Westerners are used to a degree of frankness, candid criticism, slights, and outright insults and have developed a thick skin to counter such behavior. Most Westerners are also practiced in giving as good as they get. Not the Japanese. Their cultural conditioning has been to totally avoid such behavior, to keep such a tight rein on their emotions that people would not know what they were thinking or feeling, especially in formal and business situations.
This, of course, was the origin of the Western perception of the Japanese as unemotional. But beneath their calm front, the Japanese seethe with unrequited emotions. Their highly refined etiquette system, especially in the use of the “proper” level of language to each individual, makes them extremely sensitive to the most subtle of slights or unsanctioned behavior. Their skin is so thin and they are so sensitive that a brief look of disapproval flickering across a person’s face may be enough to devastate them or earn their undying wrath.
This sensitivity and the bottling up of normal human emotions over the centuries resulted in the Japanese being prone to extreme violence when they found themselves free of the restraints and rules of their culture, especially in war and in dealing with captives and criminals. Historically, there have also been examples of individuals suddenly snapping and engaging in extreme behavior because they simply couldn’t take it anymore.
In the 1950s when hordes of Japanese businessmen began going abroad on study and survey trips, many of them became so stressed out that they became ill within a few days and either returned to Japan immediately or stayed in their hotel rooms until they were scheduled to go home.
In the following years, whenever possible, Japanese companies opened branches abroad to handle all of their foreign operations because they only felt comfortable and secure when dealing with other Japanese.
Part of the emotional makeup of older Japanese involves a resentment factor that is a holdover from their history. There has always been a deep-seated belief among the Japanese that foreigners, Westerners in particular, look down on them and take advantage of them whenever they can.
Japanese skin is now much thicker than what it was as late as the 1980s, but it is still gossamer thin when compared to the typical American or European. Their emotional antennae are up and on twenty-four hours a day, especially in their dealings with non-Japanese.
The problem of their emotional sensitivity is compounded where foreigners are concerned— except when the foreigners are in the “honored guest” category—because as much as they may try, most un-internationalized Japanese readily admit that associating with foreigners makes them uncomfortable.
Still today, franker businessmen privately admit that they do not like dealing with foreigners and would not do business with them if they had a choice—a cultural response that results from the fact that they cannot predict the behavior of foreigners and find much of it displeasing and stressful.
This means that in order to deal effectively with Japanese, particularly those who have not been partially desensitized by long exposure to foreigners, it is very important to treat them with special decorum. The Japanese recognize that most foreigners do not know their etiquette and generally speaking go to what for them is extreme lengths in tolerating Western behavior that they find unpleasant. But they find that the negative effect of putting up with Western behavior is cumulative and that they need some kind of purging mechanism.
There are many areas of business where it is desirable and justifiable to insist that the Japanese change their ways and accept the foreign approach. But one cannot assault their emotions without there being some kind of negative reaction. Learning how to stroke and not provoke a Japanese businessman is part of the process of working with them.
Obviously some of the more conspicuous and damaging things to avoid are appearances of racial or cultural superiority, failure to pay proper respect to Japanese customs and beliefs, and failure to express appreciation or gratitude when it is due. As the Japanese become more self-confident, there may come a time when derogatory remarks about eating raw fish or other traditional Japanese dishes will no longer be regarded as highly insulting and adversely affect business relationships.
Given the power that the traditional culture has on the behavior of the Japanese, it is interesting to note that the culture chains that bind them break easily and quickly once they are outside of the confines of the culture. Within as little as two years outside of Japan, the average Japanese is internationalized to the point that he or she never again fits into the traditional cultural mold, and when these expatriates go home, they face varying kinds and degrees of discrimination because of their un-Japanese attitudes and behavior.
THE RESENTMENT FACTOR
JAPAN’S ASTOUNDING economic success between the early 1950s and 1970s was viewed by many Japanese as sweet revenge against foreigners who had derided their traditional culture and regarded them as inherently inferior. However, the sudden wealth of Japanese companies and individuals was to add a new twist to the resentment they felt toward the West.
By 1980 there were strong signs that the Japanese business community was feeling beleaguered by the mass of foreigners trying to sell them something or obtain financing for one kind of project or another. What had begun as a trickle in the 1960s had developed into a torrent by the late 1970s. Everybody from presidents, prime ministers, and state governors down to shady hucksters was trying to sell something to the suddenly rich Japanese.
Some of these visitors to Japan came in with a lot of political clout, resulting in promises by the government that did not sit well with the private business sector, exacerbating the feeling that the world was trying to take unfair advantage of Japan.
This phenomenon continued until the early 1990s when Japan’s financial house of cards collapsed, its seemingly unstoppable growth rate slowed to a crawl, and the supreme confidence of the Japanese in the superiority of their corporate structure and management practices took a stunning blow. The emotional high they had been reveling in suddenly deflated like a pricked balloon.
However, this dash of cold water on the global aspirations and confidence of the Japanese— combined with the economic revival of the U.S. and the emergence of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea as major competitors—was to have a significantly beneficial effect on their overall mind-set and in their business relations with the rest of the world.
Businessmen, economists, scholars, and a broad range of people across the entire social spectrum began to question the traditional beliefs and practices that had contributed to the economic miracle that had remade Japan and to urge fundamental reforms that would bring Japan closer to the rest of the world in its social and economic systems.
This urging, combined with the continuously evolving world situation, had a major impact on the public as well as the business mind-set of the Japanese, making it a lot easier to do business in Japan. But this does not mean that their attitudes and behavior have changed to the point that they are no longer Japanese in the traditional sense.
The traditional values and traits that have controlled and defined the Japanese for well over a thousand years remain the foundation of the attitudes and behavior of most adult Japanese in their public lives. Understanding and dealing effectively with Japanese businessmen and government officials continue to require in-depth knowledge of a wide range of these enduring cultural factors.
THE ROLE OF GROUPTHINK
GEORGE ORWELL must have had some familiarity with Confucianism or Japanese culture when he wrote 1984. One of the Japanese cultural factors that remind me of Orwell’s book is called shudan ishiki (shuu-dahn ee-she-kee), an old term which means something like “groupthink.”
Shudan
