The Japanese Brain

I often wonder if we British are more similar to Japanese people than we are different. After all, we are both relatively small island nations, both have a long history and extensive cultural ancestry and both tend to value high manners, sometimes making us appear formal or stand-offish in the presence of people we don’t know- (that is we often don’t seem willing to confidently assert our personal opinions to strangers as North Americans seem able to do!) Notwithstanding these similarities however, I have to concede that there have been times over the years when I have been confused and sometimes frustrated at what has seemed to me to be the alien and unreasonable ways of Japanese thinking. Granted, these cases have usually occurred in the arena of interpersonal relationships where I have found myself thinking, “Oh why can’t He just see reason?!” so maybe that happens between all men and women, after all we are supposed to be from different planets. But recently I read a fascinating piece of research that made me think that maybe we are more different than I realise. The article was about the Japanese brain and how it is different from our Western brains in that it processes information largely in the right hemisphere rather than, as ours does, in the left. Apparently, it developed this way due to the vowel-heavy nature of the Japanese language, as it was found that foreigners whose first language was Japanese also share this trait. So what does this mean exactly? Well, it means that Japanese process information in the hemisphere associated with feelings rather than facts, with emotions rather than reason and have a holistic rather than a linear way of thinking. This explains why aesthetics and form play an equally as important role in Japan as functionality; a feature that can be seen in the extraordinary beauty of design of simple day-to-day items such as the ceramics, kimono, the paper sliding doors, room dividers and the traditional architecture. Interestingly, the Japanese brain also processes some sounds in a different hemisphere than a non-Japanese brain. The sounds of insects, for example, are processed by Westerners in the right brain, or ‘music sphere’, together with sounds of music, machinery and noise. In contrast, however, insect sounds are processed in Japanese people’s language sphere, meaning that they hear these sounds as ‘insect voices’. Isn’t that fascinating?! This might explain why some insects are held in such high esteem by the Japanese, who traditionally have collected and enjoyed the many types of crickets, for example. In fact, in the summer I was delighted to see that the main Post Office in the middle of Fukuoka city had cricket cages on the counters so that customers could enjoy the chirping of ‘bell-ringing’ crickets! Fantastic! The Japanese brain also processes other sounds in the left side, in the language sphere- the cries of animals, the sound of the wind, waves, the rain, running water and the music of Japanese musical instruments whereas the non-Japanese brain processes these in the right side and hears them not as language but as just noises. I stopped trying to get #1 to understand my version of logic a long time ago- actually it seems to be a good policy in general I think- Who knows which side of his brain I am grappling with and besides, I have to remind myself that it’s me who has the alien thinking here.

Mameshiba!

Japanese love to play with words and use double meanings for humorous effects and the cute little character goods, created by the marketing giant Dentsu, have a name that does just this. They are called ‘Mame-Shiba’ which at first glance it appears to be because they are beans, ‘mame’ in Japanese, with a dog’s face, ‘shiba’ which is a kind of Japanese dog. But there’s a bit more to it than this: The word ‘shiba’ originally meant kindling or the small twigs used to light a fire; over time this word itself came to mean ‘small’ which is the reason that shiba dogs were called this, they are the smallest breed of Japanese dog. And ‘mame’, does mean bean but also itself means small. Shiba dogs, the real ones that is, come in various sizes the smallest of which are called Mame-Shiba. Dentsu’s promotional team had the great idea of giving each of their Mame-shiba characters a different personality and each one has a different ‘mame-chishiki’, which means ‘small knowledge’ or piece of trivia. Some of them appear to be quite surreal but obviously people like them as sales of these goods reached US$ 30 million in 2008 and 2009!
Just in case you feel the urge to jump on the mameshiba band-wagon, my friend sells some of their goods on her website: http://from-japan-with-love.blogspot.com/
Here are three of my favourites:

Happy New Year!

January 1st is New Year or 'Shogatsu' and is one of the most important holidays celebrated in Japan. It's a time for people to stop working and return to their hometowns to spend time with family and, as traditionally a woman becomes a part of the husband's family after marriage, it's usually the husband's family. The home is given a big clean, kind of like the spring cleaning of some western countries, in preparation for the holidays. On the night of December 31st some people visit a temple to watch a Buddhist priest ring the huge temple bell 108 times. These days you can also watch it happen on TV as various temples from all over Japan are featured leading up to midnight. The 108 bongs on the bell represent the 108 defilements or torments that people are said to have in their mind and serve to repent for those sins so allowing us to start the New Year as innocents again.
On January 1st many Japanese get up early to watch the first sunrise and then during the day visit three Shinto Shrines to pray for health and prosperity in the coming year. Some of the popular shrines have thousands of people visiting them on this day; I like to go to smaller local shrines where there aren't so many people.


Today I went to Tashima Jinja which is the closest to my home, Sumiyoshi Jinja in the famous nearby town of Yanagawa and Oimatsu Jinja which is in the countryside near Number 1's family home and which is by far my favourite. The first two pictures are Tashima Jinja and you can see what a hive of local community it becomes at this time of year. People pray in front of the shrine by tossing a coin into the box, ringing a bell to wake up the Gods, bow twice, clap hands twice, say your prayer and then bow one more time. Amulets and good luck charms can be bought from the shrine, and on special occasions such as New Year, a cup of saki is given. There is a fire burning in the shrine grounds and traditionally a light is taken from here to light a fire in the home.

At Sumiyoshi Shrine there is a giant head of Fuku no Kami, the God of Happiness, that you can walk through. There's an old Japanese saying, "If you laugh, happiness comes" which I know to be true!


Oimatsu Shrine is in the middle of nowhere and is almost always deserted. Shrines are usually located in places of natural beauty since nature is an important part of Shinto beliefs as the Gods are thought to inhabit nature in an animistic way.
Here is the amulet I bought from Tashima Jinja. It will being me health and happiness in 2010. Happy New Year!