http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/index.htmlRandom thoughtsenandrewm@stanfordalumni.orgCopyright 2006 Andrew MacDonald2008-11-20T16:47:54-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Sun, 07 Sep 2008 05:50:50 -0700andrewm@stanfordalumni.orgNone2008-11-20T16:47:54-08:00http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-5andrewm@stanfordalumni.orgBlog2006-09-01T06:57:45-07:00http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-3
Apparently people actually read my website. Or at least according to my friend last night, whose girlfriend stumbled on my website. So I figured I better add an About Me page for future stumblers.

I'm also working on adding a bunch more photos, but it'll take a while since I'm basically indolent. Sometimes I wish I weren't so lazy, but Phil's Pub > sitting at home in front of my computer most nights.]]>andrewm@stanfordalumni.orgBlog2006-08-28T08:04:49-07:00http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-2----

I guess going to Japan feels like a homecoming in a few ways for me. For one, I feel like I do miss Japan and want to go back when I get the opportunity; I can't say that I feel as strongly about going to my real home because I feel like it used to be my home; maybe I'm metaphorically homeless now. I also get very nostalgic about my experiences in Japan - some of my most formative experiences have happened there in college. While they can't be re-created, a lot of particular experiences there I find to be some of my most treasured. In another way, it can be home for me in a way China can't because I feel so comfortable and at ease there. I blend in - obviously I'm a foreigner and this entails some different experiences, but, unlike China, there isn't this constant reminder that I am above, and different than the population in the main. I know how most everything works in Japan too, I can navigate it in a way that I can't for other foreign countries. It is also very easy and pleasant place to be - there isn't something always difficult, agitating things going on to remind me that I am not from there and make me want to leave.

The draw is several things. For one, in my experience, I feel a lot closer personally to the sensibilities of people that I've met in Japan than in China. In my experiences in Japan, most everyone is exceedingly polite, there is the veneration of the refined, I know more or less how everything works, things work consistently, everything is incredibly clean; these are all values that I share with people in Japan and I find are much less extant in Beijing. The other thing is that, for lack of a better word, Tokyo and Japan is comfortable and safe. Nothing hassles you, you don't need to ever feel on your guard, there is no tension about worrying if someone is going to screw you or start an argument with you.

But there's also a large chunk of the attraction that I find is due to the culture, but not in the typical anime/otaku/fetishizer type of attraction. One particular and recent example is when a couple of friends took me to Yoyogi park. In the park on Sunday afternoons, the park is filled with teenage bands flexing their musical muscle and rocking out, trying to make a name for themselves. You see every variety and level of professionalism amongst the bands. As we walked past them, in the center of the park, was what seemed to be a regular meeting of the Tokyo Rockabilly club. They were dressed like they were straight out of the movie Grease, down to the matching leather jackets and completely over the top hairdos. In this meeting, they were performing their synchronized dancing to 50s and 60s music. For some reason, these kind of events just make me smile and give me a warm feeling inside, and are quite common. They also make me think. It prompts me to question and understand what I'm seeing. In my experiences with culture in Japan, there is always this feeling like there is something more to be explained, you understand and you push, but even if you think you have it in a larger sense, there's always something more that you can't understand and can only smile and speculate about. Like with the Rockabilly club. You can understand it in a larger sense, but there's plenty to speculate about the motivations of people that join, what it means to them, etc. Japan has never failed to pleasantly surprise me with some new cultural manifestation.

For some people, of course, the draw is Japanese friends (and, somewhat more commonly, Japanese girls). I guess I'm also more open to making Japanese friends than I've been in China, but, in different ways than my experience in China, the culture gap intrudes. The plus side is that there is a large enough group of Japanese that like to do what I do, play soccer, go drink, watch videos, the usual. They're all roughly the same economic class (sounds harsh, but I mean it in the sense that there aren't awkward times like in China where I can obviously afford things and they can't) and many are artistic or creative, which is interesting. On the other hand, I had a good time hanging out with my soccer buddies in Kyoto in 2002, but I never really feel as close to them as I might a good friend in the US. Additionally, since I've only been in Japan for segments of about 3 months, it is hard to have an entree into friend-making opportunities, plus of course the language barrier. So I'm more open to meeting them than China, but not so much that it is a serious draw for me.

The bands in the park bring up another interesting point. My friend Andre and I's consensus was that, in Japan, foreign cultural items can be stretched and interpreted in any way that they want, whereas traditional Japanese culture, because there are already expectations and norms, has a limited range of interpretation. In that sense, foreign culture offers, somewhat paradoxically, a great deal of freedom for experimentation. The foreign forms are kept but the meaning and symbolism are totally subverted. Thus foreigners see the forms enacted in ways that seem totally out of place and just assume, mistakenly, that the Japanese are out to lunch.

The Japanese themselves, as my friend Andre pointed out and I agree, seem to be much more culturally confident than they were 20 years ago. There is a much more active effort to try and interpret and re-interpret foreign cultural imports, whereas, before, there was an almost slavish effort to follow foreign cultural practices. In the past, this slavishness meant that the way that these cultural practices were done was never really questioned for meaning. Now, I think, there is a lot more questioning and, while still using the same forms, are done in a way that has meaning to the Japanese.

By contrast, modern Chinese society seems to be in the place in its development that foreign forms are just borrowed directly. I'm not sure if, because globalization has proceeded so much, Chinese society will begin re-interpreting foreign culture like the Japanese have. I think there's a real effort in China to not only accept the foreign practices but also the goals and motivation behind those practices. As just a brief example, the Tokyo Rockabilly club members probably have no idea what it meant to people in the US - they were just having fun with it in their own way and able to take it in any direction they wanted. On the other hand, the Beijing swing and salsa clubs really make an effort to understand the cultural connotations behind those forms of dance and be faithful to them. It isn't black and white, of course, but there does seem to be something there to it.

Now I know all of the above sounds like I'm romanticizing Japan, but I'm well aware of the weaknesses and the things that keep me from adopting it whole-heartedly. One is that, in the field of Political Science, there just isn't a lot to do in Japan. China has all of the intellectual problems and situations that challenge a political scientist's mind.

In addition, Japan feels like it limits you in ways. You feel proscribed and contained in a way that doesn't exist in Beijing. Part of it has to do with what I can afford - if I could take cabs everywhere in Japan and not need to watch carefully what I buy, it would feel more free for sure. But there's more to it than that - I also feel that the possibilities and opportunities are just more limited, from meeting new people to having something interesting happen. Beijing is exciting and feels limitless in a way that I don't think I could ever feel in Tokyo.

Also, for me, the quality of foreigners in Japan is quite poor. I get teased that I hang out with expats too much in China, which is probably fair enough. But in my defense is that there are things that can only really be shared with fluent friends, and a lot of the things that I want to say would get badly lost in (cultural and literal) translation. So when I'm overseas, like anyone, the importance of friends to fill the roles of: people that I can bounce ideas off of, share insights, do fun things with, and hear interesting stories - is essential. You can get the latter two from a lot of people, but not the former two. The kind of people I feel like I can do that with in Tokyo is just a handful; truthfully there's only been three or four people that I've hung out with in all my time in Japan that I felt like I could really do that. In China, people that fill the intellectual, emotional, and enjoyment categories are available in abundance.

Finally, there is the loneliness. I felt it even though this weekend was totally packed and I had no real free time. I felt it as I was walking back from the subway to my hotel and spent an hour in my hotel waiting for Andre to finish an errand. This is the hardest for me to pin down precisely why I feel like that. I've really not felt truly bored in China and the fact that I felt it almost immediately in Japan speaks to the power of this as a reason why living in Japan would be very hard. Certainly, in Japan, there is a lot more time spent lost in your own thoughts on the subway, walking to and from places, and that may relate to having money - cabbing everywhere in Beijing cuts down on that time. Also, not having good people to hang out with is a big factor, although I was basically with Andre and my other friend Max the entire weekend. Part of it may be the feeling of being cramped (in both the literal and emotional senses) and limited possibilities. I think another big chunk is that Japan is a much more impersonal place - Beijing, for better or, usually, for worse, forces you to deal with other people much more often than Japan. However all these fit together to make a whole feeling, I'm not sure. But in Japan I feel this urge to be out and around other people when I'm by myself, a feeling that I never get in China. That feeling leaves me a lot more empty, but I'm still not exactly sure why.

Having said all of that, all of the things that make Japan wonderful for me can be demonstrated for me with two stories. The first was in the summer of 2001 when I was living in the suburbs of Kyoto. I was wandering around on a Sunday, in no particular hurry to get anywhere, as it was a pleasantly sunny day and I didn't have anywhere to be for an hour or two. Eventually, I stumbled upon a neighborhood park where they were having a little league tournament. From the outside, it looked about American as apple pie. On closer inspection, there were a few differences - the parents were all sitting attentively and cheering in an synchronized way and it in general had a much more organized and formalized experience than what you might see in the U.S.; one senses that the increased ritualism removed it as a true competitive game and altered the meaning significantly. A classic example of the Japanese subverting and re-interpeting a foreign form, although I only think of this interpretation when I'm looking at it now, retrospectively. At any rate, I go to the local convenience store to pick up a snack and munch on it while observing on this very pleasant Sunday afternoon in the park. It just gave me such a feeling of warmth. I can't really explain why, but I never really get that feeling in China.

The other example is actually a series of trips I took the following summer from Kyoto to visit another friend Jed in Tokyo. I'd stay at his house and then we'd cruise around Tokyo doing not much of anything, talking about all of the topics that interested us similarly - from Japanese culture, military history, Japanese politics, clubs in Tokyo. Then we'd get back to his place after a day out, play some old video games on his Nintendo and just generally enjoy ourselves. I think Japan gives one much more time to discuss these kinds of things when you're passing the time in the afternoon, looking for things to do between meals, getting to the subway, waiting on the subway to arrive, and all the other waiting time. The pace of life seems slower in that way because getting everywhere takes more time. And once you're out of the house (unless you live in the prohibitively expensive Central Tokyo), you're out for the rest of the day. Likewise, once you're back, you're back in for the rest of the evening. Perhaps this is adds a lot to the loneliness is that I know in China I'm never a cab ride from home and home is only a short cab ride from excitement. Maybe if I lived in Central Tokyo I might feel more like I do in Beijing. At any rate, the time spent with Jed doing nothing in particular is something I really appreciate - it was aided by the fact that in Japan filling in that gap of time he and I could talk about things that we'd never have the time to discuss in Beijing.

As for my future with Japan, I'm not really sure. Obviously, China is going to be most of my future, and likely Japan will be consigned to a stop here and there passing through. I'd like to come back and live there for maybe a month or two, maybe during summer breaks, but my PhD schedule is going to be very tight, so I don't know. Maybe one day I can get transfered to a Tokyo desk and work on Chinese things there - having a good salary (while hopefully not turing me into a jerk) might go a long way to easing some of the issues I have with Japan, although I guess that could be said about a lot of things in life...]]>andrewm@stanfordalumni.orgChina2006-06-21T18:02:31-07:00http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-1andrewm@stanfordalumni.orgHumor2006-06-18T01:30:02-07:00http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.andrewmacdonald.org/content/blog.html#unique-entry-id-0