One of the things i like best about Kate Elwood's column, Cultural Conundrums, is that she is excellent at identifying cultural differences between Japanese and Americans, explaining the differences, and then finding a study that exposes these differences. In the latest she identifies the differences related to personal privacy:
There is no traditional Japanese word for privacy, and as a result, the English word is used to refer to it. Because of this, people sometimes suggest that the concept privacy did not exist in Japan traditionally. However, as ethics scholars Masahiko Mizutani, James Dorsey and James Moor demonstrate, the notion of privacy has long existed in Japan. The researchers give a nice example of the use of shimenawa, Ta straw rope used in Shinto shrines to designate sacred, and therefore private, areas. Physically it was possible to walk through, but the rope was respected as a symbolic indication of an area that should not be entered. Additionally, there are Japanese words such as himitsu (secret) that correspond to types of privacy. Mizutani, Dorsey and Moor further assert that most, and perhaps all, of the six senses of privacy listed in the Oxford English Dictionary can be expressed in traditional Japanese words. There just wasn't one nifty word to cover it all.
Privacy in the form of the "right to be left alone" is clearly practiced in Japan. But on top of this, from an American perspective it can sometimes seem as if personal privacy is closely guarded through a practice of nondisclosure of any nonessential information. Some years ago, an American man, who I'll call Andy, and I worked together with a Japanese man, let's call him Takeda-sensei, on a project for three years. About halfway through the second year, Takeda-sensei casually mentioned that his wife had had a baby. His announcement was so low-key that I almost missed it, and when my American colleague realized it, he was more than surprised; he was hurt and angry.
I've clearly noticed this concept where people I've known a long or worked closely with haven't disclsoed essential information about their families or other important details. And like Elwood mentions at the endof her piece, perhaps I've become less forthcoming living in this culture as long as I have. She goes onto to explain why it is more difficult for Jpaanese to know when ot disclose this kind of information:
We had met with Takeda-sensei once a week for more than a year and had worked together closely during those sessions. Andy couldn't believe that the man had never once mentioned his wife was pregnant. He viewed the concealment of such a major life event as a slap in the face of the friendship he had supposed he had shared with our Japanese coworker.
But while the onus is strong in American friendships to notify others of important life events, the relative flimsiness of this burden in Japan can conversely make it difficult for Japanese people to know when exactly to bring up such matters. Many Japanese people have told me that they were not averse to some personal details being known by friends, but they just didn't find the right timing for the announcement. The equivalent of "Guess what?"--Ne, ne!--is only used in very close relationships. Many instead wait for the "Jitsu wa... (Actually...)" moment: a question, often innocuous, asked of them for which truthfulness demands revelation.
Important life events aside, the amount of information that may be shared by both American men and women in the process of making friends can be surprising to those accustomed to the Japanese minimalist approach. Virtually any event that might have had an impact in making the person they are today is potential fodder for the life report. Those who refrain from any soul-baring may be viewed as not fully engaging in the friendship.
Behavioral scientists Joanna Schug, Masaki Yuki and William Maddux suggest that "relational mobility" is a key factor in determining the role of self-disclosure in strengthening personal relationships. The researchers administered questionnaires to Japanese and American university students that asked things like how likely it was that they would reveal certain types of personal information to their best friend or closest family member, and to evaluate statements like "People like me when I trust them enough to tell them about my personal problems." At the same time, they investigated relational mobility by asking the students to assess the opportunities for people in their immediate society to get to know other people and choose who to interact with. In this way, relational mobility means the degree to which people are able to move on when a friendship does not feel satisfying.
Schug and her colleagues found that self-disclosure was higher among the American students than among the Japanese students but also that within each culture it was closely linked to relational mobility. That is, even among the Japanese students there was a higher level of self-disclosure in social contexts in which people had many chances to meet new people and form new friendships. Sharing private information appears to serve as an important way in either culture to strengthen bonds when friends may easily take up with a new buddy. According to Schug and her colleagues' research, American students generally have more relational mobility and this motivates them to engage in more self-disclosure to bolster friendships that are important to them. When Japanese students are in similar circumstances of relational mobility, they do the same thing. The researchers further posit the idea that in situations with less relational mobility, when there is not a need to tell others about private details in order to strengthen a friendship, people may actually refrain from soul-baring in order not to risk damaging the existing relationship.
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