Cultural Antithesis: Dr. Miyahara Explores the Ambiguity of Culture

 

How can something be cute and creepy, unsettling and sacred, all at once? This question took center stage as the Department of English, in collaboration with the Center for Language Studies (CLS), hosted “Kawaii, Creepy, and Sacred: The Secrets of Cultural Ambiguity” on Friday, September 18 at the College of Engineering (COE) Amphitheater.


The talk featured Dr. Gyo Miyahara, professor at the Graduate School of Humanities at Osaka University and a cultural anthropologist, who examined how culture and language influence the ways people perceive and categorize the world.


In her opening remarks, CLS Director Assoc. Professor Honeylet E. Dumoran highlighted the importance of paying attention to these cultural and linguistic relationships, particularly in a diverse setting like Mindanao.


“Language was simply viewed as words for things that already exist in the world. Sometimes, it gives us a way of seeing relationships that we might not otherwise notice,” Dumoran said.


Miyahara introduced the discussion through a seemingly simple question: “What can and can’t we eat?” From there, he explored how food, despite being a universal necessity, is understood differently across cultures. What one community considers edible and familiar may be viewed differently by another, demonstrating how cultural practices shape the boundaries people place around everyday experiences.


One of the talk's key examples was the Japanese myth of Ōgetsuhime, a goddess associated with food and nourishment. In the story, Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the storm god, becomes disgusted when Ōgetsuhime produces food from her body and sees her actions as defiling. After her death, however, seeds and animals emerge from her body.


For Miyahara, the myth illustrates how something initially perceived as disturbing can take on another meaning when viewed through a different cultural context, transforming the unsettling into something life-giving and sacred.

The discussion then turned to how culture and language create categories through which people interpret what they encounter. Rather than simply naming things that already exist, language can reveal relationships and associations that might otherwise go unnoticed, translating a word may preserve its literal definition while leaving behind the experiences and associations that give the word significance.


This idea surfaced during the open forum when an audience reflected on the translation “Nature: Dirty Kitchen / Abuhan: Food.” While the phrase “dirty kitchen” may suggest an unclean space to some, abuhan in the Philippine context can evoke traditional cooking, homemade meals, and memories of family. For her, the term recalled hearty meals prepared by her mother—an example of how the meaning attached to a word can be shaped by personal and cultural experience.


The talk ultimately challenged the idea that culture can always be understood through fixed opposites. The cute can exist alongside the creepy; the unsettling can become sacred; and a word can carry meanings that extend far beyond its literal translation. 

For students of language and culture, recognizing these ambiguities means looking not only at what words say, but also at the worlds, memories, and relationships behind them. In a culturally and linguistically diverse community like Mindanao, understanding those spaces in between may be essential to understanding one another.

Written by Mia Raphaella Mallari
Proofread by Frank Flores
Photos by Samuel Adrian Guerra