Читать книгу Business Guide to Japan - Boye Lafayette De Mente - Страница 8

THE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

THE FIRST KEY to understanding and dealing with Japanese businessmen is keeping in mind that there are two categories of culture—one that is visible and tangible and one that cannot be seen or touched. It is the invisible culture of Japan that sets the Japanese apart from other people and makes their way of doing business different and often difficult for others to understand and follow.

While Japan’s invisible culture has been considerably diluted since the end of World War II in 1945—and continues to change—it remains the primary force in the Japanese political and economic systems.

Cultural differences that continue to distinguish Japanese businessmen from their American and European counterparts are basic and extend across the board, from their values and the nature of their human relationships to how they go about accomplishing things.

The foundation of Japanese beliefs and behavior is bound up in a series of key words that express their philosophy, describe their mind-set, and prescribe the way they do things. The bedrock word in Japanese behavior is amae (ah-my), which refers to an idealized relationship between people—one of absolute trust and benevolence in which no one takes undue advantage of the other and all are united in a philosophical and spiritual bond that transcends the mean and mundane.

The second most important word in the lexicon of the Japanese way is wa (wah), which means “peace and harmony,” and which is both an outgrowth of amae and an essential ingredient for its existence and application. Of course, neither of these principles has ever worked perfectly, but they have been and still are the national ethic of the Japanese.

The whole fabric of Japanese culture that grew out of the philosophies of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism was shaped and colored by the principles of amae and wa, in particular the etiquette and ethics of interpersonal relationships from the highest authority down to the lowest laborer. These relationships, and their psychological offspring, are what give the Japanese business system its form and much of its essence.

Other factors that have played primary roles in the molding of the Japanese character and greatly influenced the Japanese attitude toward foreigners and the way they conduct business are the small size of their homeland, its relative isolation from the rest of the world during most of their history, their racial homogeneity, their deeply held belief of the superiority of their way of wa, and—until recently—their view of the outside world as an enemy to be kept at bay at all costs.

With the forced opening of Japan to the West by the United States in the 1850s, the national character of the Japanese was made even more complex by the rapid development of an inferiority complex brought on by their sudden exposure to the material wealth and power of Western countries, which had been transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

This new psychological factor intermingled with the rest of their invisible cultural heritage, giving the Japanese a kind of split personality— strong feelings of superiority on one hand and equally strong feelings of inferiority on the other hand. This combination of feelings was to have a profound influence on the subsequent history of the Japanese and continues today to affect all of their attitudes and behavior toward foreigners, in personal as well as business relationships.

While there are a growing number of Japanese who have been internationalized to the point that they can think like, talk like, and behave like Westerners, they are still the exception, and when dealing with fellow Japanese, they must submerge their “international self ” and conform to the all-encompassing “Japanese way”—or find themselves even more isolated and often at as great a disadvantage as many Westerners who have chosen to live and work in Japan. While amae and wa are no longer absolute values, they remain the philosophical and ethical foundations of Japanese conduct.

Probably the second most important key in dealing effectively with the Japanese is an understanding of the emotional factor in their makeup.