Avoiding the Argument

As an English teacher in Japan, I hear about a lot of things that sound odd to Western ears. Most of them I've become used to, but I still get a new one now and then. A few weeks ago, a student told me that his wife gets angry when he puts salt on his food, which surprised me greatly. Apparently, the reason is that she feels that salting is an indication that the food is unsatisfactory, and therefore an insult to her. I found this ridiculous; I'd have thought that everyone separates how well something is cooked from one's taste in saltiness. Excessive salt is a problem; insufficient salt clearly is not. It's elementary. Did many Japanese feel like this?

Determined to find out, I conducted one of my (extremely scientifically invalid) surveys, asking fifty students the same question and getting their answers. Here is the explanation I gave, and the questions:


There is a (Japanese) couple in their mid-thirties, no kids, both work. He works more than she does; part of their division of labor is that she cooks. When she serves him food and he salts it, she gets angry. She says it means he thinks her cooking is poor; he says it's just that his taste is different from hers. She does not accept this explanation.

1. Is her attitude reasonable?

2. Should he stop using salt?

3. Sometimes she puts the food on the table and heads back to the kitchen to get something. He quickly grabs the salt, salts his food, and puts it back before she returns. Is it okay for him to do this?


From my point of view, these are easy questions: her attitude is highly unreasonable, he shouldn't stop, and he shouldn't sneak the salt, but rather, use it openly. I suspect that most Westerners would agree. I got, however, some unexpected responses from my Japanese students.

I wanted to ask students about this at first mainly to find out how many people agreed with her, but the more significant responses came out with the second question. Here are the results:

Reasonable?

Yes: 7 (4 female, 3 male)
Somewhat: 3 (3 female, 0 male)
No: 40 (23 female, 17 male)

Should he stop?

Yes: 23 (9 female, 14 male)
No: 27 (21 female, 6 male)

Is sneaking the salt okay?

Yes: 28 (no gender breakdown)
No: 22

While it seems that being angry at salt use isn't that common, it does exist; the wife's attitude was vigorously defended by a few of those who answered 'yes'. They felt that the kitchen is the woman's domain, and her decrees should be followed. One lady insisted that even if his taste is different, he should try to adjust it; he would eventually get used to the lack of salt, and enjoy the food just as much. Asked why he should have to, she gave a few reasons, such as the idea that it would show respect for her efforts in the kitchen. One response I got a lot, especially from women, to the 'is she reasonable' question was, "no, she isn't reasonable, but I can understand her feelings."

What surprised me about the second question was not the results, but the gender breakdown, which as you can see is sharp. 70% of women said he should go ahead and continue, while 70% of men said he should stop. Of the 23 women who said the wife was unreasonable, 21 said he should continue using the salt, which makes sense to me: you follow reasonable requests, and you don't follow unreasonable ones. But of the 17 men who said the wife was unreasonable, only 6 said he should continue using salt. In almost every case, the reason given was to avoid a conflict. Very typical was a man around 50 who immediately dismissed the wife as unreasonable, said the husband should stop using the salt 'to keep the peace in the family,' and when questioned about sneaking the salt, laughed and said 'good idea!'.

By Western standards, giving in to such an unreasonable request would be widely considered a bad idea. It's bad in principle to agree to unreasonable demands, it represents an unhealthy degree of control by one partner over another, and it only puts a Band-Aid over a problem that needs to be dealt with. A discussion needs to be had. But Japanese are very conflict-averse, almost reflexively so. Not that they never have it, of course, especially between spouses. But though not everything needs to be a knock-down drag-out fight, many Japanese react as though any argument means just that. Some of the men didn't care that much about using salt, so would give in quickly. But in my case, even if I were indifferent to using salt, I would resist the demand on principle and initiate a discussion. What I found about many Japanese–not all, but probably upwards of half–was that they simply don't consider the notion that the problem can be solved with a discussion. They would argue their point, they would maybe get angry, but it wouldn't occur to them to explore the dynamic of the situation in order to solve it. Why does she get angry, when most people wouldn't? Is she sensitive about her cooking? Has he given her reason to be? Has he appreciated it enough, perhaps made a few unintentional slights? They wouldn't ask these questions. When I say 'discussion', what they hear is 'argument'.

But, most interestingly: why the men and not the women? Even the students weren't sure, though there was a general consensus that the most recent generation of Japanese men aren't as confident and sure of their place as men of previous generations. Tellingly, one of the few men who said he should continue using the salt was my oldest student, a 75-year-old man who was a company executive, a very traditional guy. He said the wife should make the food to the husband's specifications, and if it isn't, he should use the salt and tell her why. He's not an arrogant guy; he just has a strong idea of how things should be. Anyway, for whatever reason, Japanese women appear to be much more willing than men to have an argument. Most of my students were interested, but not terribly surprised, by this.

As for the third question, the student whose problem this was (who was quite interested to have me take the survey and give him the results) said he was surprised at the result, that he'd have thought that 90% would say it was okay. Most who said it was liked it as a way to avoid the argument/discussion, and for him to get what he wanted (most of the men gave this answer). Most who opposed it said that he should simply use it openly, so in a way, it was another way of asking the second question.

As for my student, he hasn't used the salt recently, contenting himself to sneak it in when possible. When I asked him why he didn't bring it up with her, he quoted a Japanese expression, 'kotonakare-shugi'. It doesn't seem to have an exact English equivalent; it comes across best as 'leaving well enough alone' or 'not making things worse'. Personally, I think that it's not dealing with these things that makes them worse. But, of course, that's what cultural differences are all about.

Talking about kids

As an English teacher in a conversation school that focuses on one-to-one lessons, I have plenty of opportunity to talk to Japanese people about any number of topics. While my students are hardly a representative sample of Japanese people in general, I believe I can get a good sense of how Japanese feel about any particular topic by talking to them.

Every now and then, a topic comes up in a lesson that makes me wonder something about Japanese culture and opinion that I don't know, so I ask students about it. A year ago, when such questions came up, I started to ask the same question of almost every student and keep track of the answers. Again, it's not even close to being statistically valid, but I do think one can draw general conclusions from such information.

A month ago, a 35-year-old female student told me that after seven years of marriage, she told her husband that she wanted to have a child. His response, delivered noncommittally, translates in English as 'is that so' or 'I see'. He added nothing more to his response, and she also said nothing more. To Westerners, I'd think, such a minimalist conversation about something so very important would be baffling, but for Japanese, it's not terribly surprising. Japanese are big on indirect communication, using subtext, tone, and body language to convey things they don't want to say clearly.

What did surprise me, even as a long-time resident who understands the culture pretty well, was that these two didn't have a reasonably clear understanding of what the wanted when they got together. In the West, I'd think that almost every couple talks about this before they get married, and even if they don't have a rock-solid agreement, they have a good idea of where the other person stands on the topic. My student said that before marriage she'd talked to her husband very little about it, and it had only been agreed that they would live for a few years without kids, after which the topic would presumably be addressed.

So, I asked many students this question: Did you talk to your future spouse about kids before you got married? (For unmarried students, the question was, do you plan to do so?) I gave them three choices: no talk, casual talk, and serious talk. I broke the students up into three categories: over 40, under 40, and not yet married (most of whom, naturally, are under 40). The results:

Over 40: no talk 9, casual talk 3, serious talk 2
Under 40: no talk 4, casual talk 2, serious talk 2
unmarried: no talk 3, casual talk 6, serious talk 8

Total: no talk 16, casual talk 11, serious talk 12

I did the age break because I expected the result that occurred: that older people would be less likely to have talked about it than younger people. When I asked the older people why they didn't talk about it, the answer was nearly unanimous: no need. Of course we're going to have children, why do we need to talk about it? The unmarried, who are the youngest group, felt that it was an important topic that needed to be discussed. It is true, of course, that many of my unmarried students are women in their mid-30s, and so would need to talk about it for another reason: to determine whether they even want to try to have kids, given the higher risks her age brings.

Naturally, it seems to me that not talking about this brings the risk of getting married and then finding out that your wishes are irreconcilably different (one student told me of a divorce she knew to be for just this reason). Granted, in Japan your chances of finding someone who wants a kid run 90% or higher, but why take a chance when it's so important? This led to another question, which I asked most everyone: Imagine that a couple, around 30, get married but never talk about kids. After a year, the subject finally comes up, and they discover that one of them firmly does not want children. They end up divorcing. The question is: are they equally responsible for the result, or is the one who didn't want kids more responsible, because he/she should have known his partner would think that if he/she didn't want them, he/she would have said something? Is the onus on the one who doesn't want kids to say something? The results: 23 said the one who doesn't want kids is more responsible, while 12 said they were equally responsible. (Interestingly, those who gave the minority response tended to be surprised that they were in the minority.) Age didn't matter; the percentage was the same for each age group.

Many things in Japanese culture are changing, but this one isn't changing much: it's expected that every couple will have at least one child, and if a couple goes childless, it's assumed that they tried but failed. 'Why didn't you have kids?' is a very personal question, and here should only be asked of someone you know quite well. When I tell my students that my wife and I are childless by choice, the normal response is, 'Don't you like children?' I joke that I like other people's kids just fine, but I find it interesting that people would assume that the reason for not having kids is that you don't like them, as opposed to choosing one lifestyle over another. I think most Japanese would find being childless by choice a baffling choice, thus their tendency to blame the one who neglected to mention their wish not to have children.

Part of my survey was about Japanese attitudes towards children, but part was about the fact that Japanese don't like to talk about serious topics, even ones that they really should talk about. For us, if we're in doubt as to whether to talk to our partner about something, the default tendency would be to talk about it. For the Japanese, the tendency is to not do so. You're supposed to know what the other person thinks about something, and it should only be necessary to say something if your opinion is different from the cultural norm. And, of course, your opinion shouldn't be different from the cultural norm.

To Venus in a UFO, part 1 (the media)

On August 30, the Japanese held an election for the lower house of Parliament, which (as is the case in the U.K.) is the primary branch of government; the leader of the Parliament is the Prime Minister, who is not chosen directly by the people, though everyone knows who that is when they vote. On September 3, the New York Times and other Western media started reporting that the wife of the new Prime Minister had, a year ago, written a book in which she said the following:

“While my body was sleeping, I think my spirit flew on a triangular-shaped U.F.O. to Venus,” she said. “It was an extremely beautiful place and was very green.” Her first husband suggested that it was probably just a dream — but Mr. Hatoyama, she insisted, would not be so dismissive. “My current husband has a different way of thinking,” she said. “He would surely say, ‘Oh, that’s great!’”

Now, it's not extremely difficult to find people who believe such things, but it is relatively rare for such a person to be the spouse of a head of government. I can't be sure, but I'm fairly confident that if Michelle Obama had said this, her husband would never have been elected president. So of course, one of the first things that came to mind was the question, 'did the Japanese voters factor this in when they voted?' Luckily, as a teacher of conversational English in one-to-one lessons I'm in a position to find out, though in a purely anecdotal and unscientific way.

On the 4th and the 5th, I had six students read the brief article, and I was very surprised to find that while all were reasonably well-informed people, none had heard of this. Some shook their heads with an obvious 'the woman is crazy' expression, some chuckled, and one exclaimed 'wow!' every ten or fifteen seconds as she read. (I should say that this comes across as crazy in Japan as it does in America.) Afterwards, when I asked them why the Japanese media hadn't reported this during the campaign, to a person they responded 'I don't know.' Finally, on Sunday, I got someone who'd heard of it, apparently just the day before on a TV program; it seemed as though it had been picked up in their media because it had already been widely reported by the Western media.

But, again, why hadn't it been reported in Japan? One of my regular students works in the Japanese media. (I don't want to be too specific, but it's the kind of media in which popularity is much more important than any consideration of what a well-informed citizen should know.) She's extremely well-informed about entertainment-ish matters, and pretty well-informed about more 'serious' matters. Since this story leans toward the former, I thought for sure she would have heard of it, but she hadn't, and was herself surprised that it had escaped her notice, and that of the media. She suspects that equal time provisions may have had something to do with it, and she mentioned that there's a general tendency in the media not to report on political spouses on the grounds of privacy. She did say that she thought the news would raise the popularity of whatever media outlet aired it.

The government doesn't censor the media in Japan. It doesn't have to, as the media does a pretty good job of censoring itself. I've been told that large media outlets avoid, for example, any critical reporting on the Japanese royal family (which would bring protests from aggressive rightists) or the relatively powerful religious group Soka Gakkai (which could prompt advertiser boycotts). If there was a serious scandal involving either group, then it might be reported, depending on what the scandal was. But an ordinary 'is there a dark side to (such-and-such group)?' story is verboten.

Not that Western media is immune from groupthink, or that there are no boundaries that it wouldn't respect. Generally, the more prominent the media outlet, the more pressure it feels to only report what's in line with mainstream attitudes, and not to report what the 'establishment' doesn't want to see reported. (As an example, you don't see many people in the mainstream media saying that those in the Bush (43) administration who ordered and carried out torture should be prosecuted, even though the fact that laws and treaties with the force of law were broken is extremely clear.) And there are, even in Japan, less 'reputable' media outlets that report what others won't. For example, it's very well understood that in professional sumo, some bouts are thrown. Not a majority, but not a tiny few, either. Occasionally a former wrestler speaks openly about it, but their words are rarely if ever carried by the major media outlets; a weekly tabloid-type magazine called the Shukan Post tends to carry such stories. The mainstream media say they don't carry such stories because they can't be proven, but I believe the real reason is that there are informal agreements between the sumo officials and the media, as well as with Soka Gakkai, the royal family, and others, that such things are not to be reported on. In both Japan and the U.S., the mainstream media is part of the establishment, and there are understandings. I think it could be said that, like many other aspects of life, those understandings are more restrictive in Japan.

In the end, of course, it isn't all that important whether Japanese know that the wife of the Prime Minister believes that her spirit traveled to Venus in a UFO. But I did find it remarkable that such an out-of-the-mainstream belief managed to avoid mass notice in the heat of Japan's most contentious political campaign in decades. Then again, maybe another way to look at it is that the opposition party made no reference to in during the campaign, which to us would show admirable restraint and gentility. Maybe they couldn't have profited by doing so, but if so, then we can credit the Japanese public for disapproving of such tactics. Either way, it shows politics operating with more manners and class than Americans would be capable of. Maybe (what I would consider to be) a muzzled press contributes to having that kind of society. Whichever society you prefer to live in, it's the kind of thing that's interesting to consider both sides of.

Mr. James and Mr. Debito

McDonald's in Japan has recently launched an ad campaign featuring a doofusy-looking Westerner dubbed 'Mr. James', who apparently is quite keen on certain types of recently launched burgers. This has kicked up a minor fuss in the foreign community in Japan, a small fire whose flames are being fanned by a man named Arudou Debito, who is a Westerner who married a Japanese, has kids in Japan, and became a Japanese citizen, which I gather is no easy task for a non-Japanese.

He has become the most prominent advocate for foreigners' rights in Japan, and he has an excellent website that features, among a lot of other useful information, all of his activities and investigations of discrimination against foreigners, or maybe I should say, those who weren't born in Japan. He, after all, strictly speaking is not a foreigner, as he's a Japanese citizen, but he definitely wasn't born in Japan. And that's the rub.

Having lived here for twenty years, I am sufficiently confident in my understanding to say that being a Japanese is like being a member of a very exclusive club. The only way to enter this club is to be born here (to Japanese parents), grow up here, and fit basic societal expectations. If any one of these is absent, you can't really be considered Japanese.

I don't want to speak too broadly, but let's say that a Pakistani comes to America. He accepts the culture enthusiastically, he loves America, he tries to learn the idioms perfectly and minimize his accent, he adopts an American-style nickname (let's say, 'Mike'), he learns the social expectations, he makes friends, he becomes a fan of the local sports teams, he watches American Idol. I believe it is safe to say that within a few years, he will be accepted by most as an American. They'll think of him as 'Mike,' not 'that Pakistani guy.' Sitting with four white guys around a friend's living room watching football on Sunday afternoon and drinking Budweisers, they won't think of him as an outsider. He's an American.

I do, however, believe it to be the case that a Westerner who does the equivalent things in Japan, even for a much longer time, will not be considered by those around him to be a Japanese. Now, it's not as though the Japanese aren't nice or welcoming people. He'll have friends, they'll like him, they'll be happy to spend time with him, hang out, and if he needs help, they'll do their best to assist him. His life will be far from bad. But because his face is different, and he wasn't born or raised in Japan, he will always be at worst a 'gaijin' (foreigner), and at best, a little bit different from a Japanese. He can never be the same. I recall reading–I can't remember where–an American writer named Donald Richie, who has lived in Japan for over forty years, saying that he felt a lot better when he finally gave up hoping that he would be considered to be like a Japanese, and accepted the fact that he never would be.

Now, I don't want to get into the question of why this is, because that's at least a long blog post, if not a book. The point is that I believe Debito is, bravely and valiantly, fighting an unwinnable battle. (At least, I believe, it won't be won in his lifetime.) But he may pave the way for others, and he has my respect and admiration. But he has joined a society most of whose members do not want him to join, and will not consider him an equal. On the surface, maybe, but not deep down. Being a very homogenous society, Japanese don't do well with the concept of 'minorities.' Part of Japanese social expectations is that you should be like everyone else, don't make waves, respect your elders, do what society thinks you should do. If you're a misfit, try harder to fit in. If you're gay, stay in the closet. If your parents treat you badly, visit them once a year and be polite anyway, because it's your duty as a child. If you don't want to have kids, don't tell people that; let them believe that you tried and failed. These are the old-fashioned values. Yes, Japan is changing, but slowly, and I'm far from sure that increased acceptance of minorities is one of the ways in which it's changing.

Debito, however, is leading a crusade. When he finds an injustice, he quietly and politely asks the perpetrators to change. If they don't, he makes a public issue of it. And I say, good for him. But here's the problem: he refers to himself as 'Japanese.' I want to say, sorry, dude, but you're not! Yes, you have a piece of paper that says you are. You have a passport. But even the Japanese who know you, and your citizenship, I'd bet if I asked them, 'Is he Japanese?' they'd hesitate and say, 'well, he's a Japanese citizen.' That would be the best they could do. They simply couldn't look at a Western face and unselfconsciously say 'he's Japanese,' like I could with my American friend Mike. And after all, you don't act like a Japanese! You're a shit-disturber! No offense! A terrific shit-disturber! But real Japanese don't do that! You're not supposed to point out other people's wrongs, unless you're a socially-sanctioned entity. You're not supposed to create grass-roots organizations that press for change. That's not what Japanese do.

I link here to a great piece Debito wrote in the Japan Times about Mr. James. He makes a lot of good points; I could disagree with him on a few points around the margins, but basically I agree with him. Any reasonable big company shouldn't do an ad campaign that even comes close to making fun of a minority with stereotypes, and this campaign, while far from horribly offensive, does at least come close. I, however, cannot get myself to be offended, or even to boycott McDonald's Japan. I believe that to the extent that the campaign is offensive, it is so accidentally, not deliberately. Japanese just can't understand the perspective of a minority unless they've lived overseas and been stereotyped, which most haven't. I choose to live in Japan, but it isn't my country, and I can leave if I want to. I don't agree with those who say that as 'guests' in the country we have no right to protest discrimination; I simply have no interest in knocking myself out trying to change the views of those who discriminate. Maybe I'm just lazy. Debito has decided that it is his country, and he's trying to make it a better one. More power to him, but I would rather be Mike, and adopt a country that wants to have me.