Graffiti

Despite being at one of the largest research Universities in the United States, I usually don't spend as much time in the library as I'd like to. And yes, libraries are actually full of truly fascinating material that sometimes I wish I had all the time in the world to just slowly read through. There's just so much human knowledge, useful or not, accurate or not, to be found, helping us understand how the world works, or at least how we perceive it works.

At any rate, that's why I kind of enjoyed one of my history assignments, which was to go to various libraries across campus and internet databases and search for primary sources that I'd be using for my final research project. In short, we had to write a project proposal, which isn't hard in of itself, but you do have to sort of skim the books and articles that you intend to use - so after finding the books that I planned to use, I sat down in a tiny study room and began to read. Upon randomly glancing towards the window, I noticed that various people had written all over the heater, some in pencil, some in pen. Some were witty and clever, but some were just kind of stupid.

That's not even the most interesting part. In one of the books about the reconstruction of Japan following World War II, someone had written comments all over in pencil - and someone ELSE had actually responded to some points. They actually were flaming each other, like "Explain, fucktard!" and the other person writing, "Idiot, the author's Japanese." (explaining why the perspective seemed odd in describing the conduct of soldiers)

Good times.

Rambling about dress codes and gender roles

It’s rather hard not to notice that uniforms are rather prevalent in Japan. Of course, everyone knows about the middle through high school ones (and for some elementary schools), though I think it’s kind of disturbing how it’s become sort of a fetish. At least, the “Japanese schoolgirl” has – guy’s uniforms, not so much, perhaps because they tend to be lacking in fashion, though at the same time possessing more practicality.

I have this feeling that the people who design girl’s uniforms never actually wore one, because it just doesn’t make any sense to wear a dress in winter. It’s certainly more fashionable than what *I* personally would choose to wear when it’s cold, but what do I know about uniforms.

It’s a rather stark contrast coming to Japan from college in the United States, in part because of this huge different in fashion and school structure. I have to say, I’ve got rather mixed feelings about this whole thing. I’ve never actually attended school where uniforms were mandatory so I don’t have any personal experience with that, but the moderately sized private school that I went to 2^nd-5^th grade had something close – there were hair length specifications, something on shoes, shirts had to be tucked in, and clothing couldn’t have any words on it except for school apparel. I remember in 4^th grade, the administration toyed with the idea of uniforms, and there was almost universal backlash, at least from the kids. One of the pros brought up was that you wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear each day. That would certainly have been convenient, if I actually cared about clothes at the time.

In high school, we had absolutely no dress code at all – in fact, our Principal mentioned several times that theoretically you could walk around campus naked if you wanted to. (of course, this was never officially stated as school policy) That made a rather big impact on me, particularly since most Taiwanese middle and high schools still enforce a dress code, though I’ve noticed the rules have become significantly less rigid since when I first moved. Nowadays, “Japanese” fashion haircuts are a lot more popular, whereas before it was more of a buzzcut thing.

Anyway, back to the whole “can’t-figure-out-which-side-of-the-fence-I’m-on” thing. First, I want to clarify that I’m talking about East Asia-style dress codes, rather than some American high school ones where you don’t actually have a uniform, just some clothing that you’re not allowed to wear. I’m conflicted about the former, rather than the latter. By that, I mean that the latter seems rather stupid and reeks of double-standards a lot, at least from what I’ve been told. Maybe not having personal experience in this regard will damage my credibility.

But either way, from a purely philosophical/theoretical perspective, one of my pet peeves is this value system in which a girl who shows “too much” skin “doesn’t respect herself” and is “distracting”. I’ve heard this countless times, partly because I’m sort of involved in Christian Community, but also because Taiwan is ironically rather conservative when it comes to these sorts of issues, although at the same time we’re known for betel nut girls. Go figure. But anyway, the argument goes like this – if you wear short skirts or show off your cleavage, the boys will get distracted, and we can’t have that. For their sake, cover up. Well logically, in this paradigm boys can’t control themselves and won’t be able to stop staring at a girl who shows skin above her knees and elbows. Also, it assumes that only boys have raging hormones. That seems rather unfair. Truth be told, lots of guys are indeed unfortunately oftentimes attracted to a girl because of her physical features rather than actual personality traits and other positive characteristics, but it certainly doesn’t give us much credit. Besides, for your entire life you’re going to have to control inappropriate urges. May as well start learning to do so in school.

Besides, why should it be the girl’s responsibility to keep us guys in check? It’s kind of like arguing that if you’re dressed “provocatively”, don’t be surprised if you get raped. That’s sick. (obviously, a more extreme example to make the point, but essentially it’s the same thing)

And of course, you do have guys who wear cutoff t-shirts that expose their entire chest through the arm holes, or guys with pants halfway down so you’ve got a full view of their boxers. However, from what I’ve heard this doesn’t seem to get called out as much. Probably varies by school administration.

But in either case, why is wearing something revealing “not respecting yourself”? It might even be the other way around. It may be that you are *not* ashamed of your body that you’re fine with showing off as much as you like. This isn’t to say that self respect is affected or determined by what you wear, but showing off your body shouldn’t be a way of disrespecting yourself. Lots of other ways to do that, no worries.

So in this regard, I tend to favor East Asian style dress codes, because nobody has to deal with this sort of BS regarding standards of what’s okay and what’s not, and arbitrary definitions that change based on whether or not your boobs are actually large enough to create cleavage. That being said, I don’t know what to think about the issue of choice. All in all, I prefer the college environment where (as far as I know) you can wear whatever the hell you want, and I have to admit that there are times that I cringe at someone’s choice of clothing, but I believe that it’s their own personal choice. But if this isn’t the case, then I would easily prefer uniforms if not for the pesky issue of gender roles.

I think in the Church, this is an issue that can end up on either end of the spectrum, depending on who you talk to. You’ve got the “progressive” ones who don’t see any problem with females being ordained or becoming pastors, and you’ve got the “conservative” ones who believe that based on their interpretation of the Bible, it’s just not right to have a female Pastor preaching to men, or something along those lines. This affects people’s beliefs about gender roles in a relationship, particularly when it comes to marriage. As you may have guessed, I tend to fall on the more progressive side of fence for most issues, and this isn’t an exception – I think it’s stupid if a high school graduation ceremony makes it a rule that girls have to wear dresses. (or that boys *can’t* wear them, for that matter) So in this regard, I’ve got a problem with uniforms, because you’re not allowed freedom of choice, but you’re also forced to conform to a certain expectation of “girl” and “boy”, at least visually, and I’m rather uncomfortable with that. I don’t know if you’re allowed to wear pants rather than the school uniform dress as a Japanese high school girl, but from what I’ve seen, I’m fairly certain that this is against the rules. And this then creates situations like I mentioned at the beginning of this post about the impracticality of wearing dresses that only come down to slightly above your knees when it’s snowing outside, or sweater vests when it’s 27 degrees (celcius), and humid.

Relatively recently, I heard a guy say that it may be kind of irrational, but he wouldn’t be able to handle it if his wife made more money than he did, and that kind of bothered me, not necessarily because he said it, but because it still appears to be a rather common sentiment.

The first time I remember eating a meal my Dad prepared for me was when I was nearly twenty years old. (In his defense, it might be that he had in fact cooked stuff for us before but I just forgot) Point being, for almost all my life it was Mom that cooked, and washed the clothes, and did all the housework. As I grew up, I slowly resolved not to become like my Dad, at least when it came to household responsibilities and tasks – I just didn’t think it was fair. It seemed that “gender equality” became something in which a woman was expected to work outside the home, but the man was not expected to reduce the burden at home, in which case the woman just got screwed over with even more work than before. This seemed to be the case in many Communist countries as well, where gender roles were changed positively in the workplace, but not at home.

I’m not blaming my Dad for it, as he’s just a convenient example that influenced me greatly (to his credit, he does these things volitionally now, though it took some unfortunate circumstances to get this way) – rather the society that shapes our values, artificially telling us what we can or can’t do, that it made perfect sense that he, as a Taiwanese man could be excused for not doing the dishes just because of his Y chromosome. It’s more a commentary on the strict gender roles in Taiwanese society more than a personal indictment per se.

I haven’t really come to any concrete conclusion regarding this issue, except that I’m rather dead set primarily against *mandated* gender roles. That is to say, it’s great if a girl wants to grow up to become President or a doctor or fighter pilot or construction worker (or any other stereotypically male role), but at the same time she shouldn’t be disparaged if she chooses to become a housewife. It ought to be the same the other way around, where a stay-at-home-Dad shouldn’t feel ashamed if he’s at home taking care of kids, but it seems that this is still a cultural thing that we haven’t really gotten past yet. For practical reasons, girls should know how to cook, just as guys should. I mean if you’re really bad at it like I am, sure, don't commit suicide over it, but there shouldn’t be any biological reason that determines it. Wear pants if you like to, but don’t feel “inferior” if you like to wear dresses. (The extreme case of some misguided feminists, I think)

Times are changing… whether that’s good or bad depends on your perspective, I think.

Hockey Rant

Hmm, I actually have a "hockey" post sub-category in my sidebar, so i suppose I should make a post about my favorite sport in the world. Of course if you know me, you know that it can't be absent of my actual favorite pastime - social commentary.

So we've got a rematch in the Stanley Cup Finals, and that is absolutely awesome. I remember how I first started watching the Red Wings back in 1997 - I started playing hockey around then, and I remember playing roller hockey with my brother outside our garage while the TV was on, and constantly hearing, "Save by Shtalenkov!" over and over again. Conference Semifinals, in which Detroit swept Anaheim 4-0, but there were several epic multi-overtime games in which Shtalenkov singlehandedly kept the Mighty Ducks in the game. (Yeah, they were still the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim back then... I liked them a lot more like that) Now that I think of it, it's actually kind of surprising that the game was on, since I doubt that either of my parents actually watched any hockey. Anyway, one way or the other the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers became my favorite teams in the league.

After moving to Taiwan though, hockey unfortunately started to become less and less relevant. This was largely in part because as a humid tropical island country, Taiwan isn't exactly hospitable to ice rinks. I still played for a while in Taichung though, with kids from the Morrison Academy, and that was loads of fun. I remember how thrilled I was to get my first ever hat-trick in a game - back in the States I'd scored 2 goals in a game several times, but never 3. Unfortunately, the A-One ice rink eventually closed down, and for understandable reasons, we rarely ever got NHL games broadcasted on Taiwanese sports channels.

When I was trying to figure out what schools I should apply to for college, one of the biggest factors was whether or not they had a hockey team. In hindsight, that's pretty silly, since from my position the most imortant thing should have arguably been academics. But seriously, that's one thing that helped to make Michigan an eventual pick for me - the fact that it was solid academically was merely a bonus. (haha) And so... living in Ann Arbor, I got Fox Sports Detroit and could watch almost every single Red Wings game. That was absolutely amazing, and through continued exposure I was finally able to connect with the team, learn player's names and their backgrounds, and care. That's why you become fans of one team, and care when they play, right? I mean, it's not like I necessarily dislike players from other teams - but honestly, when I visit nhl.com and see "Calgary 4, St. Louis 1", I don't mind either way who won or lost.

It also helped that people I still remembered, like Yzerman, Shanahan, Osgood, and Lidstrom were still around, and that the Red Wings have had pretty good seasons ever since I was able to pick up hockey again after the lockout. All in all this is to say that I don't consider myself a bandwagon Red Wings fan who cheers for the team just because I now go to college at Michigan.

I cheer when the team wins, and I get pissed when they take cheapshots from goonish teams like Anaheim. I get caught up in the drama of heros and villains, and while of course I know that a lot of it is largely imagined and exaggerrated, I love the drama that makes the sport so compelling.

I subscribe to a number of hockey blogs because there are some excellent writers out there who can do analysis, summary, and commentary better than I could ever hope to, without being constrained by some sort of NHL agenda or bias like the nhl.com recap writers are. That is to say, people can be as unfair and over-the-top as they want, and that's okay. I love it when other fans rag on Chris Pronger because he's a dirty player, but you're never going to see that kind of article on nhl.com, or a frame-by-frame shot detailing how the Kronwall hit on Havlat was clean, and that the officials totally messed up by kicking him out of the game.

But there's something that always bugs me when I visit some Red Wings blogs and message boards. To be fair, it's not something that's constrained to this team alone, but since I read these blogs most frequently, that's where I see it the most. In a nutshell, it's the way people insult other people or players. Insults in of themselves are OK and I don't necessarily have a problem with it. However, I have to question what people's values are when I see this:

"Cindy Crosby"

over and over and over again. For those of you who don't know, his name is Sidney Crosby, and while I really dislike him largely because he doesn't play for the Red Wings, he is indeed an excellent player who will do well in his career, though I hope that it's never against the Wings. Now the issue I have is that I feel people are intentionally mispelling his name, and using the fact that "Cindy" is typically a girl's name as an insult. This really gets me uncomfortable, because my interpretation is that by essentially calling him a girl, they think they're insulting him.

That's wrong. It's the same problem I have with people throwing around homosexuality as an insult - in either case, they're trying to put down their target by insinuating that somehow, they're not "real" masculine men, as if there's some sort of ideal image out there. I just can't stand the fact that being a girl is an insult, but you hear it all the time, maliciously intended or not. You've got "The Governator" decrying "girly men", or people saying, "Aw, Cindy Crosby's crying to the refs again like a whiny little girl".

I don't know if this is me being too sensitive, but I hate it, yet see it all the time. And the worst part of it is that it's no internalized into our popular culture nowadays that people toss phrases around like that without giving it a second thought.

"Be a man"

"Stop bitching"

"Grow some balls"

"That's so gay"

"This sucks"

"That blows"

Cut it out, it's sexist. If you think that you're insulting someone by calling them a female or "not-man", then you've really got to stop and reconsider your options. I'll admit that I've said some of the above things before, but I think the important thing is once you're aware that there's a problem, you don't just blow it off as people being oversensitive, but you really stop to consider whether or not the criticism is true, and whether or not you should refrain from saying something even if you personally find it enjoyable. I used to say "This sucks" a lot until I realized that it technically refers to blow jobs which are stereotypically performed by women... and by insinuating that it's a negative act, you're degrading women. Just an example, though probably not eloquently put. Either way, point is that I stopped saying it.

Just some food for thought.

Now Red Wings, take out the Penguins in 5, just because I want a Stanley Cup victory on home ice.

Chinese students in Taiwan

This is an issue that has been on my mind for a while, and up until recently I couldn't make up my mind regarding which side I thought made more sense. In a nutshell, the Ma Administration is considering allowing students from the People's Republic of China come to Taiwan and study there, one of the major rationales being that this would help to stabilize cross-strait relations. Obviously, there are intangible pros and cons to this that aren't that simple, but I want to point out some problems with this line of thought.

Firstly, within this framing, the issue is not ultimately an educational issue, but rather a political one. Students should not be used to 'help stabilize' issues between nations. To the extent that increased interaction can lead to better understanding and less willingness to go to war, this can be a good thing, but fundamentally, this is the job for our elected leaders. (well, elected in Taiwan, not so much for their counterparts in China)

A few months ago I had the chance to talk in-depth with an Iranian study-abroad student in Kyoto, as we were both participants in a class teaching people how to draw manga. She wasn't representing anything, or making a statement, or in Japan to help further and strengthen Japan-Iran relations - she was simply a girl who became interested in Japanese culture and language, and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to experience the country firsthand. To the extent that I as an American was able to learn more about what life in Iran was like and what she thought about it, it was certainly a fruitful experience, but that was not (and shouldn't be) the purpose of her time in another country, at least as a student.

So from this perspective, I oppose allowing Chinese students to study at Taiwanese universities, if it's merely a political game that is geared towards annexation.

However, I have an issue of cognitive dissonance, largely because of my experiences with Chinese (and other) international students at the University of Michigan. Firstly, from a purely educational standpoint, exchange students tend to be a positive thing. In a globalized world, it makes little sense trying to inhibit diplomatic, academic, or business interactions between countries. This is also why I am opposed to the previous US administration's refusal to speak to Iran without preconditions.

Also, on a more personal level, I have met many wonderful international students from China who frankly don't care about political issues, and just want to make the most of their time in Michigan. There's nothing fundamentally different about them - many of them are ridiculously smart, because chances are they wouldn't be studying abroad if they weren't. And so it's hard for me to take the stance that in the case of Taiwan, it's better to deprive people of these potential friendships and learning experiences.

But ultimately, politics matter. The probem is that Taiwan and China simply do not have normal respectable state-to-state relations, and currently one is trying very hard to annex the other. If this were not the case, I would have absolutely no problem with allowing Chinese students into Taiwanese universities - increased competition is a good thing, and it would probably provide Taiwanese students and school administrations a good kick in the pants that they sorely need. But my guess is that unlike Chinese students going to the United States, those studying in Taiwan would inevitably be fiercely vetted by the Chinese Communist Party, to guarantee that they would be rich, and more importantly, nationalistic so as to avoid feelings of sympathy for the "Taiwanese separatists". Whether or not this might inhibit class discussions is unknown, but if I were in those shoes, it would be quite difficult for me to accept alternative viewpoints. (obviously, this pertains more for the social sciences rather than fields like Engineering) Like it or not, this is a fiercely political issue, and it's hard to believe that this sort of student exchange would be essentially held in a vacuum away from the pressures of poitical reality.

From a certain perspective, this post could be offensive to my Chinese friends in that it's quite presumptuous about what potential international students in Taiwan might be like, and I apologize in advance if this is the case. However, it's a real concern I have, and one that really has two different values tugging away at each other. On one hand, interaction in of itself is not a bad thing. On the other hand, there's the real power difference between the two States which colors and distorts the issue.

Thoughts?

Language and Thought Processing

Being who I am, people often ask me, "What language do you think in, English or Chinese?" My reply has varied depending on my current understanding of language and how I formulate my thoughts. At first, the reply was English because I was much more comfortable with it than with Mandarin, though I had spoken the latter at home even when growing up in the States. There was a period of time during which I refused to speak any Mandarin at all. At the time, I don't think I really liked the fact that I could speak a language that most of my classmates couldn't understand. Strange now that I think about it, since it seems like at the same time kids love to come up with their own secret codes to talk about things. I guess I just wanted to fit in.

At any rate, when I moved to Taiwan people were fascinated by the fact that my English was "so good", and would just sit back and admire how my brother and I would converse in English as if it was natural. Well yeah, it's the closest thing I have to a first language, though since I was in Taiwan for high school, I probably missed out on some crucial composition and literature classes that my friends who were educated completely in the States got. Moving to Taiwan was a huge crash course in Chinese language education - like it or not, I had to pick up reading and writing, and *fast*. I probably learned more in 4 months living there than I did in 4 years of Chinese school after church back in South Bend. This isn't really a criticism of the dedicated parent-teachers that we had, but rather that I just didn't find reading and writing very relevant at all to my life, and never used it outside of class. That's the problem with non-immersive language education, I think . Unless you're very dedicated and take the extra time and effort to utilize all the possible opportunities, chances are you're not getting very good at your foreign language.

I've made some friends here from other study abroad programs, and what strikes me is how immersive their study is. There's this one kid from Sweden who came to Japan after finishing his military service, and has been learning Japanese for maybe 2 years. He's really good. I was at a picnic with various other study abroad students here during Golden Week (major Japanese vacation each year), and I was shocked at how well they spoke Japanese, considering how manyof them had only been learning the language for 2, maybe 3 years. Thinking back though it really shouldn't be that surprising. Here, you're bombarded with the language and culture every day whether you like it or not. Switch on the radio, people are speaking Japanese. Billboards, advertisements, cell phone spam, Google Ads, host families, bus stops...

I've gone way off my original topic. So yeah, what language do I think in?

Well, it depends on what language the person speaking to me is using. In Taiwan, since most people would be speaking to me in Mandarin, I would naturally reply in Mandarin, and while thinking of my reply I would generally be using Mandarin as well. The same goes for English. In the very beginning I think I had to sort of translate things in my head into English, but as my language ability got better this became less and less necessary. The same goes for Japanese - I'm now able to think in Japanese, at least about the topics that I'm relatively familiar with in the context of my language classes, such as a host family scenario, or identity (another topic for another day).

I like to say that I just use my brain and think, without being constrained by the language, but it's undeniable that familiarity with certain topics affects how quickly your brain works. For example, I find it much easier to talk about Political Science in English, because all of my experience with Polsci has been with this language. Certainly, if I knew the equivalent Chinese words then I'd be nearly as capable even speaking in Mandarin about Polsci, but it's not nearly as smooth. The same goes for faith too. My experience with Christianity has largely been shaped by my time in the States, whether it was church growing up in South Bend, or the college fellowship that I'm a part of now. I don't know the names of the Prophets in Chinese, or how the various books are pronounced. It's just that much harder.

All this is to say, I think I've been watching way too much Japanese idol-drama. Why? Because when I'm thinking of how I would confess to my crush, it almost *always* comes out in my head in Japanese first. "[name]のこと、好きになっちゃったみたい。" I don't even know if it's gramatically correct! But since I've heard similar lines so many times in mushy Japanese romantic dramas, this is the language I'm most familiar with when my brain is working on cheesy pickup lines or dramatic moments. Obviously, this isn't very practical. It's like if I had confessed in English back in high school - her English was decent and all that, but it obviously didn't come nearly as naturally as Chinese, and it just would have felt weird.

And of course, if she doesn't understand Japanese then my dramatic line would go to waste anyway. Now that would be really awkward. I think a fair amount of people have watched enough dramas to understand that the sound "suki" means "to like", but say you only understand that much of the sentence, and you're not exactly sure what I just said. "... did he just say he likes me? But I didn't catch the rest of the sentence... um... I dunno if I should ask him what that grammar form means. Why'd he use Japanese? Argh."

Thankfully or not, I think a line like, "あなたが大好き。" is easy enough to understand for my target demographic. Still, food for thought. Watch some cheesy Asian dramas in other languages too, for maximum flexibility.

Switching gears

To be honest, I haven't actually fully nailed down what I want to be doing this summer. I've already decided on the greater topic of constitutional reform in Japan and Taiwan, but I haven't figured out what angle I should approach this from. What I do know is that at this point in time, I know very little about the topic, which can be both a cause of worry and potential.

Let me backtrack a bit. As most of you probably already know, since January I've studying in Kyoto, Japan for the semester. It wasn't easy deciding to do so - I wavered and went back and forth a bit back while I was still in Michigan about whether or not I should actually participate in the program. In hindsight, many of the things that I worried about were rather petty and maybe even a bit childish, but they mattered to me regardless. I mean, there were things that I knew I would miss, such as interesting classes, my fellowship and acapella group, and interaction with my statistically significant other. It's been hit or miss - some things did indeed unfold as I had foreseen, others actually surprised me in positive ways. At any rate what I'm trying to say is that studying abroad has been quite an exhilarating experience, and if you have the chance to do it, then you probably ought to give it a shot.

I started learning Japanese seriously in my sophomore year of college - I had taken a few classes in high school, but to be honest, I never put any effort into it. Actually, that would unfortunately describe "high school Steven" fairly accurately. I had nearly perfect attendance for all my classes, and since that was rare enough as it was, most of my teachers probably felt rather bad if they didn't give me an A, so I graduated with good grades despite never really preparing for class, doing homework, or doing well on exams. All I learned from my Japanese classes back in Taiwan were roughly 40 or so hiragana. (This wasn't the fault of the teacher at all) Despite this, I always harbored a desire the learn the language, largely because I started to read Japanese manga (Dragonball and Slam Dunk were the catalysts), and became quite enamored with the pop culture. When I first entered the University of Michigan, I learned that we had a program called the Residential College which was structured rather like a small liberal arts college with a heavy emphasis on humanities, arts, and social sciences. It was also famous for its intensive language programs. I figured that this sounded pretty good to me, particularly since I wasn't interested at all in doing a major in the "real" sciences like physics or biochemistry. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely LOVE science and find myself constantly amazed and fascinated by the things that I am able to learn about the world every day, but when it comes down to it I know I wouldn't be able to hack it, because I slacked off in high school and didn't lay down the basic fundamentals for it.

Oh yeah, the fact that being an RC student meant you were obligated/allowed to live in East Quad on the UM Central Campus was also a huge motivating factor. Basically, I didn't want to live on North Campus and have to commute down south every day. Ironically, it was my laziness that compelled me to start taking one of the most intensive language courses offered by the University. Go figure.

It wasn't until I completed my first semester that I learned about Asian Studies, and after taking an introductory level survey course on Modern East Asia, I was hooked and decided to do a double major. As a result, each semester so far I've been taking at least one course in Political Science, and one in Asian Studies, and occasionally if I'm lucky (as I was sophomore year) I had classes that combined the two. I felt like I was starting to get the hang of things.

But as junior year rolled around I realized how little I really knew. Sure, I probably had an above-average grasps of politics, and particularly Chinese politics, but as far as my knowledge of the rest of East Asia was concerned, I knew little more than the average Wikipedia article. Japan's also an integral player in East Asia right? How can I not know anything about Japanese history, culture, religion, or politics, and yet call myself an expert in Asian Studies? So that was one reason why I decided to come here, and I'd describe the past semester as a crash course on Japan, in an attempt to make up for the things that I didn't learn in the past. This involved everyday life in Japan such as living with a host family, the daily two hour commute to school, the awesome game shows, courses in translation and Japanese politics, and overall just a greater understanding of the language and culture. But overall it still felt too short, and if I was honest with myself I *still* didn't know all that much. At this point I've come to realize that you actually won't ever be satisfied with how much you know, and at any rate what's important isn't necessarily the factual knowledge you have stored in your head, but rather the ability to find information when you need it.

Towards the end of the school year here, the study abroad program I participated in, the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies (KCJS) told us that they would be offering research grants for the summer, and if you got it, yu would be able to stay in Japan for up to an additional 10 weeks doing research on a topic of your choosing. At first I really didn't put all that much thought into it, since I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Then randomly it suddenly struck me - the constitution! Yeah, that sounds sort of boring and a bit random, but hear me out. As I said earlier, I really don't know that much about East Asian politics yet, but I am interested in learning more about Japan, China, and Taiwan in particular. (Korea if I have time) So far, I've already taken quite a few classes on China, and a few now on Japan, but I've always felt that what I'm most interested in is China-Taiwan-US relations. But how does it affect everyday life?

Well, in Japan the revision of the constitution is a fairly big deal, and there's been mounting pressure to do so, from various different perspectives. For example, you have the right-wing nationalists who want Japan to remilitarize and be more assertive in international politics, especially in regards to relations with China and Korea. You've also got those who want to revise the constitution if only for linguistic reasons - as the document was originally drafted in English, some of the wording is simply awkward. On the other hand, there are also people who fear that revising the constitution threatens Article 9, which is arguably the aspect of the Japanese constitution that is most famous - the one that renounces war. In this regard, the Japanese and Taiwanese situation shares some similarities.

In both cases, for better or worse the constitution was externally "imposed", under circumstances in which the affected population had relatively little say in the matter. For Japan, it was by the United States and the occupying authorities, and for Taiwan, the original Republic of China constitution drafted and designed to govern "Mainland" China. As the people in these two lands are slowly starting to come to a new recognition and grasp of identity, there is inevitable pressure to revise the constitution into something that more accurately matches the current state of the nation, and how it ought to be perceived and ruled. Yet although there are various practical reasons to do so in both cases, there are various different factors to consider. For example, Korea and China arguably see the revision of the Japanese constitution as a threat, or at least a disturbing development, because the biggest thing these two countries care about regarding this topic is Article 9. Now, whether or not this law would actually be changed is another issue altogether (I personally believed it wouldn't), but the perception certainly exists, which is that if Japan revises its constitution, one large purpose would be to get rid of the clause abandoning the use of military force.

For Taiwan, the case is even more blatant - although its constitution has been revised several times since the Chinese Nationalists took over Taiwan after losing the Civil War, overall it is still quite clunky and ill-suited towards governing an island nation of Taiwan's size. I'm not really 100% sure on this, but as far as I know there are still parts referring to Chinese provinces, and even Mongolia. Yet while it makes much practical sense to revise the constitution in order to reflect contemporary Taiwan more accurately (also the fact that it is now a Democracy, and a document that was designed to be used under a rather Leninist KMT structure just doesn't apply very well), there's international pressure - namely, from the People's Republic of China stopping this.

Now what I haven't decided on yet is what to focus my research on. I see either 1) The process of constitutional revision in both countries, such as whether or not it is interest-group based, how the laws are favorable or are heavily weighted towards maintaining the status quo, or 2) The international politics of East Asia, and the sorts of things that both nations have to take into account when considering whether or not to revise.

Either way, my conclusions won't come until later - first, I just have to read a LOT about Japanese politics in addition to constitutional law and social activism before I know where to start. But in addition, I'm going to have to learn a lot more about Taiwan too. I've complained that the University of Michigan basically offers jack squat on Taiwanese studies, and I've realized that I really ought to be taking the initiative to learn myself, if it's that important to me. As such, when I return home to Taiwan in mid-June, that will be the start of the second half of my research, which should be quite interesting. I'm going to try to become more involved and engaged with what's going on in Taiwanese society and politics, and post some commentary when I am able to.

Maybe I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in Taipei... urgh.

Thoughts from Kyoto - May 1st

And thus begins my month and a half in Kyoto for research. Time to see how self-motivated I can be when it comes down to it. Here are just some random thoughts that I wanna write down now so I don't forget about them. I'll have more detailed stuff on my topic later.

Although there are signs all over the place saying "We check ID when buying alcohol", they apparently don't actually bother to do so, at least not at the convenience stores.

I was rather surprised to see that the cafeteria at Bukkyo Daigaku (Buddhism University) serves various meat dishes. Huh?

Cool thing about Japan - I heard someone playing the theme from Mononoke Hime on what was probably a recorder.

Thoughts from Kyoto - April 20

This is going to be a compilation of various things, mostly because I've gotten from a friend who enjoyed the blog, which inadverdently guilt-tripped me into writing something about Japan, at least one more time before I go home. So... I suppose the last time I wrote was before Spring Break. Dang!

I went to Tokyo from Spring Break with several other KCJS program friends, and felt woefully unprepared. See, Kyoto is the sort of city where you can sort of get around and find interesting places to go with most standard tour books, but Tokyo is a completely different ball game. Firstly, the public transportation system is quite daunting and confusing for probably even Japanese people, if they haven't lived in Tokyo for a while. Taiwan's MRT line looks almost amateur by comparison, when considering both scale and size of the stations, and number of stops. That said, there are quite a few similarities, down to the colors used for maps at each stop - definitely a lot of imitation going on.

In fact, you could say that this has been one of the most interesting things that I've observed this semester - how many things in Taiwan actually had their start in Japan. FamilyMart is nearly exactly the same. Rather, the entire convenience-store model is basically copied from Japan, as is the MRT system, and baseball games. (Oh yeah, I went to a baseball game recently at the FREAKING KOSHIEN. It was badass)

Anyway, partly due to my lack of preparation... I didn't like Tokyo all that much. It was certainly a fun experience and I saw a lot of cool things, but I like Kyoto a lot more. It's partly the slower pace, but also because I don't get any feeling of personality from Tokyo. It seems to be a mishmash of almost anything, which itself is undeniably a sort of culture too, but it's not one that I can really keep up with or relate to. It's kind of like Taipei for me, but even worse, as far as me feeling a bit out of place. In addition, the privatization process for railways and subways arguably made travelling around the city convenient, but quite confusing, as you'd have several different stations at one geographical location, all run by different companies that may or may not service the same destination.

There were definitely high points though, such as the Studio Ghibli museum. That was really cute.

Random thought. Something that has really struck me throughout my nearly 4 months here in Japan is how *normal* the country feels. Now, the internet stereotype is that Japan produces 85% of the world's weird shit, and I can see why, as the typical "Japanese" thing that people get exposed to are otaku, anime, narutards, J-drama, and odd celebrity game shows. Oh yeah, speaking of J-drama. Like all media, it helps to convince you that everyone in said country is either ridiculously handsom or astonishingly beautiful. THIS IS NOT THE CASE.

Of course, only a dumbass would really shape their perceptions of a country based solely on what they've read in the media, but despite knowing this, I was still affected a bit by the media stereotypes. Now certainly, there are things that you see in Japan which would be quite rare otherwise, such as someone standing on a bench near the river practicing the Suzumiya Haruhi dance without a care in the world, or people snacking on dango and sake while on a picnic watching the sakura trees bloom (and the season is indeed REALLY short. Like a week or something). But overall, it feels like your average East Asian country, not all that different from Taiwan, for better or for worse.

This doesn't mean that if you're from an East Asian country you wouldn't be getting much if you come to Japan. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as fascinating or disorientating an experience as it might be if you came from a completely different country, but either way, it's only after you can look past the popular symbols and stereotypes that you can get to know a country.

The busy, hectic Tokyo is Japan, but the same holds true for Kyoto's quiet streets, or Miyajima's deer just chilling by the path. It's like when someone asks me, "So what's America like?"

That's almost impossible to answer. It's just so rich and different and diverse depending on what state you're in, and the season... Japan's the same.

History

As some of you may already know, before I decided to major in Political Science and East Asian Studies, I considered doing History. Why? Because it’s fascinating how what we learn (or don’t learn) about the past affects our future, and how we perceive the world, which in turn affects decisions made for better or for worse. Unfortunately it appears that people tend to unfortunately learn the wrong lessons from history, in large part due to lack of accurate information or deliberate propaganda during childhood education. It’s a complicated situation, particularly when teachers and textbook authors have to confront the history of a discredited war. For Japan or Germany, it’s WWII, whereas for the US it tends to be Vietnam, though as time goes on this may hold true for Iraq as well. Either way, it’s essentially impossible to discuss either the actions of the citizenry or treatment of foreigners in ways that can satisfy everyone.

Are teachers to acknowledge the brutality of war that their country engaged in, while defending the least objectionable goals? Condemn the war goals and practices? On what grounds should something be condemned – human rights, aggressiveness, imperialism, or irrationality? What should be taught about dissent in war? These questions are difficult, and have the potential to be deeply divisive because they cut right to the heart of ideas regarding both what it means to be a nation, and what it means to be a citizen.

I was reminded of this during a conversation with my host Mom at dinner tonight – the study abroad program I’m participating in (Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies) sends all host families program schedules, such as the dates for spring break, or group trips. Next Friday KCJS is going to be visiting Hiroshima for two days, and she asked me about it – I mentioned that I was looking forward to having conversations with the other American KCJS students there regarding the dropping of the atomic bomb. A few weeks ago, I borrowed a REALLY thick book from the library (in English) regarding how American’s perceptions about the decision to drop the atomic bomb were shaped – the author argues quite convincingly – incorrectly. And so she asked me what *I* personally thought.

As a disclaimer, I have to point out that I didn’t attend high school in the United States, so I am unqualified to comment about all aspects of a typical American education, but I don’t recall learning anything about the Japanese internment camps, or antiwar protests, or My Lai, or the effects of the atomic bomb in my elementary school history classes. Now some may protest, saying that it’s not healthy for young kids to be exposed to such brutality and violence. At a certain level, I agree – but on the other hand, you also cannot afford to gloss over war when kids are young, with the hopes that they will become educated and informed about the issue in the future. Unfortunately, it seems that the way education works (particularly at the lower grades) is that you are taught a certain way of perceiving the nation, rather than how to think. It’s how adults want children to see the country that they live in, true or not.

In an age where you see people getting shot and cut to pieces or blown up by missiles daily on television shows, where violence is only occasionally condemned – even glorified, like in “24”, or any action movie, it seems to me that one of the most important things to teach an impressionable child is that war is not a game. But that’s what it’s sold as. Look at the military recruitment commercials. Look at the advertisements for the latest action flick. Look at the gratuitously violent video games. (Note: Gratuitous, which means pointless. Violence can be used effectively to make a point in media) People say things like, “Let’s bomb ‘em” or “Let’s nuke ‘em” without actually realizing what these words actually mean. A lot of us Americans enjoyed the scene in the latest Indiana Jones movie where he survives a nuclear test by hiding in a refrigerator. “Oh ha ha, it’s Indy getting out of another jam!” whereas for a Japanese person, the scene invokes fear, devastation, and suffering.

We as a nation haven’t been challenged to confront our past in the ways that Japan or Germany have been, in large part because of our overwhelming military and economic dominance – as these things slowly start to change, I expect that demands from other countries for more evenhanded treatment of our foreign policy and education about past wars will increase, and it will be a test of our character, in how we react.

Regarding the Japanese school year

So I learned something new last night while having dinner with my host family. I had always assumed that the Japanese school system would be pretty much the same as the Taiwanese one as far as the semester system is concerned, since there are so many other similarities.

In the United States, both semester and trimester systems begin in the Fall, generally in September, ending sometime in mid to late December, followed by a second semester in the beginning of the next year. Taiwan's fall semester is considerably longer, lasting until the Lunar New Year, so the entire school year is pushed back a bit deeper into the summer, but the basic structure is the same. Each Fall you begin a new school year.

In Japan, apparently the new school year starts in *April*. Colleges follow a 2-semester system, while elementary, middle, and high schools vary depending on what city they are located in. But for a college student, the first half of the school year starts in April and goes on until mid-July, while the second half begins sometime in late September to mid October, and continues until mid-February, with a small break in between on December 24th. (no relation to Christmas)

So this was the source of a misunderstanding by me - in the KCJS program, there are several Kyoto University students auditing the classes taught in English, and their semester has already ended. Some of them said they had graduated, which led me to assume that they had all finished a semester early... when in fact this is actually when the school year ends. Quite different!

In God's Own Image - thoughts on race and imagery

This is an issue that I’ve been thinking about for awhile – but up until now I hadn’t really attempted to organize them into something more comprehensive.

I’m going to get to the point immediately: Why is it that 99% of the images of Jesus that I have personally seen growing up been of this white Aryan-looking dude? It’s not because of any historical accuracy – while there probably weren’t any cameras when he walked the earth, it’s a fair guess to say that given who his birth parents were, he was physically likely to be “brown” rather than “white”. Seen any photos of Palestinians, Israelis, or Egyptians recently? Blue eyes aren’t very common.

Growing up, the church that I vividly remember also used the white Jesus imagery prominently – I doubt that this was anything intentional, just something that came to be via habit, and reinforced through merchandise options. The majority of the Christian stores that I have visited in both America and in Taiwan help to perpetuate this imagery.

It seems to be part of a cycle that in of itself shouldn’t be a problem, but put into the context of racism, both institutionalized and not, is an issue. Here’s how the cycle works – when you’re growing up, your critical thought process is still developing, and at this time the power of any message received has the potential to leave a significant impact in your memory. Ever since Mom started bringing me to church, my perception of Jesus as a white man was constantly reinforced; “This is the Son of God.” In my head, God was white.

Again, it’s important to note that this is not what he would have looked like, historically.

Now here I tend to hesitate when discussing the issue with friends, because my problem is not with the white Jesus per se. Indeed, one of the most appealing things I find with Christianity is that Jesus is for everyone – the awesome part is that Jesus came down to Earth to live *like one of us*. And that means that people of every race and ethnicity have the right to imagine Jesus looking like one of them on the outside, if that helps them feel closer to God. Chinese-looking Jesus. African-looking Jesus. Aryan-looking Jesus. Whatever floats your boat.

The problem though is when you’re so attached to the imagery that you’re uncomfortable imagining the alternatives. It didn’t occur to me until college that Jesus is not a white guy with flowy hair. It is wrong to say, “Your Jesus has the wrong skin color” for any reason other than historical accuracy, which wasn’t the point of his coming anyway. The issue I have is that like it or not, the image of Jesus for most American Christians (I say this because I am reluctant to generalize about those in other countries that I am not very familiar with) is of a white man.

Passion of the Christ. 60s Jesus movies. God is thought to be a muscular bearded old white man. Renaissance paintings. The problem is when you’ve equated the image of God as white, and thus “good”.

Again, to make things clear, the solution isn’t to equate God as black, or any other ethnicity. But we’ve got to be able to walk out of the narrow mindset that we’ve been brought up in. What struck me the most about a certain church that I visited when I was in China was that the Jesus was *ridiculously* white. They didn’t even have a Chinese-looking Jesus in China! And perhaps this is my subjective opinion, but we haven’t arrived at the day where it doesn’t matter at all what ethnicity he is portrayed as, because the important thing is what he represented, and we are all able to unconsciously look past the imagery. I call BS. Humans are visually-oriented creatures, and it’s extremely hard to disassociate images from concepts. It matters immensely if you can imagine Jesus looking like you, speaking your language figuratively. It’s what makes him so appealing, because he can relate to you.

I think Islam is on to something when it bans visual interpretations of the prophet Mohammed. Now I do not approve of the law per se, because Christianity needs creativity, and many good things have come out of actions that may have been deemed “sacrilegious” at one point or other in history, like Christian rap or Rock Music. However, the idea that the *concept* of God is more important than the *image* of God is good.

I don’t want to just see black Jesus in black churches, or Korean Jesus in Korean churches. I don’t want this imagery thing to be one that isolates us from each other even more. But I want it to be so when we have images of Jesus on our powerpoint slides in Asian InterVarsity Christian fellowship, we are free to choose the Palestinian-looking one, or the Chinese-looking one too, without people freaking out.