Concerts cakes and spiritual communication
Consultation with religious experts brings awareness of a new aspect of language use, and reveals an unexpected association between unadorned language and unwrapped gifts. There was a pleasant concert hall in Toyama, and we attended various events there during our stay. One was organised by White Lily, which made music a speciality, and Mrs Takahashi and her star musicians sat in the very middle of the hall, in pride of place. In the lower ranks of the audience, we were surprised by the level...
The housewives Club for Life
Interviews are set up, but the daily round of activities also proves to be valuable for the research, as do special occasions which arise. Interspersed with these special events, domestic life had settled into a relatively predictable routine. School activities required serious attention, first in the morning in the preparation of the appropriate bags for the day, and, later, when the boys returned, even Callum often had exercises to complete at home. These were relatively straightforward,...
Two local festivals
Local events provide an important way for an anthropologist to get involved with people informally, though the usefulness to the research is unpredictable. Our previous stay in Toyama had run right through the summer, and we had attended innumerable local festivals in the seaside region where we lived. Festivals in Japan may be large, spectacular affairs, advertised in the tourist literature, or they may be low-key gatherings to pay homage to a small, but nevertheless respected, shrine. Our...
Your Japanese is psychological torture
Some interesting insights offered by a Japanese anthropologist a professor of linguistics seems to be less than helpful, though this may just be the sensitivity of the researcher feeling out of her depth. Throughout our stay in Toyama I made several visits to Tokyo, only two hours away by train, to see Yoko, the research assistant I had recruited in Oxford, and to call in at the university to which I was officially attached as a visiting researcher. There was often a seminar to attend, and I...
A foreigner at the Culture Festival
Participation in cultural activities opens up some new ideas Does relaxation come with a true mastery of the art of the tea ceremony And is language affected by the wearing of a kimono Low periods do occur during fieldwork, and they tend to coincide with an awareness of a great gulf in knowledge, or a general feeling of alienation from the lives of those around. I suppose that, following the 'high' of a moment of insight, it was only to be expected that a low would follow, but the incident in...
Tennis and the surreal dinner
Some apparently informal activities confirm a proposed relationship between language and dress, and demonstrate that even a teacher can be out of depth in an inappropriate context. Some days after the volcanic eruption, an event took place which allowed me to confirm some of the ideas I had been considering linking language and dress. At the 'Culture Festival' I had observed polite communication between women dressed in kimonos, but I had no opportunity to observe these same women elsewhere. In...