German and Japanese girls

As I told you before, this article supports 'the spoiled Japanese girls' (and also 'poor Japanese boys' who generally have the lowest market value in the world, in terms of love and eroticism)

The conclusion of former article was;

1. German people are exposed to outer world. Therefore they need strong identity to protect themselves.

2. Japanese people are protected by Japanese context (namely 'MIUCHI' protection system). Therefore they do not need to have strong identity.

Based on this conclusion, let us go to the next concept; "High-text and Low-text communication". Generally speaking, Japanese is considered as High-text language, and German as Low-text language. The height of text is defined through the frequency and deepness of pragmatical meaning(*1) within communication.Then, what is the difference between 'High-text' and 'Low-text'?

For example, I would say to you; "Do you have a cigarette?", and what would be your reply?

a) "No, I don't."

b) "Yes"

c) "Yes, here you are!"

If you would reply a), no way. I don't say anything more. If you chose b), it would be a disaster; if you are a normal smoker, you must choose c), because my question "Do you have a cigarette?" DOES NOT ONLY MEAN the confirmation if you have it or not, but also I am asking a favor of you to give me a cigarrette. It is so-called 'unwritten law' that people understand not following grammatical meaning, but the context/background shared by the community, which we can call 'pragmatical meaning'.

(you could choose d) "Yes, but I do not give it to you", if you want to lose your smoking friends:-)

(Let me show you another example to understand "pragmatical meaning" better; if above question "Do you have a cigarette?" was asked by a teacher, and you would be a 15-year-old boy at secondary school, your right answer would be completely different.)

Now, why Japanese is high-text, and German is low-text? Simple explanation for that is cultural background; Germany is in the middle of Europe, and European history consists of battle against different groups / countries, and also the mixture with different culture. This caused complex differentiation in small geographical scale; you know that German culture is quite different from French or Italian culture, even they are in quite short distance. Physical difference also counts; different color of hair, eye, skin, which are not clearly linked to his/her nationality. In addition to conclusion'1', those elements makes people identify/define themselves, not from circumstances, but from their existence itself. Therefore they need clear / logical words.

Key words; absolutism, stand alone, self-explanatory, individual > public

Compared to Germany, Japan has different cultural background. Japanese people are unique race (*2), all have basically the same physical characteristics and common culture. Quite small % of foreigners live in Japan. (note; statistics must be shown) Adding above conclusion'2', we can see that Japanese people do not always need clear words, because the thing can be understood by the circumstances(*3). Instead of expressing in clear words, Japanese people have developped unique way of communication, which looks ambiguous for most of western culture.

Key words; relativism, network, private < official

Taking 'height of text' into account, let's talk about love communication.

"Do you have boy/girlfriend?"

In certain context, this question is considered as a typical first approach to start firm relationship with him/her. It is not just a confirmation, but also an indication that you are interested in him/her, but naturally it depends on the situation of conversation, that's why it is sometimes quite difficult to grab what the speaker means/implies. Pure boys are confused in several cases. Below are some examples;

A) "Why don't we go on a trip together?" I misunderstood it would be an invitation to travel only with me, which is certain approach(quite high level approach for a Japanese pure guy), but the truth was different; she just thought that a guitar player would be good amusement for a trip. Of course there were other guys/girls as well.

B) "These days I'm bored getting along with him" she has a boyfriend, but this phrase comes out while I was driving her to home. Of course I took it would be a sign that she would like to 'switch' or 'have another safety stock' - that was just a comment because she was in trouble with him at that time.

You can remember an episode when Marquis de Sade was in the Bastille prision; he received some letters from his wife, and he wrote back to her; I tried to understand your letter, but I couldn't because your code is too difficult. Please rewrite to me in easier way..... Sade thought that the letters are written in special code, and when he translate them, he could find a way to run away from the prision.

"Code" is one of the key words to understand the communication in pragmatical way. Key point to understand pragmatical communication is how to understand the encoding method (=context) and to decode correctly to extract the real meaning. If you decode too much, as I or Sade did in above examples. Please see below picture;

What I want to describe here is how is the mechanism of 'Encoding' and 'Decoding' in terms of communication. Language requires certain cultural background to encode/decode (including language skill)(*4). On the other hand, sex is naturally quite easy way to express your love (of course I know this statement makes controversy, so I do not want to enter deeply into this discussion).

We have been looking through the concept of 'High-text & Low-text communication' and 'Mechanism of Encoding/Decoding system'.Considering these 2 concepts, we may be able to mention about below conclusions;

1. German people are in Low-text communication, which requires more grammatical meaning. Therefore love communication also tends to be more grammatical/logical/clear. ('I hate you' clearly means 'I hate you')

2. Japanese people are in High-text communication, which contains more codes than clear meaning. Therefore love communication is more pragmatical/ambiguous. (you know, sometimes Japanese girls' 'I hate you' means 'I love you'!)

So, how can I justify that spoiled Japanese girls are so nice?:-) my final point is; girls are normally absurd for boys, but in case of Japanese girls, since they are so extremely absurd & ambiguous & pragmatical, they are almost mythic. This is one of the reasons for Japanese girls' No.1 market value. (they have another secret weapon; they understand the strong function of the 4th route of above picture, and know how to incite us to them, fully utilizing 'pragmatical meaning'.)

.....if you have any question/comment/criticism, please feel free to contact to me:-)

I wish your merry christmas, anyway.

24 Dec, 2007

Shoguito

(*1) Pragmatical meaning - meaning/sense of the word or phrase within the context. 'Pragmatics' is one of the sections of semiotics, which investigates the relationsihip between semiotic/linguistic expression and the one who uses it (Koji-en)

(*2) I understand this is controversial topic, and I won't get into this discussion further. The latest investigation from anthropology side shows that Japanese are mixture of 2 main races; one from southern Asia, entered from Okinawa and arrived at Hokkaido, another one from the Korean Peninsula to Honshu. 1st ones are small, big eyes, long eyeblow and dark skin, 2nd one are tall and thin eyes. OK, this is my understanding from an anthropology seminar in 2000.

(*3) A guy who cannot understand the point from circumstances is considered negatively in Japan. (kuki no yomenai hito - a guy who cannot read the atmosphere)

(*4) The problem of discommunication during talking about love mainly comes from different way of Encoding/Decoding, which is based on different cultural background. Therefore the solution is easy; you only have to have mutual Encoding/Decoding system with him/her (this is key 'through pass' to understand the effect of getting along with your partner for a long time)