WEEK 2
We have reached a special point in the manuscript. This is point at which we say that the subject material of this work is
THE FLOWERS OF KEIWHA
and tip our hat to Jean-Luc Goddard, who taught us all to put the title about a fifth of the way into the work. The FLOWERS of course are the girls, aged 17 - 28, mostly tilting towards the younger end of that scale, with beauty fragile, evanescent, slowly disintegrating, a feminist understanding. If there is one message women have to men, it is this: "Look at our lives, our brief existence as desirable young girls and the ever so quick disintegration into Christmas Cakes, and then thirty-somethings, Office Ladies, then old hags. How can men ever understand the pain, the horror, the terrible arc of a woman's life? You who peak at thirty-five physically, who grow more desirable as you become rich, possibly even peaking at fifty! Gray-haired men playing with young twenty-something girls, ahh the root unfairness of it all."
This work is self-conscious. One of the benefits of being a literature major is that you study all the critique before you jump out into the world. It is understood this work is of limited appeal; its topic matter (young Japanese girls) is really only a matter of interest to a small percentage of the world's population, perhaps 5% of US Americans, and then on top of that the narratological voice is one of calculation, strategy, analysis interwoven with actual plot. Multiply the 5% interest in such narratological matters by the 5% interest in subject matter, and there, 0.25% of the English-speaking world can possibly be interested in this work, or a grand total of 750,000 possible U.S. citizens, most of whom will never hear of this work. So, readership of 15,000, should this work still have been created?
Yes, absolutely. The argument for this work's creation comes from the rareness of its positioning. First and foremost, five languages were spoken during the program, again, KOREAN, JAPANESE, ENGLISH, MANDARIN and GERMAN. The last two were of minor importance, not truly affecting people's reactions and final outcomes, but the first three decided who would become friends with whom and why. They determined alliances, support, decisions, dating, final outcomes, and social consensus. TUSK can never sink below a certain level of prestige because he translates Japanese to English and mediates Japanese-only people with English-only people. JOHANN and CAROLINE will always have a distant and private sphere because German dictates certain codes and value-systems, Germany is a First World nation, and Germany has the pride of a defeated major power (always more pure and unyielding than the pride of a victorious one). It is the thesis and premise of this work that the multilinguals manipulate the process and can see it all. KANYE can never even interact with LINGLING (although agreed, this is of minor importance), but more importantly, KANYE can't even see AKEMI in both Japanese and English to recognize her bifurcated view of the world. SHINO never learns why TUSK has a relationship with KANYE but then changes over to a pure alliance/coalition and eventual friendship with JOHANN. TUSK and JOHANN believe that between them both, they can see everything; it takes the voice of ERI to later reveal a girl's touch on events; to get away from the quantification, strategizing, Machiavelli, and restore the normality of things; the world without calculation, strictness and pure positional plays.
"I liked TUSK when I first met him, and JOHANN also turned out to be pretty cool. But I don't care that TUSK went to Yale or JOHANN has a Master's degree. Maybe if I went to Tokyo University I would be a diploma snob, but actually I would go out with a construction worker if he had a fascinating and complicated inner-world. If he had this really bright brain and could create universes during our evening conversations, I would much rather hang out with him than some completely rich, completely elite University of Keio Economcis major working at the Finance Ministry. What woman wants millions of dollars but a totally empty spiritual life?"
The fundamental critique to be made about this narration is that it believes itself to know more than it actually knows. Positional deviosity, the Regan-Goneril tight analysis of politics; these capture something about life. But although analysis of human beings can yield surprising truths, for the individual merely going about their day, they fundamentally and dramatically disagree with the 'zeitgeist' of the work. "I am just walking around, going to class, meeting people" reports TABUN. "What is this crazy talk about boys manipulating girls and girls manipulating boys?"
"To some degree."
The girls, including ERI and TABUN, are right in one sense. The Japanese are not constantly calculating and positioning themselves whereas Americans are casually interacting and becoming friends. If such were the truth, Japanese physical architecture would be filled with little bolt holes and bunkers as clans constantly warred with each other and Tokyo launched an assault, for example, on Fukushima. Both countries, of course, are in the end more similar than different, grand, unified, obsessive of minor differences within the nation, but all speaking more or less the same language and all more or less agreeing on certain, mutually-different social standards. Two Japanese bow when meeting each other in formal business situations, two Americans shake hands. But both are indicating a desired for a cordial progression of relations; both are demonstrating civilization, calmness, and respect.
The way the girls' interpretation falls is by outcome. The fundamental plot point of this session, these three weeks, is the application of knowledge, skills, cynicism, and observation on three hundred people. 2/1 became the fulcrum, the centrepoint of the program. 2/1 was driven by the Machiavellian strategizing of JOHANN/TUSK. The Cynic-German friendship was a friendship forged in blood; and weak, unskilled Japanese and Americans would all bow down before its overwhelming analytical power. But the friendship did not happen until this, week 2, and the fall of the almighty Fulbright Alliance could not occur any earlier than this week, involving as it did the central-most influence of numbers, people involved, and affect on total outcomes.
Narration Week 1 was a tightly-written piece of work and much of its power lay in the fact that it concentrated on essentials without regard for irrelevancies. It carefully put the important topics first: the fact that FARMBOY went to the first field trip with 2/1 and that the boys put on Korean court garments (the girls did, too, but they actually looked good), a click down in social prestige that TUSK missed because of his interviewing, were rightfully included at the end, while the beginning was about the key first interactions, the overall numbers and dynamics, and the "prototypical week 1" as introduction to the "most average" experience. So too this section will start with a general overview of the key events and then progress to the less important details, although paying some tips of the hat to chronology itself.
In essence, the story of week 2 at Keiwha, year 1, was the story of the programme itself that first year. In broadest possible terms, what happened was the breakdown of the Fulbright power monopoly to be replaced by a more subtle, more devious Cynic-German alliance. But, ding-ding-ding, truth has already fallen by the wayside, actually the story of week 2 was in all likelihood a private Japanese-only drama, something that will be the subject of part 2, but cannot be covered here because of how things unfolded within 2/1. Is this too obscure? What the narration is reporting is that in all likelihood the 180 Japanese girls had their own social situation worked out by week 2, but because the 2/1 space cadets are spying frantically at each other, they miss the larger programme around them, which has its own dynamic, logic, and pattern.
Let us deviate temporarily from this closet drama unfolding deep in the folds of Keijo and speculate about the “off-set drama” of a “functionally equivalent U.S. counterpart.” 300 American girls go to a Spanish language program in Mexico City, Tijuana , or Monterrey. Here, deep within the Spanish-only confines of an alien culture, they meet a small coalition of Japanese students of Spanish, one of whom speaks fairly-good English and understands American culture. This individual chooses to associate with the Americans rather than his fellow Japanese, building an alliance with a German male also present at the school
. Their one subsection becomes the more socially prominent group at the 180 American girl programme, but can their one class be said to dominate the life of the group?
The answer is yes and no. If the group all go to the beach one fine day and the international class also hangs out together making the most noise, that arguably that group is the social centre upon which all the American girls are paying attention. But within the 300 American girls, there were currents and social alliances; there were private dramas and more public ones; perhaps in another sense it was never about that international subsection to begin with; perhaps the 2/1 space cadets were deluding themselves.
So again, here is the thesis of the work: in week 2, JOHANN and TUSK became friends. The details of this precise friendship happen to coincide with the decline of the influence of the Fulbrighters. All separate phenomena will be talked about shortly, but because the JOHANN-TUSK alliance coincides with the final defeat of Fulbright from the social centre of the program, it gave the appearance to JOHANN-TUSK that they were the ones behind it. Actually had they
The Flowers of Keiwha Page 7