.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - JapaneseRuleOf7 - 2013-11-06

dtcamero Wrote:
Tzadeck Wrote:
JusenkyoGuide Wrote:Er... this one seems to be well on its way... if you replace videogames with smartphones/cell phones. :p
Not at all--Japanese people don't talk to people they don't know because of culture, not because of electronic distractions.
I found this to be so true... honestly one of the biggest reasons why the birthrate is falling. if you try to talk to someone you don't know, that you have no explicit reason to interact with, they act like you're crazy. the only way for young people to find a mate after college is a coworker / goukon.
Sounds like you just finished reading my site. That's a large part of the same conclusion I came to.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Tzadeck - 2013-11-06

raharney Wrote:Ehr, yes...that is what I was saying. What were you saying?
I was saying that in general, especially compared with places like America, people in Japan don't talk to people that they don't know or have no business with.

Then you pointed out that I was generalizing and then there are plenty of exceptions--but everyone was supposed to understand that from the beginning. I'm just a bit annoyed that for some reason everyone on the internet assumes that other people don't understand that generalizations are limited in applicability, so they point it out.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - umetani666 - 2013-11-06

vileru Wrote:He doesn't just conclude that the West views Japan as weird. He points out that this perception is hypocritical because, at least in the United States, people express their darker emotions by committing acts of violence. In contrast, Japanese express similar emotions artistically through erotic comics and kinbaku/shibari. Basically, the West deals with dark emotions by immediately satisfying them through violence, whereas Japan deals with those emotions by exploring them through art. I don't see this conclusion as reproducing stereotypes at all. It's challenging them.
i don't get the reasoning behind such conclusion...does that mean that there's no violence in japan? or that there's no art in the west? why should bondage or erotic comics be art only in japan?
some of the wildest examples of western art come from channeling dark emotions, from bosch's paintings to 'story of the eye'.


vileru Wrote:Could you tell us how she explained the connection between bondage, s/m, and the tea ceremony? How about the "sadistic elements in tea ceremony?" You can't just bring up interesting anecdotes like that, and then not elaborate at all!
my explanation will be clumsy, because i'm not nearly as knowledgeable about these topics as she is. from what i remember, both bondage and tea ceremony use similar methods to achieve similar goals. tea ceremony has strict rules and regulations on how one should behave - the method is, like in bondage, to confine and submit body to certain aesthetic principles. every movement in tea ceremony is under absolute control. traditionally, tea has a sort of ritualistic significance in eastern cultures, it is meant to guide a person away from everyday reality into spheres of higher consciousness, a wakeful state. ditto for bondage - the goal is to lose one's self.
there is this idea in the east that body is just a manifestation of consciousness, so both bondage and tea ceremony try to alter consciousness by manipulating the body.

it wasn't a drunk izakaya talk, it was just a normal conversation at her place, btw.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - vileru - 2013-11-06

umetani666 Wrote:
vileru Wrote:He doesn't just conclude that the West views Japan as weird. He points out that this perception is hypocritical because, at least in the United States, people express their darker emotions by committing acts of violence. In contrast, Japanese express similar emotions artistically through erotic comics and kinbaku/shibari. Basically, the West deals with dark emotions by immediately satisfying them through violence, whereas Japan deals with those emotions by exploring them through art. I don't see this conclusion as reproducing stereotypes at all. It's challenging them.
i don't get the reasoning behind such conclusion...does that mean that there's no violence in japan? or that there's no art in the west? why should bondage or erotic comics be art only in japan?
some of the wildest examples of western art come from channeling dark emotions, from bosch's paintings to 'story of the eye'.
To refer back to Tzadeck's point about generalizations, of course there are exceptions. Bourdain is just saying, in general, Japanese tend to deal with their dark emotions artistically while Americans do so violently. Crime statistics and publication numbers should be enough to support this point.

Also, I think it's appropriate to distinguish kinbaku/shibari from other forms of bondage. It has obvious philosophical and aesthetic underpinning, which is lacking or barely developed in other forms of bondage.

Re: talking to strangers in Japan
To echo raharney's point, I've noticed that older Japanese are much more likely to approach strangers than the younger generations. Furthermore, I don't see a connection between talking to strangers and a low birthrate. In Scandinavia, it's also culturally inappropriate to approach strangers, but they aren't experiencing population issues like Japan. Sure, it may still be a factor, but there are many other factors at play too.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - uisukii - 2013-11-06

vileru Wrote:To refer back to Tzadeck's point about generalizations, of course there are exceptions. Bourdain is just saying, in general, Japanese tend to deal with their dark emotions artistically while Americans do so violently. Crime statistics and publication numbers should be enough to support this point.
I've no dog in this debate, however this kind of tripped me up. Crime statistics aren't in any way a reflection of intent. And "deal with their dark emotions" is intrinsically linked with expression and intent.

Couldn't it be that there is also a lot higher crime statistics as their is also more poverty, and the related crimes involved, which has less to do with dealing with dark emotions (not entirely what that means, exactly), and more to do with trying to survive, etc.?

As they say, statistics can be used to prove anything.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - vileru - 2013-11-06

uisukii Wrote:
vileru Wrote:To refer back to Tzadeck's point about generalizations, of course there are exceptions. Bourdain is just saying, in general, Japanese tend to deal with their dark emotions artistically while Americans do so violently. Crime statistics and publication numbers should be enough to support this point.
Crime statistics aren't in any way a reflection of intent. And "deal with their dark emotions" is intrinsically linked with expression and intent.
You're right that the statistics don't reflect intent, but that's just a limitation of the data. Just because the data is limited in that way, though, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be used. We can still infer to the best explanation. Bourdain's explanation seems quite plausible to me, but I'm open to the possibility that there are better explanations.

uisukii Wrote:Couldn't it be that there is also a lot higher crime statistics as their is also more poverty, and the related crimes involved, which has less to do with dealing with dark emotions (not entirely what that means, exactly), and more to do with trying to survive, etc.?

As they say, statistics can be used to prove anything.
You raise a good question. But what do crimes like rape and domestic violence (which I presume Bourdain has in mind) have to do with survival? Further, there are countries with similar poverty levels but differing crime statistics, which is good evidence that poverty is not the only factor affecting crime. Nonetheless, it doesn't necessarily follow that outlets for expression, such as kinbaku/shibari, are significant factors for limiting crime. Police numbers and tactics, neighborhood watch programs, community groups, and other factors could be more significant. Since we have to account for these factors, crime statistics and publication numbers are clearly insufficient if we want to do a thorough analysis.

Regardless, I think it's ridiculous to demand such a high level of rigor to agree with Bourdain's conclusion. On a causal level, it makes sense that people are discouraged to deal with dark emotions through violent behavior when there are somewhat mainstream outlets for dealing with such emotions artistically instead.

Yes, statistics can be used to prove anything. However, there are better and worse ways to prove through statistics. In any case, our explanations are much better with statistics than without. I much prefer statistics to anecdotes and hearsay.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Vempele - 2013-11-06

I see no links to actual statistical data in this thread. Sounds like anecdotes and hearsay to me.

Also, statistics should be analyzed with math.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - uisukii - 2013-11-06

vileru Wrote:Regardless, I think it's ridiculous to demand such a high level of rigor to agree with Bourdain's conclusion. On a causal level, it makes sense that people are discouraged to deal with dark emotions through violent behavior when there are somewhat mainstream outlets for dealing with such emotions artistically instead.
Sorry, not responding to the other stuff because a lot of it I don't really have an argument for, or against- and that. One thing I am interested however is what "dark emotions" means in this context. I mean, what makes it "dark"?

There are a lot of times where I have which I assume might fall under "dark emotions", but yeah... still not really sure what it is supposed to mean. Is it when you are feeling negative, depressed, etc.? I suppose even that is kind of vague. I often turn to alcohol when I am in a very low mood. Could this be a what is referred to using "dark emotion"? Is it like some sort of venting personal anguish?

I hope this preoccupation with the term "dark emotion" isn't too tangential to the overall thread discussion. Tongue

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - vileru - 2013-11-06

Vempele Wrote:I see no links to actual statistical data in this thread. Sounds like anecdotes and hearsay to me.

Also, statistics should be analyzed with math.
Google them. Although I'd like to include links, it's just not worth my time. This a Japanese learning forum, not an academic journal.

Also, statistics are interpreted. Of course, such interpretations usually involve math, but they involve other forms of reasoning too. I've left out the math for the same reasons I give above, but included the non-mathematical reasoning (it's less time consuming).

I assume those who take the time to follow the interpretation are resourceful enough to look up the data and do the math on their own. I'm not trying to write a research paper, but just alluding to the information and what it suggests. I assure you, though, you'll find what I'm referring to if you just Google it, and you'll reach the same conclusions through arithmetic alone (you only need to compare quantities and adjust the figures for population).

In any case, I don't think any kind of statistical interpretation is needed to support Bourdain's view. The causal explanation I give is plausible enough to accept his claim.

@uisukii
I take it that 'dark emotions' are those dealing with desires to harm, humiliate, terrorize, and so on. Basically, any emotion that is instinctively expressed through violence.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - uisukii - 2013-11-06

vileru Wrote:I take it that 'dark emotions' are those dealing with desires to harm, humiliate, terrorize, and so on. Basically, any emotion that is instinctively expressed through violence.
Ah, okay. Gochya. Still seems kind of vague and unscientific but that's neither here or there, I guess. I still get what you mean. That's pretty much all I came in the thread for. Might step out now. Thanks for responding. Smile

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Haych - 2013-11-06

Ah I dunno what all the fuss is about. I watched the video and liked it. It was kinda fun, and reminded me of Gordon's Great Escape, which is another good series, or something by Vice. Watching high-def videos about travel to exotic places is kinda addicting. Too bad it was only available in 360p, though.

The ending was your typical sort of "oh we're running out of time-better add a sympathetic recap about what we've learned" thing that you see in documentaries a lot. It's more about romanticizing the journey than coming up with any coherent thesis statement for the whole thing...

Which is why all this talk about 'dark emotion' and poop is a bit ridiculous. If your plan really is to try to find a link between fetishism in Japan, and crime in America, as if the presence of one is related to the absence of the other, you're going to have to put in a lot more effort than this.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - vileru - 2013-11-06

Haych Wrote:The ending was your typical sort of "oh we're running out of time-better add a sympathetic recap about what we've learned" thing that you see in documentaries a lot. It's more about romanticizing the journey than coming up with any coherent thesis statement for the whole thing…

Which is why all this talk about 'dark emotion' and poop is a bit ridiculous. If your plan really is to try to find a link between fetishism in Japan, and crime in America, as if the presence of one is related to the absence of the other, you're going to have to put in a lot more effort than this.
I don't take Bourdain as offering any arguments for his conclusion. In fact, he's probably just trying to be provocative by essentially saying "You think Japan is weird? Look in the mirror!"

Nonetheless, it's interesting to think more deeply about how we could support the view that there's a connection between Japanese erotic arts and violent crimes. If a documentary is trying to be provocative and challenge us to look at things from a different perspective, then wouldn't it be a shame if viewers responded by saying, "Gee, I never really thought about things that way," and then forget about what they just watched?

Anyway, I entered this thread to show that Bourdain isn't just milking the "weird Japan" cow, and that he actually thinks it's wrong to milk that cow. That's the main take-away point. The rest is just fun, freewheeling intellectual exploring. Don't think rovers mapping Martian terrain, but novices experimenting with chess positions to see what kind of interesting configurations they can create.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - s0apgun - 2013-11-07

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Sounds like you just finished reading my site. That's a large part of the same conclusion I came to.
Just finished reading this. Pretty excellent article man, including the comments section. I'm a little saddened though.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - Tzadeck - 2013-11-07

s0apgun Wrote:I'm a little saddened though.
Haha, indeed, it's a pretty bleak post. Why are you still in Japan if you see things here that grimly?

I do think that work culture is the worst part of Japan, but it's definitely not as bad in Kyoto as Tokyo. I do feel a bit like a couples lines from a Jimi Hendrix song on the trains sometimes though:

"Fall mountains, just don't fall on me
Go ahead Mr. Businessman, you can't dress like me"

(
)

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - dizmox - 2013-11-07

If it's any consolation, if you're in the finance industry the work culture is kind of equally tough anywhere...

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - JapaneseRuleOf7 - 2013-11-07

Tzadeck Wrote:
s0apgun Wrote:I'm a little saddened though.
Haha, indeed, it's a pretty bleak post. Why are you still in Japan if you see things here that grimly?
Actually, I'm writing my next article on exactly that, "Why Stay in Japan?" Probably be done in about a week.

Part of it though, I'll just say here briefly, is that there are some really excellent things about Japan that are hard to find anywhere else. Those help to balance out the un-good stuff. And of course, there's the reality that, wherever you go in the world, there are some pretty jacked up things. Except maybe Finland, but then all they have are reindeer and cross country skiing, so that's no good either.

And @dimox, I'd only add that I was in the finance industry in the U.S., at four different institutions, and those jobs were, compared to Japan, a piece of cake.

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - dizmox - 2013-11-08

Old but..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10255199/Bank-intern-who-died-after-working-for-72-hours-felt-pressure-to-excel.html

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown: 東京 - dtcamero - 2013-11-08

I think you need to be more specific for that exception to be true... a middle to middle-high level finance job at a major bank in new york would probably do it. My close friend got a low-vp level job at a major bank here, and since moving here for it he's put on 20 pounds and I haven't seen him more than once a year since. I actually used to see him more when he lived in new jersey. He was over an hour late for his own birthday dinner last year.
Those people kill themselves for what they do and it's because they make oodles of cash, so the reward is kind of in balance with what they sacrifice (i.e. their youth). weird thing is japanese salarymen work with that intensity for 30k/year.