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RlCE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
“Hara ga tatsu" (I am angry), “katahara itai" (I feel like laughing at), “hara
ga kimarun (I have settled in my resolution). When one is depressed, one
may be described as “possessed by fusagi no mushi, or worm of depression.”
When a person is still angry, the worm in his abdomen is not calmed down.
When a man suddenly desires an extramarital affair, his behavior may be
explained as the result of his being possessed by the worm of fickleness.
When one has a premonition, it is called “mushi no shirase'' or worm’s
message. If one does not like a person, it is because one’s worm does not
like the person. If a child continues a violent temper tantrum, the mother
may take the child to a certain shrine to have the worm in the child “sealed”
so that the worm will not cause more temper tantrums. A selfish man who
expects much out of others, without ever reciprocating, is a man with too
good a worm mushi ga yof'). In the case of “mushf' it might be that the
Japanese, to avoid holding an individual responsible for his impulsive
behavior, attribute such behavior to an external agent, a worm. If a person
acts out his impulses on his own accord, he cannot be excused as a disruptive
member of a community, whereas if it is not he but something else that is
responsible, he still has a chance for acceptance. It is interesting to note
that when an individual’s impulsive behavior becomes too abnormal and
aberrant to be explained away as the worm’s doing, such behavior is often
explained as the consequence of possession of a more serious kind, such
as by a fox or dog, that has to be driven out by magic and rituals (“kitsune
tsukin).
One can never be careful enough in analyzing and speculating about
words but there is much for us to do in the psychological study of the
Japanese language. The careful analysis of many untranslatable words
should tell us much about Japanese psychology.
There are hundreds of onomatopoeic adjectives and adverbs that char-
acterize the Japanese language as basically “sensual.” For example, flowers
may fall hara hara, chira chira, or hira hira. It may rain shito shito, sara
sara, jabu jabu, or za zd. Pain may be felt chiku chiku, hiri hiri, shiku
shiku, or zuki zuki. To our best knowledge, no one has systematically
studied these interesting words.
4. Japanese Women and Their Role Behavior.
Lafcadio Hearn may be responsible for advertising among the Western
men the idealized image of a Japanese woman who is graceful, delicate and
quiet, and ready for self-sacrifice in her dedicated subservience; this image
seems based on the confusion of her role behavior with her personality.
Sucha misconception has attracted American soldiers with certain person-
alities who, due to lack of confidence in their masculine ego, found it
difficult to cope with self-assertive and often challenging American women.
George DeVos, in his unpublished and unpublicized research with his