There's a merging star in our vicinity.
Swallowing everything, everything attracted by her Gravity.
Swirling, swirling matter's dancing with her clumsily.
Day and night, she grows more energetic and diverse.
But remember, massive stars die early.
It is her destiny she has to maintain the Luminosity.
In return for her energy inside. Rapidly.
I want to be a tiny, dim star, hoping to witness the end of Universe.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Jack Kerouac Living on Social Media
A Certain Afternoon at the Public Garden
“So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? ...” (Kerouac 1957)
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| Brad Parker reads Kerouac on YouTube |
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| Facebook page "Jack Kerouac" |
The Kerouac Facebook page has grown to a community where more than 8,300 worldwide members discuss Kerouac each day. His work, fifty years since his premature death in 1969, is still vibrant enough to gain more readers. For such enthusiasts, the Social Media page provides two kinds of significance: information and interaction.
Information on Kerouac Page
Parker is a Kerouac expert, whose book Kerouac: An Introduction published in 1989 is perhaps the best concise introductory biography of Jack Kerouac, and he has been contributing to the Kerouac Facebook page for six years (“Brad Parker ≈ On The Road @ San Francisco Main Library”).
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| Jack Kerouac by Tom Palumbo circa 1956 |
Parker is also eager to mend people's misconception of Kerouac. For instance, some might say that Kerouac was an immoral car thief and a sexual omnivore relentlessly seducing women. "But this is about Neal Cassady," Parker told me. Cassady is a person depicted as character Dean Moriarty in On the Road. As Parker sees it, Kerouac was actually “rather shy and inhibited.” Another confusing concept is “beatnik,” the word one journalist created to describe a young person who dressed and behaved in a way deviant from the society, the term being a combination of “sputnik” and “beat.” It is true that Kerouac and the Beats influenced the “beatniks” and “hippies” of the 1950s and 1960s, but Parker concludes “Kerouac never personally embraced them.”
Thanks to contributors like Brad Parker, the Kerouac Facebook page is full of valuable information. Any member can access it and deepen understanding of Kerouac and his work.
Interaction on Social Media
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| CouchSurfing arranges free stay for travelers |
The same thing is seen on the Kerouac Facebook page. "When I go to Barnes and Noble, one of the largest bookstores in Boston, I find people are still buying On the Road. It's never been out of print," Parker emphasizes. The Facebook page, as well, includes many new fans, so Parker enjoys seeing their reactions and interpretations of Kerouac literature.
Such interaction has urged him to write a new book. “I'm trying to write a much larger, better, deeper biography of Jack Kerouac,” said Parker. He has recently visited the Jack Kerouac Archive at the New York Public Library to scrutinize newly-endowed materials. He is on the way of discovering the great author's real character and genius.
Inherently, we can elicit the wisdom of the crowd from Social Media. And I am one who has known the power of that Facebook page. When I looked for an audiobook of On the Road, many experts helped me find the right one. Also, Kerouac fans have no borders; we can discuss different language versions of On the Road—which has been translated into 32 languages. It is quite fascinating that we can talk about subtle differences between different translations.
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| A Japanese version of "On the Road" |
Can You Hear the Beat?
“Kerouac is complex. This is why it took me years to write,” Parker grins. Such complexity can be derived from the tragic memory of older brother Gerard's young death, enthusiastic studies on philosophy, and unwavering attitude towards reaching higher levels of writing. Kerouac's writing style—spontaneous, creative and wild—is likened to a lively jazz riff. Kerouac was, as a matter of fact, a jazz fan who wrote articles about jazz for his college newspaper at Columbia University.
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| Parker at Mount Auburn Cemetry, 2017 |
The spirit of Jack Kerouac has carried into Social Media, with much information and opportunities for interacting with members in various ways. The Facebook page “Jack Kerouac” is for you, from novices to experts. Did you find his novels too difficult? No worry. Just feel Kerouac's unique voice inscribed on paper. Then you will hear Kerouac's "beats" right here on Facebook.
Works Cited
Amundsen, Michael. "On the Road Jack Kerouac's Epic Autoethnography." Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, vol. 40, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 31-44. EBSCOhost.
“Brad Parker ≈ On The Road @ San Francisco Main Library, January 2013. 13 February 2013.” YouTube. Web. 10 July 2017.
Kerouac, Jack. "Aftermath: The Philosophy of the Beat Generation." Esquire. 1958. Print.
Kerouac, Jack. “On the Road.” New York: Viking, 1957. Print.
Kerouac, Jack. “Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters.” London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Parker, Brad. "Kerouac: An Introduction." Lowell: The Lowell Corporation for the Humanities, 1989. Print.
Parker, Brad. Personal interview. 9 July 2017.
Reading Kerouac by Brad Parker #1. 1 June 2017. YouTube. Web. 10 July 2017.
Is Social Media Really an Expression of Diversity?
I start my day by checking Facebook and Twitter accounts just after rubbing my eyes. I click on the rainbow-colored button which Facebook has recently introduced to celebrate Pride month and to represent the LGBTQ community. I see some of my friends showing a profile with the French flag to mourn for the victims of the Paris terrorism in 2015. An American acquaintance posts pictures of the march in Washington D.C. protesting the current presidency, proudly showing her "love trumps hate" T-shirt and pink, cat-ear-shaped hat. Those are all fine. I have already been loaded with information and have lost my appetite before breakfast.
At the same time, I am a little frightened of being so accustomed to the cultural norms on Social Media. All major Social Media platforms—including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn—promote the importance of diversity and express the support for minorities. But what is diversity? It does not mean appreciating immigrants and deprecating others. It does not mean superficial messages for a particular group of people. It does not mean a disdain for the President. (I see the diversity of the definitions of "diversity.") Then I came to realize that Social Media, in fact, can narrow one’s perspectives in some ways: Social Media population does not accurately reflect the real world’s demographics, peer pressure prevents Social Media users from expressing ideas contradictory from their norms, and free speech is being killed by activists in the name of political correctness.
First and foremost, although the Internet and smartphones have become commodities, one should not assume that the Social Media population is exactly reflecting our real world. Take Facebook, the world’s largest Social Media platform. Demographic studies show that the core users of Facebook are young adults, under 30. In the US, 87% of under-30 Internet users have Facebook accounts, whereas only 63% of Internet users aged from 50 to 64 have theirs (Vermeren, 2016). Thus, most of prevailing opinions on Facebook are voiced by the younger generation, who are anxious about their futures and tend to be rebellious against the establishment. There is also a trend in ethnicity. Facebook researchers report that the bulk of the users are whites, yet Hispanic users have been rapidly increasing since 2008. (Chang, 2010) The discrepancy between the ethnicity on Social Media and that in the real world can lead someone to misunderstand the whole world is dominated by whites and Hispanics. Furthermore, Facebook is more popular among college graduates than those who lack a bachelor’s degree (Vermeren, 2016). Interestingly, statistics also conveys that Democratic Party supporters and Social Media users are somewhat overlapped (Vermeren, 2016). The tangible world in which Social Media users reside might be a customized universe not of their own making.
Aside from Social Media demographic, peer pressure may implicitly narrow one's perspectives. Social Media is literally the place where people are supposed to be social. Opinions and ideas are formed as a group standard, and the closer one interacts with a group, the harder it becomes to challenge.
Consider a Harvard student who roots for Donald Trump. Historically, being a conservative is hard at Harvard, a place “surrounded by sea of blue.” Since conservatives are a minority, they would have a hard time finding their supporters, and some may remain quiet not to be offended by others. On the other hand, the majority, liberals, might believe that they are absolutely right and might marginalize others. Harvard Crimson writer Luca Schroeder reveals such dilemma seen at the prestigious college. Schroeder writes a story of a freshman who is for Republicans but has worked on the Democrat campaign. The person explains the reason, "Because I so wanted to be with my roommates and with everyone else" (Schroeder, 2015). The author describes it as "the choice between social comfort and political conviction."
Isaac Inkeles ’16 is another example of a conservative student who keeps himself from arguing controversial issues. He is a former editor of Harvard Salient--conservative college newspaper--and sees same-sex marriage as a potentially dangerous change for the society. Also, he has disagreed with the option to choose preferred gender pronouns during registration: “It’s like, do we need to politicize and change the English language?” (Schroeder, 2015) However, he did not claim his argument much, feeling that "people won’t take it in good faith and just assume that it’s bigoted or irrational" (Schroeder, 2015).
The same thing is happening on Social Media. We see many people dehumanizing their adversaries and labeling others with harsh words such as "racist", "xenophobic," and "uneducated," which is totally opposed to the concept of diversity. Everyone thinks differently, based on their upbringing and ideology. Unless we develop discussions and respect otherness, we would not be able to have wider viewpoints.
As a final point, our standpoints might be concentered due to some sort of universalism--the idea that there is only one universal truth--being formed through Social Media. For instance, in 2012, fast-food franchise Chick-fil-A not only grilled chicken but also put a fire on Social Media. Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A and a Baptist, criticized gay marriage on the radio by stating that the younger generation is so prideful and arrogant that they are redefining marriage. Facebook and other Social Media users instantly reacted. Boston Mayor Tom Menino wrote a letter to Cathy, telling him that his company is not welcome in Boston. This letter was quickly spread across Social Media, where Cathy had turned into a villain, and apparently, there was a boycott on Chick-fil-A driven by the LGBTQ community. (Cote, 2012)
If someone gets blamed on Social Media, it is quite hard for him or her to fix a bad reputation. Anyone can be an influencer. Information is widely spread at the speed of light. Anyone can jump in the conversation, thus creating a huge social whirl within a few days. Thanks to the First Amendment, everyone has freedom of speech. So, what was wrong with Cathy? The underlying idea behind such phenomenon is so-called "political correctness." It is a term describing policies that keep specific groups, often defined by sex or race, from discrimination and disadvantages. The context has shifted over time, and today people may think some of the policies are excessive and have issues such as self-victimization.
In addition, Social Media companies are naturally governed by Western-centric ideas. Westerners, for example, often rebuke Japanese who hunt and eat whales despite the fact that hunting whales is strictly limited to specific purposes in Japan and they have never been over-hunted. This conflict comes from the difference between how we see the world, nature, and animals. Of course, anyone can dislike whale hunting, but we need to admit the existence of such tradition in order to vary our perspectives. I would not be surprised if Facebook adds the “save-the-whales” button someday.
Everyone is different; everyone is the same. The key to true diversity is not ignoring others or overvaluing a specific minority, but accepting the difference in how we are and how we think. You don’t have to “like” others. It’s your choice. Keep distance instead of trying to “correct” others. I hope Social Media will eventually brew such diverse culture. And I really dream of a diverse world, as one of the minorities, a Japanese expatriate in the United States.
Works Cited
Chang, Jonathan, Itamar Rosenn, Lars Backstrom, and Cameron Marlow. "EPluribus: Ethnicity on Social Networks." Proceedings of the Fourth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (2010): n. pag. Web.
Cote, Joseph G. "For Some, Chick-Fil-A President's Comments on Gay Marriage Crossed the Line." Telegraph, the (Nashua, NH), 27 July 2012. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=bhc&db=nfh&AN=2W61510361656
&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Schroeder, Luca F. "The Elephant in the Room: Conservatives at Harvard." Commencement 2017. The Harvard Crimson, 1 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 June 2017. <http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/1/conservatives-scrutiny-oct-2015/>.
Vermeren, Iris. "Men vs. Women: Who Is More Active on Social Media?" Brandwatch. Brandwatch, 20 June 2016. Web. 26 June 2017. <https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/men-vs-women-active-social-media/>.
Monday, July 17, 2017
Revere Beach
Whilst thirsting for birch beer -
I think of the beach - Revere
That I went there with my peers -
Was full of atmosphere
Mien of sand-made sculptures
Odor of sun tan oil
Song by serried seagulls -
All waving in luminescence
Now everyone has gone -
Yet I'm still here just alone
The memory buried in the stack of time
Is dredged up by the Summer
I think of the beach - Revere
That I went there with my peers -
Was full of atmosphere
Mien of sand-made sculptures
Odor of sun tan oil
Song by serried seagulls -
All waving in luminescence
Now everyone has gone -
Yet I'm still here just alone
The memory buried in the stack of time
Is dredged up by the Summer
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Vividness Overcomes Stereotypes: A Reaction to "Things Fall Apart"
Our world is rife with stereotypes, ranging from those of ethnicity and culture to those of gender, age, and occupation. Many people have too-simplified images of nerdy Asian men, lazy Latinos, unintelligent blonde women, overly-macho gym rats, and you name it. Some would say stereotypes are correct in particular cases, and they may help you judge people whom you have just met. This is true, but stereotypes also have serious side effects: false assumptions can easily drive people with hate or fear; a lack of information can mislead somebody and create conflicts between groups, and most importantly, people tend to disrespect individuals having different backgrounds. The television and film industry have long been promoting such stereotypes, and novels are guilty of the same. Consciously and unconsciously, fictional narratives have also encouraged inaccurate, prejudiced images of various groups.
Chinua Achebe, a former radio script writer in Nigeria, eloquently challenges such stereotypes in his novel Things Fall Apart (1958). The story takes place among small tribes, where the protagonist Okonkwo has a simple life with his wives and children. The setting is the village of Umuofia in the Nigeria of the past. British missionaries come into the village, build churches, and gradually gain converts. Triggered by a convert who has killed a prestigious masquerader during a ritual, the battle between villagers and Christians begins. When it ends, Okonkwo kills himself just after murdering one of the missionaries. Throughout the novel, Achebe realistically depicts the life of tribes, which counters wide-spread stereotypes of Africa as an uncivilized continent. His mixture of English and realistic African dialogues is definitely a powerful means of making Western readers aware of such stereotypes.
Why do people see Africans as uncivilized? One reason might stem from their original religion and customs. Unlike Christianity where only one God exists, the Ibo people believe in animism — the idea that objects, places, and all parts of Nature possess spiritual qualities — as well as personal gods, of which everyone has their own.
In Chapter 21, village member Akunna has a discussion with British missionary Mr. Brown. Akunna finds that both religions have one supreme God, but there is a discrepancy in how they perceive natural objects such as rocks and woods. He believes that things themselves are minor gods, which act as “messengers” sent by God, whereas Mr. Brown maintains that God is “the only God and all others are false.” (Achebe 179) Although they do not change their beliefs, the conversation is never intimidating or insulting. Achebe here shows logos and sensitive mind in the tribe; this contradicts the Western stereotype and also teaches us that understanding differences is the first step to respecting each other.
The Ibo culture includes somewhat abhorrent customs, especially from the Western perspective. Clan members must throw away their twin babies in the forest because twins are seen as an offense that infuriates the earth. They also sacrifice a boy from another clan in order to follow the oracle’s words. They believe in ogbanje — a child repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. Parents beat their dead child hoping he/she will not go back to the mother’s womb. These customs enrage the British preachers. But Achebe also details the cultural context and reasons behind such customs.
In African tribes back then, death is much more frequent than in Europe. Quite a few children die in their youth. Here, the priestess Chielo talks to Okonkwo’s second wife about her daughter:
Another stereotype that Westerners probably hold is that the African tribe members are inherently cruel, violent barbarians. Again, Achebe refutes this idea by utilizing the perspective inside the tribes. In Chapter 15, Okonkwo knows that the village of Abame has been “wiped out” by Westerners. (Achebe 138) One white man with his iron horse came to the village, but people were unable to communicate with him. Afraid of him summoning his friends, Abame’s men kill him. Several weeks later, another white man finds that horse, and, eventually, his armed group slaughters nearly all the Abame villagers. Okonkwo and his friend both conclude that “Never kill a man who says nothing. Those men of Abame were fools.” (Achebe 140) They know that irrational murder may lead to tragic consequences, as their proverb says, “if one finger brought oil it soiled the others.” (Achebe 125)
When Okonkwo and other clan members are being captured by the Christians in Chapter 23, the District Commissioner deceives them with a surprise attack: “There was only a brief scuffle, too brief even to allow the drawing of a sheathed machete. The six men were handcuffed and led into the guardroom.” (Achebe 194) The commissioner harshly tortures Okonkwo until the clan pays a substantial fine. Achebe ironically asks readers, “who is the cruelest?” They are just in a whirl of vengeance; no one is intrinsically brutal.
Achebe finishes the novel with the District Commissioner’s monolog. After finding Okonkwo dead, the Commissioner thinks about writing, such as: “The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. … He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: ‘The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger’.” (Achebe 209) Perhaps we can infer Achebe’s intention from this last paragraph.
Imagine how this Commissioner would write about Okonkwo. He must portray Okonkwo as a violent, inhuman character because Okonkwo kills the Commissioner’s comrade. He would strongly believe that his messengers do good for the world, thus justifying themselves. This is contradictory to Okonkwo, who hangs himself in a painful way, surrounded by his bare-breasted wives. This material can be propaganda for Christianity. And this is what the whole literature industry has long been, in reality.
Achebe, on the other hand, details Okonkwo’s brave story. Okonkwo is a revered man with a title, wives, and children, but also he is racked by misfortune as a result of too much emphasis on manliness.
Literature always brings readers virtual experiences. Achebe’s meticulously-crafted English and vividly-illustrated African life suggest a new way of perceiving the world, although it might be unpleasant sometimes. This is quite meaningful for Westerners who might have been overwhelmed by Western ideologies and self-justifications. By knowing another perspective, we can respect other individuals instead of sticking to inaccurate stereotypes. Otherwise, we can never negotiate with others without violence, as the Umuofia villagers claim to the church, “he does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his. We say he is foolish because he does not know our ways, and perhaps he says we are foolish because we do not know his.” (Achebe 191) Achebe has challenged not only stereotypes of the African but also the “standard view” of world literature by publishing this novel, “Things Fall Apart.”
Chinua Achebe, a former radio script writer in Nigeria, eloquently challenges such stereotypes in his novel Things Fall Apart (1958). The story takes place among small tribes, where the protagonist Okonkwo has a simple life with his wives and children. The setting is the village of Umuofia in the Nigeria of the past. British missionaries come into the village, build churches, and gradually gain converts. Triggered by a convert who has killed a prestigious masquerader during a ritual, the battle between villagers and Christians begins. When it ends, Okonkwo kills himself just after murdering one of the missionaries. Throughout the novel, Achebe realistically depicts the life of tribes, which counters wide-spread stereotypes of Africa as an uncivilized continent. His mixture of English and realistic African dialogues is definitely a powerful means of making Western readers aware of such stereotypes.
Why do people see Africans as uncivilized? One reason might stem from their original religion and customs. Unlike Christianity where only one God exists, the Ibo people believe in animism — the idea that objects, places, and all parts of Nature possess spiritual qualities — as well as personal gods, of which everyone has their own.
In Chapter 21, village member Akunna has a discussion with British missionary Mr. Brown. Akunna finds that both religions have one supreme God, but there is a discrepancy in how they perceive natural objects such as rocks and woods. He believes that things themselves are minor gods, which act as “messengers” sent by God, whereas Mr. Brown maintains that God is “the only God and all others are false.” (Achebe 179) Although they do not change their beliefs, the conversation is never intimidating or insulting. Achebe here shows logos and sensitive mind in the tribe; this contradicts the Western stereotype and also teaches us that understanding differences is the first step to respecting each other.
The Ibo culture includes somewhat abhorrent customs, especially from the Western perspective. Clan members must throw away their twin babies in the forest because twins are seen as an offense that infuriates the earth. They also sacrifice a boy from another clan in order to follow the oracle’s words. They believe in ogbanje — a child repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. Parents beat their dead child hoping he/she will not go back to the mother’s womb. These customs enrage the British preachers. But Achebe also details the cultural context and reasons behind such customs.
In African tribes back then, death is much more frequent than in Europe. Quite a few children die in their youth. Here, the priestess Chielo talks to Okonkwo’s second wife about her daughter:
“How old is she now?”Because of this, men are allowed to have multiple wives, while women are supposed to bear and raise as many children as possible. The sustainability of the clan can outweigh one individual’s life. Masculinity and discipline are very much valued so that men can control their families and hunt for food, along with fighting hostile clans. In addition, the native people are extremely afraid of gods. They never question their traditional system until the white folks come and take over. Achebe depicts these backgrounds so vividly that readers likely sympathize with such cultural context to some degree.
“She is about ten years old.”
“I think she will stay. They usually stay if they do not die before the age of six.” (Achebe 48)
Another stereotype that Westerners probably hold is that the African tribe members are inherently cruel, violent barbarians. Again, Achebe refutes this idea by utilizing the perspective inside the tribes. In Chapter 15, Okonkwo knows that the village of Abame has been “wiped out” by Westerners. (Achebe 138) One white man with his iron horse came to the village, but people were unable to communicate with him. Afraid of him summoning his friends, Abame’s men kill him. Several weeks later, another white man finds that horse, and, eventually, his armed group slaughters nearly all the Abame villagers. Okonkwo and his friend both conclude that “Never kill a man who says nothing. Those men of Abame were fools.” (Achebe 140) They know that irrational murder may lead to tragic consequences, as their proverb says, “if one finger brought oil it soiled the others.” (Achebe 125)
When Okonkwo and other clan members are being captured by the Christians in Chapter 23, the District Commissioner deceives them with a surprise attack: “There was only a brief scuffle, too brief even to allow the drawing of a sheathed machete. The six men were handcuffed and led into the guardroom.” (Achebe 194) The commissioner harshly tortures Okonkwo until the clan pays a substantial fine. Achebe ironically asks readers, “who is the cruelest?” They are just in a whirl of vengeance; no one is intrinsically brutal.
Achebe finishes the novel with the District Commissioner’s monolog. After finding Okonkwo dead, the Commissioner thinks about writing, such as: “The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. … He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: ‘The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger’.” (Achebe 209) Perhaps we can infer Achebe’s intention from this last paragraph.
Imagine how this Commissioner would write about Okonkwo. He must portray Okonkwo as a violent, inhuman character because Okonkwo kills the Commissioner’s comrade. He would strongly believe that his messengers do good for the world, thus justifying themselves. This is contradictory to Okonkwo, who hangs himself in a painful way, surrounded by his bare-breasted wives. This material can be propaganda for Christianity. And this is what the whole literature industry has long been, in reality.
Achebe, on the other hand, details Okonkwo’s brave story. Okonkwo is a revered man with a title, wives, and children, but also he is racked by misfortune as a result of too much emphasis on manliness.
Literature always brings readers virtual experiences. Achebe’s meticulously-crafted English and vividly-illustrated African life suggest a new way of perceiving the world, although it might be unpleasant sometimes. This is quite meaningful for Westerners who might have been overwhelmed by Western ideologies and self-justifications. By knowing another perspective, we can respect other individuals instead of sticking to inaccurate stereotypes. Otherwise, we can never negotiate with others without violence, as the Umuofia villagers claim to the church, “he does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his. We say he is foolish because he does not know our ways, and perhaps he says we are foolish because we do not know his.” (Achebe 191) Achebe has challenged not only stereotypes of the African but also the “standard view” of world literature by publishing this novel, “Things Fall Apart.”
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Place of Publication Not Identified: Paw Prints, Baker & Taylor, 2009. Print.Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Interrogative Family Dynamics: A Juxtaposition of “Jane Eyre” and “Wide Sargasso Sea”
Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” (1847) is one of the most influential Gothic novels in the Victorian era. Framed as Jane’s autobiography, the story vividly depicts her dramatic life. While confronting various types of adversities, she always seeks for independence, freedom, and love for Mr. Rochester, whom she eventually marries. And this accomplished work has made Bronte a distinguishable writer. In 1966, Jean Rhys reacted to Bronte, publishing her best-selling “Wide Sargasso Sea,” in which characters from “Jane Eyre” are projected from a different perspective. Rhys spotlights Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester’s first wife from Jamaica, known as a madwoman in the attic. Rhys names her Antoinette Cosway and creates a story of her upbringing, interwoven with the Caribbean culture, which the author’s native land, Dominica, belongs to.
Both Jane and Antoinette are born to a tragic family. Jane, whose parents die from the typhus disease when she is young, is adopted by Mr. Reed, her mother’s brother. He promises to treat her as his real child, but after he dies, Mrs. Reed treats Jane very badly, thus breaking the promise. Antoinette, born in Jamaica, struggles with poverty and discrimination. She lives with her mother, brother, and a servant in a secluded place. Because her mother is a white native of Martinique, the local people —both black and white— discriminate against and torture her family. Her brother Pierre is killed by a fire at the Coulibri house, which places a dark shadow over Antoinette’s life. Jane and Antoinette have many traits in common. Comparing the family relationships of the two main characters, we can find several similarities as well as differences, which connect to the authors’ purposes and historical backgrounds of the period, and cast essential questions to readers.
One of the similarities between Jane and Antoinette is found in their parents. Both women are born to unequally married parents. Jane’s mother, Jane Reed, is a daughter of the wealthy Reed family, yet she falls in love with a poor clergyman. Not surprisingly, the Reeds do not allow her to marry a man of a different social class. Jane learns from a nursery’s conversation that her “grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling.” (Bronte 31) Jane’s parents live in poverty as a result.
In “Wide Sargasso Sea” Antoinette’s mother, Annette, is a foreigner from Martinique and first marries a debased ex-slave owner, Alexander Cosway. After he dies, she marries a colonizer and rich widower, Mr. Mason. The new spouse is fascinated by Annette’s beauty; she is well known as “a pretty woman” and an accomplished “dancer.” But people believe that this unbalanced marriage will not last long, saying “he will regret it”, “why should he marry a widow without a penny to her name and Coulibri a wreck of a place?” they add. (Rhys 26) Even though their skin color is the same, their background is completely different.
Both parental marriages include a split: the class split of Jane’s case and the cultural split of Antoinette’s folks. This difference highlights the difference in the authors’ main concerns. While Bronte questions the established social classes in England, Rhys focuses on consequences of colonization in the Caribbean islands.
Another similarity between Jane and Antoinette is their isolation from others. In Gateshead, Jane has a severe time being tortured by Mrs. Reed and her son, John Reed. They are the masters of the house, so no one can rebel and help ease Jane’s suffering. When she is ten, she is confined in the red room by Mrs. Reed as a punishment for arguing with John, which reminds her of hopelessness and greatly traumatizes her. Later Jane befriends several peers —including Helen Burns— in her adolescence, but emptiness and loneliness always follow her. After knowing that Mr. Rochester has already been married, she determines, “The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” (Bronte 365)
Antoinette is also isolated from society. The house her family lives is located far from the town, and they are discriminated against by the local people; they see Antoinette as a “white nigger.” In addition, Antoinette’s stepfather, Mr. Mason, soon abandons the family. Such mental isolation never changes through entire her life. After she gets married to Mr. Rochester, who regards her as a “madwoman”, she is imprisoned in the attic at Thornfield, England until she lights a fire to set herself free.
Editor Stevie Davies notes that the immured woman is the key in Bronte’s literature. “Eliza the anchorite; Bertha the prisoner; Jane in the red-room all reprise this theme of the silenced woman,” he maintains. The mind of Bronte herself is in a “narrow cell; / Dark - imageless - a living tomb,” as she expresses in her poem “Frances.” (Bronte 572)
Thirdly, both Jane and Antoinette follow the path of their deceased mothers. Jane believes in her love as her mother does. Mr. Rochester is in the higher class and much older than Jane, but she never cares, in spite of the advice by Mrs. Fairfax: “Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases” and “Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses.” (Bronte 305-306) Antoinette, as well, marries a colonizer whose greatest interest is making money, just as when her mother had married Mr. Mason. And like her mother, she is seen as an insane woman. Jane and Antoinette both marry Mr. Rochester; however, the consequences are totally opposite. Jane and Mr. Rochester love each other, while he never loves Antoinette. Jane’s marriage is long-lasting, and eventually, the couple has a child as a result of their true love. Antoinette, in turn, tries to kill Mr. Rochester as her mother had attempted to kill Mr. Mason. She finally puts an end to her married life by killing herself.
Despite those resemblances, the family relationships surrounding the protagonists end very differently. In “Jane Eyre,” all the issues with Jane’s family settle down. Mrs. Reed and John Reed, who have harshly tormented Jane in their Gateshead house, die miserably as if the deaths are a punishment of Heaven. As for John Reed’s sisters, Eliza and Georgiana, they get mentally exhausted and come to reconcile themselves to Jane in some degree in Chapter 21, but Jane is determined to put a break with them, saying “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you - I don’t much care.” (Bronte 279) [No mention of the sisters is seen after Chapter 22.] Jane’s uncle John Eyre remains a benevolent character throughout the story. Even though he passes away before seeing Jane in person, he had a will that included her, and Jane inherits a surprising amount of property from him. Although there still remain hardships, Jane’s family relationship is finally relieved.
In Antoinette’s life in “Wide Sargasso Sea,” on the other hand, we cannot see any resolution. Mr. Mason and his brother, Richard Mason, still keep a distance with her. Although Richard visits England to see her, he is not able to save her from madness and confinement in the attic.
Why is there such a huge gulf between two characters? We can view this as the discrepancy between the Victorians and the Moderns. The two authors have different intentions. Bronte in the Victorians mainly concerned with the social classes in England and asks readers to question the roles of women. Bronte creates Jane as a character who encourages female readers to pursue their freedom and independence. For such a character, family problems are obstacles to overcome; perhaps indicating that Establishment should be broken down. Rhys, in contrast, questions readers in a more obscure manner. By depicting the ruthless reality in Jamaica in the post-colonial era and the eerie, hopeless path of Antoinette’s life, not only does Rhys suggest reasoning to Antoinette’s madness, but she also tries to make readers reexamine colonialism at that time.
In “The Norton Anthology of World Literature,” the author introduces a notion that modernism was “interrogative,” stating “it inquires how we know what we know, rather than merely rejecting previous models of thought.” He adds, “much of what we think we know reflects the questions we ask and the methods we use to obtain answers.” (Puchner 1621) Witnessing World War I and consequent global turmoil, people knew “something was wrong.” And “the survivors resolved to reexamine the bases of certainty, the structures of knowledge, the systems of belief, and the repositories of authority in a society that had allowed such a war to occur.” (Puchner 1622) This is the key concept in the Moderns and engages with orientalism, or cultural imperialism, the process by which “the Orient” was constructed as an “exotic other” by the West. Rhys suggests that “something was wrong” in the environment surrounding Antoinette. But who is wrong? Unlike “Jane Eyre,” where characters have discernible good or bad human qualities —say, malicious Mrs. Reed and angelic Helen Burns, the answer is not simple. Many characters are not only victimizers but also victims. And this complexity itself is also one of the characteristics of the Moderns.
In general, novel writers tend to create a protagonist in a distressing family relationship so that they can craft antagonists and a less boring story. “Jane Eyre” and “Wide Sargasso Sea” are instances of such literature technique; however, their intentions and conclusions differ significantly. This discretion stems from the difference in each novel’s audience and purpose. Bronte challenges the establishment to shift the roles of women in the 19th century, whereas Rhys deepens the same story with the Caribbean perspective, trying to refute Orientalism. Nonetheless, both authors are the same in that they ask their readers very essential questions via the complex family relationships they have created.
Rhys, Jean. “Wide Sargasso Sea.” New York: W. W. Norton &, Independent since 1923, 2016. Print.
Puchner, Martin. "The Norton Anthology of World Literature." New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
Both Jane and Antoinette are born to a tragic family. Jane, whose parents die from the typhus disease when she is young, is adopted by Mr. Reed, her mother’s brother. He promises to treat her as his real child, but after he dies, Mrs. Reed treats Jane very badly, thus breaking the promise. Antoinette, born in Jamaica, struggles with poverty and discrimination. She lives with her mother, brother, and a servant in a secluded place. Because her mother is a white native of Martinique, the local people —both black and white— discriminate against and torture her family. Her brother Pierre is killed by a fire at the Coulibri house, which places a dark shadow over Antoinette’s life. Jane and Antoinette have many traits in common. Comparing the family relationships of the two main characters, we can find several similarities as well as differences, which connect to the authors’ purposes and historical backgrounds of the period, and cast essential questions to readers.
One of the similarities between Jane and Antoinette is found in their parents. Both women are born to unequally married parents. Jane’s mother, Jane Reed, is a daughter of the wealthy Reed family, yet she falls in love with a poor clergyman. Not surprisingly, the Reeds do not allow her to marry a man of a different social class. Jane learns from a nursery’s conversation that her “grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling.” (Bronte 31) Jane’s parents live in poverty as a result.
In “Wide Sargasso Sea” Antoinette’s mother, Annette, is a foreigner from Martinique and first marries a debased ex-slave owner, Alexander Cosway. After he dies, she marries a colonizer and rich widower, Mr. Mason. The new spouse is fascinated by Annette’s beauty; she is well known as “a pretty woman” and an accomplished “dancer.” But people believe that this unbalanced marriage will not last long, saying “he will regret it”, “why should he marry a widow without a penny to her name and Coulibri a wreck of a place?” they add. (Rhys 26) Even though their skin color is the same, their background is completely different.
Both parental marriages include a split: the class split of Jane’s case and the cultural split of Antoinette’s folks. This difference highlights the difference in the authors’ main concerns. While Bronte questions the established social classes in England, Rhys focuses on consequences of colonization in the Caribbean islands.
Another similarity between Jane and Antoinette is their isolation from others. In Gateshead, Jane has a severe time being tortured by Mrs. Reed and her son, John Reed. They are the masters of the house, so no one can rebel and help ease Jane’s suffering. When she is ten, she is confined in the red room by Mrs. Reed as a punishment for arguing with John, which reminds her of hopelessness and greatly traumatizes her. Later Jane befriends several peers —including Helen Burns— in her adolescence, but emptiness and loneliness always follow her. After knowing that Mr. Rochester has already been married, she determines, “The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” (Bronte 365)
Antoinette is also isolated from society. The house her family lives is located far from the town, and they are discriminated against by the local people; they see Antoinette as a “white nigger.” In addition, Antoinette’s stepfather, Mr. Mason, soon abandons the family. Such mental isolation never changes through entire her life. After she gets married to Mr. Rochester, who regards her as a “madwoman”, she is imprisoned in the attic at Thornfield, England until she lights a fire to set herself free.
Editor Stevie Davies notes that the immured woman is the key in Bronte’s literature. “Eliza the anchorite; Bertha the prisoner; Jane in the red-room all reprise this theme of the silenced woman,” he maintains. The mind of Bronte herself is in a “narrow cell; / Dark - imageless - a living tomb,” as she expresses in her poem “Frances.” (Bronte 572)
Thirdly, both Jane and Antoinette follow the path of their deceased mothers. Jane believes in her love as her mother does. Mr. Rochester is in the higher class and much older than Jane, but she never cares, in spite of the advice by Mrs. Fairfax: “Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases” and “Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses.” (Bronte 305-306) Antoinette, as well, marries a colonizer whose greatest interest is making money, just as when her mother had married Mr. Mason. And like her mother, she is seen as an insane woman. Jane and Antoinette both marry Mr. Rochester; however, the consequences are totally opposite. Jane and Mr. Rochester love each other, while he never loves Antoinette. Jane’s marriage is long-lasting, and eventually, the couple has a child as a result of their true love. Antoinette, in turn, tries to kill Mr. Rochester as her mother had attempted to kill Mr. Mason. She finally puts an end to her married life by killing herself.
Despite those resemblances, the family relationships surrounding the protagonists end very differently. In “Jane Eyre,” all the issues with Jane’s family settle down. Mrs. Reed and John Reed, who have harshly tormented Jane in their Gateshead house, die miserably as if the deaths are a punishment of Heaven. As for John Reed’s sisters, Eliza and Georgiana, they get mentally exhausted and come to reconcile themselves to Jane in some degree in Chapter 21, but Jane is determined to put a break with them, saying “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you - I don’t much care.” (Bronte 279) [No mention of the sisters is seen after Chapter 22.] Jane’s uncle John Eyre remains a benevolent character throughout the story. Even though he passes away before seeing Jane in person, he had a will that included her, and Jane inherits a surprising amount of property from him. Although there still remain hardships, Jane’s family relationship is finally relieved.
In Antoinette’s life in “Wide Sargasso Sea,” on the other hand, we cannot see any resolution. Mr. Mason and his brother, Richard Mason, still keep a distance with her. Although Richard visits England to see her, he is not able to save her from madness and confinement in the attic.
Why is there such a huge gulf between two characters? We can view this as the discrepancy between the Victorians and the Moderns. The two authors have different intentions. Bronte in the Victorians mainly concerned with the social classes in England and asks readers to question the roles of women. Bronte creates Jane as a character who encourages female readers to pursue their freedom and independence. For such a character, family problems are obstacles to overcome; perhaps indicating that Establishment should be broken down. Rhys, in contrast, questions readers in a more obscure manner. By depicting the ruthless reality in Jamaica in the post-colonial era and the eerie, hopeless path of Antoinette’s life, not only does Rhys suggest reasoning to Antoinette’s madness, but she also tries to make readers reexamine colonialism at that time.
In “The Norton Anthology of World Literature,” the author introduces a notion that modernism was “interrogative,” stating “it inquires how we know what we know, rather than merely rejecting previous models of thought.” He adds, “much of what we think we know reflects the questions we ask and the methods we use to obtain answers.” (Puchner 1621) Witnessing World War I and consequent global turmoil, people knew “something was wrong.” And “the survivors resolved to reexamine the bases of certainty, the structures of knowledge, the systems of belief, and the repositories of authority in a society that had allowed such a war to occur.” (Puchner 1622) This is the key concept in the Moderns and engages with orientalism, or cultural imperialism, the process by which “the Orient” was constructed as an “exotic other” by the West. Rhys suggests that “something was wrong” in the environment surrounding Antoinette. But who is wrong? Unlike “Jane Eyre,” where characters have discernible good or bad human qualities —say, malicious Mrs. Reed and angelic Helen Burns, the answer is not simple. Many characters are not only victimizers but also victims. And this complexity itself is also one of the characteristics of the Moderns.
In general, novel writers tend to create a protagonist in a distressing family relationship so that they can craft antagonists and a less boring story. “Jane Eyre” and “Wide Sargasso Sea” are instances of such literature technique; however, their intentions and conclusions differ significantly. This discretion stems from the difference in each novel’s audience and purpose. Bronte challenges the establishment to shift the roles of women in the 19th century, whereas Rhys deepens the same story with the Caribbean perspective, trying to refute Orientalism. Nonetheless, both authors are the same in that they ask their readers very essential questions via the complex family relationships they have created.
Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. “Jane Eyre.” Ed. Stevie Davies. London: Penguin, 2006. Print.Rhys, Jean. “Wide Sargasso Sea.” New York: W. W. Norton &, Independent since 1923, 2016. Print.
Puchner, Martin. "The Norton Anthology of World Literature." New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Orientalism seen in BBC Journalism: A Reaction to Stacey Dooley’s Report on Japan
I am fond of overseas journalism. It enables me to have another perspective, which helps identify the root cause of various issues within my country, Japan. However, in some of that journalism, stereotypes and inaccuracy can often distort the argument. The farther the topic from you, the more skeptically you had better watch the program.
In the BBC Three documentary “Young Sex for Sale in Japan” aired in February 2017, English journalist and human rights activist Stacey Dooley investigates the question of child abuse in Japan. In this sensationally-titled film, she first visits a cafe in Tokyo where teenage girls in school uniform work as waiters. Seeing that most customers are aged men, Dooley concludes that those girls were probably unwillingly manipulated. There are 300 schoolgirl cafes in Japan, and some offer “walking dates” to their clients. Such business “could be a gateway to prostitution,” Dooley maintains. (Dooley, 2017)
Dooley next scrutinizes the “borderline” DVD industry. She interviews a producer of an “erotically clothed” film. Because there is no nude scenes in the video, it is legitimate to picture underaged models, but Dooley finds it too sexy. When Dooley asks the producer why people buy his videos, he comments, “buyers want fantasy.” Later, Dooley walks into a DVD shop and gets surprised when finding a porn model who looks as if she were under ten. Dooley believes such videos are targeted to pedophiles. Dooley’s narration emphasizes that owning child pornography was not prohibited until 2014 in Japan.
In the final section of the documentary, Dooley explores the comic industry. Comics are ubiquitous in Japan; domestic sales of comics topped over £2 billion in Japan in 2015, and visitors can find cartoon characters displayed everywhere in the cities. Some x-rated comics include sexually-explicit images of children, which, in Dooley’s opinion, must be banned, as is the case in the UK. She meets comic translator Dan Kanemitsu, who argues against the ban. Dooley claims that those images of sexualized kids help the pedophile normalize themselves, and that such desire eventually leads to a sexual crime. Kanemitsu disagrees, stating that a fiction is a mere fiction, and it can even function as a venting mechanism for those who have pedophiliac urges. Dooley ends the film by pleading with the Japanese government to take action.
I, as a Japanese man, understand her concerns. We must not abuse docile children or teenagers for the sex business, and we definitely need to eradicate any types of sexual assaults, no matter what age and gender. But, at the same time, I am afraid that this document exhibits a biased image of Japan as well as inscribing negative, stereotypical images to the Japanese pop culture.
First of all, the document cleverly shows an image of Tokyo rife with indecent schoolgirl cafes, but such is not true. There are 90,000 cafes in the country, and that type of cafe amounts to only a fraction. In addition, the impression Dooley gives that those teenagers are in poverty and are exploited by malicious adults, is a delusion on her part. They work according to freedom of choice in employment; they like charming school uniforms, and they enjoy chit-chatting with clients. And the Japanese population —for the most part— does not view the girls in a sexual way. As for the connection to prostitution, again, there is no evidence. For example, in Akihabara, the town where the most, five, schoolgirl cafes are located, no prostitution has been reported. (Yan, 2016)
Another misleading aspect of the report lies in the explanation of the prohibition of child pornography in Japan. The BBC program tells that “[o]wning child pornography became illegal in Japan in June 2014.” (Varley, 2017) This is true, but in 1999 the production and distribution of child pornography had already been banned; child porn had not been visible for almost two decades. Even before 1999, a girl’s nudity was seen as artistic rather than erotic. Models and photographers were proud, not ashamed, of their work. The notion of child pornography was imported from the West. If the possession of such materials had been made illegal immediately, quite a few people might have been falsely accused. That gap period of time was necessary to avoid confusion in the society. Dooley provides none of this context.
Dooley’s documentary contains very shocking visual images of pornography captured in Tokyo, as if all Japanese men are sexually interested in teenage girls. But, of course, those videos are sold in a niche market. Isn’t it unfair that BBC purposely chooses the most sensational images to support their argument and conveys, to the UK audience, the image of pedophiliac Japanese men? I can imagine Dooley’s disgust when she witnessed a child-like model filmed in a porn video. However, we should not judge people by how old they may appear.
Lastly, Dooley concludes that cartoon characters represent the Japanese mindset of sexualizing children. This is a big misconception. Yes, Japan has an enormous comic and anime (cartoon) market. Not surprisingly, the most successful movie in Japan last year (2016) was an anime movie, “Your Name.” It drew 15 million watchers, double as many as the audience of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Most comics are enjoyed by men and women of all ages without any improper eroticism. X-rated comics are properly zoned at the stores, and those with sexual and/or erotic images of children are not as common as what the BBC document implies, simply because they do not match most buyers’ interest.
Dooley harshly claims that such fictional images must be eradicated from the society, saying, “I worry that the cartoons will never be enough and you will have those urges and you will want to move on to the real thing, perhaps. That's what scares me.” (Dooley, 2017) Here we find the hidden assumption that pedophiliac men are all potential criminals. She labels their demand itself as abhorrent; they are insane! She demands that all comic writers who create pedophiliac materials be arrested, as well as those who read such comics. This is an erroneous leap of logic.
Do comics encourage crimes? In 2002, US Supreme Judicial Court refuted this idea, concluding that virtual child pornography —novels, comics and cartoons— is irrelevant to real crimes. Numbers speak more eloquently. The rape rate in Japan is relatively low, at 1.5 per 100,000 population in 2006, while that in the United Kingdom in the same year was 25.6 per 100,000. Child victimization, especially, has been increasing in the UK; 47,008 under-16-year-olds were sexually harmed in 2014. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) brings attention to the fact that 1 in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused. Recent headlines in the UK shook us with sensational scandals. The Rotherham child sexual exploitation case revealed 1,400 innocent victims in 2014. BBC commentator Jimmy Savile was accused of 214 acts of sexual abuse, involving an 8-year-old boy and many teenage girls, over a period of 50 years. (Evans, 2012) Unlike Japanese comics, which negatively affect very few, the UK has much more severe, distressing issues.
A well-known comic writer, Takeshi Nogami, reveals that he was also interviewed by Dooley. He recollects that her tone was intimidating. She argued about the comic ban, “Why don’t you Japanese follow the UK, or the world standard, rules?” Nogami countered, “The UK should learn from Japan, a more cultivated country having a lower crime rate.” Then he noted the difference between how they perceive human nature. He maintains that everyone has various types of desire, from pure to dirty, and sometimes we need to release it via a fantasy. Dooley takes another view, saying, “Humans are born innocent and inherently have no evil thoughts. But once they read an immoral book such as a comic with abusive images of children, they soon get degraded.” Nogami spent three hours discussing this with Dooley, but the interview was never used in her film. (Nogami, 2017)
I see a relationship between Dooley’s view and Christianity, where a malicious thought itself is a sin. In her mind, where pedophilia is seen as perverted and abusive, such thought, even though not a crime, should be punished. That child abuse is more pervasive in the Western countries than in Japan might have contributed to her strong abhorrence. I understand such sins are emotionally unacceptable for the majority of Westerners, but if religious beliefs and cultural preferences were to determine the only-one, absolutely-correct standard in the world, the consequence would be the denial of any other national standards and minorities. In fact, quite a few groups, such as Muslims and/or LGBTQ, are unfairly judged by the majority.
In contrast, the Japanese, most of whom do not believe in God, think that no one can violate freedom of thought. Freedom of speech and unfettered imagination must also be protected. The Japanese people have been permissive towards fictional sexuality throughout history. Specifically, shunga —erotic art— flourished in the 17th-19th century as part of our cultural heritage. It includes sexual images of all ages from virginal teenagers to old married couples, to even octopi, but nobody condemns them. This is not that we may behave as freely as we desire. We have a clear distinction between fiction and reality. People are rather restrictive in the society; each citizen is expected to have a high level of morality, conscience, and self-regulation.
Interestingly, this BBC’s documentary reminds me of the literary term “orientalism.” Orientalism, or cultural imperialism in post-colonial theory, is defined as the process by which “the Orient” was constructed as an “exotic other” by European academic studies and cultures. Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” (1847) is an arena of orientalism, where she depicts Bertha Mason, a beautiful woman from Jamaica, as an insane character, nearly impossible to communicate with. Even today, Eurocentric universalism remains alive. Westerners, both consciously and unconsciously, see the non-European as inferior to the West, immoral, cruel, sensual, decadent, lazy, yet somewhat exotically fascinating. By doing so, the Western societies justify themselves and maintain their pride. (Barry, 2009)
Dooley’s documentary is not an exception. The filmmakers evidently determined to find eccentricity in Japan. And, without doubt, they obviously believed that “educating” such a “deviant” society is their mission and duty, which makes the reality a little bit more complex.
While investigating schoolgirl cafes on the street, the BBC crew were stopped by the police for two hours because they had filmed without permission. Dooley then yelled, “I am saving teenagers from child abuse. I’m a strong woman.” (Dooley, 2017) Yet her “justice” disturbs our nation’s peace and order. I believe that different standpoints make journalism more meaningful. Should we ban William Shakespeare, who suggests teenage intercourse in “Romeo and Juliet?”
Yan. “Akihabara being targeted.” Docs.com, 13 Mar. 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Varley, Ciaran. “Is Japan turning a blind eye to paedophilia? - BBC Three.” BBC News. BBC, 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Evans, Martin. "Sir Jimmy Savile: Fourth British TV Personality Accused in Sex Allegations." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.
Nogami, Takeshi. “Interviewed by BBC.” Togetter, 7 Mar. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Barry, Peter. "Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory." Manchester: Manchester UP, 2009. Print.
In the BBC Three documentary “Young Sex for Sale in Japan” aired in February 2017, English journalist and human rights activist Stacey Dooley investigates the question of child abuse in Japan. In this sensationally-titled film, she first visits a cafe in Tokyo where teenage girls in school uniform work as waiters. Seeing that most customers are aged men, Dooley concludes that those girls were probably unwillingly manipulated. There are 300 schoolgirl cafes in Japan, and some offer “walking dates” to their clients. Such business “could be a gateway to prostitution,” Dooley maintains. (Dooley, 2017)
Dooley next scrutinizes the “borderline” DVD industry. She interviews a producer of an “erotically clothed” film. Because there is no nude scenes in the video, it is legitimate to picture underaged models, but Dooley finds it too sexy. When Dooley asks the producer why people buy his videos, he comments, “buyers want fantasy.” Later, Dooley walks into a DVD shop and gets surprised when finding a porn model who looks as if she were under ten. Dooley believes such videos are targeted to pedophiles. Dooley’s narration emphasizes that owning child pornography was not prohibited until 2014 in Japan.
In the final section of the documentary, Dooley explores the comic industry. Comics are ubiquitous in Japan; domestic sales of comics topped over £2 billion in Japan in 2015, and visitors can find cartoon characters displayed everywhere in the cities. Some x-rated comics include sexually-explicit images of children, which, in Dooley’s opinion, must be banned, as is the case in the UK. She meets comic translator Dan Kanemitsu, who argues against the ban. Dooley claims that those images of sexualized kids help the pedophile normalize themselves, and that such desire eventually leads to a sexual crime. Kanemitsu disagrees, stating that a fiction is a mere fiction, and it can even function as a venting mechanism for those who have pedophiliac urges. Dooley ends the film by pleading with the Japanese government to take action.
I, as a Japanese man, understand her concerns. We must not abuse docile children or teenagers for the sex business, and we definitely need to eradicate any types of sexual assaults, no matter what age and gender. But, at the same time, I am afraid that this document exhibits a biased image of Japan as well as inscribing negative, stereotypical images to the Japanese pop culture.
First of all, the document cleverly shows an image of Tokyo rife with indecent schoolgirl cafes, but such is not true. There are 90,000 cafes in the country, and that type of cafe amounts to only a fraction. In addition, the impression Dooley gives that those teenagers are in poverty and are exploited by malicious adults, is a delusion on her part. They work according to freedom of choice in employment; they like charming school uniforms, and they enjoy chit-chatting with clients. And the Japanese population —for the most part— does not view the girls in a sexual way. As for the connection to prostitution, again, there is no evidence. For example, in Akihabara, the town where the most, five, schoolgirl cafes are located, no prostitution has been reported. (Yan, 2016)
Another misleading aspect of the report lies in the explanation of the prohibition of child pornography in Japan. The BBC program tells that “[o]wning child pornography became illegal in Japan in June 2014.” (Varley, 2017) This is true, but in 1999 the production and distribution of child pornography had already been banned; child porn had not been visible for almost two decades. Even before 1999, a girl’s nudity was seen as artistic rather than erotic. Models and photographers were proud, not ashamed, of their work. The notion of child pornography was imported from the West. If the possession of such materials had been made illegal immediately, quite a few people might have been falsely accused. That gap period of time was necessary to avoid confusion in the society. Dooley provides none of this context.
Dooley’s documentary contains very shocking visual images of pornography captured in Tokyo, as if all Japanese men are sexually interested in teenage girls. But, of course, those videos are sold in a niche market. Isn’t it unfair that BBC purposely chooses the most sensational images to support their argument and conveys, to the UK audience, the image of pedophiliac Japanese men? I can imagine Dooley’s disgust when she witnessed a child-like model filmed in a porn video. However, we should not judge people by how old they may appear.
Lastly, Dooley concludes that cartoon characters represent the Japanese mindset of sexualizing children. This is a big misconception. Yes, Japan has an enormous comic and anime (cartoon) market. Not surprisingly, the most successful movie in Japan last year (2016) was an anime movie, “Your Name.” It drew 15 million watchers, double as many as the audience of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Most comics are enjoyed by men and women of all ages without any improper eroticism. X-rated comics are properly zoned at the stores, and those with sexual and/or erotic images of children are not as common as what the BBC document implies, simply because they do not match most buyers’ interest.
Dooley harshly claims that such fictional images must be eradicated from the society, saying, “I worry that the cartoons will never be enough and you will have those urges and you will want to move on to the real thing, perhaps. That's what scares me.” (Dooley, 2017) Here we find the hidden assumption that pedophiliac men are all potential criminals. She labels their demand itself as abhorrent; they are insane! She demands that all comic writers who create pedophiliac materials be arrested, as well as those who read such comics. This is an erroneous leap of logic.
Do comics encourage crimes? In 2002, US Supreme Judicial Court refuted this idea, concluding that virtual child pornography —novels, comics and cartoons— is irrelevant to real crimes. Numbers speak more eloquently. The rape rate in Japan is relatively low, at 1.5 per 100,000 population in 2006, while that in the United Kingdom in the same year was 25.6 per 100,000. Child victimization, especially, has been increasing in the UK; 47,008 under-16-year-olds were sexually harmed in 2014. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) brings attention to the fact that 1 in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused. Recent headlines in the UK shook us with sensational scandals. The Rotherham child sexual exploitation case revealed 1,400 innocent victims in 2014. BBC commentator Jimmy Savile was accused of 214 acts of sexual abuse, involving an 8-year-old boy and many teenage girls, over a period of 50 years. (Evans, 2012) Unlike Japanese comics, which negatively affect very few, the UK has much more severe, distressing issues.
A well-known comic writer, Takeshi Nogami, reveals that he was also interviewed by Dooley. He recollects that her tone was intimidating. She argued about the comic ban, “Why don’t you Japanese follow the UK, or the world standard, rules?” Nogami countered, “The UK should learn from Japan, a more cultivated country having a lower crime rate.” Then he noted the difference between how they perceive human nature. He maintains that everyone has various types of desire, from pure to dirty, and sometimes we need to release it via a fantasy. Dooley takes another view, saying, “Humans are born innocent and inherently have no evil thoughts. But once they read an immoral book such as a comic with abusive images of children, they soon get degraded.” Nogami spent three hours discussing this with Dooley, but the interview was never used in her film. (Nogami, 2017)
I see a relationship between Dooley’s view and Christianity, where a malicious thought itself is a sin. In her mind, where pedophilia is seen as perverted and abusive, such thought, even though not a crime, should be punished. That child abuse is more pervasive in the Western countries than in Japan might have contributed to her strong abhorrence. I understand such sins are emotionally unacceptable for the majority of Westerners, but if religious beliefs and cultural preferences were to determine the only-one, absolutely-correct standard in the world, the consequence would be the denial of any other national standards and minorities. In fact, quite a few groups, such as Muslims and/or LGBTQ, are unfairly judged by the majority.
In contrast, the Japanese, most of whom do not believe in God, think that no one can violate freedom of thought. Freedom of speech and unfettered imagination must also be protected. The Japanese people have been permissive towards fictional sexuality throughout history. Specifically, shunga —erotic art— flourished in the 17th-19th century as part of our cultural heritage. It includes sexual images of all ages from virginal teenagers to old married couples, to even octopi, but nobody condemns them. This is not that we may behave as freely as we desire. We have a clear distinction between fiction and reality. People are rather restrictive in the society; each citizen is expected to have a high level of morality, conscience, and self-regulation.
Interestingly, this BBC’s documentary reminds me of the literary term “orientalism.” Orientalism, or cultural imperialism in post-colonial theory, is defined as the process by which “the Orient” was constructed as an “exotic other” by European academic studies and cultures. Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” (1847) is an arena of orientalism, where she depicts Bertha Mason, a beautiful woman from Jamaica, as an insane character, nearly impossible to communicate with. Even today, Eurocentric universalism remains alive. Westerners, both consciously and unconsciously, see the non-European as inferior to the West, immoral, cruel, sensual, decadent, lazy, yet somewhat exotically fascinating. By doing so, the Western societies justify themselves and maintain their pride. (Barry, 2009)
Dooley’s documentary is not an exception. The filmmakers evidently determined to find eccentricity in Japan. And, without doubt, they obviously believed that “educating” such a “deviant” society is their mission and duty, which makes the reality a little bit more complex.
While investigating schoolgirl cafes on the street, the BBC crew were stopped by the police for two hours because they had filmed without permission. Dooley then yelled, “I am saving teenagers from child abuse. I’m a strong woman.” (Dooley, 2017) Yet her “justice” disturbs our nation’s peace and order. I believe that different standpoints make journalism more meaningful. Should we ban William Shakespeare, who suggests teenage intercourse in “Romeo and Juliet?”
Works Cited
Dooley, Stacey. "BBC Three - Stacey Dooley Investigates, Young Sex for Sale in Japan." BBC News. BBC, 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.Yan. “Akihabara being targeted.” Docs.com, 13 Mar. 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Varley, Ciaran. “Is Japan turning a blind eye to paedophilia? - BBC Three.” BBC News. BBC, 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Evans, Martin. "Sir Jimmy Savile: Fourth British TV Personality Accused in Sex Allegations." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.
Nogami, Takeshi. “Interviewed by BBC.” Togetter, 7 Mar. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Barry, Peter. "Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory." Manchester: Manchester UP, 2009. Print.
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