2.08.2004
Live and learn and learn...
Warning: the following post contains extensive navel-gazing
I'm going to attempt to write this again. It rather reminds me of the time my freshman year in college I wrote the longest report I'd ever written (11 pages was long at that time) and then saved a blank document over it because I was inept with computers at the time.
Nevertheless...
I've noticed recently, that although I haven't broken the letter of the law in terms of my pledge not to make cultural comparisons, I have certainly broken the spirit of it. Partially because it's easy. I mean, just throwing a picture like this up on the site says a lot even if I don't make a lot of generalizations about what it means. And talking about the words "gaijin" and "gaikokujin". I have to pull myself out of that rat hole.
Having said that, I did a little reflecting on how I'm looking at my life here, and I had a rather enlightening experience.
Thinking back on my first stay in Japan, I'm a little disappointed. I made some big mistakes. I didn't learn enough Japanese and I relied on my English-speaking Japanese friends to interpret a lot for me. One of these was a recent returnee from London who was himself rather mixed-up. He was reading a lot of books on "Japanese-ness" at the time, attempting to get over his reverse culture shock. And he made a lot of proclamations that I took at face value. Japanese do this this way and that that way and so on and so forth.
Learning about a culture through the "rules" is like learning a language through translation exercises. Sure you can learn it, but you can't use it. You're inflexible. And those sorts of proclamations are always very ostracizing which is what leads to the famous jaded foreigner who doesn't bother to learn the language and believes "I'll never be accepted". When I came back from Japan I was very rigid, not only about Japan, but in everything.
Fast-forward to 2003. I returned to Japan because I wanted to give myself another chance to rise above that. To make amends. I've studied Japanese rigorously and I've lived a lot more quietly. I'm older anyway, so I can do that (when I'm not missing the last train that is). And I've tried to avoid painting things with too broad a brush. Even if I can speak Japanese perfectly, I would still be at risk of making generalizations. Sure they serve a purpose, but in my current position, they're more a threat than a tool.
Even with the best judgment, there are dangers. Everyone develops habits, especially when your constantly in problem-solving mode. What am I going to say to accomplish this task? How should I act in this situation? Living abroad brings these things to a conscious level more often, but often once you find a solution that works, you hard-wire it, even though it may not be the best one. This is precisely how people get rigid.
Probably the most famously important survival skill in Japan is indirectness and deference. Maintaining harmony or "wa" or what-have-you. So I've gotten really good at being very milquetoast. Not that I can't express myself, but that I wouldn't do it at the expense of that harmony. Here's how most of my conversations go.
That's the pattern I've got ingrained. It's worked up until now because usually when someone asks your opinion, they really just want to make sure you agree with them. This is true in American culture too.
The inherent problem with this is that it assumes that the first person has an opinion and is looking for confirmation. If, on the other hand, they're honestly asking your opinion and you don't realize this you'll keep looking for that confirmation stage and never get it. So you'll loop back over and over, trying new tactics to gain that much needed approval.
It makes a more sinister assumption too, that your opinion isn't interesting or valued. That's where you start to slide down the slippery slope. If no one is ever really asking for my opinion, is it because I'm at the bottom of the totem pole at my company? Is there someone up there pulling the strings? Are Japanese subject to the same disinterest? Is it related to my being a foreigner?
Of course, if all this is happening on a conscious level it's bad enough because you're blatantly segregating yourself and assuming it's a cultural obstacle. I have to say, I am glad I don't do this on a conscious level these days. If I did start to, I think I would hear the words "Japanese" and "foreigner" in my head and alarms would start to sound.
So I don't do it consciously, but those patterns, those habits, still carve unconscious pathways to the same assumptions. And when someone legitimately asks your opinion and you go into the loop, things go haywire.
Anyway, it did on Friday. My head teacher asked me a question, my opinion about homework for certain classes. I tried everything, every possible suggestion and combination of suggestions I could, waiting for that recognition. But nothing worked. Worse, I was obviously throwing everything under the sun at her. Now it sounds like I was bullshitting, but in a wierd way, I wasn't. I was just confused. I thought, she has an idea which is probably a good solution, but I just haven't hit it yet. So, try again.
I finally ran out of ideas and she could tell I was crumbling. One of my old bosses in the States told me I can be a bit of a bulldozer, but I'm certainly not here. Chalk it up to paranoia or whatever (but as a great man once said, "Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.").
I suppose I was saved by the bell because she had to go teach and I went to scribble out my frustration--the first time I've really felt it since coming back.
When her class finished we talked again. She apologized to the moon for frustrating me (I could write another tome about apologies but I know I still haven't got a proper grasp of them). I think in class she was thinking about how to tell me not to try so damned hard. Of course she did it by saying she really respected my opinion and she just wanted to know what I thought. She coated it in lots of kindness, but the subtext, or what I realized out of it, was that I had been really unfair. I had pigeon-holed her. I assumed she had some hidden agenda, and wanted nothing more than my acquiescence. I hadn't considered that she was treating me as an equal.
It was a tough blow. I've tried so hard. But as another great, well, fictional character, said, "Do or do not, there is no try." I think more than that initial guilt, which I can't do anything about anyway, I feel like she did me a huge favor. There are whole underground channels of assumption running through me, and I have to root them out.
Besides that, my head teacher wants to know what I think. I just hope I didn't blow it completely.
I'm going to attempt to write this again. It rather reminds me of the time my freshman year in college I wrote the longest report I'd ever written (11 pages was long at that time) and then saved a blank document over it because I was inept with computers at the time.
Nevertheless...
I've noticed recently, that although I haven't broken the letter of the law in terms of my pledge not to make cultural comparisons, I have certainly broken the spirit of it. Partially because it's easy. I mean, just throwing a picture like this up on the site says a lot even if I don't make a lot of generalizations about what it means. And talking about the words "gaijin" and "gaikokujin". I have to pull myself out of that rat hole.
Having said that, I did a little reflecting on how I'm looking at my life here, and I had a rather enlightening experience.
Thinking back on my first stay in Japan, I'm a little disappointed. I made some big mistakes. I didn't learn enough Japanese and I relied on my English-speaking Japanese friends to interpret a lot for me. One of these was a recent returnee from London who was himself rather mixed-up. He was reading a lot of books on "Japanese-ness" at the time, attempting to get over his reverse culture shock. And he made a lot of proclamations that I took at face value. Japanese do this this way and that that way and so on and so forth.
Learning about a culture through the "rules" is like learning a language through translation exercises. Sure you can learn it, but you can't use it. You're inflexible. And those sorts of proclamations are always very ostracizing which is what leads to the famous jaded foreigner who doesn't bother to learn the language and believes "I'll never be accepted". When I came back from Japan I was very rigid, not only about Japan, but in everything.
Fast-forward to 2003. I returned to Japan because I wanted to give myself another chance to rise above that. To make amends. I've studied Japanese rigorously and I've lived a lot more quietly. I'm older anyway, so I can do that (when I'm not missing the last train that is). And I've tried to avoid painting things with too broad a brush. Even if I can speak Japanese perfectly, I would still be at risk of making generalizations. Sure they serve a purpose, but in my current position, they're more a threat than a tool.
Even with the best judgment, there are dangers. Everyone develops habits, especially when your constantly in problem-solving mode. What am I going to say to accomplish this task? How should I act in this situation? Living abroad brings these things to a conscious level more often, but often once you find a solution that works, you hard-wire it, even though it may not be the best one. This is precisely how people get rigid.
Probably the most famously important survival skill in Japan is indirectness and deference. Maintaining harmony or "wa" or what-have-you. So I've gotten really good at being very milquetoast. Not that I can't express myself, but that I wouldn't do it at the expense of that harmony. Here's how most of my conversations go.
Other: "What do you think about A?"At this point if B was what the other person was thinking we'll go into a lot of vigorous agreement and perhaps, eventually come out with C which was the obvious implication of B. If B was totally off the mark insert a long "Hmmmmmm" then loop back to line 2 and try again.
Me: "Hmmmm....yes. Well, (obvious comment about A)."
Other: "Mmmmmmm, (general agreement)."
Me: "What do you think about A?"
Other: "(Hint)"
Me: "Right. I think so too. So maybe B?"
That's the pattern I've got ingrained. It's worked up until now because usually when someone asks your opinion, they really just want to make sure you agree with them. This is true in American culture too.
The inherent problem with this is that it assumes that the first person has an opinion and is looking for confirmation. If, on the other hand, they're honestly asking your opinion and you don't realize this you'll keep looking for that confirmation stage and never get it. So you'll loop back over and over, trying new tactics to gain that much needed approval.
It makes a more sinister assumption too, that your opinion isn't interesting or valued. That's where you start to slide down the slippery slope. If no one is ever really asking for my opinion, is it because I'm at the bottom of the totem pole at my company? Is there someone up there pulling the strings? Are Japanese subject to the same disinterest? Is it related to my being a foreigner?
Of course, if all this is happening on a conscious level it's bad enough because you're blatantly segregating yourself and assuming it's a cultural obstacle. I have to say, I am glad I don't do this on a conscious level these days. If I did start to, I think I would hear the words "Japanese" and "foreigner" in my head and alarms would start to sound.
So I don't do it consciously, but those patterns, those habits, still carve unconscious pathways to the same assumptions. And when someone legitimately asks your opinion and you go into the loop, things go haywire.
Anyway, it did on Friday. My head teacher asked me a question, my opinion about homework for certain classes. I tried everything, every possible suggestion and combination of suggestions I could, waiting for that recognition. But nothing worked. Worse, I was obviously throwing everything under the sun at her. Now it sounds like I was bullshitting, but in a wierd way, I wasn't. I was just confused. I thought, she has an idea which is probably a good solution, but I just haven't hit it yet. So, try again.
I finally ran out of ideas and she could tell I was crumbling. One of my old bosses in the States told me I can be a bit of a bulldozer, but I'm certainly not here. Chalk it up to paranoia or whatever (but as a great man once said, "Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.").
I suppose I was saved by the bell because she had to go teach and I went to scribble out my frustration--the first time I've really felt it since coming back.
When her class finished we talked again. She apologized to the moon for frustrating me (I could write another tome about apologies but I know I still haven't got a proper grasp of them). I think in class she was thinking about how to tell me not to try so damned hard. Of course she did it by saying she really respected my opinion and she just wanted to know what I thought. She coated it in lots of kindness, but the subtext, or what I realized out of it, was that I had been really unfair. I had pigeon-holed her. I assumed she had some hidden agenda, and wanted nothing more than my acquiescence. I hadn't considered that she was treating me as an equal.
It was a tough blow. I've tried so hard. But as another great, well, fictional character, said, "Do or do not, there is no try." I think more than that initial guilt, which I can't do anything about anyway, I feel like she did me a huge favor. There are whole underground channels of assumption running through me, and I have to root them out.
Besides that, my head teacher wants to know what I think. I just hope I didn't blow it completely.
