Roger J. Davies - The Japanese mind: understanding contemporary Japanese culture

All of the student-authors who contributed to this volume have graduated from Ehime University. Most are now in their mid to late twenties and are pursuing careers of their own or have married and started new families. They are involved in many walks of life, both in Japan and abroad, as housewives and mothers, English teachers, businesspeople, journalists, social workers, and so on. We would like to express our deep appreciation for their efforts and to the many students who participated in field-testing this book project. Our student-contributors are listed below in alphabetical order:

Yoshiho Chiba, Miwako Fukuhara, Kentaro Goto, Yuko Hamada, Yukiko Hino, Naoko Ido, Tokuna Inoue, Chiyoko Isoda, Yukiko Itabashi, Sumi Kadota, Yuki Kagawa, Keiko Kamada, Yoshiko Kiyama, Megumi Manabe, Yoko Mori, Yumi Motka, Yoko Ohnishi, Tomoko Sakai, Rina Sakamoto, Masato Shuto, Aya Syojima, Yuki Takahashi, Yukari Takeuchi, Chiemi Tanaka, Yuka Utsunomiya, Hiroko Watanabe, Yuko Watanabe, Kosuke Yanai, Miwa Yukimoto

In addition, we would like to thank John Moore, Vice President and General Manager of Tuttle, Japan, for recognizing the potential of this project and for his continued support and encouragement in the completion of our book. Many thanks are also due to the editorial team in Boston, USA, for their advice and suggestions in improving this work. Finally, we would like to state that we are very pleased to be able to support Tuttles continuing mission of publishing books that span East and West.

AMBIGUITY AND THE JAPANESE

Ambiguity, or aimai , is defined as a state in which there is more than one intended meaning, resulting in obscurity, indistinctness, and uncertainty. To be ambiguous in Japanese is generally translated as aimaina , but people use this term with a wide range of meanings, including vague, obscure, equivocal, dubious, doubtful, questionable, shady, noncommittal, indefinite, hazy, double, two-edged, and so on (Oe, 1995 p. 187). The Japanese are generally tolerant of ambiguity, so much so that it is considered by many to be characteristic of Japanese culture. Although the Japanese may not be conscious of aimai , its use is regarded as a virtue in Japan, and the Japanese language puts more emphasis on ambiguity than most, for to express oneself ambiguously and indirectly is expected in Japanese society. However, ambiguity can also cause of a good deal of confusion, not only in international communication but also among the Japanese themselves.

THE ORIGINS OF AIMAI

The geography of Japan is said to have had a great influence on the development of many of the countrys customs and cultural values, a social theory known as geographical determinism. First, Japan is an island country, and because of the dangerous and unpredictable seas separating Japan from the Asian continent, Japanese culture was able to develop in relative isolation, free from the threat of invasion from other countries. Japan is also a mountainous country and does not have a great deal of inhabitable land; as a result, people had to live close together in communities in which everyone was well acquainted with one another. The concept of harmony, or wa , became an important factor in Japanese life, helping to maintain relationships between members of close-knit communities.

In addition, the climate has had an important influence on the development of the Japanese character. It is hot in summer, and the rainy season supports intensive forms of agriculture, such as rice growing, in which the labor of irrigating, planting, and harvesting was traditionally shared communally in order to achieve high production in a limited amount of space. People had to cooperate in this society because they could not grow rice without one anothers help, and if they worked together, they were able to grow more food. There developed a kind of rule of the unanimous, and people tended not to go against group wishes for fear that they would be excluded from the community ( murahachibu , or ostracism). If people sacrificed themselves and worked for the group, the group supported them, so they made their own opinions conform with their groups objectives and felt a comfortable sense of harmony. Natural communication often occurred without spoken words, and people followed their elders because they had more experience, wisdom, and power. In order to live without creating any serious problems for the groups harmony, people avoided expressing their ideas clearly, even to the point of avoiding giving a simple yes or no answer. If a person really wanted to say no, he or she said nothing at first, then used vague expressions that conveyed the nuance of disagreement. Peoples words thus came to contain a variety of meanings.

In this way, the social structure of Japan developed a vertical organization that stresses ones place within the group (Nakane; cited in Aoki, 1990, p. 85) and in which ones rank or status is clearly distinguishable, often based on seniority within the group. When people meet, they first try to determine the group to which the other belongs, such as their school or company, and their status within that group, rather than their personal traits. Because such a framework includes people with many different characteristics, a form of unity in which all people aim for the same goal is most important for the group and is strictly enforced. This strong group consciousness brings about a feeling of in and out ( uchi-soto ), and people within the group are likely to feel united emotionally. Although this group consciousness has contributed greatly to the economic development of Japan, the need for strong emotional unity has also resulted in an inability to criticize others openly. As a consequence, the development of ambiguity can be viewed as a defining characteristic of the Japanese style of communication:

Japanese conversation does not take the form of dialectic development. The style of conversation is almost always fixed from beginning to end depending on the human relationship. It is one-way, like a lecture, or an inconclusive argument going along parallel lines or making a circle round and round, and in the end still ending up mostly at the beginning. This style is very much related to the nature of Japanese society. (Ibid., p. 89)

Ambiguity is thus indispensable for maintaining harmony in Japanese life, where it has the quality of compromise. The Japanese carefully weigh the atmosphere that they share with others. People learn to become aware of one anothers thinking and feelings instinctively, which is required in order to know who is taking the initiative. Ambiguity protects people in this sense and is regarded as socially positive because it is a kind of lubricant in communication:

The Japanese think that it is impolite to speak openly on the assumption that their partner knows nothing. They like and value aimai because they think that it is unnecessary to speak clearly as long as their partner is knowledgeable. To express oneself distinctly carries the assumption that ones partner knows nothing, so clear expression can be considered impolite. (Morimoto, 1988, p. 22)

EXAMPLES OF AMBIGUITY

In Japan, when people decline offers, they use many roundabout expressions, such as chotto, demo, kangaete-okune, and so on. Nobody expects to be told no directly, even if the other person is really in disagreement. People take care to maintain a friendly atmosphere and express themselves indirectly; as a result, ambiguity occurs. One of the most well-known examples of aimaina kotoba (ambiguous language) is the expression maa-maa, which is frequently used in Japanese conversation. When people are asked, How are you? they will often answer, Maa-maa . This is generally translated into English as not so bad, but the expression is ambiguous and actually has a very subtle range of meanings incorporated within a vague answer, which is regarded as good manners in Japan. When people are asked, How did you do on the examination? for example, they will often answer, Maa-maa even if they did well. If they said, I did well, they could be thought of as arrogant or overconfident. However, because people cannot define the exact meaning of maa-maa , when they hear this term they must take into account the speakers expression and behavior in order to understand the real meaning .