'Code
words' provide shortcut
to
understanding foreign cultures
Defining
people by their race while virtually ignoring their ethnicity has always
been both dumb and dangerous, but now, finally, the importance of
understanding cultures is rapidly becoming a new mantra for business
leaders as well as diplomats and politicians.
For
most people, however, understanding the cultures of others is a process
that requires long periods of living in and personally experiencing their
attitudes and behavior — often preceded or combined with extensive
studies of research by anthropologists and sociologists.
But
there is an easier and faster way of getting into and understanding the
mindset of people. While working in Asia as a trade journalist in the
1950s and 60s I learned that the attitudes and behavior of the Chinese,
Japanese and Koreans were summed up in a relatively small number of key
words in their languages — words that explained why they thought
and behaved the way they did.
I
first became aware of the role that key words play in the mindset and
behavior of the Japanese in my attempts to explain their way of thinking
and doing things to American importers who began flocking to Japan in the
early 1950s.
I
made use of this key-word approach in my first book, "Japanese
Etiquette & Ethics in Business," published in 1959 [and still
in print], introducing the international business community to such terms
as wa (harmony), nemawashi (behind the scenes consensus-
building), tatemae (a facade or front in conversations
and negotiations) and honne (the real intentions, the real meaning
of the speaker).
The
more I got into the Japanese, Korean and Chinese way of thinking and doing
things, the more obvious it became that they were culturally programmed
and controlled by key words in their languages, and that these words
provided a shortcut to understanding them.
Further
experiences in Mexico and other countries confirmed that the beliefs and
behavior of people in all societies — especially older societies — are
primarily programmed by their native language and that learning the
meaning and everyday use of key words in the language reveals in precise
detail what they have been conditioned to believe and why
they behave the way they do.
This
led me in the 1980s and 90s to write a series of "cultural code
word" books on China, Japan, Korea and Mexico, in which I identified
and defined — in all of their cultural nuances — several hundred key words in the
languages concerned.
The
fact that you must be intimately familiar with key terms in the native
language of a people in order to fully understand their thinking and
behavior is of incredible importance, but it is not yet common knowledge
even among scholars and educators, much less diplomats, politicians and
the international business community.
This
failure to perceive and understand the role of languages in human behavior
is one of the primary reasons why the world is continuously roiled by
misunderstandings, friction and violence. We cannot communicate fully and
effectively across the cultural barriers built into languages.
Languages
— not things — preserve and transmit culture!
Most
people still today mistakenly regard the arts and crafts of individual
societies as their 'culture.' Arts and crafts reflect culture but they do
not create
it and they do not transmit it. You can view and
collect Chinese artifacts or Eskimo artifacts all
your life and you will not become fully conversant
with the cultures that created them.
Languages
are, in fact, the repository as well as the
transmitter of cultures. They contain the essence,
the tone, the flavor and the spirit of cultures, and
serve as doorways to understanding them — and this
critical role of language in the attitudes and
behavior of people provides irrefutable evidence
that to become American in the fullest sense one
must learn English.
It
is fairly simple to interpret or translate technical
subjects from one language into another, but
translating cultural attitudes and values into
another language ranges from difficult to
impossible. The translations may be perfectly
correct as far as the words are concerned, but they
seldom if ever include all of the cultural nuances
that are bound up in the words and are the essence
of the original language.
This
often results in people talking at each other
instead of to each other — and generally neither side understands why they
are seldom if ever in perfect agreement … why they
cannot get along.
Among
the advanced nations, we Americans are the least
sensitive to the cultural differences that separate
people, and therefore continue to make mistakes when
interacting with other cultures.
This
problem will continue until the study of other
cultures becomes a fundamental part of the education
we all receive in our youth. I propose
that the role of languages in the values and
behavior of people be made a mandatory course in all
American schools.
© Boyé Lafayette De Mente 2008 All rights reserved
______________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Boyé
Lafayette De Mente, a graduate of Jōchi
University in Tokyo and Thunderbird — The
School of Global Management, in Glendale,
Arizona, is the author of more than 50 books
on the business practices, cultures and
languages of China, Japan, Korea and Mexico.
See his website: www.boyedemente.com
This page last updated 2009-12-31
Eyes on Japan compiled and edited by
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