Stylized communication

In the preface of his book, “The Japanese Have a Word for It”, Boye Lafayette De Mente wrote the following paragraph :

“The highly stylized, minutely structured nature of Japanese culture that developed over the centuries molded the language to fit and sustain the social and political system that evolved. The psychology of the system became imbued in and expressed by the language to a degree seldom seen in other cultures.”

A journey from dream to fascination

Living in Japan for more than four decades, it was an intriguing experience to learn Japanese culture from a proximity. Apparent contradictions in the culture were revealed from time to time making me ever confused. On the one hand, I could see a perfect order throughout the society, epitomized by their overwhelming hospitality, exquisite personal manners, kindness, and bright smiles with gracious bows. On the other hand, I could also see the insurmountable insularity of the society. Dealing with a way of ‘thinking beyond logic’ also became challenging. So I started the quest of de-codifying the cultural DNA of this society to appreciate reasons for many “why” and “how”.

In Swami Vivekananda’s words “Fascination is the opposite of anything that takes you suddenly; it throws on you, as it was a charm imperceptibly”. I think that is a process, which works silently in the background just as the dew forms on the ground unnoticeably. Perhaps this is how, many foreigners living in Japan for a long period get fascinated to this land without much conscious effort. Close contact with the Japanese in daily life teaches one to expect the unexpected. It can be stimulating to work out the reasons and emotions behind unexpected words or deeds. Failure to fathom the background can be frustrating.

In the following sections, I will attempt to explain some fundamental concepts of Japanese culture, in which I believe verbal and non-verbal Japanese communication, are deeply enrooted. The list is however neither exhaustive nor prioritized in terms of its importance. The scholars might even discard the proposed relationship. I have tried to back up my analysis with some facts, but essentially it is my personal opinion based on direct experience of living in Japan as a student, employee and entrepreneur.

Cultural roots – few fundamental concepts

Vertical society (Tate shakai)

According to sociologist Chie Nakane, the characteristics of Japanese society in general and the attitude and behavior of the individual in particular can be explained by the concept of vertical society. In Japanese society, the people are ranked in a hierarchical order having the emperor at the top, down to the lowest individual level. In traditional hierarchical Japan, the use of language and etiquette were primarily decided based on one’s relative coordinate in the society. People had to know their position in society and abide by a multitude of laws and customs that were ritualized over the ages. Even today, many Japanese follow the same pattern of behavior that was created generations ago and remains an integral part of the educational institutions, the commercial organizations and the government.

Equality versus Fairness

Unlike In the West where a senior executive (CXO) of an organization takes much of the credit for the achievement that happens during her/his tenure, the Japanese counterparts fully acknowledge the contribution of rank and file. Thus the expression “minasan no okage de” is so very common in Japan. The literal translation goes like “It’s all because of you”. In practical terms, this idea is implemented in the calculation of paychecks of senior executives of Japanese corporations. While inequality is also increasing in Japan, still it can be said that there is much less disparity of income between the senior executives of a Japanese organization and its rank and file as compared to that of an American organization. Some people say that fairness is a very important basic value in the US. This means capability is the yardstick, and it is absolutely fair to pay more to someone who has higher capability. On the contrary, Japan believes in overall equality. Irrespective of their rank within each hierarchy, the Japanese treat one another as fellow human beings.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal on Feb 09, 2015 by Jacob M. Schlesinger, Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley said: “Japan is generally a country with low pretax income inequality because pay, and especially executive pay, is very regulated through company norms and seniority pay scales.” In the U.S., the ratio of average CEO pay to average worker pay is 354, the highest in the world, while Japan’s is 67, one of the lowest, according to a compilation of global comparisons by the AFL-CIO union federation.

Tacit Understanding/Mind-to-Heart Communication (Ishin Denshin)

I still remember a revealing incident which happened when we just came to Japan. A 6-7-year-old kid of our neighbor used to come to our house to play with our kids. Sometimes she would eat dinner with our kids. One day I heard her saying to our children that we Japanese hold knives and forks this way. It sparked my curiosity to understand how a 6-7 year old child could confidently generalize something for the whole nation. I could learn how the training begins from infancy, which includes everything from how to eat, how to bow, and how to pay proper respect to seniors, even how to use a knife if you run a sushi shop.

Japan seems to be a huge extended family that was deliberately subjected to virtually the same cultural influences from generation to generation. As a result of this homogenization, the Japanese developed the ability to understand each other with only a few cryptic, words and to anticipate thoughts and actions as if they could read each other’s minds. I feel that may be with little exception, most of the Japanese are always tuned to the same wavelength. A common concern among the Japanese about outsourcing its software development to offshore vendors is that they have to put enormous efforts into explaining every minute detail to a foreigner. However, a local Japanese vendor will require much less explanation. There is a commonly used Japanese expression to explain this phenomenon, which is ichi ieba ju wakaru. This means that if one point is explained to the Japanese, they will understand 10 related points. It is like silent broadcasting.

Viewpoint of an insect (mushi no shiten)

The perspective from which a Japanese looks at his surroundings, or decides to accomplish some task can be compared to that of an insect. The insect has two very special characteristics which are as follows:

• It can see its surroundings in great detail as it moves on the ground.
• It starts moving towards its goal without being too concerned about what is going to come on its way.

In the first trait, one can see the details on the ground and can have a thorough understanding of the ground reality. Toyota has coined this concept as Genchi Genbutsu, which literally means the ground where the objects exist. The second concept depicts a challenging attitude. Let us look at how an insect starts its journey towards its goal.

The insect starts its journey without worrying too much about the hurdles that it encounters on its way. Depending on the nature of the hurdle it either avoids or crushes, and finally reaches its goal. “Hashirinagara Kangaemashou” is a common Japanese expression that exactly depicts this mindset. ‘Hashirinagara’ means ‘while running’ and ‘kangaemashou’ means ‘let’s think’. Offshore vendors engaged in software development for Japanese clients are at times baffled by this mindset as it is very customary for Japanese customers to request frequent changes in the specification after the project is started. No wonder why, Change Requests in user specification are so very common here.

In this context, one can see another interesting difference between Japanese and Western culture. If I know my requirements well and can articulate them well, then in Western environment, I am somewhat guaranteed of best quality service which I have requested for. As opposed to that it is taken for granted in Japanese culture that the service provider has to think hard to gain a deep insight of what would make the customer happier than providing him just the service that he has requested. Anyone living in Japan will have enough of such experiences in their day-to-day lives.

Persistent hard work (kotsu kotsu gambaru)

In the fast-changing world, the ways of doing things in Japan are also changing. However, in traditional Japanese society, nothing could be more appraised than persistent hard work. A nation that was rebuilt from the devastation of war had to especially depend on the hard work of its labor. Among older Japanese, a strong common belief is that no matter how smart you are, you have to put in persistent hard labor if you want to achieve success.

Conclusion

Studying Japanese culture helps a foreigner to understand and appreciate any exceptions from own expectations. While it is interesting to study the subject in depth, one has to spend an enormous amount of time to do that. In order to reduce that burden, an attempt has been made to describe a few key cultural concepts that have a direct or indirect impact on Japanese communication style.

Acknowledgements:

• The Japanese Have a Word for It – Boye Lafayette De Mente
• Where Communism works – Douglas Moore Kenrick
• http://www.paghat.com/kerria.html
• Japanese Society – Chie Nakane, Charles E. Tuttle Co.,
• Reading the Japanese Mind – Robert M. March, Kodansha International
• 「縮み」志向の日本人 - 李 御寧 (講談社学術文庫)