Trying to understand the people I work with, I bought a book "The Japanese Mind" (Davies, Ikeno). I learned that one of the main characteristics of Japanese is that they don't put much stress on verbal communication. They communicate implicitly, talking around the topic and rely on reading each other's mind. Open communication and expressing their mind clearly is considered rude, childish and putting themselves into a superior position above the other person by assuming they don't understand anything.
On the other hand, I personally value clear and open communication, as I've increasingly become more aware in the last years how important clear communication is in any kind of a relationship. And I consider this as something positive and a good skill.
So you can imagine... Different background, values, way of thinking. Misunderstandings must occur all the time. And it's so easy to hurt the others without even knowing.
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7 comments:
Very interesting Tina! This explains much!
The book is quite interesting, I can lend it to you when I get back. How's your Japanese going?
I would like that! Thanks :)
My Japanese is going slowly, I am finding it quite hard. I think it will take me many years before I can actually have a proper conversation. How are you finding it? Does being surrounded by Japanese people all the time help you to pick it up more quickly?
Hi Paul,
Unfortunately I have no time for learning the language. But I've noticed that just by listening to them I can now distinguish the words and recognize the patterns occurring all the time. But don't understand anything :(
Except some words which I hear all the time (sumimasen, hai, wakarimashta, wakarimasen, itadakimas) or which they often say unconsciously when speaking in english (eto, nanda). And yes, the most often I hear "doa ga shimarimas" - the doors are closing - every time I use the lift. :)
I think once you get here, you will pick it up very quickly, it will be much easier than when learning by yourself in the UK.
Pa res ... mi se učimo biti glasni in direktni in komunikativni ...
Ampak se mi zdi, da smo mi, Slovenci, še kar zadržani ... kako pa gledajo tam Američane?? Pa Špance? :)
Nimam pojma kako gledajo na Americane in Spance, oni so se bolj ekstremni v izrazanju custev in direktnosti. Jaz se bojim, da sem ze jaz prehuda za Japonsko.
Hahaha this explains so much! It isn't much use when you're trying to engineer software with Japanese people. Attempting to read minds resulted in many failures... but I can see it now why everything was so mercurial, there was never much willingness to explain things properly. But of course we were told off when we got things wrong...
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