During a trip to Japan, he became familiar with the world of Japanese characters and noticed that these characters came closest to his conception of a sign. The Japanese character is powerful: it is admirably governed by rules, arranged, and presented, never naturalized or rationalized. The Japanese character is empty: its signified escapes, there is no god, no truth, no morality underlying this signifier that reigns without its counterpart. And above all, the higher quality of this character, the grace of its assertion, and the erotic charm with which it appears are imprinted everywhere, on the most trivial objects and behaviors that we normally refer to as insignificant or banal.