part 7. Dancing to the Same Beat: Behind the Japanese Style of Communication

Dancing to the Same Beat: Behind the Japanese Style of Communication
Westerners often comment on how frustratingly difficult it is to learn Japanese.
This is not surprising given the huge dissimilarity between the writing systems, grammar, and pronunciation of Japanese and languages of the Indo-European language group.
What a cinch it is for French speaker to learn Spanish or even an English speaker to learn Russian compared to the monumental task of, say, an American learning Japanese.
It seems,though, that the greatest difficulty in becoming fluent in Japanese lies not so much in mastering the linguistic structures of the language as in learning how to figure out the implicit meaning behind the words.
In other words, while basic spoken Japanese may not be so impossible for a Westerner to pick up, deciphering what the Japanese really mean by what they say is an entirely different matter.
Take these words, for example: “The cherry tree in your garden has blossomed so wonderfully this year, hasn’t it ? We’ve been enjoying watch the park petals fall gently to the ground.”
Although this may sound like a nice compliment, the words could in fact be a complaint about the branches of your cherry tree hanging over your neighbor’s property line and dropping petals in their yard- a grievance in disguise.
Of course, a sensitive Japanese listener would be able to read between the lines and get the underlying message.
Citing this and similar examples, some people go so far as to label the Japanese language as “illogical.”
One of the key concepts underpinning Japanese society is what has been called the “similarity assumption.”
In essence, the traditional framework of all social interaction between Japanese assumes that everybody is essentially “the same.”
Given this premise, the need to express or explain everything explicitly disappears because you can count on the other person being able to surmise your own thoughts and feelings.
Some people describe this manner of communication as expressing things in dots.
If people are indeed “the same,” the listener should be able to connect the dots with out the speaker doing the work for them.
However, when this manner of the cherry tree, people have to start doubting the surface meaning of the utterance and search for the real intention behind the words.
A person with the ability to do so successfully is regarded as a very good communicator in Japanese society.
However for learners of Japanese, who do not “dance to the same beat” of similarity, the Japanese language becomes virtually impossible to understand, especially when what is left unspoken is given more significance than what is spoken.
But of course, assumed similarity does not always work well even for native speakers. Many Japanese people themselves do not have a shared similarity with others, either unknowingly, by circumstance, or by choice.
Undoubtedly, many a good cherry tree branch has been cut off in Japan for no good reason.