Quote Originally Posted by Kinsao
But somehow, your discussion doesn't seem like the logical Maciamo we all know and love
No, that's just because it's a bit abstract and if you haven't lived in Japan and have had similar experiences (like Mad Pierrot ), it may be difficult to understand. Then there is the problem that I am forced to generalise (i.e. talk about the "biggest part of the population", not everybody) and what's more only based on my experience.

I simply feel sorry for them, thinking maybe "They have no manners even if their heart is in the right place".
It's not a matter of manners. I hate superficiality such as hypocritical manners. If they want to be well-disposed toward me (or have me well disposed toward them), they should reflect a bit about what kind of person I am from the information they already have (e.g. married to a Japanese and have lived in Japan for 4 years) before making strange compliments. To understand my feelings, just imagine that you went to France and people started complienting you on your being able to use a fork and knife. That would be quite baffling, wouldn't it ? Now, what if at least half the people you met in France did the same. Wouldn't you feel like complaining that it's not strange or surprising that you can also use a fork and a knife as you are not mentally retarded ? I feel exactly this way in Japan.

Forgive me, but it does seem big-headed to imply that always you can understand the other person's position but they can never understand yours (presumably because you are the only person whose mind works 100% logically?!).
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It seems that you have a very high opinion of your own intelligence. Of course, I am sure that you do in fact have a high intelligence, but sometimes it's better to be careful how you word things it's like you're saying you're "above"the "ordinary" level. Which may well be true, but if I were you I'd keep quiet about it!
I am sorry, for once I will have not to keep too quiet about it as you are pushing me. First of all, I'd like to say that a greater intelligence is not always a good thing, and certainly does not make (social) life easier. If you want to know, I have taken several IQ tests and have been constantly tested as having an IQ superior to 99.99% of the population, ranging between 135 and 165 depending on the test - but it was always about crystalised, non-verbal IQ. These IQ thus didn't test verbal or linguistic skills, memory, artistic abilities, etc. It's almost only about reasoning, logics, spatial skills, etc. So we cannot say that I learnt languages faster because of having a higher IQ.

I think my verbal IQ was more average (around 120). In fact, I was quite bad at learning languages at school, and I have only really started to like foreign languages and started learning by myself from about 17 years old. This contradicts the theory that young children learn more easily languages, as for in my case I found it easier after puberty.

The drawback of a high IQ is that people have difficult to understand some of your reasonings (or even feelings, like here) and may find you strangely obsessed by things that doesn't matter much for them. My own mother has never been able to understand me (to this day), although my father understands me much more easily, often without explanations needed. This is clearly because of the difference of IQ between them. Same with my wife, I can explain some (particularly complex ?) things again and again and she never seems to understand my point of view, while I understand hers before she even opens her mouth. I know I understand her, because I can explain with my own words what she means, and she says that it is exactly what she means, said better than could have said (although we almost only talk in Japanese, so I have the language disadvantage). I can give you many such examples of me understanding a person whereas they do not understand me at all. I am used to it since I was a child (but didn't know it was IQ-related until I was 20).

Researches have shown that it becomes very difficult for 2 individuals to understand each others once their IQ diverged by more than 30 points. There is a theory that such people almost belong to different species. Incidentally, the most gifted gorillas can have an IQ of up to 70 (maybe even more), i.e. as high or higher than 3% of the human population (people considered as mildly or severely retarded). Of course, that's only for reasoning skills.

Anyhow, you were asking me whether "it does seem big-headed to imply that always you can understand the other person's position but they can never understand yours". What do you think ?

I would be very wary of saying "cannot accept ways of thinking which" ... anything! That road leads to prejudice, not tolerance.
And is it better to tolerate everything in life, even the clearly negative aspects ? I think modern Western societies are putting too much importance on tolerance. Should we, for instance, tolerate religious or political extremism ?

It's the kanji that I think will be very difficult, but of course I could still learn speaking to a reasonable conversational level without being good at kanji (even if I would be illiterate!).
I also thought that the kanji would be the hardest part at first, but it ended up being one of the easiest, as I really liked (and still like) learning them. In fact, without the kanji, it would have taken me longer to acquire my current (passive) vocabulary in Japanese, as kanji compounds help guessing the meaning of unknown words, and even creating new ones quite easily.