Culture Clash

Japanglish: creepy coffee whitener

To kickoff our week-long English training, this Monday all new employees were made to take a 2 hour long course on “How to understand foreigners for dummies”. Lucky us the lecturer was an entertaining jovial American who could tell very good jokes in Japanese. It felt like a legitimate baby class in Anthropology, yet I doubt this will help us understand the Japanese better or make the company more global.

Gist of the lesson: the land of the rising sun is one of the most homogeneous countries of the world. From Hokkaido to Kyushu, people receive the same education, are taught to aim similar aspirations and have similar expectations. In this kind of society, non-verbal communication (interpreting body language, being attentive to manners, reading the air…) takes a leading role in everyday interactions. Many things are left unspoken, leaving culture to explain.

Japan is thus a “High Context Culture” (E. T. Hall, 1976), and in order to avoid misunderstandings it has invented a myriad of rules that are to be followed, cheers ‘groupism’ to boo individualism and has a very strong power-hierarchy.

Some silly rules that are followed without being questioned: wear tights even in the searing heat of the summer, no sleeve-less clothes, always obey your superior, love and refer to manuals, be polite, don’t express your opinion, go with the flow.

Coming from a “Low Context Culture” I pretend ‘no understand Japan’ and get away with everything! Life is wonderful.