A recent voyage

Recently I travelled to Japan. It took a lot of time and effort to plan the trip – six months in fact. I can honestly say it was worth it. I’ll be writing a bit more about it in the near future; I mostly just need to get all my thoughts together.

I did a lot of research prior to visiting and with my partner having lived in Japan for nearly a year, I got to learn a lot from their perspective as well. I tried to learn as much as I could about how to get around, the types of things that there are to do, as well as learn something about the general culture there.

I learned that like many Asian cultures, in Japan the rules tend to be strict with little room for alternative interpretation. But I also learned that the Japanese are very risk averse. Let me tell you my perspective from having visited Japan, and maybe you’ll agree with the interpretation.

Avoiding conflict

Was it good?

In very few places (in fact I can’t remember any) did they ask me what I thought of the food I was served. Obviously being in Japan the food was amazing everywhere I went (except for this one place, but that’s a story for later). I made sure to let the chef or server know how much I enjoyed the food but absent of that I was never asked my opinion on the food itself.

I suppose that this might be one of the ways that they avoid the conflict of having someone say the food wasn’t so good. By not asking, you don’t take the risk of receiving bad feedback and therefore won’t have to defend the food. Though it could also simply be that they let the food and your reaction speak for themselves. It could even be that they know their food is good for simply having practiced for years and years.

You can’t do that!

When I was in the metro in Tokyo, during rush hour or in particularly busy stations, there would be a metro worker standing near the platform barriers that would prevent folks from falling on the tracks. When the station is particularly busy, the fact that there’s little space to manoeuvre makes it prone to that happening. This person, by my interpretation, is usually responsible for two things. Making sure that:

• Folks don’t lean on the barriers and inevitably fall when they open
• Nobody is in the way of the train doors and barriers to prevent people from getting stuck

This has the benefit of helping increase public safety and reduce potential for injuries. It also ensures that the trains continue to move from station to station as efficiently and trouble-free as possible. Any injury or malfunction of the train due to tampering (intentional or otherwise) would compromise the reliability and reputation of the public transport system, causing delays that would cascade across the network.

One time, when someone had decided to lean on the barrier, one of the aforementioned metro workers bolted down the station platform. When he got to the person, I could barely hear anything coming from them, despite them standing not two meters away and not a train was in sight to make a sound. The worker bowed at least three times and from what I could tell, there was at least two sumimasens (apologies) from each of them.

It was almost like the worker was apologizing for telling the person the rules when they were plainly stated on the exact barrier that was being leaned on. They say it over the loudspeaker as the train comes in many stations. But yet it was a big enough “risk” to tell someone to follow the rules in this situation.

Eeehhhh…………….

The frustration came when I was asking a service of someone, or rather, asking some flexibility. My memory is a little hazy on the specifics, but I do remember that I was asking that a part of meal be separated rather than be completely combined. For the purposes of demonstration, lets say I wanted my tonkatsu pork to be on a separate plate from my curry.

When I asked my server for this, they hesitated. I wasn’t sure if the person just didn’t understand; I’m in Japan and I was asking in English. So I asked my partner to translate my request into Japanese and they asked on my behalf. The worker seemed to have the same reaction to the translated request.

It was almost a painful situation. The face the server put on was like they were confused and they said “Eeeehhhh………”. So my partner asked if we should use Google Translate and the server said no. I understood the “no” part very clearly but I initially didn’t understand why. My partner held my arm and said something to the effect, “Sorry, we’re not ready to order yet I think.”

After the server left, I was so confused and frankly I was getting annoyed. Was the server being dense? My partner then calmly explained that this is the risk aversion thing that we had read about. “The no’s sometimes come out as hesitation. You’re supposed to read between the lines and see that it’s difficult to express this denial to the customer and let go of your special request.”

Life Support

So instead of straight up telling me no, I was left in this sort of limbo. I wasn’t told yes, but I also wasn’t told no.

Normally I would just ask the server to come back again and explain my request (serve the pork and curry separately) but since I was a guest in their restaurant I acquiesced. I figured it wasn’t worth arguing. What do I know about pork and curry that this chef and server that work at this day after day?

Don’t get me wrong, I was still annoyed that the server just couldn’t tell me “no” and I didn’t understand what kind of risk the server was avoiding. Why was it so important that I read between the lines? I felt like it was so passive aggressive. I also felt, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but in the moment I felt that the server needed to grow a spine and just tell someone no for once.

It wasn’t until watching this video from Dogen that I finally understood what was going on. It’s not that the person was weak or afraid, it’s a behaviour that it culturally reinforced. From a young age they’re taught that “the nail that sticks out gets hammered” down. To speak out or deviate from the norm would be unthinkable. To do this would incur unnecessary risk “to the group”.

To say “no” would be risking a confrontation, yes. But it would also be risking alienating the other people in the restaurant. It would risk the reputation of the restaurant for being a nice place to eat. That risked reputation would also be a long-term risk to the financial wellbeing of those working there. Ultimately, it’s a risk to imbalance the harmony of many interlocking systems.

Conclusion

I know this may sound melodramatic but what’s to be understood here is that Japan houses a collectivist society. Most places outside of Japan are highly individualist. It’s a free for all in which folks often fend for themselves, save for the small niches or communities they’re a part of. It’s easier to take these risks when you’ve been taking them from a young age. You’ve already set up a framework for dealing with being ostracized. In fact in some cultures and communities outside Japan, including some in my hometown of Montréal, celebrate hyperindividualism and laud rebellion.

I don’t have this overarching moral to any of these stories except to not default to thinking someone’s being passive aggressive when they’re avoiding confrontation. Just think to yourself that the best way to deal with the situation is to try and solve a problem before it happens by avoiding it altogether.