{"id":12010,"date":"2013-12-18T08:37:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T18:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12010"},"modified":"2013-12-19T08:14:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T18:14:20","slug":"my-japan-times-just-be-cause-col-70-dec-4-2013-in-japan-no-escape-from-the-eyes-perpetual-policing-glare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12010","title":{"rendered":"My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 70, Dec. 4, 2013: “In Japan, no escape from The Eye\u2019s perpetual policing glare”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ISSUES | JUST BE CAUSE<\/strong>
\nHi Blog. \u00a0Thanks once again for putting this article on the JT Online’s Top Ten for more than a day. \u00a0Channelling Foucault’s Panopticon<\/a>, here’s my latest. \u00a0Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

In Japan, no escape from The Eye\u2019s perpetual policing glare<\/strong>
\nBY DEBITO ARUDOU<\/strong>
\nThe Japan Times, DEC 4, 2013<\/strong>
\nCourtesy\u00a0http:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/community\/2013\/12\/04\/issues\/in-japan-no-escape-from-the-eyes-perpetual-policing-glare\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"TheEyeNPAstarephoto\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NJstarephoto\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(More about these “Eye” signs at\u00a0https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=11951<\/a>)<\/em>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n<\/form>\n

Hey, all you residents heading abroad for the holidays, here\u2019s a little experiment to try on yourself: When you return to Japan, take note of an interesting phenomenon that starts just as you deplane and plug back into Japanese society.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll feel a palpable and intractable pressure \u2014 a pressure to conform to The Order, that standardized way of doing things in Japan. You can use it to get what you want, or you can defy it and feel the burn of its stare.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I call this pressure The Eye.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, you can find The Eye in all societies. Also known as the \u201cevil eye\u201d or \u201chairy eyeball,\u201d it\u2019s a glare you get when you\u2019re doing something the crowd doesn\u2019t like. Humans as a species have an innate sensitivity to the feeling of being watched. Perhaps it\u2019s a primal instinct to keep us in formation and out of trouble.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But The Eye in Japan is so powerful that it doesn\u2019t need a crowd. Just step out into public view and you\u2019ll feel it. And because it is so constant, normalized and pervasive, it triggers a conditioned reflex.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider the reflex triggered by Chinese water torture: The victim gets water dripped between the eyes and blinks it away. Enough drops over a long period and the victim\u2019s self-control erodes, and he blinks uncontrollably even without the dripping water.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Eye similarly conditions you. It makes the feeling of being watched involuntary \u2014 to the point where you feel the need to look around before doing something unusual in public.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Eye thus compels you towards collective behavior: Mustn\u2019t be forceful or push back against the status quo, lest you get hairy-eyeballed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, call upon a Japanese student in any classroom and ask his opinion about something. The Eye turns on him like a heat lamp on the back of his neck. He\u2019ll pause, look around and wonder \u2014 if not flat-out ask \u2014 what the consensus opinion is.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if you clarify that you are asking for his personal opinion, you\u2019ll generally get evasion or a noncommittal answer.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Understandably. After all, nobody wants to stand out in the spotlight and push against something, especially if they have no stake or emotional investment in it. And even if they did, who wants to be judged for it? Life is less complicated for an anonymous member of a crowd. The Eye thus keeps Japanese classrooms quiet.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, peer pressure exists in classrooms worldwide. But even outside class, where there are fewer \u201cpeers\u201d to worry about, the lack of individual push-back in Japan is marked and noticeable.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you\u2019re walking down the street in the middle of the night and you see a \u201cdon\u2019t walk\u201d red light at an intersection. Assume there are no cars coming, so you could actually cross safely. In Japan, people often still don\u2019t cross. You wait for it to turn green, especially if somebody else is there ready to look at you funny if you break ranks.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Or let\u2019s say you\u2019re walking down that street again and see a cordon of orange traffic pylons around half a sidewalk that squeezes pedestrians into one lane and inconveniences everyone. After sizing up the situation, you notice that the cordon serves no practical purpose because it\u2019s Sunday and no one\u2019s working on the site.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet you still don\u2019t move the pylons over. You squeeze into the narrowed foot traffic and silently negotiate with oncoming pedestrians who can\u2019t decide which side to walk on (as often happens in societies that lead with the right hand yet drive on the left).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Eye thus forces everyone to assume that something beyond individual control is probably there for a purpose, and that no individual should stand out by interfering.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rarely are there enough standouts to balance the scales, or even tip them in the iconoclast\u2019s favor. It creates the inverse of \u201cbreaking ranks\u201d: If only one person reasserts the status quo, the rest will generally fall into line.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now consider the extra pressure on people who often cannot avoid The Eye: the non-Japanese (NJ).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is said that privacy in Japan is the art of not being seen. This means that natural standouts, such as Japan\u2019s \u201cvisible minorities\u201d (i.e. the NJ and Japanese who don\u2019t \u201clook Japanese\u201d), cannot opt out of The Eye\u2019s glare. They attract attention no matter what they do \u2014 even if they do absolutely nothing.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Granted, sometimes that works in the NJ\u2019s favor \u2014 that is, if they happen to appeal to a desirable standard (e.g., tall, well-groomed, moneyed and male). They attract the attention of the Giggly Ingenue and Bored Cougar. In other words, they get \u201cthe look,\u201d not The Eye.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But that also means they don\u2019t get left alone. They have to endure more intrusions into their space. Random bystanders barge in and try to be A Gracious Host to The Gaijin Guest.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Not to mention the other people who hijack The Eye for their own purposes: the Culture Vultures, for one example, who ostensibly want to practice their English with any NJ face, but in actual fact harbor a gaijin (foreigner) fetish.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Such fetishists want to \u201cstudy\u201d anything NJ do, believing it to be somehow symptomatic of how all foreigners behave, right down to checking on what\u2019s in their supermarket carts or garbage bags. Some even follow NJ around and photograph them surreptitiously, as if tracking rare animals. It can get creepy.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the motley NJ who don\u2019t fit that aforementioned desirable standard, The Eye eventually convinces them that they really are somehow deviant and undesirable. And many go a bit nuts due to their apparent inadequacy. They\u2019ll be ignored, but studiously so.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On the other hand, there are NJs who do \u201clook Japanese\u201d and can \u201cpass\u201d as such. By donning drab colors, effecting a sullen public mask and adopting unobtrusive behaviors like everyone else, they can escape The Eye.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But these are the exceptions that prove the rule \u2014 the rule being that NJ in Japan are naturally viewed as suspicious. And the law as enforced reinforces that.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As detailed in previous Community Page articles passim, aside from the (now remotely trackable) \u201cgaijin cards\u201d that must be carried 24-7<\/a>, racial profiling by Japan\u2019s police is normal and legally sanctioned. Probable cause is not necessary for search and interrogation of NJ, since every one of them is potentially a visa overstayer<\/a>. NJ are also given extra and distinct procedures in criminal jurisprudence, incarceration and public registration<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the extra scrutiny from neighbors, encouraged by extralegal intrusive regimes such as government online \u201csnitch sites\u201d (see \u201cDownloadable discrimination,\u201d Zeit Gist, March 30, 2004<\/a>) and unlawful visa checks by hotels, businesses and workplaces (\u201cGaijin card checks spread as police deputize the nation,\u201d ZG, Nov. 13, 2007<\/a>). All of these practices are part and parcel of The Order for NJ \u2014 for NJ in Japan must be watched.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But less considered is how Japan\u2019s top-down enforcement mechanisms are also enforced bottom-up and side-to-side \u2014 for everyone.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That is how The Eye is manifest. And it completes the circuit of the system by making everyone watch and police one another.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Usually I like to conclude a column with advice about what to do about the issue in question. This time, however, shikata ga nai \u2014 there is no escape from The Eye. In fact, you\u2019ll even resort to hairy-eyeballing someone yourself if you see aberrant behavior, glad to be the one staring for a change.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The only escape is to head back to the airport and exit Japanese society. As many Japanese do.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Then you\u2019ll notice the opposite effect. Japanese free of The Eye often go overboard in their conduct, doing loud, brazen things in public they\u2019d never dream of doing in Japan, given the sudden easing of societal boundaries.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tabi no haji wa kakisute<\/a> (\u201cthrow away your shame while on a trip\u201d) is the Japanese proverb that justifies such behavior: You don\u2019t know anyone around you and you won\u2019t be there for all that long, so you can do even shameful things if you like. After all, few locals will police them like Japanese would police NJ back home; overseas, cultural relativism turns many a blind hairy eyeball.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Break over, they\u2019ll come back to Japan and plug right back in. As will you.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Scholar Kenichi Yoshida once famously wrote that \u201cJapan is a circle.\u201d I\u2019d amend that: It\u2019s a closed loop of perpetual policing.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

==================<\/p>\n

Debito Arudou adapted this essay from the introduction of his 2011 book \u201cIn Appropriate: A Novel of Culture, Kidnapping, and Revenge in Modern Japan,\u201d now available as an e-book for \u00a5935. See www.debito.org\/inappropriate.html<\/a>. Twitter @arudoudebito. Just Be Cause appears on the first Thursday Community page of the month. Send your comments on these issues and ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JT: Hey, all you residents heading abroad for the holidays, here\u2019s a little experiment to try on yourself: When you return to Japan, take note of an interesting phenomenon that starts just as you deplane and plug back into Japanese society.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll feel a palpable and intractable pressure \u2014 a pressure to conform to The Order, that standardized way of doing things in Japan. You can use it to get what you want, or you can defy it and feel the burn of its stare.<\/p>\n

I call this pressure The Eye.<\/p>\n

Of course, you can find The Eye in all societies. Also known as the \u201cevil eye\u201d or \u201chairy eyeball,\u201d it\u2019s a glare you get when you\u2019re doing something the crowd doesn\u2019t like. Humans as a species have an innate sensitivity to the feeling of being watched. Perhaps it\u2019s a primal instinct to keep us in formation and out of trouble.<\/p>\n

But The Eye in Japan is so powerful that it doesn\u2019t need a crowd…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,22,33,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-cultural-issue","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-ironies-hypocrisies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}