Sunday we had dinner at my friend Risako’s house together with her husband Toshio-san and two-year-old son Ren-kun. (“san” and “kun” are titles. You never just call someone by name in Japan. “-san” is a sort of all-purpose Mr./Ms. that can be used with first or last name. “-kun” is more for boys and young men.)
Ren-kun was a very shy at first and kept staring with big eyes at these two big, strange (and foreign) people. But when I took out the toy John Deere tractor that we had brought for him, his whole face lit up in a big grin. His Dad was also pleased with the John Deere cap we brought him. “I can wear it when I go golfing,” he said. “If I ever go golfing.” But finally he decided to wear it to work instead. He works for Hitachi, and John Deere is one of their big customers.
Ren-kun decided after awhile that maybe Wes wasn’t so scary after all and they started playing hunt-the-eraser (Ren-kun would throw it somewhere and Wes would start looking in all sorts of unlikely places). Ren-kun currently speaks about 20 words of Japanese, so he and Wes are neck-in-neck. It was a fun, relaxing evening.
Monday I had another meeting at a company in Shinjuku, Tokyo at about one o’clock. So I arrived around noon and went to one of the Shinjuku department stores for lunch. All of the major train stations have big department stores attached, and the top floor of the department stores is always restaurants. The restaurants have plastic models of their food in the window, so you wander around until you find something that looks good. Then you spend awhile trying to memorize the kanji under the food so that you will be able to recognize it inside on the menu. Actually, when I first came to Japan, I would often just pull the poor servers out into the street and point at what I wanted in the window. It actually works pretty well.
I had an “oya-ko donburi”. Donburi is rice with something on top such as fried pork cutlet, tempura (deep fried vegetables) etc. An oya-ko donburi is a “parent-child” bowl of rice. It has stir-fried eggs and chicken (and soy sauce, onions), which is why it’s called “parent-child”—both the chicken and the egg. It cost about US $10, which is fairly cheap for Japan although the student cafeteria at the University has noodle bowls for 3-500 yen ($3-5). The basic idea is that most meals are built around some type of starch—rice or noodles. Or bread. The Japanese are convinced that Americans eat bread at every single meal. They sometimes ask, “Oh, do Americans eat rice too? Really?”
After lunch, I went to observe “business manner training” at a Japanese temp agency. This training is for college seniors who have decided to sign up with the agency. They receive three days of “manner training”, and I was allowed to observe three hours of this. There were ten trainees, all female, all wearing identical black suits, white blouses, and high heels. The training I observed included learning how to stand, how to sit, how to walk, how to bow. There are three levels of bowing: the 15 degree bow, 30 degree bow and 45 degree bow. Part of the trick is to keep your head in a straight line with your body rather than bent forward. They learned how to hand people something like documents or a pen. Always with both hands. If for some reason your other hand is full and you can only use one hand, apologize for handing something with only one hand. Then they practiced common greetings, reciting them over and over in unison in the same artificial, soft-sounding high pitched voice. “Good morning.” Bow. “Thank you.” Bow.
Foreigners coming to Japan are always struck by the stylized perfection of the service workers with their bowing and polite greetings. Now I had a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how this is accomplished. Yet when I interviewed the instructor afterwards, she said that although she teaches “standard forms,” what is really important is to have consideration for the other person. It’s not a surprising sentiment, and it’s one that sounds very familiar to me as an American. But it is interesting to have it combined with training that has such an emphasis on meticulous form.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Life in Japan
I had forgotten how small thing are here. There is no such thing as “large, economy size”. You buy meat or fish in packages of 400 grams (about half a pound). I bought a box of cereal that had 4 servings. The “plus size” tampons would be regular in the U.S., and hand lotion and toothpaste come in tubes almost small enough to legally carry on an airline. (Not everything is small—fruit is large and juicy and delicious and expensive.) Cars are also small and very boxy, with no cargo space and a fore-shortened hood to fit into small parking spaces. There would be no room on the road for American SUVs!
Some things have changed though. Cars used to almost all be white, and now you see lots of colors being driven on the road. They no longer sell beer in vending machines. And there are no more elevator girls—the women whose job it was to stand, immaculately coiffed, in elevators, and push the buttons and announce the floors in this incredibly artificial, high-pitched voice. “They might as well be recordings,” we used to say. Now they are.
Another thing that has changed is that the Liberal Democratic Party no longer controls both houses of the Diet. This is only the second time this has happened since 1955 (they got thrown out for about two years around 1994, but then got back into power). In the last election, they lost seats to one of the opposition parties in the Upper House, resulting in complete gridlock. It's true that the Lower House can override the Upper House with a 2/3 majority vote. But because that hasn't been done in 50 years, it's considered to be really playing hardball and something to be avoided at all costs. They may have to though to get the budget passed.
On a lighter note, we’ve been reading “Dave Barry does Japan” aloud to each other in the evenings. In amidsts all the silliness, he does make some fairly astute observations about Japan.
My research has been going well too. Thursday I met with the Executive Director of a company that provides classes in public speaking. We talked for over an hour and she was a wonderful informant—very knowledgeable and articulate. She asked me about my previous experiences in Japan and I explained that I had taught English in Iwate Prefecture for two years. “Where in Iwate?” she asked. “Taro,” I said, assuming that she would have no idea where that was. (It’s a town of 8000 people. NO ONE knows where Taro is.) To my surprise, she said that growing up she had lived for 5 years in an even smaller town between Taro and Miyako. And the receptionist who had been coming in and out and bowing and serving us tea, and bowing and serving us coffee, was from Morioka, which is the capital of Iwate. There must, she said be an “en” (fate) that had brought me, out of all of the speech training centers in Tokyo, to this one, where we shared a common Iwate bond. This is what all the fieldwork manuals describe as “building rapport.” Sometimes it just falls right into your lap.
So things are going well. Monday I will be visiting a temp agency to observe some of the "business manners" training that they provide their staff and interview one of the instructors.
Some things have changed though. Cars used to almost all be white, and now you see lots of colors being driven on the road. They no longer sell beer in vending machines. And there are no more elevator girls—the women whose job it was to stand, immaculately coiffed, in elevators, and push the buttons and announce the floors in this incredibly artificial, high-pitched voice. “They might as well be recordings,” we used to say. Now they are.
Another thing that has changed is that the Liberal Democratic Party no longer controls both houses of the Diet. This is only the second time this has happened since 1955 (they got thrown out for about two years around 1994, but then got back into power). In the last election, they lost seats to one of the opposition parties in the Upper House, resulting in complete gridlock. It's true that the Lower House can override the Upper House with a 2/3 majority vote. But because that hasn't been done in 50 years, it's considered to be really playing hardball and something to be avoided at all costs. They may have to though to get the budget passed.
On a lighter note, we’ve been reading “Dave Barry does Japan” aloud to each other in the evenings. In amidsts all the silliness, he does make some fairly astute observations about Japan.
My research has been going well too. Thursday I met with the Executive Director of a company that provides classes in public speaking. We talked for over an hour and she was a wonderful informant—very knowledgeable and articulate. She asked me about my previous experiences in Japan and I explained that I had taught English in Iwate Prefecture for two years. “Where in Iwate?” she asked. “Taro,” I said, assuming that she would have no idea where that was. (It’s a town of 8000 people. NO ONE knows where Taro is.) To my surprise, she said that growing up she had lived for 5 years in an even smaller town between Taro and Miyako. And the receptionist who had been coming in and out and bowing and serving us tea, and bowing and serving us coffee, was from Morioka, which is the capital of Iwate. There must, she said be an “en” (fate) that had brought me, out of all of the speech training centers in Tokyo, to this one, where we shared a common Iwate bond. This is what all the fieldwork manuals describe as “building rapport.” Sometimes it just falls right into your lap.
So things are going well. Monday I will be visiting a temp agency to observe some of the "business manners" training that they provide their staff and interview one of the instructors.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
On saying no in Japanese
My friend Renee asked me why the Japanese generally avoid saying no. Here is my best attempt at an explanation:
Basically, Japanese are trained to be very considerate and to think about other people’s needs and desires rather than their own. So if, for instance, someone asks them for a favor, they often feel obligated to comply, even if they would rather not. You may have felt the same way yourself sometimes—someone asks you for something, and even though you’d really rather not, you don’t feel like you can refuse, so you go along with it anyway. Take that feeling, multiply by about five, and that’s how the Japanese feel most of the time.
When the Japanese do say no, they often do so indirectly. Again, this isn’t totally foreign to Americans. If someone invites you to do something, you probably wouldn’t just say, “No thank you.” You’d say something like, “Gee, I’d love to, but I’m afraid we’re busy that Friday.” Similarly, if a Japanese person says something like, “Hmm, well, that’s a little…”, that means “no.”
Disagreeing with or contradicting someone is bad too, because either you’ve caused them to lose face (if they’re your superior) or you’ve destroyed the harmony of the group (if they’re your equal). In fact, the most common way to disagree politely is to say, “It differs.” So if, for example, someone were to ask me if I teach at the University of Iowa, rather than saying, “No, it’s the University of Northern Iowa,” I would say, “It differs. It’s the University of Northern Iowa.” That way I’m not directly contradicting them, just letting them know that the facts “differ” from what they thought.
All of this is sometimes very annoying to Americans who say, “I don’t care if the answer’s yes or no; just give me a straight answer.” And conversely, Americans often seem very rude and selfish to Japanese because we just come straight out and say “no” without considering other people’s feelings.
Note that the issue here is that the Japanese don’t like to refuse or contradict people. It’s not that they avoid the word “no” altogether. If you want to hear a Japanese person say “no”, try complimenting them. They’ll probably respond with something like, “No, no, I’m really not very good.”
Japanese also tend to say no when they offered something because they don’t want to put the other person to any trouble. So if you ask a Japanese guest if they’d like something to drink, they will probably say no even if they *do* want something, just to be polite. So of course a really polite Japanese host doesn’t ask; they just bring something out and offer it to the person (and often urge them to eat or drink several times before the guest finally does so). In fact, there’s a funny story about that. A Japanese man was in the States and was visiting an American family. His host asked if he would like some ice cream. Mr. Doi, being a polite Japanese, of course said no. So the American host went and got bowls of ice cream for himself and his son and they sat there and ate in front of their Japanese guest who really would have liked some ice cream, but hadn’t yet learned that in America you will only be asked once, and if you say no, they will take it at face value!
On the other hand, I sometimes got annoyed in Japan because people would bring out things I didn’t really want and then I would feel obliged to eat it since they’d gone to all the trouble. The point is, both sides are trying to be thoughtful and considerate. The American host wants to give people a choice. The Japanese host tries to be considerate by anticipating the other person’s wants. Both systems work fine as long as everyone’s playing by the same set of rules. It’s when people have differing expectations that it gets confusing and annoying.
So it’s not that Japanese never say no. It’s that in Japan, whether you say yes OR no is primarily based on what you think the other person wants, rather than on clearly communicating your own wants. Americans find this confusing, because we expect that each person will clearly communicate their own desires, and then if we disagree, we can negotiate a mutually agreeable solution. In Japan, everyone is so busy anticipating what the other person wants, that Americans sometimes wonder how anything gets decided at all.
Basically, Japanese are trained to be very considerate and to think about other people’s needs and desires rather than their own. So if, for instance, someone asks them for a favor, they often feel obligated to comply, even if they would rather not. You may have felt the same way yourself sometimes—someone asks you for something, and even though you’d really rather not, you don’t feel like you can refuse, so you go along with it anyway. Take that feeling, multiply by about five, and that’s how the Japanese feel most of the time.
When the Japanese do say no, they often do so indirectly. Again, this isn’t totally foreign to Americans. If someone invites you to do something, you probably wouldn’t just say, “No thank you.” You’d say something like, “Gee, I’d love to, but I’m afraid we’re busy that Friday.” Similarly, if a Japanese person says something like, “Hmm, well, that’s a little…”, that means “no.”
Disagreeing with or contradicting someone is bad too, because either you’ve caused them to lose face (if they’re your superior) or you’ve destroyed the harmony of the group (if they’re your equal). In fact, the most common way to disagree politely is to say, “It differs.” So if, for example, someone were to ask me if I teach at the University of Iowa, rather than saying, “No, it’s the University of Northern Iowa,” I would say, “It differs. It’s the University of Northern Iowa.” That way I’m not directly contradicting them, just letting them know that the facts “differ” from what they thought.
All of this is sometimes very annoying to Americans who say, “I don’t care if the answer’s yes or no; just give me a straight answer.” And conversely, Americans often seem very rude and selfish to Japanese because we just come straight out and say “no” without considering other people’s feelings.
Note that the issue here is that the Japanese don’t like to refuse or contradict people. It’s not that they avoid the word “no” altogether. If you want to hear a Japanese person say “no”, try complimenting them. They’ll probably respond with something like, “No, no, I’m really not very good.”
Japanese also tend to say no when they offered something because they don’t want to put the other person to any trouble. So if you ask a Japanese guest if they’d like something to drink, they will probably say no even if they *do* want something, just to be polite. So of course a really polite Japanese host doesn’t ask; they just bring something out and offer it to the person (and often urge them to eat or drink several times before the guest finally does so). In fact, there’s a funny story about that. A Japanese man was in the States and was visiting an American family. His host asked if he would like some ice cream. Mr. Doi, being a polite Japanese, of course said no. So the American host went and got bowls of ice cream for himself and his son and they sat there and ate in front of their Japanese guest who really would have liked some ice cream, but hadn’t yet learned that in America you will only be asked once, and if you say no, they will take it at face value!
On the other hand, I sometimes got annoyed in Japan because people would bring out things I didn’t really want and then I would feel obliged to eat it since they’d gone to all the trouble. The point is, both sides are trying to be thoughtful and considerate. The American host wants to give people a choice. The Japanese host tries to be considerate by anticipating the other person’s wants. Both systems work fine as long as everyone’s playing by the same set of rules. It’s when people have differing expectations that it gets confusing and annoying.
So it’s not that Japanese never say no. It’s that in Japan, whether you say yes OR no is primarily based on what you think the other person wants, rather than on clearly communicating your own wants. Americans find this confusing, because we expect that each person will clearly communicate their own desires, and then if we disagree, we can negotiate a mutually agreeable solution. In Japan, everyone is so busy anticipating what the other person wants, that Americans sometimes wonder how anything gets decided at all.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Challange of Living in Japan
Wes asked me a few days before we left why I was looking forward to being back in Japan, and I was thinking about the answer. Partly of course there are specific sights, sounds, tastes, experiences that I enjoy here. But it’s also that being here stretches and engages me mentally—not only in terms of my specific research, but just negotiating daily living and routines is challenging and gives a real feeling of accomplishment. For example, I’m incredibly proud that I was able to successfully open a bank account all by myself and all in Japanese with no help.
Just dealing with the language in and of itself is tiring—I don’t always understand and am often half guessing based on context. For example, when we were doing the alien registration, she asked if we needed a certificate showing that we had applied for our ID cards (since they won’t be ready for 3 weeks). She started listing things it would be needed for like ginkoo kooza. I had no idea what kooza was, but I recognized “ginkoo” as bank and knew we would be opening a bank account, so I said “yes”, and then later looked it up and verified that kooza does mean “account”. And so now I’ve learned another vocabulary word. It’s the same way with the kanji—Chinese characters. Some I recognize, some I guess, and some I just don’t know. It requires a certain amount of tolerance for ambiguity as well as a willingness to make mistakes and make a fool of yourself. But that’s all part of how one learns. And of course it’s tough on Wes since he not only can’t communicate verbally, but is completely illiterate—even for things like signs or the names of products in the grocery store.
It also makes one more sympathetic with some of the strange things the Japanese do with English. Yesterday we bought a sort of hanging clothes rank for drying our laundry. Here is what the label said: “Traditional laundry in japan are so soft as to calm down our minds.” Who knew that laundry could have such therapeutic effects!
Today (Sunday) we went over to see the Tsukuba Science Museum. First floor is various hands-on exhibits illustrating various physical principles and the second floor is devoted to space exploration. Unfortunately all of the explanations are entirely in Japanese, so it was of limited interest for us. We also stopped by the city library and verified that they do have two book cases of English language books. Also Chinese and Korean. In fact, looking at the names on the mail boxes at Takezono House, the majority are Chinese or Korean with a scattering of other nationalities.
Because Sunday is the one free day for a lot of people (many people still work a half day on Sat) and it was nice and sunny we also saw a lot of people out enjoying the parks, in the shopping malls, etc. There was even a group singing a cappella in one of the parks. And we found the “100 yen store” and picked up some cheap household goods. Tomorrow I think will be another quiet day at home, and then Tuesday I go into the University of Tsukuba to meet people.
Just dealing with the language in and of itself is tiring—I don’t always understand and am often half guessing based on context. For example, when we were doing the alien registration, she asked if we needed a certificate showing that we had applied for our ID cards (since they won’t be ready for 3 weeks). She started listing things it would be needed for like ginkoo kooza. I had no idea what kooza was, but I recognized “ginkoo” as bank and knew we would be opening a bank account, so I said “yes”, and then later looked it up and verified that kooza does mean “account”. And so now I’ve learned another vocabulary word. It’s the same way with the kanji—Chinese characters. Some I recognize, some I guess, and some I just don’t know. It requires a certain amount of tolerance for ambiguity as well as a willingness to make mistakes and make a fool of yourself. But that’s all part of how one learns. And of course it’s tough on Wes since he not only can’t communicate verbally, but is completely illiterate—even for things like signs or the names of products in the grocery store.
It also makes one more sympathetic with some of the strange things the Japanese do with English. Yesterday we bought a sort of hanging clothes rank for drying our laundry. Here is what the label said: “Traditional laundry in japan are so soft as to calm down our minds.” Who knew that laundry could have such therapeutic effects!
Today (Sunday) we went over to see the Tsukuba Science Museum. First floor is various hands-on exhibits illustrating various physical principles and the second floor is devoted to space exploration. Unfortunately all of the explanations are entirely in Japanese, so it was of limited interest for us. We also stopped by the city library and verified that they do have two book cases of English language books. Also Chinese and Korean. In fact, looking at the names on the mail boxes at Takezono House, the majority are Chinese or Korean with a scattering of other nationalities.
Because Sunday is the one free day for a lot of people (many people still work a half day on Sat) and it was nice and sunny we also saw a lot of people out enjoying the parks, in the shopping malls, etc. There was even a group singing a cappella in one of the parks. And we found the “100 yen store” and picked up some cheap household goods. Tomorrow I think will be another quiet day at home, and then Tuesday I go into the University of Tsukuba to meet people.
Arrival in Japan
We arrived late Tuesday and checked in Wed. to Takezono House which is the apartments that Tsukuba University rents to foreign researchers. We are gradually figuring out all of the Japanese appliances. Everything is very piecemeal. For example, there are three separate heating/cooling units in the different rooms which have to be turned off when you’re not there, and each sink has a separate hot water heater that has to be turned on before you can get any hot water. This also means that the bathroom and hallway between the rooms has no heat at all. But at least my bathtub isn’t out in a shed attached to the house like it was in Taro! And we have a flush toilet—with a heated seat and bidet no less. (I haven’t gotten brave enough yet to try the bidet, but I suppose I will sometime before we leave). Tomorrow I will have to get out my kanji (Chinese character) dictionary and try to figure out the washing machine. The rooms are nice and spacious (huge by Tokyo standards) with lots of sunlight.
The next adventure was to go out and explore the neighborhood. We’re very centrally located with three supermarkets within a block of us and lots of shops and restaurants. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the town center where we can catch the train to Tokyo—leaves several times an hour and takes 45-60 minutes depending on the train. So it will be easy to access Tokyo for both my research and sightseeing. There are also several parks nearby including one just behind our building. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day in the 40s, perfect for exploring. Today we woke up to snow, most of which had melted by about 10 am. So for those of you who were wondering whether Ibaraki Prefecture gets snow, the answer is yes!
Today we went and registered as alien residents and opened a bank account, so we’re getting all settled in and organized. The apartment is minimally furnished with linens and dishes, but we will probably buy a number of other items as times goes by to get more comfortable. Yesterday for dinner, we went to the supermarket and picked up $7 worth of fresh sushi to go. This is the life! I’ve also noticed another big change in Japan which is that I could use a credit card to buy groceries. That would have been impossible 20 years ago or even 10. We’ll have to see what else has changed!
The next adventure was to go out and explore the neighborhood. We’re very centrally located with three supermarkets within a block of us and lots of shops and restaurants. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the town center where we can catch the train to Tokyo—leaves several times an hour and takes 45-60 minutes depending on the train. So it will be easy to access Tokyo for both my research and sightseeing. There are also several parks nearby including one just behind our building. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day in the 40s, perfect for exploring. Today we woke up to snow, most of which had melted by about 10 am. So for those of you who were wondering whether Ibaraki Prefecture gets snow, the answer is yes!
Today we went and registered as alien residents and opened a bank account, so we’re getting all settled in and organized. The apartment is minimally furnished with linens and dishes, but we will probably buy a number of other items as times goes by to get more comfortable. Yesterday for dinner, we went to the supermarket and picked up $7 worth of fresh sushi to go. This is the life! I’ve also noticed another big change in Japan which is that I could use a credit card to buy groceries. That would have been impossible 20 years ago or even 10. We’ll have to see what else has changed!
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