Really interesting insights by Wally and Jarvik7. If you suddenly remember the name of that book, let me know. Always good to know, even if I'm fine being a westerner in Japan, I'm not looking for life-and-death comrades.

Tobberoth wrote:

Really interesting insights by Wally and Jarvik7. If you suddenly remember the name of that book, let me know. Always good to know, even if I'm fine being a westerner in Japan, I'm not looking for life-and-death comrades.

Honestly I never even really noticed the "tatemae" of making friends in Japan, since I've always made friends in the same way here. Unless I find someone interesting, I tend to politely ignore them.

It's a pretty big contrast between how I treat them and how I treat my close friends. That's not tatemae though, that's uchi & soto (time to branch the thread again? ).

Ah, okay, I think I misunderstood you. Now I see where you're going. We're probably agreeing on this one, I never intended to imply that Honne is in any way "better" than Tatemae. Personally, I am probably a lot too Honne in many inappropriate situation (e.g. openly criticizing people of higher social rank) which might have unintentionally hurt people in the past quite a few times (in Germany as well as in Japan). Also the way I see them as opposite is that either you react and speak according to what you are actually feeling or thinking for whatever reason (social pressure, fear of face loss, not wanting to hurt someone etc.) or you do not, again for whatever reason. The "content" is not always the exact opposite of course.

Last edited by Evil_Dragon (2009 May 26, 6:33 am)

Jarvik7 wrote:

Tatemae/honne are not Japanese concepts, they are just the Japanese words for it.

I don't know how prevalent this line of thinking is, but I've read people who think some of this talk of tatemae, honne, on, giri, saving face, shame society, etc amounts to orientalism, exoticism or perpetuation of certain exaggerated concepts of Japaneseness. So it's good that you added that bit. I had the impression it's considered a bit dated in certain academic circles. I'm curious to know if you think that's the case based on what you've been studying.

btw I think you're taking people's use of "opposite" a bit too literally - or perhaps too narrowly. Whether we call it opposite, counterpart, pair, dichotomy, complementary, parallel, etc., I think the intended meaning is understood.  We use "opposite" in the sense of pairing, as in opposite sex. Public and private can be considered opposites.

Thora wrote:

btw I think you're taking people's use of "opposite" a bit too literally - or perhaps too narrowly. Whether we call it opposite, counterpart, pair, dichotomy, complementary, parallel, etc., I think the intended meaning is understood.  We use "opposite" in the sense of pairing, as in opposite sex. Public and private can be considered opposites.

Yup, he clarified what he meant by opposite. They can definitely be considered opposite concepts, but the contents are certainly not opposites.

The opposite of polite but cold obviously isn't "I don't want more relationships".

Unfortunately most Japanese cultural studies literature is still pretty nihonjinron-esque. I can't recall reading any articles that compare any of the common themes you listed to western analogues. There is likely a lot of newer material out there that disassembles it if one looks for it, but it's not used in the usual undergrad level courses. I must admit that it's not my field though (I specialized in linguistics, classical literature, and translation theory).

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 May 26, 7:02 am)

Thora wrote:

Tobberoth wrote:

Quite honestly, my take on it is that Japanese lie to avoid confrontations and to be polite, and that's acceptable there. Even if one realizes the one they are talking to is lying, they let it pass and act as if they didn't know. We don't in the west, which is why we might think they are being mean or cold. Really though, they are just being un-blunt.

If you really think about it, we do a lot of that in the West as well (at least the rest of us do, dear Tobberoth)

Well, it's generally thought in western culture that lying is bad (a sin even?) and that lying = being evil, regardless of reason for doing so. If someone lies to you and you realize it, you might not confront them about it. Chances are however that you will not be pleased by it.

Jarvik wrote:

Yup, he clarified what he meant by opposite. They can definitely be considered opposite concepts, but the contents are certainly not opposites. The opposite of polite but cold obviously isn't "I don't want more relationships".

ED:  That would be Honne. (本音)
J:    It's not so much the opposite as it is the counterpart. What one keeps private as opposed to public.
ED:  Often enough, it is both.
J:    I don't see how it can be described as opposites. If, for example, someone's tatemae was to be friendly but cold to strangers [...]

Nice try. ;-)

I imagine the undergrad material would have touched on the critique if it was significant. I doubt they're denying that differences exist (it sure felt different!). Perhaps it's just the way the differences are explained that's a problem for them. But it seems kind of odd that Japanese analyzing their own culture could be considered orientalism.  oh well. thx
-corrected quote

Last edited by Thora (2009 May 26, 11:40 am)

So you'd rather a girl lie to you and get you to go through all that trouble calling her, thinking that it could work, all that grief? Very convenient for her and very much a problem for you. Do girls actually do that? I've always gotten really honest "No, sorry" answers and/or awkward situations that simply dissipated in my own experience asking girls out and being rejected. And even then, that is different from tatemae, because being put on the spot and lying about your phone number is quite a bit different from entertaining your advances all evening and/or going through a full date and THEN taking the initiative and preparing a premeditated lie in order to avoid having to face up and reject you.

And your host family lying to you about the fair and then going the next day behind your back saves "your face?" Are you ******* kidding me? Has that really happened to you? Your family lying to your face and then going and doing the exact thing they said they couldn't behind your back? This saves you the trouble of what, exactly? Being sad? So instead of making you sad, they infuriate and alienate you? If someone I knew well lied to my face and said, "No, I can't do X with you." And then they went and did it the next day and I found out about it, I'd probably chew them out the next time I saw them and then sever contact with them. Why would you ever hang out with someone who couldn't even man up and honestly tell you that they didn't like you?

Lying to someone in order to avoid having to deal with a potential conflict is the exact opposite of putting "people first." That's putting yourself first and, in fact, removing the other person from the equation entirely. That's selfishness at its best.

Say you go to a job interview and the interviewer says "Man, you're a really great candidate for this job. I'll call you as soon as we finish these interviews, but right now, you're at the top of the list." Then, when you leave, he throws away your resume and never calls you, leaving you hanging for who knows how many weeks, watching the phone, waiting for the call, wasting time at home that could be spent doing other interviews, and generally causing you great personal agony. After all, he told you you were the top candidate-- what could have possibly been wrong? In the end, not only are you subjected to a loss of time and money, but there was also a great bit of personal anguish involved in that situation. This is tatemae. This is not giving a shit about the other human being. This is having zero respect for the other fellow.

Contrast that with a job interview that goes well, but then the interviewer says, "I think you're a great candidate, but you aren't what we're looking for right now. Sorry." In this situation, the interviewer has to face you, brave the face of potential conflict, but in the end you are saved time and money and anguish because you can walk out of there and go to your next interview without worrying about whether or not a call will come while you're out interviewing. This is a realistic, effective way to solve this situation.

Here's an exercise for you thistime: Say you're breaking up with your girlfriend and are trying to decide the most humane way to go about doing this, with the least personal and emotional harm.

On one hand, you can invite her for one last get together, be it a date, dinner, or whatever, and tell her that it isn't going to work out and that you want to break up with her. Conflict ensues, but you in the end, you both go your own separate ways.

On the other hand, you can write her an email saying, "Oh wow, I can't wait to see you again! Let's hang out ASAP!" And then delete her number from your phone and begin ignoring her phone calls, blocking her IM messages, and generally doing everything in your power to avoid a future confrontation with her.

Which of these, in your opinion, is putting the other person first?

Here's a hint: Before I started going out with my girlfriend last fall, we met at a restaurant. I told a friend of hers I liked her, and eventually got her email address, however, when I tried emailing her, I got a few garbled responses and then nothing because her cell phone broke. I tried emailing her 3 times, and when I didn't receive any response, I gave up, labeling my attempt a failure. A month or two passed without a word spoken between us, and then I heard she was asking about me at her birthday party (which I wasn't in town to attend). Eventually, when we started going out, she told me that she cried almost every night during that interval because she thought that I didn't want to talk to her anymore or that she had made some mistake and turned me off completely. She was so upset that she couldn't even bring herself to ask me, figuring that I'd get pissed off or lash out if she even so much as asked "Why?" All this-- BEFORE we were emotionally involved with each other!

Last edited by FutureBlues (2009 May 26, 9:27 am)

Tobberoth:  I understood what you meant and I agree that Japanese are less confrontational. I just wanted to add that I think Western culture is less direct than these comparisons might suggest. (And my comment was referring to your previously stated preference for clear-even-if blunt dialogue - not to lying. Just to be clear)

thistime:  Yes, I think Japanese do see it more as gray, and their actions are gray. But I think Westerners see it as B&W, yet act gray! Lying is a no-no, but if we stop deluding ourselves, we'll have to admit to plenty of permitted (often expected) exceptions to the rule.  We learn to distinguish acceptable lies and unacceptable lies, yet maintain the lying-is-bad rule. We're the hypocrites. (hmm I've seen tatemae (mis)translated as hypocrisy).

Futureblues: But it's not always about lying. It's often more like ritualized communication where the true underlying message is conveyed, but the actual words might be different. Reading between the lines is possible when everyone understands the cues and codes. Foreigners often muck it up b/c we take things too literally and miss the subtle clues.  [edit: I'm a bit dense - Jarvik already said this at #283.] So a Japanese person might not consider it a lie and might be surprised to later learn that someone felt betrayed. But you know about this, so perhaps your examples are describing something different.

Japanese culture seems to have a comfort with ambiguity, contradiction, the non-linear and relational that can be confusing for Westerners (i.e. me!). I think the OP, with his strong regard for rationality, certainty and objectivity, might find himself seriously frustrated at times (based also on his comments in another thread). One of the wonderful things about living abroad - it forces us to become more self aware. That can complicate things - but also make them more nuanced, richer.

[I didn't follow the entire thread - if I took it off course, I hope this steers it back a bit]

Last edited by Thora (2009 May 26, 12:26 pm)

FutureBlues: I think you need to calm down a bit. It's clear that some of your problems that you talked about were caused by you. You never had friends in America, and then you went to Japan and continued to not have friends. This is a problem with Japanese culture? I think your first mistake was to believe that your life would have been like some harem anime after you got to Japan. That first disappointment probably gave you a negative view from then on.

Anyways you missed my point that a Japanese person would recognize the tatemae and realize that they are being turned down. It is foreigners who get the wrong idea.

As for the examples.. How do you know what the interviewer did with your resume after you left anyways? Maybe he fully intended to hire you, but then found someone even better who wanted less pay? In my experience you get a reply by an established date with either acceptance or rejection with Japanese mensetsu anyways. Your counter to my "asking a girl out" example confused me. Why would the girl go on one date and THEN reject you? Normally a Japanese-style rejection goes "you get her email address, then she ignores all communication from you or otherwise says she can't accept invitations". Unless she is that awful type that just wants a free dinner. If this happened to you, maybe she was interested at first but after the first date realized that it won't work? There are also language leeches who will chat with you all evening to practice English, but don't actually have any interest. Being selfish is a universal thing.

Anyways, it's a cop out to blame "that damn tatemae" for everything. Japanese people have no problems getting by with it. The ones who get tired of it do so because of the work involved with keeping it up, not because they get the wrong idea all the time.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 May 26, 5:19 pm)

Thora wrote:

Nice try. ;-)

What? If you read the previous posts before I called him out about opposites, you'll see what I meant. To use your example, it would be weird to say that "Australians don't have public, they have privacy". Especially if you wanted to imply that Australians say what they mean.

You could say that Australians' tatemae is a lot closer to their actual thoughts, but it is meaningless to say that they have "the opposite of tatemae→honne".

You can consider tatemae and honne opposite concepts if you like, but he was talking about content at first.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 May 26, 6:17 pm)

FutureBlues,

Everything you posted is looking at it from a very western point of view.

"It's just a little conflict, what's the big deal?" To Japanese conflict is a BIG deal and  often would cause a relationship to break apart. We would chuckle under our breath at how immature someone was if they ended a relationship because of a little fight.

"I would end any relationship if I found out someone had lied to me." To us being lied to is a BIG deal and would often cause a relationship to break apart. Japanese would probably chuckle under their breath at how immature you were if you ended a relationship because of a little white lie.

Lying to avoid confrontation is NOT selfish to Japanese people because the other party wants to avoid the confrontation every bit as much as you do. It is not lying to cover your butt or escape a sticky situation. It is lying to spare the feelings of and avoid embarassing EVERYONE. Of course there are seedy folks anywhere that will lie at any opportunity just to get away with something, but that is not a "Japanese" characteristic.

We think, "Just say what you mean." It's the most "efficient" way of doing things. But, Japanese tend to be much more in tune to the nonverbal. They can tell from tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, what the truth is. They aren't going to be waiting by the phone like a westerner would because they knew while they were being lied to that it was a lie. No time lost, totally "efficient".

As for you exercise;

considering I'm a married woman I would be breaking up with my girlfriend, but...

I would do the first if we were western for the reasons I stated before. Conflict isn't a huge deal. We need to be very clearly told "no". We hate lies.

I would do the second if we were Japanese for the reasons I stated before. They hate Conflict. They can tell the truth from the nonverbal cues. Lies aren't a huge deal.

One way REALLY ISN'T better than another!

Let's get a few things straight here before I go on. First, yes, you're right. Individual experiences don't accurately describe entire populations but when you talk about Japan, specifically, you're effectively talking about a fishbowl that is home to a school of fish. As a foreigner, you aren't part of that school, and no matter how hard you try to fit in, you'll never be a part of that school, even if you do your best to swim alongside them and eat what they eat. Because of the nature of this situation, when one of the fish in that school goes awry, there's an echo. Aso misread a few kanji in the diet and suddenly the whole nation was concerned about literacy. Books about reading Chinese compounds started flying off the shelf and everyone, everywhere was suddenly talking about kanji and quizzing their peers on this or that. Every school I teach in has two or three of these books just sitting around, because now the fever has died down a bit-- however, that one fish caused the whole school to double back. Did the USA furiously buy up English grammar books during the eight years George Bush butchered his English? No. Most of us thought to ourselves, "Look at that poor guy," or "What a prick," and went back to our daily lives. Why? Because in the West and individual represents an individual-- here, the individual is the group. I'm not Donald Keene, or even a Japanologist. I'm not an expert-- but there is evidence to support the idea that Japan and the Japanese are particularly homogenous. Sure, no two people are exactly alike but the situations being discussed here the sorts of situations that people who come to Japan are likely to experience.

Now, you do something long enough and you'll eventually get used to it. Tatemae doesn't bother me anymore because I tend to avoid Japanese people who rely on it to talk to me. My job and my contract gives me that necessary leeway, but not every job and not every contract will allow you to do that. If you come over here and get a different sort of job, you may not have the luxury of avoiding people like that. As far as I'm concerned, tatemae isn't even the biggest hurdle to overcome in terms of forming relationships here. I live in the country, where I'm more likely to see the same people over and over again, so its easy for me to sort the good from the bad and make decisions accordingly. In the city, things are more anonymous and most of the people you meet will take advantage of that.

A very real obstacle to forming worthwhile relationships here is something I like to call "work life." Now, I've touched on this fact before but never really given it its own time in the scheme of this discussion. People in Japan work. They work a lot. They work far more than you probably give them credit for. Someone already mentioned working 8AM to 9PM six days a week-- yes, this is exactly the sort of situation most Japanese people are in. They're expected to stay late, put in unpaid overtime and generally spend hours and hours at work, even when they aren't doing anything specific. When people settle down and get married, they devote what little free time they have to dealing with their significant other and family members and spend the rest of that time working-- at the expense of their friends and hobbies. If you have a job like them, then you won't have to worry because you won't have time to socialize with people outside of work, and the time you have to do your own hobbies will decrease exponentially. On the other hand, if you end up in the unique position where you do have a lot of free time, like ALTs, for example, you'll find that other people simply don't have time to be friends with you. The exceptions to the rules are people (especially girls) in their early twenties, parasite singles, and the elderly who have already retired. However, even in these groups the most interesting and intelligent of the lot will likely have school, shopping, or whatever as filler. Again, you can tell me that in the UK and in America people work a lot, and nobody has time for anything, but until you come here and experience it yourself, you won't believe just how little time most of your colleagues actually have. When my teachers heard from the new JTE this year that the school he worked at in Taiwan forced their employees to take at least 25 days off a year, they were incredulous-- how could the employees take that much time off and still keep the school running?! You can imagine their faces when they hear how much time off a typical teacher in America has.

When you look at tatemae and overtime and all this in the big picture, you end up with the status quo here-- you're a foreigner, your Japanese isn't perfect and you look so different that even if you mimic the right mannerisms, its easy to tell that you're not Japanese. As a contact, you're not really that useful-- you're not going to get anyone a leg up anywhere, so if someone wants to make friends with you, they need to judge whether or not you're worth the time and for the average person you aren't. People your age already have their own friends who don't have any trouble speaking Japanese, ever, and who they feel comfortable around because they understand them. Japanese don't spend a lot of time around the telly shooting the shit with friends so when it comes down to it, far more often than not, they're going to pass you by. People who do want to be your friends will likely have their own set of expectations that differ from the expectations you're used to. As a Westerner, my expectations for my friends are few. Are you fun to be around? Can we be honest with each other? Do we have things in common? Japanese expectations are going to differ and you'll likely find yourself depressed when the friendships you do make work don't really seem to be what you wanted in the first place. Again, they're not the type of real, worthwhile friendships you are accustomed to.

Talking about Japanese to Japanese interaction is, in my opinion, a bit of a waste of time (in this thread). Japanese people don't have to worry about being Japanese, nor do their inter-personal experiences really matter when we're talking about immigrants entering Japan.

When I came over here, as a linguistics guy, the thing I wanted most were these relationships, because my interest has always been the Japanese language and the best way to master anything is to do it a lot. While an SRS can help  you with that, it will never replace a group of friends you just sit around and BS with. Sure, I get plenty of listening practice at work and writing and whatnot on my own, but as far as speaking and production is concerned, the thing I wanted most was a group of friends I could feel comfortable around that I could open up to and talk about anything with. People who I could see often and talk to, about both the mundane and the fushigi. When I didn't find this, I was disappointed. However, walk through the fire long enough and you'll eventually get used to it. I adjusted my goals and took another look at my expectations. And I'm fine here now. Life is great because I'm not spending all my time chasing down friendship and camaraderie like I was when I first got here. I'm taking that time, the time I used to spend looking for people and relationships and devoting it to my hobbies, and the girl I'm dating, and other things I like to do.

And through all this, the conclusion I've come to is that I could be doing that anywhere on the globe and I'd probably be looking at the same level of personal satisfaction (aside from work, I suppose). This is my point. Put me in a flat in London, a house in the German countryside, or an apartment in the middle of the States and give me the same friends, hobbies, etc. and I'd probably feel the same way I do now. Do you see what I'm getting at? I'm not writing these posts to convince you not to come here. Or to admit that I secretly hate Japan and need to vent. I'm not saying that everything Western is better than everything Japanese, or that my experience is the only one that is relevant in this discussion. No. I'm just saying that moving here is not going to turn your life around. If you're in such a place as to need someone to "convince you that Japan is the best place in the world," you may want to think long and hard about what you're getting yourself into. You're not going to experience an awakening and blossom into a beautiful little Japanese chrysanthemum. On the contrary, you're going to encounter cultural barriers, setbacks, and person-to-person interaction that is different from anything you've ever experienced and you're either going to realize what I've realized and look for your own personal brand of happiness within, or you're going to be slowly crushed under the pressure of a society that, as Methanol and the Japan Times article I linked earlier touched on, doesn't really want you here in the first place.

Last edited by FutureBlues (2009 May 26, 11:49 pm)