6 September 2002 (29 Elul 5762)
Although I have been making oral presentations constantly inside and outside Japan, I am surprised to find and rather ashamed to admit that I have not published anything, except online, for more than two years since I submitted my PhD dissertation in January 2000 and a paper based on it several months later. I am happy, therefore, that I have just finished writing something to be published next spring though it is not of pure academic nature, and it is in Japanese.
Although I still live and teach in Japan, and Japanese is my mother tongue, I cannot find any rationale for reading or writing papers in Japan and/or in Japanese except for enlightening the general public here who know little or nothing about Hebrew. Whether we like it or not, English has become the de facto lingua franca in the academic world, even in the field of Hebrew and Jewish linguistics, where Hebrew is naturally the other lingua franca. The situation may be different in such disciplines as English literature, which has many researchers inside Japan, but by writing on Hebrew and Jewish linguistics in Japanese you can even be interpreted as having no will to be read by anyone except for a tiny number of Japanese-speaking colleagues who anyway understand English and Hebrew, at least passively.
My motivation of participating in a conference in Japan was rather weakened when I received no response to a paper I read in Japan in a conference with no other specialist in Hebrew and Jewish linguistics though it was very favorably accepted when I read it in an international conference of specialists in the area from Israel and other countries. It was quite shattered when the same proposal on the application of quite new computer technology to the research of Modern Hebrew which I had submitted to a certain linguistic conference in Japan and an annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies was rejected by the former but was accepted by the latter.
I am not against everything Japanese as some people erroneously think. I am simply for striving for the best by exposing myself to the best. I have been taking every occasion to urge my Japanese colleagues in Hebrew and Jewish studies to actively participate in conferences in Israel or the United States, which are two major centers in these areas. I am afraid that I am taken for some kind of snob by many of them at best, especially because I do not even have tenure here. I, on the other hand, cannot take them seriously as specialists in Hebrew and Jewish studies, even if they may be famous inside Japan, as long as they live a life of academic complacency like frogs that seclude themselves in a well and dare not plunge into the ocean.
13 September 2002 (7 Tishrey 5763)
As I had feared, I received a letter of rejection to yet another application of mine for a job at a certain university inside Japan. Although it may be important to persevere, it may be stupid to waste more time in trying to catch some pelagic fish in a freshwater pond. Considering my age and the fact that I have been looking for an academic job in Japan for as long as nine years, I should probably be wise enough to conclude that I will have little or no chance of finding something in the Japanese academia. If so, what alternatives do I have? It seems that there are probably three.
The first alternative, which is probably the least positive, is to give up any hope of finding tenure in Japan and be satisfied with the status quo, i.e., being a part-time lecturer all my life. It is true that I really love teaching, this alternative is out of the question, firstly because life without hope for advancement is not life any more, at least for me, and secondly because the condition, whether academic, social or econimic, of a part-time lecturer in Japan is so precarious and demeaning that I am running out of patience. I have set an ultimatum at the end of the second semester of this academic year, i.e., March 2003, when I happen to become 40, or the end of the first semester of the next academic year, i.e., September 2003, at the latest. I have no desire to be in such a condition beyond this ultimatum.
The second alternative is to tell myself that I have no talent, whatever it means, for being a university teacher, and look for a job elsewhere inside Japan. There seem to be, however, two serious problems that will hamper this. First of all, having been engaged in the learning, teaching and research-shmesearch of the Hebrew language for the past twenty years, I cannot think of anything else I really want to do. Secondly, considering many of the social norms in Japanese society in general and in Japanese companies in particular as nothing but the distortions of the human nature, I will probably be unable to survive in a company for a long time.
The third alternative is to say farewell to Japan once and for all and look for an academic job or something similar outside Japan, preferably in a place where I can share the fundamental world view and philosophy of life with many inhabitants and not with a handful of isolated individuals as in Japan. This will surely be an enormous challenge, but as long as Japan does not need me, and I have no intention of being stuck here either as an eternal part-time lecturer or as an ostracized employee in a company, it seems to be the only viable alternative I can think of at the present moment.
Whatever the outcome will be, I will have to strive for something better and higher. Life is probably like riding a bicycle. You have to keep on moving forward, otherwise you will fall down.
20 September 2002 (14 Tishrey 5763)
In stead of accusing others, which must be easier but nonproductive, I have been trying to be as objective as possible and find in myself the possible reasons why I have been unable to find an academic position in Japan. In the meanwhile I found a very useful and informative website in Japanese with hundreds of bulletin boards where researchers and researchers-to-be write anonymously their real intentions and opinions about various aspects of academic life in Japanese universities, including how they or their colleagues found academic positions. In real life various sociocultural factors prevent them from disclosing their real intentions and opinions freely, thus also prevent Japan from advancing beyong status quo.
As many people testify, and I know from my own experience and that of my ex-classmates, the single most important thing for finding an academic position here seems to be to have personal connections with influential professors, who in turn can exert their influence on the selection of the new members of their faculty staff. Considering the fact that in the majority of cases they are selected based on nepotism, I find my biggest problem is that I have no such connections.
If so, how does one establish such connections with influential people? First of all, one has to show a minimal degree of academic excellence, which will not constitute such a big obstacle for the majority of recent PhDs. Far more importantly, one has to show obedience and flatter constantly to these influential people by talking back to or arguing with them by no means and sending them seasonal greetings and gifts. These two rules do not seem to be restricted to the academic world but apply to many other areas of life in Japan if one wants to benefit from nepotism. Unfortunately, I am not only hopelessly bad at these things but also detest them as manifestations of hypocrisy. In general, I say what I think is right, of course with logical reasoning, directly to anyone, including those who are higher in the so-called social or academic status. I imagine that this inclination of mine is making me quite unpopular among many of conformists in Japan, including professors. Since I consider it as essentially a positive character, thus am not going to trade it off even for tenure, I seem to have little or no future in Japan, whether socially or academically.
27 September 2002 (21 Tishrey 5763)
I have been wondering why it is often so difficult in Japan and in Japanese to discuss with someone, even if (or especially if?) he or she is a scholar, without being interpreted that you are attacking him or her ad hominem or being criticized not about what you say but about how you say. This is true not only with face-to-face discussions but even (or especially?) with anonymous bulletin boards designed for academic discussions. You have to waste a nonnegligible amount of your time and money just to deal with complaints made directly to you or indirectly behind your back by someone whose opinion, but not personality, you counterargued.
Having been exposed to and feeling comfortable in the Jewish linguistic culture, where intellectual confrontation is a national pastime, I find this linguistic culture in Japan and in Japanese extremely frustrating and hopelessly childish. By the time you get to the main point of an argument itself, you are already exhausted as if you had to get your hands dirty to change the diaper of a spoiled baby.
This may be partly because of the deep-rooted cultural legacy of Confucian (or so-called "Confucian"?) mindset, which dictates you to show hypocritical respect in form, but not necessarily in content, to those who are higher than you in the multilayered social hierarchy. According to this mindset, how you do something is far more important than what you do, and this also applies to verbal behavior. As a result, Japanese society, including (or especially?) the academic world, is full of words which may seem extravagant outside but are empty inside.
In such linguistic culture you grow up to be an adult, deprived of opportunities to develop immunity to criticisms against your opinions even if they are positive. To make the matters worse, the higher you go up in the social hierarchy, the more reluctant people around you become to say something that may have even the slightest chance of being interpreted as a criticism against you. As people who were never scolded by anyone in childhood get spoiled once they become adults, those who were never criticized become hypersensitive to any remark which, though probably true, do not find favor in their eyes, and do not know any other way but to react emotionally.
This is apparently a vicious circle. I wonder when healthy intellectual confrontation will be a social norm and not an exception among people, especially among scholars, in Japan and in Japanese.