Читать книгу The Communication Playbook - Teri Kwal Gamble - Страница 196

Because members of Asian cultures practice the principles of omoiyari (listeners need to understand the speaker without the speaker’s being specific or direct) and sassuru (listeners need to use subtle cues to infer a speaker’s meaning), they are apt to keep their feelings to themselves and use language more sparingly and carefully than do Westerners.³⁶ Because Westerners value straight talk, prefer to speak explicitly, and use inductive and deductive reasoning to make points, they may interpret the roundabout expressions of Asians as evasive, manipulative, or misleading. Japanese girls and boys are likely to end their sentences differently. For example, whereas a boy might say, “Samui yo” to declare “It’s cold, I say!” a girl would say, “Samuiwa,” expressing the comment as a gentle question: “It’s cold, don’t you think?” Boys and girls also refer to themselves in different ways with boys often using the word boku, which means “I,” while girls say watashi, which is a politer pronoun that either sex can use. Parents will also tell girls, “Onnanoko nono ni,” which means, “You’re a girl, don’t forget.”

The way parents in Western and Asian cultures handle a request they do not want to grant from a child provides a prime example of the cultural differences in directness. When confronted with such a situation, most U.S. parents would simply say no. In Japan, however, the parent would give reasons for denying the child’s request but will not say no directly.³⁷ Every culture reaches its members using its preferred style. Whereas in the United States we prefer to be upfront and tell it like it is, many Asian cultures stand by the value of indirectness because it helps people save face and avoid being criticized or contradicted in public.