Conversation with Prfessor Airi Tamura

Summary of discussion with Airi Tamura

00:00 Discussion with students, who do many religious rituals at marriage, death etc., though they say they are not religious. More than 90 per cent do some kind of religious ceremony, e.g. for dead children etc. We need some kind of Van Gennep ceremony to divide off the stages. We always need religion - any kind of religion. Shinto marriage ceremonies most popular. Without thinking they go to shrine. In that sense we are really religious people. Discussion of functions of religion. (Serving meal as well).
Airi projects her own views - shrines, lots of beliefs, etc. in Islam and Catholic, lot of popular magic. Alan disputes. Folk Catholicism and Islam. Protestantism different. Discussion of Buddhism; modifications when came into Japan, e.g. pure land sects. Buddhism becomes this-worldly. Popular Buddhism should be afraid of Hell - popular pictures of Hell. Airi very frightened when three or four by these pictures.
00:12 Discussion of avoidance of Hell, pursuit of salvation etc. Talk of earth-quakes and their effects etc. California also occurs. Asks why interested in Jewish roots. At first thought that Japan and Islam very different, so wanted to see how Islam treated non-Islamic peoples. They have Islamic law, sharia law is not enough to penetrate so they also use customary law. A mixture. No written law - ulama scholars interpret. Flexible system.
2O:50 Recent case of divorce, when asleep. Divorce and re-marriage. Story about making sturgeon meat and scales. People should not eat unscaled fish. The situation not so different between Japan and Islam. Japan is an area where new religions are most popular. All seemed to be half-religion. Jun's thesis. Bad luck. No theology, but like psycho-analysts.
29:50 Emperor worship is, of course, not a religion. Emperor problem in politics. Fudging of the distinctions behind political discussions. Succession problems. Alan explains central idea of the book - a tribal society. Naive approach. Holistic approach. Like Isabella Bird, about whom there is a book by Miyamoto - through her diary how we can find ourselves, very interesting. (book which Kenichi showed to us). I found saw lots of things through her eyes. Difference with Ruth Benedict, no history.
37:40 The argument that modern Japan is not so different from Edo - Meiji so not such a revolution. Airi surprised that Isabella noted two kinds of Japanese, the workers and the samurais - their features different. We didn't notice this. The gap between status groups has been reduced. Mobility increased. The biggest change was the rapid development in the 1960s - e.g. leaving villages etc. That is the rapid change. We were originally told that the 1960s and 1970s totally transformed Japan, all the outward signs changed. Kenichi and Toshiko had accepted this and J had become modern like America. But they still had a sense when they went to Europe that Japan is different. A contradiction in their minds. They are told that we have all changed and become modern and yet, when they went deeper that there was still a huge gap. Airi says 'of course, culturally'. They like my writing because it accepts the gap. No absolute convergence. Running in parallel. The interest of Japan is that it presents an alternative system that is not converging with the west - which is changing all the time, but not converging. Airi seems to agree. Why this is important - for China and India. Not just catching up - their own alternative projects. I want to encourage alternative modernization. So Alan is against homogenization. Letters to Lily a very charming book. Wants to use as a textbook for the students. A good chance to think about it. The Americans need answers. Talks about English reviewer. Too much ambiguity. Which way should we interpret the world. Discussion about America. Homeland security etc. It is like Tunisia. Differences between east and west. The same thing happens in Japan. Gives us a book of Utamoro, a famous beauty of Edo. Talks about the Looking Glass. A way of re-thinking our categories. Importance of Japan. Airi asks about the Japanese Emperor system - Watanabe's theory. Alan describes the different eras. Discuss Lily. Talks about interviews with Lily - the mixture of belief and non-belief. Interview of Anna. Emperor system an invented dream - that is why we need the Emperor should have a girl - face reality. Describes the large soup dish.