‘They’ Know Best
Having been in Japan for about half a year now, we have found many things to be interesting and different from the US. Some things have been easily apparent – everyone having dark hair and brown eyes, bowing often, smaller meal portions, cars driving slower, etc. Some things, however, have surfaced only after a lot of interaction and some intentional reflection. One such thing has been who decides the best course of action for people in a given situation. You might assume that it is similar to the west. Everyone here has the same basic freedoms that are the bedrock of western society. So everyone probably just makes their own decisions, right? While that is true, people here in Japan have a lot more rules and / or expectations influencing or precluding their decision making process. Let me give you a few examples from our experiences here thus far.
The first occurred on the last day of our craft class. The ladies of the class decided that they were all going to order obento (box lunches, but much nicer than the typical American ham sandwich and chips). They passed around a menu so we could choose what kind of obento we wanted to order. We noticed this thing which was a rice patty topped with meat and wrapped in nori seaweed. I think the menu called it a rice sandwich. I was something we hadn’t tried yet (we’ve tried a lot of things) and was reasonably priced to boot and so we decided to order it. After everyone decided what they wanted, two of the ladies went to pick up the meals and bring them back to the class. When the food was passed out, different obentos were put in front of us than what we ordered. We got a clue that this wasn’t a mistake when we were told that the ladies in the class had decided to pay for our lunch and then noticed our two rice sandwiches being eaten by a couple of the other ladies. Our teacher explained to us that even though we hadn’t ordered these obentos, the ladies in the group felt that we should try them because they contained samples of traditional Japanese foods. Since we were new in Japan, they reasoned, we ought to experience what they were like. We smiled and thanked her and the other ladies for their thoughtfulness. We didn’t have the heart to tell them that we already knew we liked them because we had already eaten them before.
The second experience was when Colby and a fellow Christar worker who was visiting from Russia went swimming at the local pool. They had been swimming for a little while when they heard an announcement over the loud speaker and saw everyone get out of the pool. They wisely figured they ought to do the same. (Even if you don’t completely understand what is said, it is usually safe to just follow along with everyone else.) While they were sitting there, our friend from Russia started trying to talk with one of the lifeguards. He wanted to know why everyone had to get out. Between the lifeguard’s basic English and Colby’s basic Japanese, they were able to figure out that there was a rule that, for ten minutes every hour, everyone needed to get out of the pool and sit on the side in order to rest. Otherwise, the lifeguard explained, you run the risk of becoming fatigued from swimming too much and could drown. Therefore, it was reasoned that it was best for everyone to get out for a certain amount of time and rest for their own protection. Our friend from Russia (who swims for 30 minutes continuously each day) ended up having to plan to arrive at the pool between 5 and 25 minutes after the hour each day if he wanted to have a solid 30 minutes of swimming.
The last example of this comes from a fan we bought recently for our bedroom. The first night we had it, we turned it on before we went to bed. The next morning when we got up, we were perplexed to find that it was turned off. We concluded that we had unintentionally put it on timer mode instead of on continuous run. That night, we made sure not to turn the timer on, but still somehow the next morning the fan was off. We were at a loss and immediately began to blame each other for getting up, half asleep, in the middle of the night and turning it off. One day, two weeks later, Colby was sitting at the kitchen table doing his Japanese homework and noticed a sticker on the fan that up until now we had both ignored. After a little translation exercise, we came to understand why the fan was turning itself off. The manufacturer decided that, in order to protect consumers from accidentally leaving the fan on for too long, they were going program the fan to shut itself off after six hours regardless of what setting you had it on. As far as we can tell, there is no way to turn this feature off. Even though we appreciate their concern, waking up all sweaty in the middle of the night because the fan turned itself off was not fun and so we decided to put this one in the living room and use an older one we were given (which stays on indefinitely) in the bedroom.
Here in Japan, people are not so concerned with their freedoms and their own right to choose and are often happy to have someone who would seem to know better make a choice that is in their best interest. In none of the situations above was our right to choose being usurped (contrary to what we Americans might think), but rather the people involved were genuinely trying to make a choice in our best interest. It has been fascinating to learn about the thought patterns and perspectives of the Japanese. It does take some getting used to, but we are learning to adjust.
This is one reason why church planting can be difficult here. The Japanese are often reticent to get involved in the decision making process, preferring to let the American missionary or the Japanese pastor (who, they reason, have all the training) make the decisions. Please continue to pray for us as we process through the differences here and seek to live and minister in a way that is appropriate and effective.