Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Haunted Condo

Over the past few months, I've talked with a few students about the Miyuki Hatoyama thing (in which Japan's first lady expressed some highly unconventional ideas, concerning UFOs and past lives), which did finally become widely publicized in the Japanese media only after it was overseas. Such beliefs are not unheard of in Japan, but they are unusual enough that most students chuckled at them.

With one student, about a month ago, I made the same point (about comparing it to Christianity) that I made in a previous blog post, then added a new one that came to me at that moment. I postulated for her the following scenario:

"Imagine that you're about 30, as is your spouse. You have no kids, but want to within five years. You live in an apartment now, but want to move to a condo, one spacious enough for kids in the future. You'd also strongly prefer one that's within 30 minutes of central Tokyo. But those condos tend to go for about 40 million yen (roughly $400,000), and you can't afford it; the best you could do now is one for half that price. It'll take another eight or ten years to save up for the down payment on the one you want.

"A few months after you start looking, a real estate agent calls you and asks you to come out to see a condo he wants to show you that is in your price range, and fits your requirements. You go there, and what he says is true: it's nice, big enough, 25 minutes from central Tokyo, and the building is modern-looking and only five years old. The price is 20 million yen ($200,000).

"You say, 'It looks really good, but most condos like this go for twice this price. Why is this so cheap?' He explains that about six months ago, a young couple lived in the condo. The man killed his wife, then killed himself, in the living room in which they and the agent are now standing.

"So," I asked the student, "will you buy this condo?"

She immediately and vigorously answered 'no', which from having talked about the subject in general with other students in the past, I pretty much expected. I then told her that I would buy it, with few if any misgivings, and I thought most Westerners would. The point of the question was to point out that she may think that someone who says their spirit went to Venus on a UFO is strange, and maybe they are, but it could also be said that someone who gives up a possible $200,000 in value on a home based on a fear of ghosts could be, and probably would be, seen by those in other cultures as being pretty strange, maybe even stranger than someone who believes in UFOs. She was very interested, and wondered how many Westerners would buy it. I had to admit I wasn't sure. In the next few days I asked most other teachers here (total of nine people: seven Americans, one Canadian, and one Brit); six teachers said they would buy it, two said no, and one wasn't sure.

I then decided to conduct a survey of the students (I ended up asking 60 students these questions), and that I would first ask other questions to determine their general leanings on matters related to their answer to the condo question. I asked the following questions (I need not, but will anyway, stipulate that this survey is nowhere near scientifically valid, and is purely anecdotal):

Do you believe in any form of life after death?

Do you believe in fortunetellers?

When marrying, is it important that the date be a taian day? (Occurring once every six days, considered a lucky day, especially for weddings. In Japan, wedding halls charge substantially more on this day, due to high demand.) Or is a butsumetsu (unlucky) day acceptable?

Then I asked the condo question. With the first three, I intended to get at the following basic ideas: Do you believe in spirituality, in psychic or paranormal phenomena? Do you believe in luck? Basically, in the power of things unseen and unproven. The results were:

Do you believe in any form of life after death? Yes 18, Somewhat 13, No 29

Do you believe in fortunetellers? Yes 8, Somewhat 21, No 31

Do you believe taian is important? Yes 13, Somewhat 19, No 28

Will you buy the condo? Yes 10, No 50

When told the results, students tended to be surprised at the large number of 'no' answers in the first three categories, since Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and there are some Japanese Buddhists; street fortunetellers are easy to find in Tokyo, and taian days are expensive. A few common comments: "I don't care about taian, but my parents/in-laws/extended family feel it's important to have it on a lucky day." "I want to believe in life after death, but I don't." "I believe in fortunetellers when they say something good will happen, but not when they say something bad will happen." The last one was especially common.

Two aspects of this were of particular interest. One was the question of why there's such a huge difference between how many Japanese will buy the condo, and how many Westerners (I assume) will. The other was the fact that while I wasn't specifically keeping track of this, I'm sure that there were over a dozen people who answered 'no' to the first three questions, but then said they wouldn't buy the condo. This seemed inconsistent to me, since if you don't believe in ghosts or luck, why not buy it? What could happen? I particularly pressed those people to explain the inconsistency. Most of them thought about it, and finally good-naturedly admitted that they couldn't. I heard a lot of 'kimochi warui' (literally 'bad feeling', though in this context 'creepy' is probably closer to what they wanted to say). Some said that simply knowing the murder/suicide had happened would stick in their mind, and interfere with their enjoyment of the condo. My response of "for $200,000, can't you make an effort to change how you think?" met with a quick shake of the head. Over a dozen said that probably it would be fine if they didn't know the murder/suicide had occurred, but since they knew, they couldn't live there. Even if they couldn't explain it well, even if it was inconsistent with their other beliefs, they were quite sure that they couldn't buy it.

The best answer, I felt, was from a guy who's a scientist, working in the field of water treatment and purification. He said that as children, Japanese hear a lot of ghost stories, and in Japanese ghost stories the ghosts are more violent and mentally ill than in the west, where for example we have the perfectly friendly ghosts that inhabit Hogwarts castle. Some Japanese parents apparently say to their young children, "You'd better be good, or else the ghosts will get you," which I found quite an appalling thing to say to a young child. So, this student said, even if as an adult you're perfectly confident that ghosts don't exist, there will be a sense deep in your unconscious that you'd better not buy the condo, and will creep you out enough that you feel you'd better not buy it just to be on the safe side. I thought that made a lot of sense.

The ten who would buy the condo were generally aware that they weren't in the majority, but didn't mind. Most didn't hesitate much, and firmly believed that nothing spiritual exists, so there was no problem at all living there. One guy, 60 years old, did say that he would call in a Buddhist priest to spiritually 'purify' the condo, after which he was sure it would be fine. It would cost over a hundred bucks for the priest to come out, but hey, money well spent!

As for me, for the record, I do believe in life after death (reincarnation), I don't believe in most fortunetellers (though I believe a few might have a genuine talent, and should be referred to as psychics rather than fortunetellers), I don't believe in lucky days (though I do believe that if you really believe they'll be unlucky, they might well be), and I would buy the condo.

Students tended to be very interested in the topic and the questions, as was I. My original intent was simply to point out that you probably shouldn't make fun of someone's odd beliefs if you have your own odd beliefs (which you may not realize that you have, or recognize as odd), but it turned into an interesting examination of cultural differences in the area of spiritual and paranormal phenomena. Also, it's now become part of my history with these students, most of whom are my regulars. If they ever make a skeptical comment about someone else's religion and beliefs, I can respond, "Yeah, but you weren't willing to buy the condo." Even a year from now, I suspect, they'll remember what I'm referring to, and laugh.

P.S. After I finished writing this, but just before posting it, my wife found this short article on Consumerist.com about Americans' willingness to share a house with a ghost–not just the possibility of one, but assuming there really was one. Of course, there can be a gap between what people say they would do and what they would really do, but this is still very interesting, and shows the culture gap very strongly.

7 comments:

  1. An interesting post. I always enjoy examining the difference between cultures. For the record, I would take the condo. I don't particularly believe in ghosts, but I'm willing to concede the possibilitty. If I were to find there really WAS a ghost somewhere, I'd be even more likely to go for it. I'm curious by nature, and would want to find out as much as I could about such a phenomenom.

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  2. Funny–I didn't mention it specifically in the post, but my reasons for taking it are exactly the same as yours, which I told several students. It would be very interesting to have the existence of ghosts confirmed.

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  3. Interesting, great minds think alike I guess? (Or is that fools rarely differ?)

    I'd like it if ghosts exist, simmply because it would be more interesting than if they didn't. But I find it hard to believe, due to the nebulous nature of possible sightings and so on. If they do exist, you'd think we'd have something more solid to go by.

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  4. Interestingly, again, just what I said to some students: that if I bought it and there was a ghost, at least I'd have found that out, which would be a very worthwhile discovery in itself. And that while in Japan ghosts have a reputation for inflicting curses and violence, you don't hear a lot about them having caused such great loss of life.

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  5. >>>>>>>>>>
    So, this student said, even if as an adult you're perfectly confident that ghosts don't exist, there will be a sense deep in your unconscious that you'd better not buy the condo, and will creep you out enough that you feel you'd better not buy it just to be on the safe side. I thought that made a lot of sense.
    >>>>>>>>>>>

    Makes sense, as you say. A Pavlovian sort of conditioned response built into us by society from when we're born onwards.

    > I do believe in life after death (reincarnation)

    I've never thought about it, but I don't particularly want to believe we come back that way. Because we obviously don't retain our memories ... which makes each incarnation essentially a totally new person anyway. Kill my memories and you've killed me - Brad - as far as I'm concerned.

    I guess this is where the 'soul' thing comes in ...

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  6. >I've never thought about it, but I don't particularly want to believe we come back that way. Because we obviously don't retain our memories ... which makes each incarnation essentially a totally new person anyway. Kill my memories and you've killed me - Brad - as far as I'm concerned.
    I guess this is where the 'soul' thing comes in ...

    Indeed!

    Part of the idea that I believe is that there's a greater 'soul', for lack of a better word, and your self-awareness is the part of that soul that's focused in physical reality. When you die, you remember all the other lives you've had, all of which are part of your soul. Your memories (from other lives) are there, just not accessible at the moment. If we could remember them, we couldn't have such a variety of experiences every time. (I think this is mentioned on RoR, beginning of ch. 7, as well as PI, with the Brazilian Healer.)

    I'll probably do a post at some point about reincarnation, and why it was banished from Christianity not long after the church was established.

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  7. > When you die, you remember all the other lives you've had, all of which are part of your soul.

    Well, that makes me feel better - seriously! The idea of my 'expanding' in that other place and getting to know my(full)self again is quite nice.

    But it's still a cruel trick, I reckon, to deprive us of all of our memories in *this* world. I must take pains to recall this conversation, and my opinion, so the greater!me will remember it after I've died. Brad does not approve, me hear me!?!

    Still -

    > If we could remember them, we couldn't have such a variety of experiences every time. (I think this is mentioned on RoR, beginning of ch. 7, as well as PI, with the Brazilian Healer.)

    Yep, I think I remembered it from RoR at least.

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