In today's The Daily Yomiuri's Cultural Conundrums column, "When the zoo rules"-Kate Elwood takes on the different cultural attitudes about what is fair and not according to Japanese and Americans. She is basically suggesting that the Japanese are more sensitive to others when they do something that might be construed as unfair, and I second her opinion, which she illustrates quite nicely here:
Most of us in time grow up, and realize that the world does not in fact rotate according to our whims and fancies. Assertions of unfairness diminish. Zurui, on the other hand, continues to play a role in daily conversation, although the allegation of zurui-ness becomes, it seems to me, less focused on the speaker's personal inclinations and instead addresses the violation of an unspoken social rule. Of course, the two may often overlap. To give an example, when I asked a Japanese student to describe a classic zurui situation, she mentioned someone going into a refrigerator and eating the last piece of cake without checking to see whether anyone else was planning on consuming it later. When I shared her observation with other Japanese people, everyone smiled at the aptness of the example and agreed that it would indeed be zurui.In this case, part of the zurui claim may stem from rue at the loss of the chance for a final nibble, but from what I gather, the situation is also zurui in and of itself even if no one else had any designs on the dessert. It is zurui because it violates the largely implicit social norm of "Don't finish off something without checking if it's OK first."
This is a polite thing to do in the United States as well, but generally it is less likely to provoke contentions of unfairness if left unperformed. The onus could be seen to be equally on the other person to stake a claim to the dessert in advance.
The leftover cake situation reminded me of an episode from the third season of the popular long-running NBC TV show Friends. In it, the character Chandler twice leaves his seat temporarily and has it taken by someone else. Each time it occurs, it infringes on his sense of propriety, since he had, as he argues, remained in the "chair area."
But the chair snatchers, Joey and Prof. Whitman, appear to genuinely feel they had not been pulling a fast one by taking the seat after Chandler got up. To them, Chandler's declaration is ludicrous and rather pathetic. The audience probably sympathizes with Chandler's sense of outrage but at the same time laughs at the whining schnook. You leave the seat, you run the risk of being unseated, end of story. Nothing zurui about that to many Americans, although I have a feeling more Japanese viewers might side with the displaced Chandler.
There can only be the concept of a zoo if there is a non-zoo. And the non-zoo aspect of society, comprising various small social niceties, thrives in Japan. I remember once going with a friend to an okonomiyaki restaurant in Shinjuku. It was in one of those tall narrow buildings that have a different business on each floor--drugstore, rental DVD shop, tax accounting firm, dentist, okonomiyaki and so on. To get to each floor there was a teensy-weensy elevator at the back of the first floor. Right after my friend and I got on, two quite rough-looking young men suddenly got on as well, appearing to be bound for the same restaurant.
I wasn't scared exactly, but it was a cozy fit with people I did not feel particularly comfortable with. Notwithstanding the tense atmosphere, we soon reached the right floor and to my surprise, one of the men held the button to keep the door open and gestured for us to get off first. That kind of ingrained consideration is a wonderful thing about Japan, and it's perhaps why Japanese people are likely to be more affronted when it's lacking and draw attention to it with the Z-word.
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