[Symposium Presentation] Coping with COVID-19: A Comparative Study on Cultural Immune Systems - Osaka, Japan

On March 4-5, 2023, I participated in an international symposium titled "A Comparative Study on Cultural Immune Systems" in Osaka, Japan, hosted by Japan's National Museum of Ethnology. As the organizers put it, the symposium aimed "to compare and analyze the ways in which the “cultural immune system” has been activated in response to COVID-19 in various Asian countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, and also consider other regions like Europe."

In my presentation, I talked about the ways in which certain COVID-19 cures figured in the ways political actors in Asia responded to the pandemic, in what I call "pharmaceutical messianism", with the following abstract that builds on my work with my research associate Vincen Gregory Yu on the subject: 

This presentation surveys some of the miracle cures or wonder drugs that were touted to treat or prevent COVID-19 in Asian countries - and analyzes the ways in which politicians and other prominent public figures in the region promoted them. While the phenomenon of ‘pharmaceutical messianism’ (Lasco and Yu 2022) has been described all over the world, this presentation also reflects on the particularities of Asian contexts that lead to the social and political efficacies of these products, regardless of their biomedical efficacy.

I would like to thank the organizers in Minkapu, including Ippei Shimamura and Sohee Che, for organizing the event and for inviting me to be part of it. 

[Presentation] 4th Philippine Studies Conference in Japan, Hiroshima - Living with ‘tokhang’

During the 4th Philippine Studies Conference in Hiroshima, Japan on November 2018, I organized a panel entitled The Philippine War on Drugs: Critical Perspectives. In this panel, Filomin C. Gutierrez (Department of Sociology, University of the Philippines, Diliman) gave a presentation about the "Experiences of Persons Arrested in Operation Tokhang" while Aaron Abel Mallari (Department of History, University of the Philippines, Diliman) reported the initial insights in our joint research about the "Social constructions of drugs and drug users in contemporary Philippines".

For my part, I presented a paper entitled "Living with ‘tokhang’: Mistrust and fear in a drug war-affected community in the Philippines" based on my research in an urban poor community in Metro Manila where some drug war-related killings have been reported.

Our papers are just among the growing number of works that seek to make sense of and interrogate the Philippine drug war. One important task ahead is to create a community around scholars pursuing this urgent topic - and create venues for public dissemination of their major insights. 

[Workshop] Pharmaceutical becomings, Tokyo, Japan

TOKYO - Upon the invitation of Prof. Yosuke Shimazono of the University of Osaka, I came over to Japan to join a workshop entitled " “Pharmaceutical becomings: Emerging subjectivities in the age of pharmaceuticalization". Held in AEON Compass, Yeasu Conference Hall,  the workshop's other speakers included Prof. Shimazono (Osaka University) who talked about the use of immunosuppresants, Junko Iida (Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare) who discussed palliative care, and Miho Ushiyama who reflected on the 'de-pharmaceuticalisation' of people who refuse to use steroids to treat atopic dermatitis.

The abstract of my presentation, which was about height and growth supplements in the Philippines, is as follows:

In the Philippines, a class of vitamins and nutritional supplements that are growing in popularity are those that are colloquially known as pampatangkad (height enhancers) or ‘growth supplements’. Marketed for children and teenagers and imagined to contain “hormones” or “growth factors”, these products contain the legal disclaimer that they have “no approved therapeutic claims”, but their imagery - of measuring sticks, teenage basketball players,  young beauty queens, and scientific terminology (i.e. “Chlorella Growth Factor”) reinforce the perception that they are pampatangkad.

My presentation seeks to make sense of these products’ emergence and popularity in the Philippines - as part of a broader study that looks into how height figures in the everyday lives of young people in the country. My first insight is that these  products are involved in the ‘co-production’ (Jasanoff, 2003) of the notions of height: they not just reflect, but also reinforce, the meanings and materialities of tallness and shortness in the Philippines. Imagined or real, however, the efficacy of these products requires a conceptual framework, and this is accomplished by the reification of the idea of a “hormone” in popular imagination.

Interestingly, the panelists say that they do not see the same pervasiveness of the value of tallness in Japan, citing anime and TV shows that depict smaller people defeating big enemies, and the absence of height requirements for jobs. Surely, a comparative survey of the meanings of height in the region (and globally) would be a very fascinating research direction.

[Second Opinion] Japanese punctuality, Filipino time

The author with friends at the summit of Mt. Fuji

by Gideon Lasco
Philippine Daily Inquirer

TOKYO — Whenever I’m in Japan, I cannot help but marvel at the people’s punctuality.

A recent experience was illustrative: My friends and I had just left Mount Akagi in Gunma Prefecture and were aboard the bus back to the train station, but just as it was about to depart, a passenger rose, talked to the driver, then faced the other passengers. In between apologetic bows, he asked if it was okay for us to wait for his friend who should be arriving in one or two minutes. He hadn’t even finished talking when his friend arrived, running. The friend was late for just over 30 seconds, but such a delay sufficed for him to make a public apology.

How did the Japanese acquire such an acute sense of time?

For a facile answer, one could cite a highly efficient and reliable transportation system — from extensive subway systems to the famed shinkansen — that makes it very easy for people to fulfill their commitments. Because it takes exactly 33 minutes from Asakusa to Shibuya via the Ginza Line, I know exactly which train to take if I’m meeting someone at Hachiko’s.

But even the Japanese who are in the Philippines are known to be punctual, which tells us that there’s more to their sense of time than the infrastructure that enables it.

Surprisingly, scholars aver that the Japanese sense of punctuality is actually a relatively recent phenomenon. Historian Takehiko Hashimoto notes that Westerners in the mid-19th century actually complained that the Japanese were always late! It was only decades later, as part of the Meiji-era reforms, that punctuality was institutionalized. Children, for instance, were instructed to arrive 10 minutes before the start of class.

A second wave of time consciousness — one that pervaded the people’s everyday lives — came after the war, aided by the proliferation of wristwatches, heavy industrialization, and the inculcation of Western values. Surely, this sense of time, too, fostered the rise of a hyperefficient transport system, making Japanese punctuality a “coproduction” of culture and infrastructure.

As for the Philippines, while it is easy to blame our tardiness on the traffic and the unpredictable weather — or label it as an immutable “mentality” — one way to look at it is to consider how time has always been relative, and not just in Einstein’s sense of the word.

Anthropologists point out that “clock time”—i.e., seconds, minutes, hours — is in itself a modern invention: Until very recently, events dictated the pace of the day in most societies. A colorful example of this “event time” is “alas-puno” — or when the jeepney leaves, not at a certain time, but when it is full. Moreover, temporal categories were broader: umaga, hapon, gabi—allowing for more pakiramdaman (“feeling each other”).

Even in professional contexts in the Philippines today, there is more leeway: Arriving one minute late will likely not merit an apology, but one hour would. Then there’s a “politics of time,” too: Some can arrive “fashionably late” because of—or to assert—their importance. Indeed, people’s conceptions of time are shaped by others’ expectations, even as these expectations also change over time.

Sometimes, I think the Japanese can be punctual to a fault: On a hike up Mount Fuji last year, our guides wanted to schedule everything — including sleeping and waking times — removing the fun in climbing Japan’s highest peak. My Nagoya-based friend Jeion also feels that the overreliance on schedules can lead to a “domino effect” when things go wrong. “Filipino time,” with its flexibility and improvisation, may be suited for situations beyond our control, or when time itself need not be micromanaged — as when one is on vacation.

But the Japanese sense of time remains a valuable trait, not just for self-improvement but also for national growth: It is no coincidence that the 1950s-60s — when the Japanese began to adopt their modern conceptions of time — also marked the beginning of their “economic miracle.”

What we should strive for, then, is neither a full dismissal of Filipino time nor a full embrace of Japanese punctuality, but the ability to make use of both.

Originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer: http://opinion.inquirer.net/106233/japanese-punctuality-filipino-time