Are Japanese more hypocritical with foreigners ?

[ArmandV]

As irritated some of us may get over repeated questions from the Japanese population, they may get as equally irritated by some inane questions some of us foreigners may ask of them.

After my first trip, people back home kept asking, "Did you sleep on the floor?" My stock answer was, "No, I slept on a futon." Inane questions from fellow countrymen may be just as irritating to us. Some people never bother to leave their fishbowls to experience other countries and their cultures for themselves as many of us had. I guess it is part of our cross to bear as world travelers.

[Pachipro]

You are quite correct ArmandV as I tried to explain in a previous post. I agree with you in that, like you, I prefer to make the world my backyard while others prefer to make their world their back yard. I think I read that somewhere once.

[ArmandV]

I prefer to make the world my backyard while others prefer to make their world their back yard.

Thanks! I'll have to remember this one!

[Maciamo]

As irritated some of us may get over repeated questions from the Japanese population, they may get as equally irritated by some inane questions some of us foreigners may ask of them.

After my first trip, people back home kept asking, "Did you sleep on the floor?" My stock answer was, "No, I slept on a futon." Inane questions from fellow countrymen may be just as irritating to us. Some people never bother to leave their fishbowls to experience other countries and their cultures for themselves as many of us had. I guess it is part of our cross to bear as world travelers.

This may be due to the fact that you are from the States. I went back home this January and met about 20 relatives and friends I hadn't seen for 4 or 5 years (before I came to Japan), and not a single one of them, not even the children or the elderly, asked me a stupid question. They asked how was life in Japan, what I did there, or asked me to explain about the writing system, etc. But no questions related to samurai, geisha, sleeping on the floor, and not even a single question about food I think (and certainly no stupid questions to my wife about her ability to eat European food).

[den4]

This may be due to the fact that you are from the States. I went back home this January and met about 20 relatives and friends I hadn't seen for 4 or 5 years (before I came to Japan), and not a single one of them, not even the children or the elderly, asked me a stupid question. They asked how was life in Japan, what I did there, or asked me to explain about the writing system, etc. But no questions related to samurai, geisha, sleeping on the floor, and not even a single question about food I think (and certainly no stupid questions to my wife about her ability to eat European food).

Consider yourself a fortunate person to have family and friends that are as enlightened as they are (at least from the way you describe them)...alternatively, if things continue to trouble you there in grand ol' Nippon, then it sounds like you need another vacation away from the land of the rising engrish, so you can weigh the benefits or penalties of living there...

Having said that, there have been many times when the Japanese folks I talked with also wonder why they need to explain everything to us foreigners. If we understand the language as well as we think we do, then, they ask, why do we need to ask them to explain the reasons for why the things are the way they are...can't we just figure it out by the nuance of the way things are spoken? I have heard their frustration over this as well...that we tend to think too much in binary that we forget there are other ways of thinking about things that we may not be used to, or completely ignore, because we have become so set in our ways...

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...

While I do agree that there are many people that do ask stupid questions, I still feel that this comes from that innate combination of unprepared awkwardness and the ultra wanting to avoid embarrassment plus irrational panic mode thinking that most Japanese people tend to have when dealing with people that speak in English...this may also be true with other languages...but I think English is the major culprit...

Perhaps it is time for you to try an experiment...in the great tradition of Eddie Murphy and make-up for films like "Black like Me," or in Eddie Murphy's parody, for Saturday Night Live's "White like me..." perhaps it is time for you to try and fathom what life is like for a Japanese person by becoming one...you obviously have the linguistics down, so all you need is the proper make-up and some coaching from your friends and Japanese peers, and see what it is like to be Japanese...and see if you can gain some inner insights into what Japan is like from the Japanese perspective, and see for yourself how the typical Japanese person is treated vs. say the foreigner...You'll have to set aside your western logical thinking style, as well, if you intend to blend in with the surroundings...but perhaps this will be the only way you can get some first hand information on things that continue to trouble you there...

it is merely an idea...

[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.

[Maciamo]

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...

I agree with everything JT has commented on this. Again, I feel very much that your point of view is basically an "American vs Japanese", which doesn't take into consideration all the cultures of Europe.

Many North Europeans have as difficult, and I'd say sometimes more difficult, than the Japanese to express their feelings. Personally, there are several people in my family who will never say how they feel, and one really needs to be a fine psychologist or have a lot of intuition to understand their feelings. Sometimes I am like that too (but much less than, say, my father), and my wife, with all her "cultural training" from the Japanese society and in spite of the fact that women are more intuitive, usually has a very hard time to figure out how I feel or what I think. I, on the contrary, can read her mind like a book and often tell her how she feels better than she can herself (she is often surprised by my intuition), thanks to the cultural environment in which I grew up, which I think requires much more "mind-reading" than in Japan.

As I said earlier, when my family came to Japan, they first impression was that the Japanese were very extroverted people, which they likened to the Italians. I think it says a lot about how much more reserved than the Japanese Northern Europeans (British, Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians, and even Germans) can be. But it is also a fact that the Americans, Australians or Italians are even more extroverted than the Japanese. I think the main difference is that the Japanese are not very concerned about exactitude. They often express in words how they feel (kaze hiita kamo! guai ga warui! atsui! samui! tsukareta! kirei! sugoi! kawaii! uso! shinjirarenai!), but rarely bother to analyse carefully the causes of their feelings, as I would do. Rather than saying "onaka ga itai" (very vague), I'd say "i ga itai" or "chou ga itai" or "chinzou ga itai" or "kihou ga itai" depending on where it actually aches. But there is some truth that the Japanes language also lacks accuracy. There is no difference between "ache" and "hurt", or even between "leg" and "foot" in Japanese. For a person like me who would rather complain of a pain in the quadriceps (in the thigh) or in the calf or shin or ankle rather than just the "leg", one may understand that I find the Japanese unbelievably inaccurate in everyday life. I somewhat pity Japanese doctors, who have to hear their patients say "onaka itai" rather than tell them directly which part of their abdomen aches.

[jt_]

Maciamo, I agree with many of the things you say here, but I was just curious about this one point about the vagueness of the Japanese language:

Rather than saying "onaka ga itai" (very vague), I'd say "i ga itai" or "chou ga itai" or "chinzou ga itai" or "kihou ga itai" depending on where it actually aches. But there is some truth that the Japanes language also lacks accuracy. There is no difference between "ache" and "hurt", or even between "leg" and "foot" in Japanese. For a person like me who would rather complain of a pain in the quadriceps (in the thigh) or in the calf or shin or ankle rather than just the "leg", one may understand that I find the Japanese unbelievably inaccurate in everyday life. I somewhat pity Japanese doctors, who have to hear their patients say "onaka itai" rather than tell them directly which part of their abdomen aches.

I find this really interesting. I can't speak for any the European languages you may speak, but at least in American English (the only language I'm qualified to comment on), nobody makes the distinction between "i" and "chou" when talking about a stomachache. Of course, the words exist, and one can talk about e.g. one's intestines if one so chooses, but a typical English speaker is just going to say "I have a stomachache" or "My stomach hurts". (And again, I'm not sure that the typical English speaker will make a distinction between "ache" and "hurt" there... At least in this case, I would consider them synonymous. "Cramp" might be different, though)

In fact, it was only after going to Japan that I learned to distinguish the two in my speech, when I would mention offhand to my fiancee that my stomach hurts and she would ask me to clarify so she would know what type of medicine to give me (I had never really taken medicine for stomach aches before, anyway, but...). I always found this to be an example where the Japanese language and speakers of it were much more precise about something than native speakers of my own language. I mean, you can point to a word like "ashi" covering both the leg and the foot, but then you can just as easily point to something else like all the seasonal words for rain that exist in Japanese. To an English speaker, rain is just rain and a (rain)storm is just a rain(storm), but in Japanese you get words like 'yuudachi' that refer to specific types of rain that come during specific times of the year. It just seems to me that it goes both ways.

But I think most importantly is to distinguish between what people can say and what they do. Just simply having more unique nouns to refer to certain things, for example, doesn't mean that a language is inherently "more precise" because there are other ways to be specific about what you're saying. Likewise, what people choose to say (itai! omoshiroi! sugoi! kawaii!) does not reflect all that they're capable of saying. If a Japanese speaker says "Kawaii!" about something that you don't find cute at all, you can go ahead and ask them "Doko ga?" without having to worry about them exploding from a lack of linguistic ability to express the specific characteristics of cuteness.

The way I see it, it's very possible to be vague and evasive in English and to be precise and blunt in Japanese -- all it takes is an individual speaker choosing to do so.

[Elizabeth]

But I think most importantly is to distinguish between what people can say and what they do. Just simply having more unique nouns to refer to certain things, for example, doesn't mean that a language is inherently "more precise" because there are other ways to be specific about what you're saying. Likewise, what people choose to say (itai! omoshiroi! sugoi! kawaii!) does not reflect all that they're capable of saying. If a Japanese speaker says "Kawaii!" about something that you don't find cute at all, you can go ahead and ask them "Doko ga?" without having to worry about them exploding from a lack of linguistic ability to express the specific characteristics of cuteness.

And it isn't only bodily functions and nouns. Quite clearly most people don't make sentences in line with the first below example because it would sound overtly harsh and pretentious, although arguably more specific. It's beyond dispute that the language itself is fully capable of minute distinctions relating to nearly every concept imaginable -- anyone who has ever as much as glanced through a kanji dictionary, in print or online, should be well versed in the numbers, if I had to hazard a guess I'd say the total was greater than in English. It's just so self-evident the whole discussion puzzles me every time....

先日　電話で日本人の友人と話した時に、新宿のいくつ かの小さい本屋さんがやくざによって支配� を有される かもしれないと思ったと言及しました。
　
＞＞先日、電話で日本人の友人と話した時に、新宿のい くつかの小さな書店がやくざの所有になるかもしれない と聞きました.

[Maciamo]

I find this really interesting. I can't speak for any the European languages you may speak, but at least in American English (the only language I'm qualified to comment on), nobody makes the distinction between "i" and "chou" when talking about a stomachache.

I guess this has to do with my speaking French, as French speakers tend to be very accurate about such things. Of course some people will just say "I have a stomachache", but there are many other terms used in French even by children on a daily basis to describe the kind of stomachache (colic, abdominal cramp..). In fact I understand why most English speakers do not make the difference between "onaka" and "i". It's simply because the word "stomach" has both meanings and the words for "onaka" are seldom used (belly, tummy. abdomen), as they sound either too childish or too formal.

To an English speaker, rain is just rain and a (rain)storm is just a rain(storm), but in Japanese you get words like 'yuudachi' that refer to specific types of rain that come during specific times of the year.

Well, maybe Americans do not care much about the weather, but British people are among the most accurate people in the world to describe it. Do you often use the words "drizzle" (light rain), "sleet" (snow-rain), "shower", "mist", "fog", or say that it is "pelting down (with rain)", "pouring (with rain)", "raing cats and dogs", "coming down in buckets". etc. ? Do you differentiate between a storm, rainstorm, thunderstorm, windstorm, tropical storm, tempest, cyclone (South Asia), typhoon (East Asia), hurricane (America), squall, blizzard ? Because I do. I will never say it's raining when it is actually "drizzling". So I use the word "kirisame" in Japanese, and the Japanese are usually surprised I know that word, as they rarely use it themselves. The only few days of sleet we had in Tokyo, I hear people saying "yuki ga futteru !", when they should in fact say "mizore ga futteru", as it isn't proper snow. I was raised like that - it isn't just me who is picky about it.

The way I see it, it's very possible to be vague and evasive in English and to be precise and blunt in Japanese -- all it takes is an individual speaker choosing to do so.

Yes, I know. That is why I prefer to say that the Japanese are inaccurate, rather than the language (although it can also be for a few things).

[Elizabeth]

Yes, I know. That is why I prefer to say that the Japanese are inaccurate, rather than the language (although it can also be for a few things).

Yeah, even when I ask for corrections to professional correspondence the response might well be prefaced with a

詳しい事情はわかりませんが、日本語だったらこんな感 じでしょう。

I guess it's just one of those things that you can orient yourself to in return for the wonderful hospitality and loyal, lifelong friendships of the people or not....

[PopCulturePooka]

This may be due to the fact that you are from the States. I went back home this January and met about 20 relatives and friends I hadn't seen for 4 or 5 years (before I came to Japan), and not a single one of them, not even the children or the elderly, asked me a stupid question. They asked how was life in Japan, what I did there, or asked me to explain about the writing system, etc. But no questions related to samurai, geisha, sleeping on the floor, and not even a single question about food I think (and certainly no stupid questions to my wife about her ability to eat European food).

You're lucky.
Been back home 5 days, barely met anyone again yet but already the idiotic questions have started.

'Did you eat raw fish?'
'Did you buy schoolgirls panties?'
'Did you see Godzilla?'

[Maciamo]

You're lucky.
Been back home 5 days, barely met anyone again yet but already the idiotic questions have started.

'Did you eat raw fish?'
'Did you buy schoolgirls panties?'
'Did you see Godzilla?'

I don't think I am "lucky". My family and friends are like everybody else in the Benelux, France or England. I think it's just a cultural difference. The people I met last month were not particularily interested in Japan and so had little knowledge about it, but didn't show it or tried to learn by asking explanations rather than start from an erroneous statement or absurd question. It's not just in the culture to ask stupid questions or display one's ignorance or prejudices. I have few direct experiences with American people, but when I was in Australia, I was confronted to the same kind of dumb questions ("Is Belgium a part of Denmark ?", instead of a more appropriate "Where exactly is Belgium located ?"), or especially prejudiced remarks (like "all the Germans are nazi", or "French people are good at making perfume because they stink") as in Japan. From what I read on this forum, I think the "average" Americans are pretty much like the "average" Australians, that is as ignorant as the Japanese but without the naiveness, respect and desire to learn about "foreign countries".

[Gaijin 06]

On the other hand, I've been asked by plenty of Westerners what raw fish tastes like.