Kuki ga Yomeru Neuropsychiatry (Subtle Energy Neuropsychiatry)

One article in the Wikipedia looked quite intriguing to me since it was talking about different perspectives on mind/brain from Neurological or Psychiatric standpoints. It would not be too much to mention if I said that frame of reference or way of thinking in doings things we do normally in our daily lives or saying and expressing things we try to let others know, is usually unknown, hidden and not noticed until conscious awareness reveals its entity to the public sight. However, having so many practical professionals or researchers on human mind or human body system, we tend to avoid question such as "What is Mind" or "What is Life" and so forth.

Thus the article "Causal pluralism" got my attention. Neurology traditionally looks at the causes of (mental) disorders from an 'inside-the-skin' perspective, Neuropathology from 'genetics' perspective, whereas Psychiatry looks at 'outside-the-skin' causation, which includes personal, interpersonal, cultural factor that influences one's mental well-being. This outside-the-skin approach seems to be promising in showing how our complicated, profound web of meaning of a Life affects our body physiology through the brain and nervous system to the extent the owner of the brain feels that he or she could not handle the external stressor any longer.

Nevertheless nobody actually has done so; nobody actually showed how 'outside-the-skin' strategy reveals the mechanism of how the mental process grasps information from the outside and then interprets that into biochemical substrates following protein expression after genetic decoding and so forth.
If you translate the above-mentioned phenomenon into other form, you would understand the statement I made here. How this invisible non-materialistic chunk of information actually does have effect on the human brain and then creates the illusion that we call Mind? Is it solely, purely the subject of neuroinformatics or neural circuit engineering? If so, why those subjects do not seem to be in compatible with, let us say, Literature or Fine Arts? Do we need Super-Super computer that emulates human mind, emotion and those kinds?

Eastern tradition or even the primitive root of the Western tradition has already answered the question but we all just dismissed it. Vital force, be it of its existence or be it the notion of that, had long been known to people throughout generations up until a few hundred years ago. Naturopathic herbal remedies with some additional work by miracles or divine intervention were enough for curing and caring diseases, not even to mention there were not enough medical intervention available back then.

Pneuma, Vis Vitae, Qi, Ki, are the same vital force or bioenergy in definition or in characters, however, this bioenergy once played a major role and still does in contemporary Japan, in understanding human relations and concomitant stressful life situations, then psycho-emotional experience in one's mind, appetite loss, headache, e.t.c. Lack of the energy or stagnation, blockage of its flow, is believed to cause some problems in our mind-body system that would later be manifested as apparent symptoms if not treated appropriately and immediately once the potential etiology is doubted.

As it is energy, it can penetrate the skin easily like other energy of radiation does. There are so many healers nowadays, Qi-Gong, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Hands Healing, Royal Touch, e.t.c., however, I am now quite sure that they all talk about the same bioenergy. When you are full of aggression, it could make somebody else or yourself SICK with the aid of activated but unbalanced Autonomic Nervous system and its counter-part Endocrine system.

The reason why I mentioned the notion of the bioenergy still plays a role in Japan is that we DO have the expression of "Kuki ga yome nai." (Literally, "He can't read the air", "He can't get it" to be exact, impling the person is too dull to sense the sutble pressure, suggestion or signs sent by others, which usually is conveyed through this bioenegy Ki.) About myself, I can't get the energy sutble enough as requested since I always try to verbalize things like this and express it. (Sensed information need not to be let out). You guys should not do that that much if you dream of coming and living in Japan !

Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychiatry

Japanese and Communication in the Global Society

Japan has been, just as any other countries on the globe, under pressure and attack from many other regions, nations and so forth. Today I am bound to realize the pressure but that is probably due to the current whaling issue.

Let us then take the incident as an example of how Japanese would react to the stimuli; we remain silent. The last thing that we would do is to make our voices heard by other people by explaining what is going on, how it occurs and how we suffer from the thing. For this reason, it is quite often said that you cannot tell what the Japanese are thinking or feeling, mixing the stereotyped image of the old-fashioned Japanese that would not express his or her emotion explicitly.

Then you would probably question why this particular people are reluctant in making speeches in public or writing letters of protest and so forth? Good question. Japan has been actually independent as a nation for more than 2600 years with the oldest and quite primitive monarchy system that still exists within.

Most of people were farming class, who later would develop their collective-consciousness rather than invididualistic way of life. If you are isolated from your tribe or group of people, you cannot attend a big event of farming as opposed to hunting where you can do much on your own if only you are equipped with legitimate weapons. So, No Rambo or Commando was born in Japan, much less the soil for those individualistic hero who can do on his own.

Look at Heros in movies and television. Rambo, Commando, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Popeye, they all are just 1 man. In the meantime, we have dozens of Power Rangers and its equivalent; usually Japanese heroes are 3 or 5 guys in unit and together they fight against the evil men. It is quite rare that 1 standing hero kicks some butt.

Coordination or harmony has much higher value than stand play and impressing other guys. Team-work between trusted friends, colleagues or comrades is of paramount importance in our culture. My feeling is, post-WWII Japanese government is misunderstanding the cooperation and teamwork in the international society as the same as that within our culture.

After coordination or harmony, style of communication between those members of a hero group should NOT be verbalized. Each one is expected to guess what other are feeling, thinking or planning by grasping the subtle signs that his or her friend makes or expresses. I am not talking about the Force in the StarWars, but this has been the very basis of our communication.

Feeling and sixth sense with the subtle energy, Ki, is the very key in understanding the way of communication between regular Japanese. If you doubt it, watch some Ninja movies made by Japanese. They nod, wink and you are good to go get your enemy.

Now we have sophisticated mobile phone and all fancy electronics, so now finally we are forced into the usage of words and phrases in expressing ourselves; well, if you think that way, you are wrong. As visual and intuitive we are, we have developed special type of character just like emoticons when communicating with others using fancy mobile phone. That character "Kao-moji" (meaning, "face-character") is rather a symbol not a character, so once again, we have failed to verbalize our thought and put them together into an organized sentence to make a speech or to write a thesis.

ENGLISH; Japanese Me and the Language

Now I decided to post some articles in English as well. I have been writing articles in Japanese as it is my primary language, however, I do feel the necessity in writing stuff in English as well. This does not necessarily mean that I am willing to write stuff in English to talk about some issues around.

First of all, what I have to put here would be my relationship with this language. As I have been using this language in writing, reading, speaking and so forth, I've come to face the reality of my own characteristics and assumptions that people DO make as it comes to a situation when a Japanese person uses this language.

FAQ and others;
1) Why do you use English?
English is a part of compulsory education in Japan after WWII. We learn how to read textbooks and grammar in an General English class and how to write sentences in an English composition class. Some people do say and believe that Japanese do not use English, that is wrong.

2) "Your English is very good."
Well, yours would be as good as mine if you studied as hard as I have. How many times I was tempted to say this. This statement has well hidden a phrase, "for a Japanese" at the end or even without it, it does have the connotation of arrogance between lines of statements that the person made towards this Japanese guy. So obviously I hate this. I have seen few who say this compliment without any arrogant atmosphere; those few people clearly stated what part was good or what makes my English good, rather than giving me superficial judgment or lubrication during conversation.

3) Why do you speak English?
Some people are knowledeagle about the Japanese people so they know we do not speak that well even when the Japanese person can write or read English. Then I would say that there are tons of millions of English conversation school program going on and exchange students from all over the world nowadays. Now Japan is full of opportunities to practice daily conversation in English; as to myself, I used to force myself into situations where there was no other way around but communicating with people in English. Practice makes perfect, so I still make progress in this area.

4) Are you still learning English?
This is as nonsense as ever. I am still learning Japanese, then why not English? There is no royal road in learning then nobody should stop doing so, isn't it? In addition, Language is alive; it will evolve and grow into a whole new species. What we speak today will not be what will be spoken 100 years later, so we all have to catch up with the latest info.

5) "You studied English hard out of inferiority complex."
Since nobody can analyze him or herself quite well, I am not in the position of making any statement on this. However, what I could say here is that I have always loved Language itself for sure. Before taking any English class in junior high school, I was intrigued by alphabet and words or phrases from foreign languages. In addition, do you have to have a complicated matter when you are into one thing or another? I really do not think that we need any mental burden or leftover of your past resentment to push yourself harder, higher to be better at certain things. To my surprise, however, I heard this statement from not just one, but several persons. Quite interesting.

There seem to be more to come in this issue, however, I would like to stop here for now.