日本人は『イエス』と『ノー』をハッキリ言わないことで世界的に有名。日本人に接触する欧米人の最初のとまどいは、この日本人の曖昧さ。そして日本では意見の違いが友情の終わりとなる。
「調和主義と戦国主義」は易しい英語で書かれているので、ぜひ読んでみて欲しい。

PART TWO:
How do we achieve and maintain harmony? (2)

By Shun Daichi

3. Never Say "No"

Some people say the Japanese never say "Yes" or "No" clearly. Actually what happens is that we always try not to say "No" to anyone. It is very hard for the Japanese to say “No”, because of Harmonism.

"Please have some…… "

“…………….”

"Aren't you hungry?"

“……………”

The principal of an English-teaching school had invited several high school students to his home for tea. Sandwiches and cookies were placed in front of the young students.

"Why don't you have some?"

“……………”

Then the principal took the tray away from the students. And later complained to me, "we prepared very special sandwiches which took all morning to do, but no one wanted them!"

He was almost angry. He didn't know about Harmonism and was very disappointed.

The students kept a straight face and no one complained when the nice looking food was taken away. However, all of the students actually wanted to try the food very much.

What happened there was that the Japanese students wanted to be polite and also wanted to make sure that they would not upset the principal.

They were especially cautious in not grabbing the food because it was the first time for them to be invited to an American family, and they were not sure of what to do.

The principal was also a little too impatient. If had he asked once more or waited a little more, then all the food would have been taken and disappeared quickly because those students were, as a matter of fact quite hungry.

We Japanese are usually very cautious in saying "yes" or "No". Especially when saying "No" to anyone we are over cautious. If we have a valid reason to say "No" then we may say so; however, if we do not have a valid reason, then we put a lot of effort to saying "No " without hurting the other person's feelings in order to maintain peace and harmony with others.

There was a home party held to welcome a Japanese mayor of Sanda City at the city of Blue Mountains in Australia and I was invited to attend the party.

At the party the mayor was asked by several local Australian government officials to sing a song of Sanda City.

"Please sing Mr. Mayor …… Please!"

"Don't force me…… I am not a good singer”.

“Never mind, we know you can sing"

“……I can't…”

"Let ' s start the music"

" . . . . by the way. . . . Is there a song of the Blue Mountains?"

He was trying unsuccessfully to change the subject of the talk.

Everyone was drinking. And soon some other people shouted. "Mr. Mayor. . . . sing a song please. . . "

The mayor kept smiling and smiling and left quietly for the men's room. Then he went to another room.

He never said "no" to the Australian host but just kept smiling and smiling and finally disappeared.

You might think this attitude is crafty but the Japanese hate to say "no" to anyone, because "no" means disagreement and disagreement means disharmony.

So now you understand my attitude when I was asked by the consultants to work together to defraud the American company.

"Differences in opinions tend to end friendships in Japan." This is what Mr. Akio Morita, Chairman of Sony Corp. once said. And this is quite true in the society of the Harmonism.

Why differences in opinions tend to end friendships in Japan? It is because we hardly say "no" to anyone clearly and if once it is said clearly it means a lot more than just saying "no." It implies that you are angry or dislike the other person, and so on.

We usually never say "no" to anyone, so once it is said, then people take it very seriously and are often offended. That is why we are very reluctant to say "no" clearly.

There may be another reason for ending the friendship. As I said before, in our society Civil Warism is stronger and human relations under this Civil Warism have only three aspects. You are either an ally, an enemy or neutral. A friend is an ally but once they do not agree, then they become enemies.

Mr. Morita is a Japanese therefore he cannot bluntly say "No" to anyone without risking the friendship. However, we are tolerant towards foreigners saying "No" clearly and directly because we know that foreigners have different principles and culture. At the same time, some Japanese might say "No" clearly to you if they knew you had a different value system.

(To be continued)