Japanese don'ts

[Kyoto]

Another, albeit extreme, example is of infants and bodily waste. There is a huge cultural divide on this one - in countries where it is not easy for parents to be constantly attentive to their children, diapers rule. Babies cannot control their bladders and bowels, so there would be nothing but a huge mess if they didn`t wear them. Right? I mean, babies just don`t have that sort of control...
But then you look at countries where the child is carried almost constantly and diapers are not available. Babies go on cue from their mother as early as a month after birth. A six month old who can`t control their bladder to go on cue has something wrong. It is only natural - all the babies can do it. Why on earth would someone put them in diapers and let them sit in their own waste?

A very good book to read on the differences in what is "normal" for small children and how culture skews it;
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Babies-Ourselves-Biology-Culture/dp/0385483627/

Japanese seriousness about the issue is a different matter altogether. That is a cultural issue and not a developmental one.

I want to touch back on this, as it has taken me all this time since reading it to assimilate what you are saying.

You've solved a long-standing unanswered question in my mind; 'What did mothers like the one in the above illustration do about the bodily waste of their infants before the invention of diapers?'
An entire facet of human history, missing from modern know-it-all American culture, explained by you in an instant.
The infants can control their bowels from a very early age, and do not foul themselves as presupposed by American culture and reinforced by diaper manufacturers.
This presupposes that the (non-American) mothers know how to train their infants to learn this behavior, which they do.
I must also differentiate between 'American mothers' and Native American mothers as shown in the next illustration, of a Native American mother and infant;

I wonder if the mother must accurately 'guess' when it is time for the infant to have a bowel movement, or is there some sort of expected 'line of communication' solicited by the mother and-or developed between her and her infant, to 'signal' when the child needs to have a bowel movement?
I've seen mothers' speak to 'cranky children' and say 'you need a nap'.
I wonder how the mothers who carry their children on their backs -where they can't even see them- may know when 'you need a bowel movement'.

[Kyoto]

When I mix Japanese into English sentences I'm usually 1) not in Japan and 2) totally unaware I am doing it. I'm no neuroscientist, but if I remember correctly from my language acquisition coursework, each time we learn something, it is attached to a neuron, and the connections we make between concepts fire in one direction only. To go back the other way, a different neuron is needed. This is why brain damaged individuals will be able to answer, "What is the capital of New York?" but not "Albany is the capital city of what state?" These firings can also get temporarily "stuck." This is especially true of languages.

The best example I can give happened just a few months ago. Someone asked me when dinner was, and I said, "It's at shichijihan." "Uh, what? When?" "I said that dinner is at shichijihan." "You're not making any sense." "How am I not making any sense? What didn't you understand about dinner being at shichijihan?" "Dude. You're speaking Japanese." "Oh." And I had to actually just sit there and concentrate to pull "seven thirty" out of my head. I had stopped translating, and my neuron was stuck firing on the conceptualisation of the numbers 7:30 in Japanese. There was no thought process in English.

I've done the same with "naru hodo," "nani sore" and "ittai." They've been used so often that they're just automatic.

I know not directed at me, but I have MacBooks with Japanese keyboards, so I just press a button and it switches as I go.

By all means, please feel free to answer at any time, and actually it was partially directed at you.
I need to find a way to do like both you and the other poster do, pressing one or two trigger keys and switching over to Japanese. Yes, I'm using Windows, and No, I don't seem to have any way to do that easily.

I've noticed that specific forms of learning do not 'cross over' to their corollaries or complimentary opposites, as you say with you mention of selectively directional neuron firing.
Japanese words that I am trying to learn by wrote, handwriting them repetitively in lists, do not necessarily come back to me when I need them for speech; they must be practiced in speech, both ways, by hearing and speaking, or they don't flow.
Your unconscious use of Nihongo sounds like it must be very lucid and transparent to you.
During infancy, my native linguistic gifts came easily and naturally; as an adult, I have to do much work to build the neuron connections for individual words.
Being able to 'mix and match' English and Nihongo in the same sentences may be viewed as a 'crutch' by some, but it is helpful and sometimes the only way to use what limited Japanese I have already learned.

[Kyoto]

I never, ever, EVER wear short sleeves to work. Even during "cool biz" when it is acceptable. Short sleeve dress shirts are a crime against style. Especially if they are paired with ties

なんで職場で半袖シャツとか、半袖にネクタイがダメなの？わかんな～い！

The 'no short sleeves with tie to work' rule sounds like the person who said that was following a popular book series titled 'Dress For Success', 'New Dress For Success', 'Women's Dress For Success', and 'New Women's Dress For Success', by John Molloy.
True, in America, those are good 'rules' to follow, and they work well when applied properly--in America.
In Japan, they follow a different set of 'rules', and short sleeves at a place of business work well instead.
I've been endlessly fascinated by the sight of full business neckties on Japanese girls' sailor fuku school uniforms.
Perhaps that's because I grew up seeing it used as a masculine dress accessory.
In the writings of Josephus, an ancient Jewish historian and military general, he once surrendered by taking a cord and suspending his sword from his neck, handle up and blade downward.
From this, I have often wondered if the necktie is a symbolic sword hung about the neck in a form of social 'peace entreaty'.
But I could be wrong.
I remember seeing a necktie on a woman in the beginning of 'Titanic', but that was a Hollywood fictional account in which social customs may be true to historic sources or tweaked for dramatic effect.
Be that as it may, we are left with what has become an authentic and valid social custom in Japan and other Asian countries, and possibly England or elsewhere, in which teenaged school girls wear full-on business neckties as part of their school uniforms, and for no other discernible reason than because it is the accepted norm.
The same goes for the short shirt sleeves in a Japanese or Asian business environment.
It's their social norm now, and not to be branded as somehow 'wrong'.

By the way, John Molloy was fond of doing 'tests'; sending out young men and women dressed one way and then another, the supposed 'wrong' way and 'correct' way, and testing the reactions of others in dynamic public settings.
So if he were to write a book about Japanese business dress norms, he would do the same approach, and I suspect he would find that 'short sleeves on men wearing neckties in business settings' works well in Japan.

But I suspect Molloy would have gone one step further; he would have tested for upper middle class or lower middle class responses.
Because he generally did it this way (hence his title 'Dress For Success'), he would have tested if wearing short sleeves would get you the cooperation of secretaries more often, or less often, and if less, then what would get you that 'success', that extra measure of cooperation and 'success' from others in business settings?

In one test, a young man carrying a black or brown leather briefcase would deliberately time his approach to a bank building front door at the same time as another man, to see who would back off and let the other go first.
Their 'business uniforms' were correct in every other detail; only the briefcase color was tested.
When carrying a black briefcase, the man was treated as a social inferior and obliged to let the other man go first more frequently than otherwise.
When carrying a brown leather briefcase, the man was treated as an equal or superior and allowed to go first more often than not.
This was the 'success' Molloy was testing for, and researching in real life settings how to dress for it.
Molloy repeated this test with different men, over a hundred times, and proved out the 'rule' for briefcases.
The question for Japanese office workers might possibly be; is a short sleeved business shirt in Japan going to get you through the door first, or second?

But then again, Japanese social rules being as different and complex as they are (compared to American customs), Molloy would run into a whole new set of norms having to do with loyalty to family, social group, and employer, social expressions of humility, and such customs as 'sempai' and 'kohai' (social seniority and ranking according to age or social standing).
I suspect Molloy would have his work cut out for him, figuring it all out from a Japanese point of view.
But perhaps the Japanese have already figured it out for themselves; after all, they are known internationally for 'getting the job done' and have long had the second or third highest ranking economy in the world.
I would also love to hear anyone's comments on this.

[Nyororin]

You've solved a long-standing unanswered question in my mind; 'What did mothers like the one in the above illustration do about the bodily waste of their infants before the invention of diapers?'

Diapers existed long long before the disposable things of today. For the illustration you link to, as far as I know they did have and use cloth wrap style diapers. Cloth diapers are even mentioned in the Genji Monogatari, so they have been used in Japan for a very very long time. I have not heard of the diaperless style of baby care being used in Japan, but I do understand that it was common in China.

I wonder if the mother must accurately 'guess' when it is time for the infant to have a bowel movement, or is there some sort of expected 'line of communication' solicited by the mother and-or developed between her and her infant, to 'signal' when the child needs to have a bowel movement?

It is my understanding that it is timed by the mother. There is not really much guessing about it - more like hold the baby out every so often (I have read every 30 minutes to an hour) or at times when it is likely to go (after eating or drinking, for example) and give it a sound based cue. The Shhhh sound seems to be the most common among cultures that practice that style.

I wonder how the mothers who carry their children on their backs -where they can't even see them- may know when 'you need a bowel movement'.

I would say it is more timing than signs from the child. Even though I used diapers, if I tried, I could time it so that we made it through a day without dirtying any. Holding the baby over the toilet every 30 minutes just doesn't fit into the modern lifestyle though... Now, if I were working outdoors in a field, or gathering food in a forest, etc, with my baby in a sling - taking a brief break every so many minutes to swing them around and give them a cue would not be such a big deal. Apparently, for some tribes in Africa, it is considered a rite of motherhood to be peed on until the mother gets the hang of it.

[Tsuwabuki]

I never, ever, EVER wear short sleeves to work. Even during "cool biz" when it is acceptable. Short sleeve dress shirts are a crime against style. Especially if they are paired with ties

なんで職場で半袖シャツとか、半袖にネクタイがダメなの？わかんな～い！

The 'no short sleeves with tie to work' rule sounds like the person who said that was following a popular book series titled 'Dress For Success', 'New Dress For Success', 'Women's Dress For Success', and 'New Women's Dress For Success', by John Molloy.

You're over thinking this. I just think it looks ridiculous.

[Kyoto]

[/quote]
The 'no short sleeves with tie to work' rule sounds like the person who said that was following a popular book series titled 'Dress For Success', 'New Dress For Success', 'Women's Dress For Success', and 'New Women's Dress For Success', by John Molloy.[/quote]
You're over thinking this. I just think it looks ridiculous.[/quote]
You're right. Gomen nasai.

[Kyoto]

I would say it is more timing than signs from the child. Even though I used diapers, if I tried, I could time it so that we made it through a day without dirtying any. Holding the baby over the toilet every 30 minutes just doesn't fit into the modern lifestyle though... Now, if I were working outdoors in a field, or gathering food in a forest, etc, with my baby in a sling - taking a brief break every so many minutes to swing them around and give them a cue would not be such a big deal. Apparently, for some tribes in Africa, it is considered a rite of motherhood to be peed on until the mother gets the hang of it.

Awesome. Going through that kind of 'rite' should merit you a lifetime of respect from the next generation.
I once saw a picture of a smiling teenaged -I think Vietnamese- girl wearing a backpack with a big grinning Raggedy Ann style doll on her back like that, but can't find it now.
Do Japanese women still carry their children this way?

[yuko81]

High shoes of that Japanese lady is dangerous, Kyoto?


Dzao baby in Vietnam.

Nowaday

[Nyororin]

I once saw a picture of a smiling teenaged -I think Vietnamese- girl wearing a backpack with a big grinning Raggedy Ann style doll on her back like that, but can't find it now.
Do Japanese women still carry their children this way?

It is pretty normal. They sell special coats for winter, etc.

[Columbine]

I would say it is more timing than signs from the child. Even though I used diapers, if I tried, I could time it so that we made it through a day without dirtying any. Holding the baby over the toilet every 30 minutes just doesn't fit into the modern lifestyle though... Now, if I were working outdoors in a field, or gathering food in a forest, etc, with my baby in a sling - taking a brief break every so many minutes to swing them around and give them a cue would not be such a big deal. Apparently, for some tribes in Africa, it is considered a rite of motherhood to be peed on until the mother gets the hang of it.

My mother lived in Africa for almost a decade in the eighties and there were a lot of women who carried their babies around on their backs, without a nappy. My mother asked that exact question when she was pregnant with my sister- "How do you know?"

The African women apparently laughed their heads off at the question and responded with "Madam, I know my baby!"

In China I saw a lot of toddlers and babies without nappies, but instead wearing trousers with split bottoms so that if the kid needed to go it could basically squat wherever and go ahead. The mothers then poop-a-scooped after them. Well... the tidy ones did anyway.