Cultural Conundrums / Hitting the nail on the head
Kate Elwood Special to The Daily Yomiuri
I am always interested in the images Americans have of Japan and so I read novels by U.S. writers that take place in this fine country when I come across them. As I read them, however, I often find myself thinking, "Yes, but..." or once in a while, "No way!" But it's certainly not an easy task to capture the spirit of another culture and I try to take an attitude that focuses on what I can learn about U.S. views rather than simply indulge in indignation at skewed representations. Conscientious writers rarely get it totally wrong, and the gap between the image they create and reality as I perceive it provides me with food for thought.
Recently I read a book for young American adults in which a group of high school students take a trip to Japan in the summer. In the book, the well-meaning writer rather haphazardly throws in detail after detail of life in Tokyo as the students go sightseeing and stay with host families: the bumps on train platforms and the music at intersections to help visually impaired people to walk safely, summer homework and cram schools, vending machines that sell liquor and the unappetizingly named Pocari Sweat, the ochugen summer gift-giving season, goldfish scoops, plastic models of food in front of restaurants, elevator ladies, Western-style toilets with electrically warmed seats and Japanese-style toilets, a choice of flush strengths, and much more. Whew!
Then there are chapters in the novel that are built around episodes that seem, umm, rather far-fetched. The teenagers grapple with a yakuza who is missing his little finger at a pachinko parlor. In another chapter, one of them is apparently seriously eval!uated as a candidate as an adopted son-in-law for a family with no sons. The host mother of the same young man calmly walks in as he is bathing, which is presented as a normal action. Hmm... These American visitors certainly have more strange adventures in a few days than I have had in more than 20 years!
And then, near the end of the novel, there was the good old nail. You know the one. The one that sticks up and then gets hammered down. The one that foreigners frequently talk about. In the novel a Japanese high school student named Haruko shows two American students how she types text messages on her cell phone and when asked why she doesn't simply call and talk to her friends, she says that everyone types messages. When further questioned about what happens when someone wants to be different she explains that there is a Japanese saying that the nail that sticks up is the one that gets pounded down.
The way this ｅxpression! always seems to pop up when the talk turns to Japan reminds me of how people talk about the Eskimos' 50 words for snow. They're not completely equivalent because the snow vocabulary figure has been proven to be unsupported. on the other hand, the Japanese nail saying does exist. But both appear very popular as overused types of mysterious shorthand about foreign cultures.
The Japanese saying is rarely quoted by Japanese except perhaps when talking about Japanese culture with a foreign person, but all know it. Perhaps it's not necessary to speak of it because it is so embedded as a type of behavior!al cautionary advice. It's interesting that, on the other hand, it is quite common in English to give voice to similar types of warnings and guidance such as "Don't make waves," "Don't rock the boat" and "You have to go along to get along" maybe because there are those who would take things too far and, like the Japanese, also get pounded down if not for the recommendation to give up striking out too much on their own on the part of concerned friends.
I asked some Japanese high school students what they thought of the character Haruko's use of the nail saying to suggest that if other students preferred text messaging it was better not to stand out by calling. They appeared to find the application of the saying in this context amusing. Text messaging is simply cheaper, quieter in public places, and less intrusive, as the person you are trying to contact may be busy at the particular moment you wish to get in touch. It's certainly not taboo to phone someone, just less common, and students are hardly hammered down for such incidental differences in communication methods.
Interestingly, the young Japanese students I've had opportunities to meet and talk to have been rather harsh in the other direction. They speak quite disparagingly regarding people who copy another's choice in fashion or style. Even in various small things like pencil cases or commuter pass cases, this kind of imitation, known as "pakuri," is a definite no-no. on the other hand, of course, nothing too outlandish is well eval!uated, either. But there is quite a bit of leeway for finding your own way, and in any school there are a variety of types of children, just as in U.S. schools.
When I was a girl in the 1970s at a school outside of Boston I remember one incident of non-conformity well. Our eighth-grade social studies teacher, Miss Mellor, was trying to make a point, I guess, about gender differences. She asked each girl and boy in the class to give their opinion about what they thought was the most import!ant attribute for people of their sex to possess. Boy after boy answered "muscles" and girl after girl answered "good looks."
Until a girl who I'll call Karen was called on. Karen's mother was something of an intellectual feminist and it may have been because of this that Karen, instead of saying "good looks" responded "a sense of individuality." It took months for poor Karen to live it down, as boys would snicker when she walked past and in mincing, pseudo-Karen voices say, "I think individuality is import!ant." I don't think it was Miss Mellor's intended lesson, but watching what Karen went through I learned that avoiding divergence from the norm was a very import!ant thing indeed in eighth grade.
In Japan there's usually a middle way between excessively sticking out and complete conventionality if conformity doesn't work for whatever reason. This notion really came home to me some years ago when my friend's son, who I'll call Kosuke, was 5 years old. Even at such a young age, boys are boys and girls are girls. Except Kosuke was a rather un-boyish boy, and both he and those around him were beginning to realize he didn't really fit in. The children at the kindergarten Kosuke attended were creating a play. It was a rather simple plot--two groups of boys would scuffle and hold war and rescue the girls. So how would Kosuke deal with the role choices on offer?
Kosuke opted to become a cat, mewling on the sidelines of the battle. He was a mighty fine cat and that was that. The nail that sticks way up might get hammered down occasionally, but those that stick out just a bit tend to simply snag the attention now and then.
Elwood is an associate professor of English at Waseda University's School of Commerce. She is the author of "Getting Along with the Japanese" (Ask, 2001).
(Sep. 4, 2007)
Kate Elwood Special to The Daily Yomiuri
I am always interested in the images Americans have of Japan and so I read novels by U.S. writers that take place in this fine country when I come across them. As I read them, however, I often find myself thinking, "Yes, but..." or once in a while, "No way!" But it's certainly not an easy task to capture the spirit of another culture and I try to take an attitude that focuses on what I can learn about U.S. views rather than simply indulge in indignation at skewed representations. Conscientious writers rarely get it totally wrong, and the gap between the image they create and reality as I perceive it provides me with food for thought.
Recently I read a book for young American adults in which a group of high school students take a trip to Japan in the summer. In the book, the well-meaning writer rather haphazardly throws in detail after detail of life in Tokyo as the students go sightseeing and stay with host families: the bumps on train platforms and the music at intersections to help visually impaired people to walk safely, summer homework and cram schools, vending machines that sell liquor and the unappetizingly named Pocari Sweat, the ochugen summer gift-giving season, goldfish scoops, plastic models of food in front of restaurants, elevator ladies, Western-style toilets with electrically warmed seats and Japanese-style toilets, a choice of flush strengths, and much more. Whew!
Then there are chapters in the novel that are built around episodes that seem, umm, rather far-fetched. The teenagers grapple with a yakuza who is missing his little finger at a pachinko parlor. In another chapter, one of them is apparently seriously eval!uated as a candidate as an adopted son-in-law for a family with no sons. The host mother of the same young man calmly walks in as he is bathing, which is presented as a normal action. Hmm... These American visitors certainly have more strange adventures in a few days than I have had in more than 20 years!
And then, near the end of the novel, there was the good old nail. You know the one. The one that sticks up and then gets hammered down. The one that foreigners frequently talk about. In the novel a Japanese high school student named Haruko shows two American students how she types text messages on her cell phone and when asked why she doesn't simply call and talk to her friends, she says that everyone types messages. When further questioned about what happens when someone wants to be different she explains that there is a Japanese saying that the nail that sticks up is the one that gets pounded down.
The way this ｅxpression! always seems to pop up when the talk turns to Japan reminds me of how people talk about the Eskimos' 50 words for snow. They're not completely equivalent because the snow vocabulary figure has been proven to be unsupported. on the other hand, the Japanese nail saying does exist. But both appear very popular as overused types of mysterious shorthand about foreign cultures.
The Japanese saying is rarely quoted by Japanese except perhaps when talking about Japanese culture with a foreign person, but all know it. Perhaps it's not necessary to speak of it because it is so embedded as a type of behavior!al cautionary advice. It's interesting that, on the other hand, it is quite common in English to give voice to similar types of warnings and guidance such as "Don't make waves," "Don't rock the boat" and "You have to go along to get along" maybe because there are those who would take things too far and, like the Japanese, also get pounded down if not for the recommendation to give up striking out too much on their own on the part of concerned friends.
I asked some Japanese high school students what they thought of the character Haruko's use of the nail saying to suggest that if other students preferred text messaging it was better not to stand out by calling. They appeared to find the application of the saying in this context amusing. Text messaging is simply cheaper, quieter in public places, and less intrusive, as the person you are trying to contact may be busy at the particular moment you wish to get in touch. It's certainly not taboo to phone someone, just less common, and students are hardly hammered down for such incidental differences in communication methods.
Interestingly, the young Japanese students I've had opportunities to meet and talk to have been rather harsh in the other direction. They speak quite disparagingly regarding people who copy another's choice in fashion or style. Even in various small things like pencil cases or commuter pass cases, this kind of imitation, known as "pakuri," is a definite no-no. on the other hand, of course, nothing too outlandish is well eval!uated, either. But there is quite a bit of leeway for finding your own way, and in any school there are a variety of types of children, just as in U.S. schools.
When I was a girl in the 1970s at a school outside of Boston I remember one incident of non-conformity well. Our eighth-grade social studies teacher, Miss Mellor, was trying to make a point, I guess, about gender differences. She asked each girl and boy in the class to give their opinion about what they thought was the most import!ant attribute for people of their sex to possess. Boy after boy answered "muscles" and girl after girl answered "good looks."
Until a girl who I'll call Karen was called on. Karen's mother was something of an intellectual feminist and it may have been because of this that Karen, instead of saying "good looks" responded "a sense of individuality." It took months for poor Karen to live it down, as boys would snicker when she walked past and in mincing, pseudo-Karen voices say, "I think individuality is import!ant." I don't think it was Miss Mellor's intended lesson, but watching what Karen went through I learned that avoiding divergence from the norm was a very import!ant thing indeed in eighth grade.
In Japan there's usually a middle way between excessively sticking out and complete conventionality if conformity doesn't work for whatever reason. This notion really came home to me some years ago when my friend's son, who I'll call Kosuke, was 5 years old. Even at such a young age, boys are boys and girls are girls. Except Kosuke was a rather un-boyish boy, and both he and those around him were beginning to realize he didn't really fit in. The children at the kindergarten Kosuke attended were creating a play. It was a rather simple plot--two groups of boys would scuffle and hold war and rescue the girls. So how would Kosuke deal with the role choices on offer?
Kosuke opted to become a cat, mewling on the sidelines of the battle. He was a mighty fine cat and that was that. The nail that sticks way up might get hammered down occasionally, but those that stick out just a bit tend to simply snag the attention now and then.
Elwood is an associate professor of English at Waseda University's School of Commerce. She is the author of "Getting Along with the Japanese" (Ask, 2001).
(Sep. 4, 2007)