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Aunt Madoka's Recipe
How many times can we explain ourselves to others before finally giving up in frustration, because we are simply too different for them to understand? Is this not what many Japanese have done -- given up in frustration?
Are not Japanese forever insisting how different they are? Is it not they, who are forever telling the world that Japan is too difficult for the world to understand? Have not many Japanese simply turned their backs on the rest of human kind, as a result?
Indeed, there can be many reasons for others not being able to understand us. It could be that we are not explaining ourselves clearly, that there is important experience that we do not share in common, or that something exists within us that others can see, but we cannot -- something that makes us mysterious unto ourselves and incredulous to others who listen to our explanations. Fifty years have passed since the war ended and more than a century and a half since the Edo period came to a close. Surely this is long enough for Japan to have found a clear explanation!
Though many foreigners coming to Japan are likely to be impressed by Japan's material wealth, technological advancement, and social order, they are also likely to view the Japanese people and their culture with mixed feelings. This is because it is difficult to appreciate a people whose citizens only share enough of their culture, language, and society to attract others and then say bai-bai.22 Moreover, foreigners tire quickly, when Japanese insist that their own language, culture, and race are somehow more special than every other. This claim is often accompanied with the statement that citizens of other nations are incapable of understanding Japanese language and culture, because they were not born and raised in Japanese society. Such comments are often received by foreigners as arrogant bombast. As a result, the shy, humble and polite character that so many Japanese would like to portray on the surface begins to ring hollow after a while.
One must wonder, whether Japanese, who complain that foreigners are not trying hard enough, realize that there are few Japanese who willingly help foreigners to understand that one thing they need most to understand Japan well -- Japanese language and culture! Guided English tours to famous historical places, ancient tea ceremonies, karaoke bars with English song books, and restaurants with Western cuisine, may provide Japanese with the opportunity to glorify their nation's ancient past in the presence of foreigners, practice English phonics, and wield knives and forks, but it does little in helping foreigners to understand the language and culture of modern Japanese society. In short, Japanese are great hosts when it comes to making foreigners feel at home in their own culture in Japan, but getting Japanese to share Japanese language and culture with other Japanese is a very real challenge. Certainly there are many things we can learn on our own about a foreign society, but spoken language and social behavior almost always have to be learned in the company of local natives.
Consider an aunt in your own family, who knows the recipe to a certain dish that she regularly serves when you and others of your family go to see her. Furthermore, suppose that you, and everyone else in your family, has asked her for the recipe many times, but she has yet to divulge it.
If you knew, where her recipe was hidden, would you be tempted to steal it from her? Well maybe. After all, it is something that everyone else in your family has clearly indicated an interest in obtaining. Would you steal it? Probably not. After all, no one likes a thief, and in the end your aunt does share her recipe with you -- well, at least indirectly -- each time she invites you and your family over for dinner. What if she does something that offends you and for which she does not apologize, would you be inclined to take her recipe then? Well, if you thought she had done it intentionally, your incentive for taking it would be much higher. Suppose now that you were to take the recipe in a fit of anger, because you wanted to punish her. Having obtained it would you show it to everyone else in the family? It is unlikely, because what your aunt did to you is not necessarily their business, and it might just be that what you perceived to be an intentional act was never ill-intended. Where would you be then? So, now that you had the recipe, what would you do with it? Would you prepare the dish at home when no one is looking? Probably not. In fact once you have thought a little more about having stolen the recipe, you might secretly return it with feelings of guilt that you had stolen it in the first place, but happy that you were not caught. Obviously Aunt Madoka is no fool when it comes to commanding family respect.
Certainly, each of us has a right to his own secrets and envy can be a powerful tool with which to command the respect of others. Is it possible then, that an entire nation of people can be thinking like Aunt Madoka? Is it possible that so many foreigners are like the nephew or niece described above? Is it reasonable to assume that Japanese and foreigners living in Japan are like a big happy family? Probably not.
Indeed, what impression of Japan and the Japanese people can foreigners living in Japan receive, when Tôkyô branch managers of European banks feel compelled to place captions on the covers of their five-year strategy reports: "Don't Be Afraid!" What impression are these same foreigners to receive when they read in the Nikkei Shimbun (Japan's equivalent of the Wall Street Journal) that still another major corporation has just moved its Asian headquarters from Tôkyô to Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong, or Shanghai? Do you think the managers of these corporations are not aware that 70% of all economic activity in East Asia originates in Japan? With all the tourists coming to Japan one might be lead to believe that the world covets Aunt Madoka's recipe? In truth, it appears that few of these people stay long enough even to eat the meal that Aunt Madoka cooks from it. Is this because they do not enjoy Japanese ônsen (hot spring where strangers bathe nude together), sushi (raw fish on a small block of warm rice), and izakaya (a Japnese pub)? Hardly.
Standard replies that Japanese offer to explain such behavior, is a lack of patience, understanding, and cooperation. With all due respect just what do Japanese expect? Foreigners can spend their whole lives in Japan learning to speak, act, and think like Japanese only in the end to be treated by a Japanese, whom they meet for the first time, as if they had just disembarked at Narita.
In my own suburban neighborhood tucked away in a corner of northern Tôkyô, the elderly Taiwanese manager of a chûka-ryouri-resutoran (Chinese restaurant) holds Japanese citizenship. If he had not told me, I would never have believed it, because everyone refers to him as the taiwan-jin (someone from Taiwan). This poor man has been living in Japan since he was 15 years old and has Japanese grand-children. If you meet him when he is not in his restaurant, he appears, acts, and talks just as do the other Japanese merchants in the neighborhood. Is more than a half a century not long enough to master enough of what it means to be Japanese to be treated as a Japanese by one's own neighbors?
When I encounter young children and youth in my neighborhood for the first time, and their first word to me is gaijin (foreigner), what am I suppose to think?23 That they are well-bred Japanese children, because their parents have carefully pointed me out to them as a foreigner? On account of their noisy dog and frequent telephone calls to his house about their dog, I have become sort of friends with one of these youth. When I first met him he was still in middle school, but he is now a kôkô-ichi-nen-sei (first year high schooler) struggling to pass his English exams. Recently I offered that he come to my home when he has a question about English. He has yet to take up my offer. It appears that his parents have forbidden him. Instead he watches US produced videos, when he is alone at home, and I sometimes hear his parents talking with their friends about the English language in Japanese through my window. Are his parents the special aunt with a secret recipe? Probably not. I have never been invited to my neighbor's house. In fact I have never been invited to the houses of any of my neighbors. Once someone did invite me to leave the neighborhood, however. Perhaps this latter individual was disturbed by the fact that I have a lock on my mailbox so that I can obtain and pay my utility bills on time. Maybe he was bothered that I asked the landlord to place a trash bin near our mail boxes, so as to reduce the litter that necessarily resulted. Maybe he heard that I took an entire packet of pinku-chirashi (pornographic junk mail) accumulated over several months to our local "police box" (a small local police outpost) and asked that the officer initiate an inquiry with regard to their distribution. Or maybe, it was because I complained to our local government office that construction workers in our neighborhood were abusing sound pollution codes and working past legally prescribed construction hours. Is it that neighborhood activists are frowned upon in my community? Certainly there is no dearth of political campaign posters at election time.
Of course not wanting to talk to someone, or not inviting them into your house is hardly justification for calling someone greedy or arrogant. A greedy person is someone who takes from others and gives nothing in return, and an arrogant person is someone who is forever looking down on everyone around him. If this is the impression of Japanese that many foreigners are receiving, then maybe we should be asking ourselves from whence this impression comes, and more importantly why it is that so many Japanese are blind to it?
Many Japanese would have foreigners believe that it is they who are at fault for their own misunderstanding about Japanese society. According to these Japanese, foreigners are simply not trying hard enough. In contrast, other Japanese complain that Japanese society suffers from important psychological complexes that are difficult to overcome. These and other Japanese enjoy reading and listening to what foreigners have to say about Japan. This suggests either that many Japanese like others to talk about them, or that Japanese do not know Japan nearly so well, as many other Japanese claim they do. Since many Japanese complain that they do not have the opportunity to go abroad, this would certainly explain some of the interest in reading and listening to foreign commentary on Japanese society. Of course, listening to others talk about you, gives you insight about your own projected image and thus the opportunity to manipulate it in your favor. Knowledge and capital often move together, and the Japanese economy is the second largest in the world.
22 The English term "bye-bye" and the Japanese term bai-bai (売買) sound identical in pronunciation, but their meaning is very different. Whereas the first means good-bye, the second means buy-and-sell. Thus, when a Japanese says (bye-bye/bai-bai) to another, either of two thoughts could be passing through his mind, that of an English salutation, or that of commercial chant. (text)
23 The term gaijin (外人) is an abbreviation for gaikoku-jin (外国人) and means foreigner. The abbreviation may have originated from the the mark gai (外) found on the license plates of vehicles driven by foreign diplomats stationed in Tôkyô. Diplomatic status entitles one to special privileges, and calling all foreigners in Japan gaijin is therefore a somewhat derogatory remark. (text)
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