The last few days the history teacher has started to arrive at the same station at the same time so he can walk to school with me. Now we can squeeze in an extra 10-15 minutes of quality time in a day. Yaay! He’s like my English language stalker now.
My classes today were filled with the second half of the presentations that we started a couple of weeks ago. They weren’t quiet as lively (or as violent) as the previous set, but they all did a great job. I need to dream up a project for them to work on during the next term. Any ideas?
I had the chance to spend a couple of hours at school studying, and I worked through a couple of practice exams. I did pretty well – 85% on one, 75% on the other. On Sunday I will have the real thing, so I’m hoping I’m ready for it.
Have I told you how respect seems to work in Japan? Of course, this is just my experience and what I’ve gathered from talking to people both foreign and Japanese in my daily life, but the idea of respect is much different than what I’m familiar with in Western culture.
The way I see it, I’ll give somebody respect when they earn it in my eyes. When I’ve seen something they’ve done or seen evidence of it, I’ll respect them more. In Japan it’s a little different.
As in the west, if you do something well, and you do it with humility, you earn respect from other people. In addition, you can get respect just by being older than someone. Curiously, these two types of respect are weighted nearly the same.
Age is regarded as wisdom in Japanese culture, and the language is designed to be used differently depending on the status of who you are talking to. Status is closely tied to age. The corporate ladder is very closely associated with age. People in Japan have historically worked for the same company their entire lives, although from what I gather this is changing somewhat. As you progress through the years your salary increases based on your years of service rather than on merit.
Being older is useful in that people will treat you with kindness and deference, regard your opinions higher, and generally put you in a positive light. If you are senior to someone else, you will get respect from that person. Even if you are jerk.
An observation I’ve made is that some people take advantage of this “get respect free card” and use it to their advantage. They enjoy the priviledge of respect, without feeling that they have to earn it. This can lead to some uncomfortable situations, but I’m sure that the Japanese have ways of dealing with this that I’m not yet aware of.
Age and status play an important role in everyday communication. For example, when I say good morning to someone at my level or above, I say “Ohayo gozaimasu!”. When it is someone below you in status – say, a student – you can say just “Ohayo!”. It’s much more casual. A student knows they are below your level, so they don’t consider demeaning or wrong. If you say that to someone above your level, you are being rude.
There is a P.E. teacher that comes in every day and says “Ohayo gozaimasu” to everyone, but when he gets to me he says “Ohayo”. Somehow, I’m lower in status in his eyes, and it’s just something I have to live with. Even my teacher on Monday evenings, Tsuji-san, is very aware of status and respect. She checked my age and when she found out I was a bit older, then she knew that I could use a more casual tone with her.
Anyway, lately I’ve been studying the different layers of language to deal with people on the levels above you and below you. The vocabulary of Japanese changes significantly when you are using “respectful language”, and it makes things very difficult to figure out – especially on the fly. Luckily I’m a foreigner and when I make a mistake I have a good excuse.
