JAPN 306 - Japanese Mind
JAPN 306 - The Japanese Mind
A project-based course that looks behind the Japanese social mask to understand how Japanese people build relationships, community, and lives worth living. Covers modes of thinking and communicating, negotiating, and decision making; ethical systems; the central role of social status and hierarchical relationships; patterns of making friends and influencing others; psychological factors such as dependence and duty; and the Japanese aesthetics and ideology.
Narrative:
In this course I was able to fulfill the MLO2 – Culture, one of the requirements of taking the Japanese major at CSUMB. Taking this course, I was able to learn many things about Japanese culture and people. One of the subjects was the history and tradition along with religion. In addition, we learned about Japanese aesthetics, including haiku, the distinctive four seasons, the nature, wabi-sabi and others, which for me was very interesting. I was very fascinated leaning about the Japanese beauty which is the central element of Japanese culture and its four aspects: irregularity, suggestion, simplicity and perishability. I thought that it was interesting to learn the concepts that Japanese have about beauty. I enjoyed learning about all of them but what caught more of my attention was “wabi-sabi”, the art of imperfection, that is, give value for authenticity, natural and simplicity, going against ostentations. Another part was the way the Japanese mind works, which made me understand their behavior, especially about the dual concepts (honne and tatemae), that I had a misconception about them, so I chose it for my final paper. This class covered many aspects of Japanese tradition, such as the importance of gift-giving, apology, expression of appreciation and so on. Moreover, the concepts of “aimai” (ambiguity), “omotenashi” (courtesy), “kenkyo” (modest or humility), and how they are connected with Japanese mind. One thing that was compelling is that everything in their culture is deeply rooted and connected with religion such as Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism. Even though this class helped me to understand many things I didn’t know about Japanese, I am interested in learning more about them.
In this course I was able to fulfill the MLO2 – Culture, one of the requirements of taking the Japanese major at CSUMB. Taking this course, I was able to learn many things about Japanese culture and people. One of the subjects was the history and tradition along with religion. In addition, we learned about Japanese aesthetics, including haiku, the distinctive four seasons, the nature, wabi-sabi and others, which for me was very interesting. I was very fascinated leaning about the Japanese beauty which is the central element of Japanese culture and its four aspects: irregularity, suggestion, simplicity and perishability. I thought that it was interesting to learn the concepts that Japanese have about beauty. I enjoyed learning about all of them but what caught more of my attention was “wabi-sabi”, the art of imperfection, that is, give value for authenticity, natural and simplicity, going against ostentations. Another part was the way the Japanese mind works, which made me understand their behavior, especially about the dual concepts (honne and tatemae), that I had a misconception about them, so I chose it for my final paper. This class covered many aspects of Japanese tradition, such as the importance of gift-giving, apology, expression of appreciation and so on. Moreover, the concepts of “aimai” (ambiguity), “omotenashi” (courtesy), “kenkyo” (modest or humility), and how they are connected with Japanese mind. One thing that was compelling is that everything in their culture is deeply rooted and connected with religion such as Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism. Even though this class helped me to understand many things I didn’t know about Japanese, I am interested in learning more about them.
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