Are Japanese more hypocritical with foreigners ?

[jt_]

An example is the word Kan that I hear many times, referring to that elusive "intuition" that is so prevalent in J-society...take two Japanese and if one of them is a bit out of sorts, without really expressing an explanation on how they are feeling, they can "nantonaku" figure out that something is up...even though the reason for their condition or situation or feelings are not verbally expressed in any way that be explainable in a word or two in English...

This is a really fascinating discussion which unfortunately I don't have enough time to comment fully on, but for now I just want to say in reference to the above: I personally don't buy this idea that there's some mystical intuition that is possessed uniquely by the Japanese. I think this basically just comes from the fact that since many Japanese are taught (trained?) to keep certain feelings to themselves, trying to figure out how other people are feeling without being explicitly told becomes both a virtue and even a necessity.

On the other hand, someone from a culture where people are more open with their feelings will be accustomed to people telling them straight out how they're feeling, or when something is amiss, and therefore won't be consciously going around trying to "read" people and figure out what they're hiding (or at least not showing) all the time.

Also, the idea that there are feelings that can't be expressed in Japanese as directly as they could be in English for example is silly (I know this isn't necessarily exactly what you were saying, but I think there are some native Japanese speakers who might try to argue this) -- people may think this is so because they don't say these things, but of course it's possible to be explicit and direct in Japanese -- people just don't do it. It's cultural, not linguistic.

But anyway, I think the mystical Japanese intuition or "kan" is just basically a skill for "reading" people that's born out of the necessity of doing so in a society where people are hesitant (or to some extent, even taught/trained not to) speak their mind.