Some clients coming to Japan on a business trip are more sensible to matters of adequate attitude here in business situations. They are not the majority, far from it, but they do share the same concern and a sort of uneasiness ahead of meetings, maybe more than if they were to meet other partners in other countries. The Obama incident where the president bowed in front of Japan emperor has vanished under media amnesia, too fast to apply a postmortem analysis. My clients nor I ever meet with royalties. The concern about behavior is a rare show of consciousness of one's ethnocentrism. It is that rare time when ethnocentrism looks at itself and doubts of its competence, or appropriateness to what is about to come. It fears possible failure to behave. Shall I bow, shall I bow at their bow, shall I thrust a hand and expect a shake, or wait and see at the risk of being awkward? Even when not royalties, Japanese have the advantage to heavily rely on formalism and formula. I think most Westerners think of their manners as more easy mannered - call me Bill. They believe to be largely devoid of formalism. But the sense that formalism n the side is for real make them feel somewhat uneasy.
The many "doing business in Japan" are the proof that it matters, although when looking for publication over Google Books, it seems that the 70s were the golden age of the subject. There are still books being released, included refurbished versions of older books. But the golden age has been long over and the field is no longer a cash cow. The same Google Books allows to peruse bits of some of the recent books. They tend to look similar, the worst entertaining the matter around the standard Japanese "mystic", the more down to earth still stuck into that compulsory owe at these who share such an exquisite culture, versus the reader's inborn rudeness.
One such book "Doing Business with Japan: Successful Strategies for Intercultural Communication" is adorn with a very clever comment I can but only share for the most part of this literature. Here is an excerpt:
The risk of this book, however, is that it can read more as a quick guidebook for American businesspeople to come to terms with Japanese unwritten business rules, rather than as a book to learn successful intercultural communication techniques to conduct business in Japan. Nishiyama includes few descriptions and explanations of American customs. His book does not provoke any self-awareness among the reader. Therefore, American businesspeople will tend to continue thinking that Japan is especially unique and they are normal, which makes mutual understanding more difficult. Also, he often advises Americans to adjust to Japanese customs, such as sending gifts, which might appear ethically wrong to Americans. In order to establish a long-term relationship between people with different customs, this one way adjustment will be problematic at some point. Therefore, it would be desirable if Nishiyama could show how to search for a common ground between the cultures.
It is that mention of self-awareness that I find especially welcome, because these books notoriously lay out the standard comparatives of individualism versus group orientation, as if any standard readers would perfectly be aware of her own "national traits".
I have been looking in parallel at equivalent books in Japanese like "doing business with the French", but I have yet to find something. Maybe the reading of such books if any available should come first.
Technorati Tags: interpretation, interpreter, interpreting, Japan, japanese interpreter, Japanese language, japanese translator, liaison interpreter, liaison interpreting, Tokyo, translation, translator
0 comments:
Post a Comment