内と外 Inside and Outside - The Key to Understanding Japanese Culture and the Business Scene

I want to write about the Japanese concept of “内と外 (Inside and Outside),” which is one of the keys to understanding Japanese culture and society. To be familiar with the concept of “内と外” helps one grasp the mentality of Japanese business people. “内と外” postulates that individuals belong to one or more groups, and each group has clear boundaries that separate its members from those of other groups.

Japanese has many words of the same pronunciation with (slightly) different meaning. For example, these three words are all pronounced "uchi":“内” (inside), “家” (family/home), and “うち” (a female word for "I" in the Kansai area and some western country sides. Maiko, an apprentice in Kyoto, calls herself "uchi").

Japanese has different words to refer to others' family members and those of their own. For example, in a formal setting or conversation with strangers, I call my father "chichi" whereas I call him "otousan" when I am with my family. Although I will use "otousan" when I talk with friends in a casual setting, I never call others' fathers "chichi" because it specifically refers to "my" father. You can see the same phenomenon in the business world. "Tousya" refers to a company in which you are employed, while "Kisya" is addressed to companies with which you do business.

Japanese business personnel call their co-workers/employees “内の者”(Uchi no mono) which means "person inside/our person." On the other hand, they call people from another company “他社の方” (gentlemen/ladies belonging to another company/outside). I think it is interesting that they use different words to refer to a "person." As for the person inside their own company they use “者” (mono), the lowest word with which to refer to a person. They use “方” (kata), the highest word, when referring to people in other companies. Even more interesting, “者” shares its pronunciation with the word “物” which means "thing."

The Japanese do have their good points in business. They think of their performance as representing their company. If they make a mistake, it will be viewed as the company's mistake. If they do something unethical, it will disgrace their co-workers, bosses, and the company. For example, if you are dissatisfied with the service from a clerk and you complain to a different clerk or the supervisor, you will receive an apology at the beginning of the discussion, even though it is not that particular person's fault. This is unlikely to happen in America, where individuality is the first and the all.

I had an interesting incident recently at a café. The café was pretty busy, but everything seemed to be under control. I ordered a cup of green tea and when I took it back to my seat and sipped it, I smelled mint. That was the last thing I wanted, as to say, in my café life. First, I thought, "I smell mint, but am I right?" Self-doubt is common in Japanese. My second thought was, "Should I have to tell them that I just wanted a regular green tea and not a flavored one?" Even though I was the customer, I took into consideration the service provider's situation. Because Japanese culture is based on inter-dependence and harmony is very important, it is natural to care about others' situations and stances. Finally, I went back to the counter and said, "Although I ordered a green tea, I think it's mint tea."

The young lady at the counter started telling me what was happening to her at the time she gave me the mint tea, who passed the mint tea to her, that the customer after me actually ordered the mint tea, blah, blah, blah. What I expected was a simple "Sorry," and then she would correct my order. This is America, so of course she thought she was just an individual doing her own work and never thought of herself as representing the café. If I had an interpreter from the television show "South Park," what I was thinking while I listened to her excuses, with my archaic Japanese smile, was "Shut the fu*k up and just give me a dumb a** green tea!"

Please, don't worry. I got my green tea eventually.

言霊 (kotodama) as a Japanese Ancient Wisdom about Words

I want to introduce one of the Japanese words which has existed since ancient times. This is the word to refer a concept, and there isn’t an exact word to translate it into English. ‘言霊(pronounced ‘kotodama,’) is composed of two words; ‘言う(to say/tell)’ and ‘霊(spirit).’ ‘言霊 (kotodama)’ is first seen on the ancient song book compiled between the fifth and eighth century. The word means a mysterious and excellent power which lives in each word. In ancient times, people believed in that power: a word brings about the exact phenomenon that it means.

There have been growing signs of an economic recession. It seems impossible to spend just one day without seeing, hearing, and saying words related to the recent economy, such as ‘recession,’ ‘depression,’ or ’crises’. I have recently met many people who state things like, "the economy is very bad and it is only going to get worse." Because they make these statements with such certainty, I feel as if they contribute to making the economy worse, which is most likely the last thing they hope. Every time I encounter that situation, I remember ‘言霊 (kotodama)’ and carefully frame what I am going to say.

Japanese tradition says that the word you say will return to you. That means if you curse something or someone, the curse word will return to you, thus you actually curse yourself! As I have been teaching Japanese, I have noticed that Japanese has very few curse words than those in English. Perhaps I’ve watched too much “South Park,” but it seems English is littered in swear words. Japanese in early times believed the power of the word, and I believe they didn’t underestimate the influence of the words they spoke.

I think ‘言霊 (kotodama)’ is a wonderful word and I keep its concept in mind. If I don’t want something happen, I don’t talk about it. The bad economy might be the reality, however, you don’t always have to talk about it, like you talk about the weather, do you? The more you affirm the bad economy, the stronger it becomes. Do you want the bad economy to become disastrous? According to ‘言霊 (kotodama,)’ the word ‘bad’ has the power to manifest the phenomenon as well as the word ‘overcome,’ ‘thrive,’ ‘better,’ ‘good,’ ‘flourish.’

Head Start for Mastering Japanese (2) -How to improve Japanese listening comprehension

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) by the Japan Educational Exchange and Services (JEES) is coming up on December 7th. According to the JEES, approximately 524,000 people from all over the world took the test last year, while it was only about 7,000 people at the first time it was administrated in 1984. The contents of the test are as follows; writing/vocabulary (100 points,) listening (100 points,) and reading/grammar (200 points.)

I have met some people studying Japanese who say that improving their listening comprehension is the hardest part of the JLPT. I have some advice to help your listening skills develop. It is not only for the JLPT but for all people who want to improve their communication skills.

In Japanese, which do you think is easier, listening to monologues or dialogues? In my experience, I have found listening to Japanese dialogues is much harder than listening to monologues. Why? For an in depth explanation, please refer my first Article 'Japanese –Indirect Communication-.' In order to help your listening skills progress, please find some Japanese monologue material that is slightly easier than your level, and make sure it comes with a written script. At first, try to listen to it without reading the script and check how much you could understand. Then repeat listening to the recording while reading the script. Repetition is necessary for improving your ability to catch sounds in a new language.

Take me for example; my first English listening material was a movie "When Harry Met Sally…" Meg Ryan used to be the most popular Hollywood actress in Japan and I was her biggest fan. You know Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal talk so fast each other. I could understand 10 % of what they said. I decided to stop messing around, and get serious about enjoying their dialogue. I bought a listening material with an appropriate speed for me. I studied the easier material again and again for couple of weeks. Then I watched the movie again. Behold! I was able to understand what's going on between Sally and Harry (although I could not perfectly follow it word by word)!

Please keep in mind that repetition and persistence is the key to improving your listening comprehension. The more you repeat, the more progress you will make. Every time you practice, please tell yourself that you will catch more sounds than you did last time. Don't try to convince yourself that you won’t understand very much. Just relax and enjoy the learning process and one day you will suddenly notice how much you are actually able to catch.

Listening material recommendation: http://www.ask-digital.co.jp/tadoku/

Expressions from Japanese News Items about the Presidential Election

November 4, 2008 was an historic day not only for American citizens but for people all over the world. I think I am blessed to be in America, and to witness the notable moment when Obama became the President of the US. Of course, Japanese media gave its full attention to report the election. I picked up on three interesting expressions they used in their news items.

待ちぼうけを食わされた
This is a phrase to refer to a situation that someone stood you up and you had to wait for him/her a long time. This is more like slang and is rarely used in a formal document. On Election Day, in Richmond, Virginia, the person in charge of opening one of the polling places overslept and hundreds of voters had to wait for him to come over and let them in. Because they could still vote, and this was a minor incident, the Japanese media used the phrase "待ちぼうけを食わされた" to report the incident.

カリスマ司会者
The Japanese media covered an interview with Oprah Winfrey and introduced her as a "charismatic TV hostess." The Japanese use the adjective "カリスマ charismatic" to describe what you do or who you are. For example, the Japanese media introduced Martha Stewart as a "カリスマ主婦 charismatic housewife." Other examples are: "カリスマ美容師 charismatic hairstylist," "カリスマ庭師 charismatic gardener," "カリスマ添乗員 charismatic tour guide," etc.

勝手に　
"勝手に" has multiple meanings, and I picked up on a humorous usage. Obama shi is located in Fukui ken, Japan. Because the town name is pronounced exactly the same as the name of President-Elect Obama, the residents there made "オバマ候補を勝手に応援する会 (the Arbitrarily Formed, Unofficial Organization to Support the Presidential Candidate, Obama.)" There are only 32,000 people and very few are foreigners. It is nonsense to make an organization to support Obama's presidential campaign in such a minor city in Japan. They appeared to expect public attention, like tourism, to bring them some economical benefit. They even sell a variety of Obama goods. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJHaV2JqfKM. This video had me at a loss.

Japanese Market: Women's Magazines

On a weekend night, prepare a nice cup of tea, curl up on the sofa, flip through the pages of a magazine, and enjoy the beautiful layouts of women's information such as fashion, accessories, cosmetics, make-up, love, relationships, and more. Doing so is a heavenly moment for me. I like Japanese women's magazines much better than those of America, although I enjoy reading books in both Japanese and English. If you have time, please check out the Japanese bookstores in your neighborhood. The huge variety of women's magazines will surprise you. When I came to America, I hung out in an American bookstore to check them out and I thought, "That's it? Are these all you have?"

In Japan, the women's magazine publishing business is brisk compared to America. One of the reasons is, I think, Japanese women buy many more magazines than American women. Bookstores here allow you to read magazines and books before, or even without purchasing them. To my surprise, you can even sit and read. It is hard to find such a paradise for bookworms like me in Japan. One time in a bookstore in Japan, I was taking a very short note from a book. A quick-eyed clerk saw and warned me, "Miss, this is not a library. Please don't take notes."

Another reason for the more active market of Japanese women's magazines is that Japanese women care about their appearance very much. They usually dress nicely and don't go out without make-up on. They crave information which is supposed to make them prettier and feel better about themselves. My acquaintance, who has 20 years of financial expertise, said that however the economy slows down, industries that target women's needs such as cosmetics, bath lines, accessories and clothes would most likely do well and wouldn't be as badly affected as other industries.

There seems to be two main components that make magazines successful: substantial information about material goods (beauty tools, make-up, hair care products, etc.) and non-material concepts (health, spirituality, divination, love, lifestyle, etc.). Let's check out one of the best selling weekly magazines for decades, "an.an." While it has regular columns about fads and trends in beauty, it also features unique themes. For example, "Special Secret Recipe by Experts," "Control Your Visual Age," "Mission to Upgrade Your Room," "Life-Changing Skills," and even "The Mysteries of S&M" (!!!)

"an.an" targets women in their 20's. Magazines for women in their 30's and up break into a variety of targets, depending on the lifestyle (single/married, with/without kids, working-class/upper-class, etc.) The percentage of single women in Japan has been increasing because more people choose to stay single, while also the divorce rate has been rising. In my research, there isn't a magazine like "an.an" for single, mature women. There will be a market for women who graduate from "an.an" and are looking for a magazine which can be a partner during their next stage of life.

Head Start for Mastering Japanese (1) -Japanese Vowels-

According to the English Phonetic Symbols, there are 36 vowels in English. How many vowels in Japanese? FIVE, yes, only 5 vowels! And they are all short vowels.

Remember, “Ah, we soon get old.”
Japanese for Busy People, one of the most popular Japanese text books, teaches as follows: pronounce the vowels of the sentence, “Ah, we soon get old,” short and clear, and these 5 vowels sound almost the same as the Japanese ones.

Speaking and listening
I have experience helping people from high school students to corporate executives to study Japanese. Most of them stated that they have difficulty with Japanese listening comprehension and find speaking Japanese much easier than listening. At first, I didn't understand why this was the case. As for me, English is my second language; I have to learn many sounds that don’t exist in Japanese, my first language. Whereas both listening and speaking English are difficult for me, speaking is the harder of the two. You cannot pronounce a sound if you don’t know how it sounds. Native English speakers are already familiar with the sounds that Japanese contains. I had assumed listening to Japanese would not be difficult for them.

More choice, more puzzling
Let’s say, you have to choose one from 5 desserts and they look equally good. Blueberry cheesecake, strawberry short cake, chocolate cake by Godiva, etc… your selection is fairly easy when there are so few choices. But let's say you have several spectacular choices, 36 desserts from all over the world but you can choose only one. Some Japanese learners try to listen to and find Japanese vowels from all 36 English vowels and in the process over-complicate the choice. The truth is you should just choose from 5 and not from 36.

Make it simple
Do you remember the sentence, “Ah, we soon get old”? Please keep it in your mind the Japanese language has only 5 vowels. Don’t compare the sounds with many other vowels you have learned from English. By the way, I feel I should make a more cheerful sentence than “Ah, we soon get old,” to explain Japanese vowels.

Japanese -Indirect Communication-

I am from Japan, a small country which as big as California, only one of the fifty states of the Unites States. Japan is surrounded by the ocean and doesn't share any borders with any other countries. We, Japanese, are homogeneous. Although there are some native people in the northern and southern area as well as some Korean and Chinese Japanese, we don't have much variety of cultures. In other words, we are easily stereotyped by people in other countries.

Japanese culture is regarded as a culture of harmony. It is a big deal to maintain harmony between others. We have a tendency to care about the community/group first rather than individuals. We share rules and values that are unstated and unwritten. The Individual is expected to be aware of and to behave based on them. I think this impacts the language structure, especially the conversational part. We drop subject, topic, object and many other words, and it appears to make people who study conversational Japanese confused.

As conversation goes on, or sometimes even on the first dialogue of the conversation, we talk without subject, topic, object, etc. We believe that there are mutual understandings among the people who are in the conversation. We don't confirm what is the topic of the conversation at any moment once we start talking about something, of course, we don't notify others what is the topic before we drop it in the sentence. When I help my American friends practice Japanese conversation, they often question what I asked about, or what I stated about. I see big ‘?’ above their head. To me, it is unnecessary to repeat the topic/subject/object, etc. because it is postulated that we share an understanding on the conversation. I politely explain how Japanese conversation is supposed to be carried.

Manga is becoming very popular almost all over the world. One day, one of my friends who had been studying Japanese, brought Japanese manga "Naruto" which is about a ninja. Manga carries the story with the combination of the pictures and the dialogues. Sometimes the character talks about something on previous pages, even two, three pages before the scene. He often asked what the subject of the sentence was. I went back of the previous pages to explain what the dialogue was actually about. It was interesting to discover that, even though he speaks Japanese well, read English "Naruto" already, loved it and followed the story very well, it appeared to be hard for him many times to figure out what the dialogue was about.

It is said that when you study a foreign language, it is important to understand the culture. As an ESL (English as second language,) I have to learn to be articulating as much as possible. As a JSL (Japanese as second language: I don’t know if such a word exists,) you have to learn how to communicate in indirect manner. It feels practically ironic but it also makes me even more interested in interacting with JSL people.