Open Theme: Japanese Ketai Identity

 
As part of a larger inquiry, I've been talking to Japanese students about their keitai (cell phones). My curiosity in the supposedly mundane follows the anthropological tradition of investigating things people do in their everyday lives, and with keitai use estimated at a staggering 90% adoption rate in Japan (see Ito et al below), it certainly qualifies.

In the United States there is a strong association of material culture display and personal identity expression that dance around with voyeuristic intentions. Showing off one’s identity reaffirms it through the process of making it known to others. It’s not hard to imagine that in Japan, a country where who you know helps define who you are (see Bestor below), that the same is true, or even more so. On the contrary, this is not entirely so.

Although shopping bags from expensive stores, by comparison, are often used as a form of self-labeling like in the United States, keitai hold an interesting juxtaposition of private public space. Individuals I have talked to all consider their phones a private utility that holds no explicit intention for expressing meaning to other people. Most ornaments (often called keitai straps) or decorations have private histories for the owner, and possibly close friends, but are usually imperceptible to other individuals. One young lady, for instance, admitted she only kept one of her ornaments because it was expensive, while there was nothing remarkably telltale about it visually. Many individuals keep decorations that friends have gifted to them, while others select them based on personal choices such as a favorite color, or to bring luck.

Keitai have also been discussed in more depth by Mizuko Ito et. al in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Also, Ted Bestor (Tsukiji) and Dorinne Kondo (Crafting Selves) both discuss personal identity and its relation to networks and community.

Japanese Pop Culture: The Manga Kissa

 
The manga kissa of Japan sits as a distinct combination of vast manga (comic) library, internet café, and semi-private oasis nestled in the urban sprawl of cities such as Osaka and Tokyo. In the United States the concept of the “third space” (recently promoted by Starbucks) is a close parallel to the embodiment of the manga kissa idea as a home-away-from-home; though the Japanese version notably lacks most of the prominent social aspects found in Oldenburg and Brissett’s conception. Instead it is a sober and silent refuge from the noise of the city, and social pressures that regulate one’s daily life in Japanese society.

The aisles of manga are neatly kept, and each book is individually unassuming, yet visually staggering in their collective totality. Despite having been read dozens if not hundreds or even thousands of times, they show little to no signs of abuse or neglect. Courtesy for others is shown more solemnly through action, and verbal posturing is rarely necessary. Patrons are predominantly men, both young and old, student and office worker alike. Women too are a part of the manga kissa, and a substantial selection of shoujo (girls’ comics) targeted at young women is available as well. Their emphasis on interpersonal relations contrasts with the dominant action and humor themes of shounen (boys’ comics). These are gendered themes in the arc of Japanese life, prominent even in early education.

As a cultural icon, manga in Japan is ubiquitous and considered by many an important aspect of Japanese culture. The manga kissa is, however, only a single element of that larger pop culture phenomenon. While it creates a liminal space in which visitors may escape social reality, it simultaneously reinforces that reality (culturally) through parody and emulation in stories. Patrons may for a brief moment escape society in order to view it from a distance, to distort it and reshape it, before rejoining it once again.