From: mtachiba@rkna50.riken.go.jp (Masahiko Tachibana)
Subject: Re: There's-only-one-Truth-ism?
Followup-To: fj.misc
Organization: Institute of Physical & Chemical Research (RIKEN) Saitama,Japan
            <2180@aegis.or.jp> <1992Jul28.122517.15954@rkna50.riken.go.jp>
            <2189@aegis.or.jp>
Distribution: fj
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:31:59 GMT


In article <2189@aegis.or.jp> davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:

>I wrote:
>>    Sorry, I am a new-comer to unix and the net-news system.  I got
>>a mistake and I had to post the article independently.
Dave writes:
>Hmmm what newsreader are you using? I'm using nn and when I go to
>followup it puts the Newsgroups:, Subject:, Distribution: and
>References: headers in the file I'm editing right now. 

Here at RIKEN, we have Pnews for posting the news, and rn for news-
reader.  One can post follow-up article by rn also.  At that time
I saved Dave's article, overwrote it to prepare my follow-up, and
posted by Pnews.  Pnews asked the Newsgroups: and I think I wrote 
"fj.misc,fj.soc.culture", but the article was posted only to the
latter.  I'm afraid I made a misspelling (e.g. fj.nisc, etc).

 [stuffs deleted]

I wrote:
>>    In Orient, truth tends to come suddenly to one's mind after his 
>>deep thinking inside.  It might be part of the reason why some discussions
>>between those having oriental- and occidental- background end up in
>>a silence with misterious grin of the former, who rely less on words.
Dave writes:
>While this may so in Japan, this hasn't been my experient in the
>"Orient" if by that you include everything east of Istanbul. After
>all, the Buddha was famous for his conversations and he was
>Oriental, wasn't he? At least Nargarjuna says in the Maha-Prajna-
>Paramita-Sastra that the Buddha was a skillful communicator....

    Aha! I'm also in "We Japanese" syndrome or over-generalization without
careful consideration for things other than me-related matters.  And this
time "We Asians" instead of "We Japanese";  it includes bigger false.
    And, as Dave says, I have read the Buddha's great ability in
communication.  I had to notice there's many aspects in Oriental phylo-
sophy, which of course include those based on intuition. 
    By the way, a problem to deal with buddhism in English is that the 
names of people, holy books etc. of buddhism are given as doubly 
translated (Sanscrit -> Chinese -> Japanese) words in modern Japanese.
It's troublesome that I have to consult big encyclopedia to get Japanese 
translation corresponding to Nargarjuna and Maha-Prajna-Paramita-Sastra.
(Same is true for modern Chinese names; How can you imagine that Deng 
Shiao-ping and Toh Shou-hei are the same man?) 
    
Dave wrote:
>>>On the other hand, if they can't answer the questions, there isn't
>>>any sense in trying to have a dialog...
I wrote:
>>    Except when there is `language-barrier' between you and others. 
Dave writes:
>According to what I know about how things work in Japan, this has
>little to do with the so called 'language-barrier'. The phenomena
>happens in both English-English or Japanese-Japanese or other-other
>situations.

    Yes, it does.  I simply wrote that line because I thought there
should be some cases they can't answer the question from `language-
barrier' against their will to have a dialog.  But it is true that
if they have strong will to have a dialog, they may utilize "body-
language" or any other means to prevent the failure of communication.
In that sense, language-barrier is not the main problem, right?

I wrote:
>>    Mr Ishikawa complained that Japanese authorities should try
>>to expand Japanese language eduction course in many countries in
>>order that foreigners would not meet with too much difficulties 
>>when they visit Japan.  (source: fj.news.group)
Dave writes:
>IMHO, this isn't a language education problem but just part of the
>social conventions in Japan. Japan already has a huge amount of
>language education courses (maybe too much!). Actually people
>understand and speak English reasonably well. But if they don't want
>to speak with foreigners that's another story :-)

    Hmm, it's more than my imagination how many times you meet with 
Japanese who reject communication to.   

I wrote:
>>    Someone mentioned (elsewhere in the news) that you declared 
>>you don't understand Japanese language.  Then you must have rich
>>experience in it.  How did you manage to get over the barrier when
>>you ask questions to Japanese people?  And I would like to know why
>>you don't use Japanese, inevitably a best tool for communication in Japan.
>>    For you it should be a FAQ, but this is the first time for me to
>>ask this.  Thanks in advance.
Dave writes:
>Yes, it must seem strange. And it isn't easy to give a short answer.

    [to avoid this article too long, below are excerpts]

>Having already traveled/lived in a number of other countries, when I
>came to Japan I already knew how to get things done without speaking
>very much of the local language. [...]  And since I had
>come to Japan to earn my way and to learn something about how
>English is effectively used, I spent the first two years studying
>and practicing English [...]
>and I came to the conclusion that Japanese may not in fact be
                   ~~~~~~~~~~ !
>the best tool for communcation. That may sound strange, but to get
>the idea of what I'm talking about, ask those you know who speak
>Japanese as a second language how many people they have interesting
>and frutiful conversations with those who are not 1) members of the
>same office/company, or 2) spouse/{girl|boy}friend. When I took this
>informal kind of survey, the answer was none!  And in fact many
>people I met here in the kansai complained that they never could
>have anything more than a polite, on-the-surface tatemae conversation. 

    The people you met in Kansai, you mean they are all foreigners?  
A famous copywrighter/novelist Nakajima Ramo (Kansai-jin) once 
wrote that Kansai-dialect is so sophisticated in not giving bad 
impressions to others (on-the-surface matters, for sure!) that the 
capability of giving information to others are worn down.  This might
be also true for Japanese language as a whole.  
    It's rather depressive conclusion, anyway.  Though I admit it,
I do believe it depends on us native speakers' efforts to improve 
Japanese language as more effective tool for communication.  
    This is part of the reason I am now absorbed in the net-news where
some people are fighting to find the way we make discussions in demo-
cratic manner to reach to effective agreements.  

>So there I was having no problems with my daily life and people
>telling me that even though they spoke Japanese they weren't having
>much of any communication outside their work/family/romantic
>interests. [...]
>Besides, at just about that time I became interested in PC
>communcations as a way of actualizing my main goal, which is to
>communicate with like-minded people all over the world. So instead
>of spending my time learning Japanese, I spent two years writing a
>the first Aegis in N88BASIC and 8086 Assembler for an NEC 9801. [...]
>Now that Aegis-UNIX is up and running (limping some days :-) I'm
>again at a fork in the road. Should I take the time to learn
>Japanese so I can take part in fj.xxxx? Maybe. Should I continue on
>with working with those on Aegis in English? Maybe. Not sure which
>door will open before me.... 

    I understood you refuse on-the-surface accompanying (`otsukiai')
to the Japanese people.  Then, it might be better to go the way you 
are going.  Somebody says the structure of a language affects the
way of thinking, doing things of the user of the language, and I find
it true because I feel like having different personality when I am
thinking in English from when I am thinking in Japanese.  
    Mmmm. This sounds like a `Giving sermon to Buddha'.
    Thank you for your efforts for replying impolite question.

--
 Masahiko Tachibana	          E-mail:  mtachiba@rkna50.riken.go.jp
 Lab. of Organometallic Chemistry,   Tel:  +81-48-462-1111 ext.3513
 The Institute of Physical and       Fax:  +81-48-462-4665
 Chemical Research (RIKEN), Wako-shi, 351-01 Japan.    

Newsgroups: fj.misc,fj.news.group