very interesting article in the times today, one of the most intriguing ones i've found in a while: "the fine art of hiding what you mean to say." it concerns iranian social conventions for interpersonal communications and in many instances, they seem to closely mirror the japanese concepts of honne, tatemae and oseiji (flattery). take this passage for example:
“Speech has a different function than it does in the West,” said
Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist who lived for many years in England
and the United States before returning to Iran a decade ago. “In the
West, 80 percent of language is denotative. In Iran 80 percent is
connotative.”
Translation: In the West, “yes” generally means
yes. In Iran, “yes” can mean yes, but it often means maybe or no. In
Iran, Dr. Tajbakhsh said, listeners are expected to understand that
words don’t necessarily mean exactly what they mean.
i once read in an article that in the west (by "west" i specifically mean america as i'm not sure this really applies throughout all throughout the west and i believe americans place a much higher premium on direct speech than some other westerners), during a conversation the burden of expectation is on the speaker to be clear for successful communication to occur. elsewhere, in japan for example, the listener is expected to accurately interpret what is being said for succesful communication to occur. while living here in the u.s. i can distinctly remember some times when american friends reproached me for not being clear enough in saying what i meant. it could only have been my fault for not spelling it out enough and i had failed in my role as speaker, having not used precise enough language.
i never encountered such expectations in japan. on occasion, when out with japanese friends in the u.s., one of them will point out how i had missed the contextual meaning of something someone said or did. in those situations the focus is on my ability to listen well. i can't remember japanese friends in japan, however, mentioning that i had missed something -- i wonder if that can't be explained by the guest treatment of foreigners in japan and the fact that my japanese friends in america, who've become a little americanized, feel more comfortable with coming right out and telling me if i failed to understand something.
it's a rare thing when people can find a middle ground across cultures, or even jump across cultures, to understand a different way of thinking and approaching communication. this week my calligraphy teacher told me he wondered where i was heading as i continued to study japanese and become more familiar with the language. "few people can understand both sides," he said. that might have been because i had just been hanging out with him, another japanese person and a young american college student after class. there were some times when i ended up explaining a japanese concept to the american college student and then, a bit later, i explained a bit of recent american slang he used to my japanese friends. i didn't think anything of it because that's pretty normal for me now. i did of course feel very comfortable speaking to the american guy because we come from the same background, but i felt just as comfortable catching up on my japanese friend's latest news and indulging in a little girl talk with her. it was fun.
not too long ago i realized that what's normal for me now, what doesn't take energy anymore, used to literally cause me headaches when i was starting out learning japanese in japan. there were several occasions when my brain shorted out and it was painful to try and contort my mind into assembling a sentence in japanese. it wasn't natural by any stretch of the imagination and oftentimes required a complete inversion of my english thoughts. that's to say nothing of the cultural layer -- translating literally word for word often will not work when you're dealing with english and japanese.
it felt like a long haul at the time. but somewhere along the way something fused or i crossed an invisible line and now that's not so much of a challenge anymore. i often think directly in japanese without needing to first put it into english. there's a lot more to learn and get familiar with to become fluent now, but i do feel like i crossed a hurdle some time ago and now it's not so much of a strain as it used to be. i think it would be great for more americans to try and make the leap from english to a vastly different language and from american-style thinking to another kind of thinking. there are many directions in which you could take this and apparently, according to the article i read, iranian culture (ancient and multilayered) involves some of the same challenges and nuances as japanese. fascinating.
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