Cyberpunk

My friend from Cyberpunk Review and I once had a very interesting conversation over coffee on this idea we called transnational cultural feedback. (He was a systems analyst and I'm a sociologist so I guess that's logical.) Basically it's the phenomenon of constant generational exchange of culture between various countries where not only do we have one country imitating the other, but the other country imitating the imitation. This interests me in the nature of the conduits which allow for this transfer of culture. Who are the people carrying this culture between nations, and why and what meaning does this culture mean to the carrier. In terms of Pierre Bourdieu, the imitation of culture from one nation to another implies a relationship of reverence to that original culture. Value is attributed to the lifestyle and is imitated in an effort to gain similar status. Continued transfers back and forth implies a shifting of value reverence and activity between the nations.

Obviously the example I would pick out as an excellent case study would be between Japan and the US. Some would say that much of early inspirations of cyberpunk was born out of the heady days of the cold war during the Reagen administration. Fears of nuclear war eminent and a sudden realization of impotence to the frightening rise of Japanese technology. Cyberpunk captured the "what if" scenarios of technology on the human condition and more often than not high technology meant Japan. So many of the technological horror movies (The Terminator) may at least subconsciously derive from fears of Japanese technology.

What is strange is now with the Japanese interests with western culture including science fiction, much of that is in the sub-conscience of the Japanese as well. So when we see a technology research company call themselves cyberdyne and built a powered suit named HAL, we have to pause to think of why such an homage is paid to Western literature. (Read more about HAL here.)

Gamer's Girl

This is perhaps a bit metaphysical but bear with me while I do a blog post on a blog.

There has been quite a bit of discussion on the role of gender and gamers and if playing video games has been a predominately male activity. Should there be games created to reach out to women, (Are such games appropriate or just humiliating?) Are female gamers a new phenomenon or have they always been there all along? Do girls consume games differently than men? Most of the time girl gamers are depicted fairly poorly enforcing stereotypes that girls of any value sexy and interested in what you're interested in. However, there are sources that are trying to bring some seriousness to the idea.

Gamer's Girl is a blog which describes itself as such.

The Gamer's Girl Blog is meant to share stories of humor, support, and wisdom to those who date, have fallen in love with, or are married to a gamer. Much like being a house wife or soldier's wife, being involved with a gamer has its own set of rules, rewards, and challenges.

First of all, I've flipped through a few issues of Military Spouse. There are quite a few inconsistencies of experience and assumptions on the family dynamic and for me acts more as a manual for mythical social norms, than a support magazine. Then again I'm not a a housewife with a husband in Iraq for the third time, so I am unfairly biased. For those who need to seek out a support group even intellectually it does work for those who seek it.

The blog is quite new but seems to be able to update more often than my blog so I must give credit there. Gamer's Girl is about sharing the often comical pros and cons of being in a relationship with a gamer. Most of the time this discussion is quite short and ends up with the same tired joke of men choosing the comfort of games rather than relationships.

This blog brings up important points on the personal experiences of these relationship and tries to not cast it in such black and white terms. I'm quite interested in the blog already and I intend to pay close attention to how it continues to grow.

Japanese Elections

Only the Japanese would use music from the "Terminator" movies in their election coverage. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does give an interesting example of the use of culture for symbolic meaning. How do we indicate to the people instantly that something important is going on? For years we had used strict rituals, dress, and displays of wealth as an indicator of importance to any event. The use of "important sounding" music regardless of the cultural source may be another one. (Although it reminds me of the use of the color red for the Communist or the Nazi parties.) We have to pay attention to these tools of solidarity because they have meaning as to how we understand what cultural cues become important. As we become more aware of our diversity in occupation and lifestyle and the reach of masses of humanity becomes larger, the key elements of organic solidarity become more and more complicated. Perhaps now the only things we can unite under are Coke-Cola, McDonalds, and Hollywood movie references.

Seriously though in case you haven't heard the news. The "Democratic Party of Japan" DPJ has won in a landslide victory gaining 308 seats in the house of Representatives. This is an amazing change for the Japanese as a political system. In true Japanese fashion "Rozen Aso" has resigned his position as PM. This will change the political environment in Japan and balance a decades long rule of of the "Liberal Democratic Party" LDP. I don't know much about the new PM Yukio Hatoyama other than the fact that his grandfather was also a form PM. (Seriously Japan, there is some caste system of elites or what?)

Another interesting turnout was the 9 seats for the "Japanese Communist Party" JCP. I was talking to a fellow Graduate student in my department of the progress of the communist movement in Japan. What I find interesting is that of all the countries I can think of, I think Japan would be most likely to be amicable to a communist state. Typically most Japanese have no essential distrust of monopolies or government run services. Your average Japanese person wouldn't know that Japan Rail is now a private company and not a government run system. I think if anyone is at all interested in seeing new things happen in the field of Communist revolutions, Japan would be a place to look. I feel there are similar conditions going on in Japan which Marx may have seen going on in Germany.

Hikikomori

Hikikomori from Will on Vimeo.

Probably a topic which will come across pretty often, but always interesting to re-investigate are the hikikomori and otaku phenomenon in Japan. Perhaps no accident my Graduate mentor had completed his thesis on the Hikikomori phenomenon. His blog on the topic can be found here. I'm quite impressed with his work and it looks like he's living the dream being a recipient of the prestigious Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship. (Someday I'll get there...)

The video above is a fairly good mini documentary on this topic in Japan from the blog Japanator. One of the things that caught me right away was the perception of men in Japan associated with hikikomori.

So maybe males are more likely to be 'hikikomori' because they are weak weaker than females.

Definitely a perception different from Americans where very few American men would admit men are weaker than females. It seems this cross-national disparity of masculinity between Japan and men from other nations.

...the Japanese... shy boy... dakara(therefore)... (some hand gestures indicating aggressive ) no no... but Italians and Americans... not shy

The stereotype of different degrees of manliness between nations have heavy suggestions of various themes of sublimation between nations.

Also there are the strong themes of isolationism and loneliness commented on in this video. I find it interesting that there are several references in which this is attributed to the prevalence of technology. Freud would have agreed with this sentiment of technology a product of civilization as an enabler of loneliness and personal dissatisfaction stating that "...there then no positive gain in pleasure, no unequivocal increase in my feeling of happiness, if I can, as often as I please, hear the voice of a child of mine who is living hundreds of miles away..." (Freud; 1931 38-39) Here he states that the technology of the phone has made it palatable for his child to live far away and give the illusion that an intimate human connection is still possible despite the distance.

As for solutions a few programs are in effect to solve this problem which affects the working force of Japan. (Which affects issues of immigration) However, many of them are very patronizing and shame the people with the sickness. The Television show "Welcome to the NHK" an anime show delving into the problems of NEETs and Hikikomori seems to have the disturbing message in which these folks are merely the products of enablers who allow them to waste away, the solution of course is to cut this line of support and force them out of their situation through starvation. The problem of course like any illness like the flu, addiction or depression, the greatest help is through the support of others and never through further isolation.

loneliness

First of all, a bit of housekeeping; I am currently enrolled in the MA program at the University of Hawai'i Manoa. I'm quite excited about this being that this means I'm going to be able to pursue my passion as a sociologist. Hopefully this will reflect in greater quantity and and quality of work in this blog.

With moving in and limited access to the lifeblood of mine that is the internet, I've had alot of time on my hands to look over a few of the things I have downloaded and never gotten around to consuming.

Lililicious an excellent scanlation team has a few of Ebine Yamaji's work translated into English. Being that this novel is not likely to be picked up by any of the US publishers, this is perhaps the only way her work will reach an English audience. Hopefully this will drum up enough attention for a US publisher to pick up her work.

I finally got the time to finish "Free Soul" this morning. This was an excellent story that gracefully reaches out to troubles we all have about love, relationships, parents and careers. I find myself reflecting on my own insecurities about relationships and self image and find some strong emotional bond between myself and the Keito. In an interview with Ebine Yamaji, she discloses that it was "more fun to write about two girls"

Up to that point, I had never really enjoyed telling straight love stories. I just felt that my heart wasn't into it - I didn't get the same feeling of satisfaction from working on them. But once I produced a girl-meets-girl piece, I just realized that it was so much fun - I loved it! So, actually, recently I've been thinking to myself that if I try to approach working on straight love stories the same way that I do gay ones, then they may go better (laughs).

I wonder how common this concept is to people. I find myself agreeing with her sentiment, but I wonder why I do, and what goes on in the minds of those who don't feel the same way. Are there events or experiences which lend themselves to be able to see relationships beyond the gender borders. Or even which perspective has the blinders on? Those too caught up in fixed ideas of gender to see the relationship or those too caught up in the relationship to see the gender?

One of the things I have found distinctly different between the US and Japan is the idea of romantic friendship. Americans now have difficulty reading Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H" without finding it extremely "gay". However, I find many people of the same sex able to openly hold hands or show some physical affection without raising any real suspicion. I once found one of my male students sitting in the lap of another male student all the while one was casually stroking the other one's chin. When I asked why he was doing that, he replied that it was "interestingly pointy". What the "civilized" world finds appropriate in terms of public displays of affection between humans are odd and inconsistent. Perhaps there needs to be more study into how such changes in shame and love came to be. One thing seems to be clear in my mind is as we further curtail and compartmentalize appropriateness in intimacy this seems to create nothing but loneliness.

Turning Japanese

Above is a recording of an excellent interview with my personal role model George Takei. There's this other guy too, but I don't know what's the deal with him.

Growing up as an Asian-American in the 80's I didn't have many asian role models on TV. It was mostly just George Takei and Martin Yan. (This may explain why I like cooking and Sci-Fi so much.)

Although it seems that even today a more progressive and racially sensitive age in which we live in, there are still paltry examples of asians in the media. What's more it seems that must be a deficit of Asian-Americans in Southern California, becuase white people are taking the burden of playing asian roles. Everyone from Goku in the Dragonball Z movie to the problematic casting choices of "Avatar the Last Airbender", or the odd casting of Jake Gyllenhaall as the Prince of Persia. Of course good news is that there are groups now that make definate strides in turning this around.

Of course the interesting issue for me wouldn't be in terms of just policy changes, but something more subtle such as actual perceptions. As much as I sometimes fancy the idea of changing perceptions, I often come into the conundrum of who has authority on what is the "right" perception. What is seemingly straightforward can become quite grey in practice. My friend's mother once acused her daughter of "Japing out on her" and she was shocked that her mother was using such language. Although to her defense, it wasn't that long ago that such terms were not taboo. These terms and perceptions of Asia do not exist in a vacuum but are heavily contextual in the events of the time. How we deem them as appropriate or not must always be in context of the country's military and economic relationship.

Women's work

The interaction of how we are to understand each other and the values that run between nations and perceived nations is at the heart of what I research. Transnational perceptions focused on "nerd culture" is a rather narrow field, but I find there is often quite a bit to study when I keep my eyes open. This article on Lee Si-kap's collection of 85 satellite dishes to satisfy his Vietnamese bride, Bui Thi Huang, sets up an interesting picture of transnational ideas of gender.

"In recent years, the South Korean countryside has had an influx of brides from
poorer countries like Vietnam, China and the Philippines. Like Ms. Bui, they
marry South Korean farmers who have difficulty finding a spouse because so many
young Korean women have rejected rural life and migrated to cities."

There is an incredible amount of fascinating things going on here all at once in this phenomenon. First of all I wonder how it is that women in Korea have a greater ability to move away from their rural town into the cities. Is it easier for women to find work in the city than men? Is it difficult for women to find work in rural towns? I wonder if it is heavily pragmatic as this, or is it overlayed by symbolic ideas of men as "country boys" and women as "uptown girls" as portrayed in the US through shows like "Green Acres". The idea of a single women living the city is a long standing mythology which has existed as far back as "Ars Amatoria" by Ovid, with even then carried the same feeling to disdain/admiration.

Then on top of this, is the idea of finding women from "poorer countries" and having them move to South Korea to become wives plays an interesting role of how these men must perceive these women and what they represent for them and for their home country. As this linked article put:

The rising status of women in the United States sent American men who were
searching for more traditional wives to Russia in the 1990s.

Again the product of greater mobility and economic independence for women becomes a punishment for men who desire more "traditional" wives. So as these women move to greater positions in the world, men are left in the dust. It's a strange antagonising of progress for women that seems to unfairly bring guilt to women who want to move up in the world through the limited avenues available to them, and at the same time draws sympathy for men who are unwilling to change with the times. This is similar to the problematic solution presented by Betty Friedan of hiring maids and nannys (from poorer nations) to do the women's work while affluent wives build a career outside the home. If we are to truly understand how gender roles are changing and improving, we must pay close attention to how this is changing as a whole system. Having some women improve their lives to have their previous roles replaced by women of poorer nations may not be the path we are looking for in dramatically changing gender roles in society.