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Cigdem Göle

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Cigdem, you could very well be right. Nevertheless I find the discourse interesting (see GO topic) the young Samurai was initiated while sitting on a traditional GO board).

ps in the context (host being my girlfriend, Japanese girl her friend and the guy I was driving home a nice guy, a few minute side trip to drop her at the train station is not a scenario to conjure up fear. At least not in my experience.

John, if I remember right, you said that these girls were high school graduates (you call them fruitcakes? :ice ).

So, maybe because of her young age she felt insecure. Of course it doesn't seem like a fearful scenario

(it's a kind offer). I think we should also see her timidness as a normal reaction of her being inexperienced.

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Well, there are different societies and within these different men and women. Some feel free to say no and some understand what it means and some do not. My personal experience found this encounter odd or thought provoking. By open I mean free. What do you think I meant? It was at a table on which there was food that people ate and there was freely ranging conversation. (The ghouls were safely locked in the dungeon.)

----------------------

BUSHIDO - THE SOUL OF JAPAN BY INAZO NITOBÉ, A.M., Ph.D.

DECEMBER, 1904

" I found that without understanding Feudalism and Bushido,[1] the

moral ideas of present Japan are a sealed volume."

http://www.fullbooks.com/Bushido-the-Soul-of-Japan1.html

Perhaps there is a deeper understanding.

The way of the warrior appears a misnomer. The Ideals of Chivalry is closer to the correct english translation.

It's true that the Samurai class held this as a highest ideal and was a guiding force in Japan as a whole. Samurai women did indeed face the dichotomy of Greer. Their highest duty was at the hearth. Dutiful daughter, faithful wife, protective mother. This duty extended to self destruction if violation occurred or threatened. (a choice of being a God's police or a Damned whore). Thus woman in the Samurai class was least free in Japanese society. Similarly, Valour, to the Samurai man transcended self and bound him to a Loyalty to a higher being. During feudal Japan, this ideal (not a person) was a glue that held society together. In the highest form it was a mythical godlike persona (emperor or war lord) that allegiance and honor (life and death, in peace, battle death, or suicide) was devoted to. Merely being a warrior was not Bushido. It was far more complex than that.

This then did indeed imprison society as a whole while also maintaining it. (btw much cartoon art has a violent pic or two, even superman :) context, context, always context. It's the story as a whole rather than a fragment that speaks closer to the truth. Apostle John, in a letter to a particular grouping, wrote that women shouldn't speak in church (body of believers, not a building) because their understanding through circumstance was not up to speed. They should keep the simpler questions to the home so the church could grow. Christian history is littered with variants that take portions out of context and make that the basis of belief. Likewise a fractured look at any subject will never be the whole truth which often is quite different from that fragment) It did so until the trade with the western world introduced the merchant class and the Samurai died out. Bushido on the other hand did not die. It continues to shape Japanese society. Manga can be seen as a way of (yes, mollifying or imprisoning women) into these ideals. It provides a compelling framework for robotic personas to act out real feelings. Whether it is an appropriate framework is another question.

-------------------

I agree that nuclear blasts, whether from friendly or unfriendly sources, are not very nice.

The written or drawn history throughout the world is littered by 'underground' contributions. I don't think Manga qualifies. Not even as benign Mainstream. The Fox is a typical oriental mythological being. It can be argued that many Chinese see the Chairman as 'foxy', Further, was there ever a 'Last Emperor' or was there simply a morphing that defeats the endless peasant revolts?

Okay, John, I'm instead going to say the only thing I first thought of when reading your posts yesterday: No more drinks for you. :lol::lol::lol:

I hope sometime when you get the chance you'll let us have a gander at the whole truth instead of the mere fragments that're bein' bandied about by the likes o' me. I'm fairly aware that a simple "way of warrior" doesn't equate to Bushido in any simplistic sense -- this is why Westerners try to make the connection with chivalry; but all my books on Zen and Tao and archery and swordsmanship are all up in attics right now, so I say you win

EXCEPT, i have to object to this "nuclear blasts, whether from friendly or unfriendly sources, are not very nice" and "btw much cartoon art has a violent pic or two, even superman" As if what Nakazawa presents in that image were merely "a violent pic"!!!!!! Whatever you may think Manga "qualifies" as or does not qualify as, it would help if a m*t*e*f*c*er could be less glib about something like the representational aftermath of a nuclear blast

Cigdem, I'm not a particularly kind person, though I try . The offer of a ride was simply a suggestion and not a particulalry selfsacrificing one at that.

It was the reason explained to me after by the host that combined with seeing her discomfiture that puzzled me.

These ex students were doing a typical pre higher ed ( it's a typical leaving home and making a name type of activity also described by Inazo Nitobe in his 1904 book on the subject ( the opening of Japan to the outside world started around 1870 and then very slowly so in making the connection with chivalry has likely a Japanese genesis ) ) activity of taking on a big challenge. Bicycling 4000 k's across Oz, crossing the NullArbor with the heat, desert cold, truck and double dogs endlessly streaming past at 110 kph on a two lane road with soft edges is to me somewhat fruitcakey, certainly risky. At the time I was not much older than them and didn't see the Japanese visitors as schoolgirls or school boys. (Hermann Hesse describes similar traditions in German society, usually a young man was given a handful of coins and sent on his way and not permitted to return for a year. A couple of these ragged 'birdmen' are shown in a photo shaking hand with Hitler at the Eages nest.)

Daniel, given I'm an alcoholic and therefore don't drink, let's leave that one alone, huh?

It's the Ideals of Valour and Honor (Bushido) that binds the Samurai, not the way of a warrior.

I'm not in this to win but to learn. the Oriental mindset, for me, is incongrous in many ways. But for billions it is clear. Much of my life has been one of trying to understand it. I think it would be beneficial to achieve that.

Ok, I'll try to help you : the glibness of "friendly or unfriendly weaponry" is a 'concept' from the mouths of US of A jingoists. Let me rephrase it : "Nuclear weapons are NOT nice, they hurt people on a massive scale, leaving a scar that that takes a very long time to heal." Having them makes humanity glib. Glib about nuclear waste, glib about nuclear power stations. I feel great sorrow for the Hiroshima/Nagasakis needless victims. And disgust for the US prez in stalling the CCCP after they won on the European theatre and tthen turning its attention to Japan while Japan was sending out feelers for surrender. Thus it became cruel testing ground for atomic bombs on innocemt civilians. Damn the dogs of war. Even the Bushido style Okinawa suicides of tens of thusands Japanese men women and children horrified US soldiers.

I'll never have a whole picture, only a sense of what it might hypothetically be. If it ever becomes coherent I'll post it.

D*c*h*a*.

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Thank you for the welcome back, Çiğdem. But thankfully for most of the concerned parties, it's only a brief visit. I hope you are well and have a good 2009.

You can run but you can't hide. Besides, I know where you live :lol:

Happy new year to you, too.

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Cigdem, I'm not a particularly kind person, though I try . The offer of a ride was simply a suggestion and not a particulalry selfsacrificing one at that.

It was the reason explained to me after by the host that combined with seeing her discomfiture that puzzled me.

These ex students were doing a typical pre higher ed ( it's a typical leaving home and making a name type of activity also described by Inazo Nitobe in his 1904 book on the subject ( the opening of Japan to the outside world started around 1870 and then very slowly so in making the connection with chivalry has likely a Japanese genesis ) ) activity of taking on a big challenge. Bicycling 4000 k's across Oz, crossing the NullArbor with the heat, desert cold, truck and double dogs endlessly streaming past at 110 kph on a two lane road with soft edges is to me somewhat fruitcakey, certainly risky. At the time I was not much older than them and didn't see the Japanese visitors as schoolgirls or school boys. (Hermann Hesse describes similar traditions in German society, usually a young man was given a handful of coins and sent on his way and not permitted to return for a year. A couple of these ragged 'birdmen' are shown in a photo shaking hand with Hitler at the Eages nest.)

John,

I now understand your point. Thanks for the clarification and also thanks for your interest. :lol:

Be well,

Çiğdem

Edited by Cigdem Eksi
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You're welcome, Çiğdem.

Thanks for the topic. It's been interesting.

You be well too.

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  • 4 months later...

Daniel.

I apologise for any maligning and/or distress of any kind that my illconsidered comments may have caused.

I have read a couple of your later posts, and they indicate to me that my ignorant heat of the moment comments were just that : Ignorant. Ego driven.

We are humans with the flaws that come with it. I can't claim any high ground in my behaviour.

Sincerely, John.

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Thank you, Daniel, very much.

John.

___________

I suppose that with an international multicultural forum there will always be semantic and cultural differences that cause some degrees of the tensions on the forum. I don't think that is needs be a problem, rather it can be educational.

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  • 1 month later...
cultural_dissent.jpg
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