Japanese People and Society

Are Japanese People Really Polite?

The majority of Japanese people, like most people from other countries are courteous and polite (actually, they’re very polite).  However, compared to other societies, there’s a different type of breeze in the air if you take my meaning.  Japanese society insists that at all times people are mindful and take other people’s feelings into consideration.  On a personal level though, are Japanese people as polite as they make out to be?  Or has society itself drummed it’s politeness into the heart and soul of everyone?

Every Wednesday after work, two children who play soccer and their mothers for whatever reason stand outside my apartment block and talk.  The other week they happened to be standing right in front of the bike racks where I park my bike every evening.  One of the mothers noticed the children were in my way, which wasn’t really a problem mind you and instantly ordered them to step aside.  Without a moments hesitation both boys grabbed their bags, quickly shuffled to the side and expressed their apology with a sharp bow and “honto ni gomenasai” (I’m deeply sorry).  Their mothers also followed up immediately in a similar fashion.

The only gripe I have regarding politeness in Japan is dealing with elderly men riding their bicycle on the footpath.  Riding on the footpath itself is legal and in my opinion there’s nothing wrong with it so long as you are mindful of the people walking along them.  The infuriating thing is that 90% of these elderly men love to ring their bell and expect people to move aside.  They’re a hazard to everyone, especially towards other elderly people and children.  They don’t even slow down either!

These elderly men, for the entirety of their lives have been taking orders and putting up with a lot of shit from their bosses so to speak.  Now that they’re retired and just like me, have had to deal with other obnoxious elderly men on bikes in their younger years, they probably feel that it’s their turn to rule the sidewalk…I’d love to coat-hang one as them as they ride by someday, I really would.

Generally though, Japanese people are indeed very polite and I think it would be both fair and accurate to say they could be one, if not the number 1 polite race in the world.  Feel free to disagree if you wish.

Japanese Society is Complex

Japanese society is rather complex and at times can be very difficult to understand and digest in certain cases.  I have lived in Japan for just over two years now and I still struggle to understand many aspects of the Japanese psyche.

Let me throw you an example.  I taught English at an English school called NOVA up until recently before changing jobs.  Walking home one evening, I recognized one of my ex-students walking right beside me, talking to a man who I assumed was her boss.  Naturally, I was about to say hi, but when she caught site of me, her head jiggled left and right in short, quick successions before totally ignoring my very existence.  Talk about being brushed off!  Now, I can assure you I was quite shocked because our relationship for the past 2 years had been quite friendly and we always got along quite well.  I got the impression she wanted to say hi since we hadn’t seen each other for a while so I wasn’t sure how to react.  I figured there was some alternate reason behind this so I just left it at that and kept walking.

After stopping at 7/11 to withdraw some money I ran into them again, this time inside the local station and the exact same thing happened.  Once more, her head jittered left and right and like before I was totally ignored.  I was slightly irritated by this point and so over the next few days I asked some people including my girlfriend, who is Japanese, for some insight into the matter.  Three possible reasons I was ignored could be…

1. She didn’t want her boss to know she studies English,
2. She felt that since she was already talking to her boss, it would be improper to deviate her attention regardless as a sign of respect, and
3. Maybe she felt uncomfortable to talk with me since our professional relationship, that is, student and teacher is over.

The first one I could understand as if your boss knew you could speak English in Japan, it could easily create more work for the same salary each month - pretty unfair by any standards but quite common.  My girlfriend fell victim to this with her previous job.  When she finally quit, the company had to hire two people to fill her place.

The second one I have witnessed countless times in different forms and could pass it off simply as “oh, that`s just Japanese behavior”.  Basically, if you`re not a boss or a customer in Japan, regardless of the situation, its very likely you will be cut-of and ignored if someone else walks in the door.  That happened to me countless times while working for NOVA.  Even if the issue I was conveying with the staff was incredibly important and needed immediate attention, myself and other instructors were ignored.

The third one I think is unheard of to most people, but seemingly it does happen from time to time.  I hope that in the future I’ll be able to clear this matter up because it bugs me quite a bit.

Okay, that was quite a long example but hopefully it illustrates my point about a certain level of complexity in Japanese society.

Respect

Respect is somewhat similar to politeness, especially in Japan which might help to explain the behaviour of the children outside my apartment and the elderly men on their bicycles which I mentioned earlier.

From a very young age the idea of respecting your elders is heavily enforced.  Not in the form of punishment I should add, but with special titles and suffixes added onto the end of people’s names, which signify a level of social hierarchy.  This idea is not solely restricted to elderly people as you might imagine, but all levels of ages and even plays a part with regards to a person’s status within a company.  An age difference of one year calls the need for social respect.  For instance, a younger high school student would call his older peers “sempai”, whereas older peers might call the younger student Satou-san, where “Satou” is the family name and “san” is the prefix.  Other titles such as “sensei” are commonly used when referring to teachers, lawyers and doctors to name a few.

A word of advice…if you ever decide to teach English in Japan, don’t refer to yourself as a “sensei” because that would be considered inappropriate - its like walking up to someone and calling yourself beautiful or kawaii.  Instead, use the word “kyoushi” which is a less formal version of the word and definitely more appropriate.

Respect in the workplace

Japanese people in positions of power are very sensitive when it comes to loosing face, especially men so it seems.  An employee working for a Japanese company must always be aware of this fact.  A small, trivial matter which both you and I would more than likely shrug off, may well cause your typical Japanese boss to crawl into an emotional crevice to shield himself from any form embarrassment.  Something minuscule like forgetting the password to the company’s computer, or the internet password for some bosses could cause embarrassment in the face of other company employees.  So what happens in more extreme cases?

Take a conference, for example; the speaker has just finished his exciting and tremendously informative lecture on new ways of combating the greenhouse effect, while still allowing companies to retain a high profit margin.  The speaker then asks the audience if they have any questions and surely you would think that some people would start participating…wrong.  Your typical Japanese man, in a room filled with people who he hasn’t met before has already long since crawled deeply into his emotional crevice.  He is shy and dreading any form of embarrassment.  Inviting him to ask questions is like trying to draw blood from a stone in many cases.  The room will almost certainly remain quiet, leaving the speaker twiddling his thumbs.

Now, it’s very likely that for such a conference one or two underlings have accompanied their boss and although they may be bursting with questions and able to contribute substantially to the session, they will remain silent.  The reason is out of respect so their boss won’t lose face.  So in the end, it is highly likely that not even a single question will be asked and the speaker will finish his lecture on a massive down-note.

Japanese People Expressing Themselves

Japanese people as a whole are not very open to expressing themselves, which is why they are referred to as having “2 faces” even amongst themselves.  This is particularly true for Japanese men.  Talk to any western girl that’s tried picking up a Japanese guy and I’m sure they’ll be able to vent a bit.  A female student once told me that the average Japanese guy appears shallow on the outside but there’s a lot going on in the inside.  A mixture of insecurity, nervousness and wearing hair pins I suspect contributes to this.  Yes, that’s right!  It’s common for younger Japanese men to wear hair pins to keep their fringe out of their eyes.

Japanese people are not confrontational in nature; they will almost never complain in any situation away from their own home, whether it be in a restaurant, or at a retail shop where the item they bought can not be exchanged for whatever reason.  They bite their lip and shrug it off by saying “shoganai” (it can’t be helped).  NOVA, the English school I once worked for went bankrupt and naturally the students were the biggest losers of all.  Some whom I know personally had lost up to $5,000.  They weren’t happy, but they just blew it off.  I couldn’t see that happening back home in Australia…maybe they were rich?

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