The bathrooms ・ The smell of tatami ・ The food culture ・ The dog owners ・ The blue sky in winter ・ The Japan Alps ・ The attention to detail ・ The honesty  ・ The seasons ・ The song of the Japanese　nightingale ・ The shrines ・ The service ・ The fireworks ・ The koi ・ The hospitals ・ The toilets ・ The　festivals ・ The persimmons in November ・ The pottery ・ The delivery services ・ The convenience stores ・ The bicycle parking sheds ・ The flags for crossing the road ・ The throwing of beans at Setsubun ・ The safety ・ The memory of Michio Hoshino ・ The pine trees ・ The futons hanging on balconies ・ The love of tea ・ The legacy of Tezuka Osamu ・ The clothing of construction workers ・ The sight of rice fields ・ The forests of Yakushima ・ The melodies on the Yamanote Line ・ The art of bowing ・ The things left unsaid ・ The joy of coming face to face with a Japanese antelope ・ The intensity of driving on the Shuto highway in rush hour ・ The intensity of driving in Nagano prefecture on sheet ice ・ The bottle keep system ・ The yaki-imo and gyoza truck sellers ・ The sound of the shamisen ・ The gardens ・ The white flatbed mini trucks ・ The plastic food models ・ The winter illuminations ・ The courtesy ・ The slippers in the office ・ The bou-michi around Yatsugatake ・ The first experience of a ryokan ・ The massage chairs ・ The atmosphere in the Tokyo International Forum ・ The hidden waterfalls ・ The gifts between neighbours ・ The use of the written word ・ The peace and quiet ・ The importance of form and appearance ・ The walk from Akihabara to Ochanomizu ・ The row of elevators in Sony's head office ・ The brilliance of the green leaves in May ・ The automatic taxi doors ・ The view to be found in Kamikochi ・ The nikuman ・ The language

aphasiac wrote:

nest0r wrote:

No, the negative comments in this thread generally seem as small-minded, petty, and stereotype heavy as before, as if written mostly by prejudiced people who went to Japan and had bad experiences as their foreign sensibilities were forced on Japan and rejected.

Not really. I though posts by 'diana' were pretty balanced - after all, she lived there for many years, studied and worked in many cities, and had an overall positive experience.

The she did chip in with some negatives about Tatemae and friendship , and 2 (or 3?) posters agreed with her? Now you just want to dismiss all their opinions as coincidence, or some kind of conspiracy?! I'm a bit confused by your post to be honest; which posts are "prejudiced" and where do stereotypes play a part?

nest0r wrote:

The other comments, by a range of people, seem reasonable and well thought out, by people with sound logic and practical experience, regardless of whether they've been to Japan or not.

Not really? Seems a lot of people just jumped in and saying that can't be true, and dismissing their experience at their fault somehow; bit like you're doing actually.

You think this person's comment is a negative comment? Didn't you just say you got the impression their overall experience was positive? Seems like maybe if you're confused by my comment, it's because you have a conflicting definition of a negative comment.

I think if you're concerned with dismissing perspectives, you should rethink how you're portraying those who disagree with negative comments or negative points. You seem inclined to categorize them as inherently faulty because they haven't lived in Japan (this apparently being the only criterion, which is silly), and that they may change their mind upon re-reading an old thread. Not to mention the ganging-up dynamic you describe which is not apparent to me, I see plenty of nuanced back and forths. I also see overwhelmingly negative comments that seem the product of a very dogmatic perspective. They seem more like venting litanies, at best, which I generally consider not worth attending to.

I think it's generally obvious that complimentary points are subjective; it's when negative points are stated as ‘facts’ and attributed in some strange universal, racial-national way that I think logic has abandoned such posters (and other posters can apply logic to recognize this, informed by information and experience other than data gathered through personal, long-term life in Japan).

I feel the same about positive points that indicate some silly stereotypes, but I haven't seen as many here as I see in other threads, perhaps due to the subjective framing of the OP.

Edit: Diana's comment was predominantly negative, now that I read it, but welldone101 said later that it was by request of others, which I guess resulted from some earlier pages' argument. I guess if they say in 1/100th of the comment that they had an overall positive experience, I can see how you'd say it was just ‘some negatives’. But then Harhol's, in my impression from skimming, harmless, impersonal response was met with an accusation of yellow fever and a comment on how high numbers of suicides must mean something, which sparked some musings on whether diana was aggressive, then various back and forths, blah blah. Yeah, I regret reviewing this thread already. Another one of those trivial OP-turned-Gaijinpot-esque threads I forgot to block with FoxReplace. Thanks for the reminder.

Last edited by nest0r (2011 July 23, 12:36 pm)

thecite wrote:

The whole tatemae thing seems really overblown here, I've never really noticed it with any Japanese I've met, although I generally mix with the younger generations.

You would notice it more in Japan.

kitakitsune wrote:

thecite wrote:

The whole tatemae thing seems really overblown here, I've never really noticed it with any Japanese I've met, although I generally mix with the younger generations.

You would notice it more in Japan.

I'm sure I would, still seems overblown. Anyway, you're in Japan, what's your opinion?

Last edited by thecite (2011 July 23, 2:22 pm)

thecite wrote:

The whole tatemae thing seems really overblown here, I've never really noticed it with any Japanese I've met, although I generally mix with the younger generations.

- Do your Japanese friends talk about their boyfriends / girlfriends with you? Do you even know if they're single or not?
- Do you know what all of their parents do for a living? Do they tell you stories about their family life?
- Ever had one of them say "oh, we should meet up before <date>" and then never contact you about it? Or have they cancelled a meetup (usually at last minute) because they're "sick"?

The above seems to be the most common examples of tatemae (that i can think of right now) amongst my London-based Japanese friends.

Last edited by aphasiac (2011 July 23, 9:07 pm)

The honne was that she didn't want to see you.

Honne and tatemae are not unique to Japan. It exists everywhere and I'm sure all of us at some time have told various lies to get out of things we didn't want to do, or to avoid conflict, or to impress/flatter other people. I'm sure we've stood people up too.

But in Japan, these values are given a much higher value.

At least the Japanese are straight forward about the practice of thinking one thing and saying another. We westerners don't like to admit that we constantly lie all the time. Japanese people are certainly more honne about that than we are.

Last edited by kitakitsune (2011 July 23, 3:09 pm)

Yea I think a flip-side to all this is that when Japanese people go into honne mode they can be really uncomfortably blunt.

aphasiac wrote:

thecite wrote:

The whole tatemae thing seems really overblown here, I've never really noticed it with any Japanese I've met, although I generally mix with the younger generations.

- Do your Japanese friends talk about their boyfriends / girlfriends with you? Do you even know if they're single or not?
- Do you know what all of their parents do for a living? Do they tell you stories about their family life?
- Ever had one of them say "oh, we should meet up before <date>" and then never contact you about it? Or have they cancelled a meetup (usually at last minute) because they're "sick"?

The above seems to be the most common examples of tatemae (that i can think of right now) amongst my London-based Japanese friends.

Judging from my year abroad in Japan, this is similar to what I experienced. Unfortunately there were very few Japanese students whom I became close friends with, as opposed to those from other countries (Korea, Europe, America, South America, Central Asia etc.) Not once was I ever invited to one of my Japanese friend's place and I knew very little about their personal lives/family etc. Again I'm just talking from personal experience here, but very few of the Japanese students I met gave me much to work with in terms of making a friendship, not to mention they were always busy and it felt like you were causing 邪魔 in some way or another when you wanted to meet up. I did notice those who had lived overseas themselves were much less 'tatemae'ish though and much more open in the friendship.

Last edited by SendaiDan (2011 July 23, 10:00 pm)