Border Crossing

Getting one's feet wet

When an individual crosses a group border, be it a nation, an ethnic boundary, or a corporate entity, with the intent of acquiring new membership in that group, he is faced with many problems. Primary among these is learning to appreciate a new set of rules and values. Closely related to this problem is another: learning how to resolve the contradictions between the rules and values of his old and new groups. This latter problem is especially important in the Japanese context, because most foreigners who come to Japan rarely stay long enough to be put into a position of lasting compromise.

We tend to learn the values and rules of our own society, as if they were the things to think and do. Until we have actually lived in a society different from our own, or have been directly confronted with a different set of values within our own, we have little way of appreciating how truly arbitrary many of our values and behavioral codes are. It is one thing to read about these differences in a book, watch them performed on stage, or hear them explained in a college lecture hall, business seminar room, or government office; it is quite another to experience them directly. Like learning to swim from a book, we are likely to make little head way until we have actually entered the water.

Indeed, the values and rules that form the basis for culture are not something we can acquire in books; rather they are something that we must learn through repeated practice and trial and error. It is also through the remonstrance and praise from others that we learn correct thought and behavior.

Books, lectures, and television can only provide information, cause us to ponder, and challenge us to take note, but in order to convert that information into habit and custom we must actually experience the culture first hand. Because habit and custom form a very important part of how society is ordered, it also forms a very important part of the way we think and react to changing circumstances. People who believe that they can understand foreign culture without first internalizing its habits and customs are likely to be poor predictors of events in their host society.

Because Japan goes out of its way to hold Japanese and foreigners apart, neither side is likely able to understand the mind and behavior of the other.

Newcomers

The newcomer must not only acquire a new set of values and learn a new set of rules, but he must often unlearn many of the things, that have long since become an established way of life for him. Though the number of ways we can do and think about things is nearly infinite, the number of things that must truly be performed and considered is quite small. Everyone must eat and drink and must be careful not to consume too much or too little. Companionship, be it with a sexual partner or a good friend, requires certain important elements common to all cultures. For example, there must be a sense of fair play, trust in another's intentions, and personal attraction. In every society there exist rules of the road, a generally accepted spoken language, and proper dress codes. Everyone has garbage that they must dispose of. There is a hardly a society left in this world where money is not an important medium of exchange. Letters must be postmarked. Thus, it is not that one society is fundamentally different from another, rather, it is that each society has its own way of accomplishing similar tasks.

To the extent that newcomers are not able to accomplish basic tasks in their old ways, and to the extent that they wish to feel welcome in their new social setting, they must learn a new set of arbitrary values and behavioral codes, upon which all societies are found -- values and codes of behavior not common to all societies, and sometimes uniquely defined in each. The overall challenge is enormous, and without help from a large number of people of one's host society, or alternatively much help from carefully selected host representatives, assimilation inevitably fails.