3 December 2004 (20 Kislev 5765)
I knew that this would happen sooner or later. It was only a question of time. Two journalists have already "smelled" my existence here as a university lecturer in Hebrew linguistics and contacted me with requests to interview me for their TV program and newspaper respectively. Of course, I have absolutely nothing against them personally, but I had to decline their requests. I already know what their mission is supposed to be and what its outcome will be from my previous experience of being interviewed several times in the Israeli media 14 years ago when I taught Yiddish here.
Even the best journalists working in the mass media can seldom deny the fact that they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator, i.e., not so educated masses who are hungry for sensationalism. TV is the worst media in this respect, and that is why I have been living with no TV set since I started living alone at the age of 18. In my specific case jouralists will inevitably treat me as a curiosity, at least partially, however they may deny this. Even when they should treat me with respect, I already know that the masses would treat me as a curiosity. In this respect I have no trust whatsoever in the latter. I am not so naive as to be flattered by such a cheap treatment, just as I often feel offended when some native speaker of Hebrew who is apparently uneducated in Hebrew language and linguistics praises my Hebrew.
Being interviewed can be an intellectual pleasure, especially when the interviewer is an intellectual. But what can one know and dare to write about the life of someone else after speaking with him or her for an hour or so? One can only scratch the surface of his or her life and write something superficial at best or, as is often the case, something distorted. I have seen how the distorted image about me reported by the Israeli media 14 years ago came to have its own life as my sole identity and the masses treated me stereotypically.
Do I need to cause myself such a trouble again? Absolutely no! It will surely destroy my calm and anonymous life and prevent me from concentrating on the main causes that have brought me to Israel this time, i.e., teaching and research. Knowing the Israeli media, I can foresee that more journalists will contact me with the same request, but then I can simply refer them to this page.
10 December 2004 (27 Kislev 5765)
According to my experience, whether someone can say two phrases, "Thank you" and "I'm sorry", be it in speech and in writing, can tell us much more eloquently than many other things, about his or her personality or, to be more precise, about his or her sincerity and trustworthiness as a human being in general and as a potential friend in particular. So many people seem to find it difficult to use these two simple phrases and also mean what they say, though there are quite a few people who use only one of them.
One of the main differences between Japanese and Israeli societies may be that people tend to blame themselves and others respectively. Many greetings in Japan are so ritualized that these phrases used in commercial settings and sometimes even in personal contexts have no meaning whatsoever, i.e., one simply repeats them mechanically like a parrot. Although one can in general hear sincere "I'm sorry" quite often in both contexts, it is quite rare to be greeted with sincere "Thank you" in Japan. On the other hand, many Israelis, who are otherwise quite talkative, become surprisingly taciturn when it comes to sincere apologies; some of them seem to feel as if they became losers by apologizing even when they themselves are to blame.
It is, therefore, quite uncommon to encounter people who are not ashamed to say or "Thank you" and "I'm sorry". To say them is not a reflection of weakness but of maturity and consideration for others; unfortunately, many people seem to misunderstand this. In this respect I experienced a number of disappointments with those whom I had considered my friends and had to disconnect my relationship with them. Even at this very moment I am disappointed with some people with whom I have to be in contact. It is, therefore, a great consolation to be reminded that fortunately, I have a handful of close friends, both in Japan and in Israel, who are not ashamed to say "Thank you" and "I'm sorry".
17 December 2004 (5 Tevet 5765)
If indifference is what prevails in Japanese society, it is insensitivity that dominates Israeli society. The Israeli version of insensitivity to others manifests itself in various forms in daily life. One of them is, of course, to speak nonsense with an electronic pacifier called cellular phone loudly and endlessly in public, as if they were publicizing their stupidity to the whole world. Another rampant form is not to remember (or to be unable to remember?) correctly how to spell and/or pronounce names of others, especially non-Hebrew names. I already have a large collection of variations of my name distorted both graphically and phonetically by many insensitive people in Israel. As a linguist with sensitive ears I am tormented especially by these two manifestations of insensitivity, i.e., auditory and onomastic insensitivity.
I have no idea from where onomastic (or even linguistic) insensitivity comes, especially in writing. Hebrew alphabet is not as difficult to remember as Japanese writing sytem with about two thousand characters in daily use, including multiple readings for many of them. It has only 22 graphemes with five allographs after all. Nevertheless, there are an amazing number of quasi-illiterates who simply cannot copy names in Hebrew alphabet from one piece of paper to another correctly, while in Japan almost no one has misspelled my name in Japanese. This is not something that requires high intelligence. So I still correct misspellings of my name by others, though I have become too desperate to bother to correct its mispronunciations. It is even more difficult for me to understand people who never correct their misspellings and leave them as they are, even in public, for quite a long time. The first prize goes to a certain secretary in a certain office in Jerusalem; in spite of my repeated requests, it took her as long as four years to learn to write my name in Hebrew alphabet correctly!
Auditory insensitivity as it manifests itself in Israel is easier to understand, though I cannot always be patient with it. It is mostly a reflection of self-centeredness. Those who can keep on tormenting others with their noise without feeling any pang of conscience must be thinking, whether consciously or unconsciously, that they have the right to bother others for their personal pleasure and/or need, as is often assumed implicitly from the behavior of certain smokers.
This morning I had a chance to hear this stated explicitly in words. In addition to the noise of a barking dog, I have been tortured recently by the noise of the piano played by a new neighbor of mine. Today I had to go to her apartment and ask her to stop playing the piano under the present physical condition; the wall separating our apartments seems to be so thin that I have to attend an unwanted concert of the kind of music I do not like very much. As I feared, she did not promise to stop playing the piano. Instead, I was greeted with such an "interesting" argument for self-justification like this: "Playing the piano is the only way of taking a rest for me, after working so hard as a student on weekdays, so I allow myself to play it on Friday, even if it may bother you." I am amazed to find that she can take a rest, even knowing that she bothers someone else for that purpose. Even if I were doing something I really like, I would have no peace of mind if I knew that I was bothering someone. I was not surprised, however, to have received no word of apology from this self-centered source of new noise.
24 December 2004 (12 Tevet 5765)
One of the two most "unforgettable" (i.e., grotesque) movies I have ever seen is "A Clockwork Orange" (1972) by Stanley Kubrick, based on the famous novel with the same title by Anthony Burgess (the other being Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salò, or the 100 Days of Sodom" (1975), a cinematic adaptation of Marquis de Sade's "The 120 Days of Sodom"). The hero of the movie is arrested for his crimes and made the subject of an experiment by the government where he is trained with the help of music (Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, among others) to feel excruciating pain as a conditioned reflex every time he tries to use violence as before his arrest. It was aurally grotesque in that the associative power of music was abused to condition someone's mind and behavior and even the best music, which is otherwise not disturbing, could suit this purpose. (Incidentally, the latter movie was simply disgusting visually. I could not watch it until the end. If you are looking for a visual adventure, it is for you, but please don't blame me afterward.)
When I was still in Japan, I was reminded of this movie every December, which was otherwise full of good memories for me. Although followers of a religion branched off from Judaism about 2000 years ago constitute only about one percent of the population of Japan, their main holiday celebrated in late December is commercialized ad absurdum. Once you go out to the street (or even inside your house if you have a TV set), you are forced to hear the same stupid music by shallow "popular" musicians for about one month every year. December was, therefore, a month of double torture for me. I was tormented not only by the shallowness of these "popular" songs but also by the fact they are repeated almost every day for one month every year. Gevald!
In December I always wanted to escape from Japan because of this unbearable noise. Japan may not be an exception in that this holiday is commercialized, and actually there are few among developed countries in the world where I can escape to. Israel must be one of these few. Of course, it is not free from all kinds of noise, but they are still nothing compared to the above. I am happy that I am spared this musical torture this year for the first time in 12 years.
31 December 2004 (19 Tevet 5765)
One of the principles of behavior I impose upon myself strictly in interpersonal relations is to keep my word, or to be more precise, not to promise what I may not be able to keep. So I am extremely careful in making promises. I must have learned this from my father though he never taught it to me explicitly. He is a person of few words, but when he promises something, I can always count on him. Furthermore, he often surprised me by doing more than he promised me. His success in his career must have been largely thanks to this as well as his perfectionalism, which I also inherited from him.
To keep one's promise must be the surest way of gaining the confidence of others, but I have stopped expecting others to behave according to this principle so that I may not be disappointed too much later. Both in Japan and in Israel I met so many people who promised something, whether important for me or not, but never carried it out. Sometimes I even left friends because of this as I could not trust them any longer. They may have proposed to do something for me just to please me temporarily or out of courtesy, but what is the use of such temporary pleasure or courtesy if they bitterly disappoint me later?
In principle, I believe in language, i.e., there are thoughts and feelings that can be conveyed only through language. In this respect I am totally against the Japanese way of telepathic communication in silence. But words uttered in vain can often be much worse than silence. Silence may offend others passively, but vain promises can not only offend others actively but also cause loss of confidence. It takes time, often years, to build confidence but it takes only a minute to lose it.