5 October 2001 (18 Tishrey 5762)
With the start of the second semester I started teaching at the universities this week. I feared that the atmosphere in the first lesson in each course might be rather tense, as the students had not seen me for about two months. This fear, however, turned out to be totally ungrounded. I could feel a relaxed and frank atmosphere I had tried to create in the first semester from the fact that their laughter was not strained but spontaneous.
But in one of the lessons I experienced a kind of laughter whose existence I had almost forgotten during the summer vacation. It is laughter that quite a few people in Japan make, seeing someone in trouble. In my case this time one student laughed when he heard me say to some other student that I did not know the answer to his question. When I do not know, I do not hesitate to say so even in public as I think it sincere intellectually. So I still do not understand what exactly provoked his laughter this time and several times in the past in the same context. As far as I remember, I never experienced this kind of sadistic laughter in the place where I spent the first 18 years of my life. It was really a shock to me when I first experienced this laughter raised against me personally. It happened on the first occasion of my reading a paper in an academic conference in Japan after coming back from Israel. I did not handle a question by one of the participants, that is, I had a trouble, and then, to my great surprise, the whole audience started making this laughter immediately I finished my answer to the question. I cannot forget this experience engraved deeply in my memory.
There is also a masochistic counterpart of this laughter, known as "Japanese smile". Many people giggle when they themselves are in trouble. For example, you cannot answer a question, then you giggle. I can understand this laughter both emotionally and intellectually, as it is a kind of self-defense mechanism to minimize the shame one experiences. One laughs at oneself before others do so, thus making them feel uncomfortable to laugh. But I simply fail to understand sadistic laughter, whether emotionally or intellectually. Whatever the rationale for it may be, it is, in my opinion, nothing but a good example of bad taste or even mental perversion.
12 October 2001 (25 Tishrey 5762)
Since I applied for a position in a Japanese university (and was rejected) last time, it took me more than half a year just to find another vacant position to apply for. The very first phase of finding a potential position poses an obstacle for a person like me who majors in something like Hebrew linguistics in which almost no one else majors in Japan, as there is no department of Hebrew or Jewish studies in any university in Japan. So I was always forced to compete in some neighboring field like general linguistics. The one I found this time was also in the field of general linguistics.
The deadline for submission of an application was this Tuesday. If this had been the first or second time for me to apply for such a position, I might not have hesitated to prepare my application immediately after finding the public announcement about it. But this time I was at a loss until the very end, when I decided not to apply for it after weighing the poor chance of being accepted according to my past experiences and the time I had to spend in preparing my application.
While still hesitating, I heard an enticing whisper of myself trying to convince me a number of times, telling me what if my application should be accepted. In the end another whisper of myself opposed and silenced it. It said that I would not be able to manage with other professors in such a feudal micro society, be sure to provoke some of them sooner or later with my remarks and behaviors, and end up leaving the place with my own will or being ostracized by them. My parents and sister have repeatedly warned me the same thing.
This internal struggle gave me a precious chance to ask myself what my purpose in life is and what is more important to do in realizing it. It seems that I should not be so sorry for being unable to find tenure in Japan, and should see it as an incentive to trying to build my life in Israel, as my mentor Rabbi Yehoshua Heshel Eichenstein of Jerusalem has been telling me.
19 October 2001 (2 Kheshvan 5762)
The secret joy in keeping this online diary is to receive feedbacks from people I have never met and the subsequent verbal interactions online. I appreciate those who not only spare their time to read these reflections-shmeflections by Tsuguya Sasaki of mine, which must need polishing both linguistically and stylistically, but also take the trouble of sharing their thoughts with me, sometimes even regularly. I especially enjoy reading regular feedbacks from I. in Jerusalem and A. and G. in New York, all of whom happen to be Jewish (I hope they can identify themselves with their initials).
Although she does not write to me any more, I cannot forget an intensive correspondence I had with an American woman in the North West some time ago. It all started with a rather provocative feedback from her to the effect that she had never encountered any diary so full of self-victimization. As we kept on exchanging our views, she was convinced that it was her misunderstanding. And our correspondence developed into the most meaningful dialog I had ever had whether online or offline. It reminded me of the dialogs I read in "The Alchemist" by Paulo Colho or "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann. It was the first time for me to speak directly with someone who had attained a kind of Nirvana. I cannot forget until this very day what she said when I explained her my agony about my split between Japan and Israel. She told me that one cannot pass a river in two boats; one has to choose which boat to take.
Several months (or probably a year or even more?) have passed since I had this correspondence, but the above words of hers have never left my mind. Every time I agonized about the choice between Japan and Israel, I immediately saw the scene of two boats waiting for me at the shore. This week I finally decided which "boat" to take. Even in the light of my limited experiences in life she seems to be right when she said that when one really wants something and concentrates one's energy on it, this makes things happen to one's benefit. I could already witness this happen this very week.
26 October 2001 (9 Kheshvan 5762)
It is real torture for me to be prohibited for some reason or other from expressing what I think, especially when I have a lot to say about the topic in question. For this reason I have come to regard the profession of interpretation and, to a lesser extent, translation as one of best ways to become mentally insane for me; the more interesting the topic or material I am supposed to interpret or translate, the more frustrated I become. Of course, I have great respect for those who do not suffer from such a problem and are proving themselves as accomplished professional interpreters and/or translators. It is easier to lose control of oneself and become verbally aggressive when one is either online or under the influence of alcohol. I fear that in these cases I have offended quite a few people with my aggressive remarks. Fortunately, I have learned to control myself, at least when I am online, and write more or less rationally, controlling offensive outburst of emotions, though I used to offend others in private correspondences and public online discussions when I was still a newbie on the net.
This problem of verbal hyper-expressiveness (or hyper-aggressiveness) in certain circumstances may be neither understood nor shared by many (or the majority of?) people in Japanese society. I, on the other hand, do not always understand and can easily get frustrated with those who can remain silent with no reaction whatsoever, even when they are participating in some forum, whether online or not, that interests them with their own will. When I am in charge of such a forum with no reactions from other participants, I have a hard time suppressing my desire to come to each one of them and ask them why they do not react, though I know that the famous fable of the sun and the wind shows, the "wind" cannot make them open their mouth and heart. I could not empathize more with him when I heard some time ago that faced with no response from his students in his university class in Japan, a certain visiting professor from the States grabbed the neck of one of them and asked her why she did not say a word to his question. But in class one can at least guess what students may be feeling even from their poor facial expressions, while in online forums even this minimal clue is unavailable.
I do not think that many people prefer keeping silent because they have nothing to say, which is sometimes the case, or they are suffering from brain death. The main reason must be something social. There is definitely some social, or to be more precise, peer, pressure to silence people, or at least make it difficult for them to feel comfortable in expressing what they think and feel freely, even online where they can be rather anonymous. And this is precisely the "windmill" of my daily quixotic fight.