Comment by greggman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by greggman | Hacker News Reader

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Actually that part drives me insane.

Maybe we're taking about different things but... My understanding is in the USA it used to normal not to talk about affection for your partner. In the 70s and 80s there was a huge cultural push to stop doing that and verbally express your affection and appreciation. It was drilled in that assuming your partner understands you feel for and appreciate them without saying it is like believing in fairy tales. Your relationship will end in ruins and your partner grows distant not knowing you actually care, appreciate , etc..

So here I am in Japan where I hear this stuff about not needing to express that stuff. You should infer it. Except I can't accept that because it was taught to me it's BS. So many spouses whos partner leaves feeling unappecisted and the other partner is like "but I shouldn't have to say it you should just know". There's 1000s of books on why that silence is a recipe for disaster. In sex as well the advice in the USA builds and builds , say what you want, don't expect your partner to read your mind. They won't (mind reading is impossible and expecting your partner to devine what you want is childish). Your be disappointed and frustrated and then take that out on your relationship.

So I don't buy it. They just sound old in the same sense that blood letting is old.

Pretty much anybody I've met who comes to Japan with the romantic ideas embraced by this article in there head ends up hating it. I'll be honest, I think that this "silence" thing was never a Japanese thing in the first place. I believe it is a misinterpretation of several cultural phenomena.

1. The Japanese language allows you to be more imprecise but still have people understand what you are talking about from context. If I've been speaking Japanese for a long time, switching to English seems like a pain because you have to spell everything out. Also, mood can be transmitted in words where in English you would need tone of voice. In novels, you don't have to describe that a person is irritated because you can simply choose to have them say something in an irritated way. Similarly, people can make absolutely cutting remarks without changing their tone of voice or getting agitated.

2. Culturally, most shared spaces are understood to be quiet spaces. Man, I hate riding the train in the UK. People think they are still in the pub. In Japan, you can spot the foreigners in public spaces with your eyes closed because they are invariably making a racket. This has nothing to do with silent communication. It's just silence. In other places Japanese people are very noisy.

3. Japanese people are raised in Japanese schools. This is where they are taught manners, how to behave, etc, etc. I taught in a school in Shizuoka prefecture, which has a relatively large Brazilian population. The children from Brazilian families are quintessentially Japanese because they have been taught the same way. It's very different than our method of letting parents determine how to raise their children. The result of this is that Japanese people have a huge base of common culture to work from. It's not that you "should infer it" -- it's blatantly obvious because it's been drilled into your head 1000 times when you were at school. And everyone has had the same experience.

There is no magical transmission of knowledge. And as you said, crappy marriages exist here just like anywhere else. Miscommunication is common. But lots of things are understood by context, by culture or are simply not spoken of. The timing of when, where and how you discuss things is completely different, too.

> Japanese people are raised in Japanese schools.

I would like to know more about Japanese schools. You seem to know about Japanese culture a great deal. Is there any material (fiction, non-fiction) accessible in English that talks of this 'national character building' occurring at Japanese schools.

I typed in some of my experiences, but it's too long for HN :-). Email me if you would like my to send it to you. My contact details are in my profile.

> In other places Japanese people are very noisy.

You can just step into any izakaya after 4pm - the place will be loud and waiters will be shouting over your head like you didn't exist.

Silence when dissonance exists may be a bad thing. Silence when dissonance is resolved by reflection may not.

The Japanese know sacredness because it's baked into their society. Maybe that was because of Zen Buddhism, or a different reason ("island life" will do it to people too). Whatever it is, it may have bad manifestations in larger cities, but there's no denying the Japanese have always had a special sort of sacred way of getting impressive things done.

It depends on how you read the sentence, I guess. If you read it as "comfortable being together without having to talk", that's a good thing, but read as "good partners 'just know' what the other wants without being informed", then yes, as you say, that's bad.

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