The Land od the Rising Yen

as
quaint and exotic — remember that you are quainter and more exotic yourself.
Approach everybody with kindness and the respect due to every other person, and
never mind on which side the gold in that gold-and-silver cord ends up. All will
be perfectly all right. (If you feel that you must bow sitting on the
floor, as I certainly did — practise it when alone.)
     
    The exquisite manners of the Japanese
can be exasperating. First of all, they slow everything down. In principle I
have the highest admiration for a man who refuses to hurry. Our dependence on
the clock is regrettable and the notion that ‘time is money’ is repulsive; time
is much more precious than money, so it ought to be squandered. Nevertheless,
whether we like it or not, we Westerners are the children of a rushing and
scrambling urban civilization and we are, at times, slightly irritated by the
Japanese habit of beating about the bush and avoiding the point with the utmost
care. More and more Japanese accept Western ways and are resigned to raising
the point when it seems to be inevitable. But do not hurry them; this is one of
the things you have to accept as one accepts the weather. It is elementary
politeness to waste other people’s time as well as your own.
     
    The air-conditioning in our hotel
room went wrong every day, so that the room was either unbearably hot or was
suddenly turned into a refrigerator, nay a deep freeze. Every day we asked the
clerk at the front desk to have it repaired. Every other day our request was
noted with exquisite courtesy, then ignored. But every other-other day a little
man appeared with portable steps and a torch. He came in, bowed deeply and
smiled. Then he ascended the steps, switched on his torch and flashed it around
the grille. He came down, smiled, bowed, picked up his steps and departed.
    Next day I would go to the front
desk, smile, bow and complain again, telling them that we were melting or
freezing. This complaint stigmatized me as a boorish and hopelessly
ill-mannered gaijin. Had not the man been ? It was quite
immaterial — from the point of view of a higher, oriental philosophy — whether
he had mended the air-conditioning or not. His appearance clearly proved that
My first complaint had been accepted, looked into, treated with respect — so what
more did I want?
     
    The art of saying ‘no’ is not one of
the great Japanese arts. I shall never learn it myself and in this respect I am
closely akin to the Japanese. To say a plain ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is not the best of
manners in Britain either: it is much nicer to be vague and incoherent, not to know anything, not to be too decisive. In Japan ‘no’ is definitely a rude word, to
be avoided or, in the case of utmost emergency, paraphrased.
    More often than not they simply use
‘yes’ for ‘no’. Well, it is one way of solving the problem. ‘Did you mean
this?’ you ask someone who meant the exact opposite. ‘Yes,’ he will reply
politely. ‘Or did you mean that?’ The answer again is: ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do I have two heads?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Or three?’
    ‘Yes.’ World Wars have started
because of smaller misunderstandings.
    If you ask a Japanese a question he
does not understand, he will smile politely, because pointing out that he has
failed to understand might imply that you expressed yourself obscurely; if you
ask him a question which he understands perfectly but which happens to be
embarrassing, he will also smile politely. In other words, if he doesn’t
understand you he will act as if he did; if he does understand you he will act
as if he didn’t.
    Every instruction is accepted with a
polite bow and a ‘yes’. ‘If Mr So-and-so calls please tell him to go without
delay to the Office of Weights and Measures.’ Bow, ‘yes’. ‘Please send this
letter by special messenger to the Guatemalan Embassy.’ Nod and ‘yes’. Whether
the person addressed understood you or not remains a secret. For a time, at any
rate.
     
    A further confusion is possible based
on linguistic differences: not a matter of misunderstanding the actual words,
but of wording the same ideas differently. Never ask a Japanese a negative
question. If you ask him: ‘Aren’t you bored stiff with me?’ he or she — the
most courteous person on the earth — will answer with a firm and unhesitating
‘yes’. Meaning ‘no’. His ‘yes’ does not mean at all that he is bored, or
that he is prepared to admit it. It only means that he always