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Comment by imiric | Hacker News Reader

Apologies, both personal and corporate, are taken very seriously in Japanese culture[1]. They're a way of preserving honor that dates back to the samurai era. You can see this in the custom of bowing, where the length and extension of a bow reflects the gravity of the situation. The act of seppuku can be considered an extreme version of this.

I'm not a Japanophile, but find their culture fascinating.

[1]: https://theculturetrip.com/asia/japan/articles/sumimasen-beh...

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Japanese firms are interesting to work with. I enjoyed the culture, personally. I have two anecdotes.

The old white box PC shop I worked for, back in the 90s, quoted PCs to a Japanese-owned auto parts manufacturer. The Customer accepted the quote, paid an up-front deposit, and requested the PCs not be built and delivered until some construction at their site was completed in a few months.

In the meantime component pricing went down and speeds/feeds went up. When the PCs were built we ended up being forced to source higher clock speed CPUs and larger hard disk drives. It took some cajoling to get the Customer to take delivery. They felt they should pay more for the upgrades. (We were actually making more money on the deal even with the upgraded components anyway!)

My current company once pitched a support agreement to a Japanese-owned firm. We offered a discount for annual commitment versus month-to-month. I'd copy/pasted the month-to-month terms for the annual but forgot to alter the minimum notice period for ending the annual option. Both month-to-month and annual indicated a notice period of 30 days rather than the intended 180 days for the annual option.

The Customer's contact questioned the notice period being the same. He asked why they wouldn't opt for annual commitment, get the discounted rate, and also have the 30 day notice period. My partner, who had worked with Japanese firms in the past, responded: "We know you wouldn't choose the annual option if your intention was not to work with us for at least a year." The Customer agreed and we ended up getting the gig on an annual basis.

> The Customer's contact questioned the notice period being the same. He asked why they wouldn't opt for annual commitment, get the discounted rate, and also have the 30 day notice period. My partner, who had worked with Japanese firms in the past, responded: "We know you wouldn't choose the annual option if your intention was not to work with us for at least a year." The Customer agreed and we ended up getting the gig on an annual basis.

That's a really cute answer by your partner, I like it a lot, even ignoring that it manages to save face while paying serious respect to the purported customer.

Writing the parent comment gave me, if nothing else, an excuse to publicly document that exchange. I was, and still am, in awe of his ability to think on his feet and come up with such a wholly appropriate response.

Because Japanese culture accepts failure. Admission and acceptance preserves honour. Western culture, particularly in north America, punishes the admission of failure. Everyone is supposed to fight things out to the last, to never give an inch. Even when companies settle cases they rarely admit wrongdoing publicly. Notice that this Japanese company talks about re-educating/training personnel. An American company would be expected to sack all involved and sue the consulting firm.

Weren’t Japanese soldiers in WWII instructed to kill themselves instead of being captured to “preserve honor?” That doesn’t sound like the acceptance of failure to me.

Citizens were also instructed to kill themselves.

It's far too much to go in to in the HN comments section from a phone, but removing the key military leadership who pushed this mindset, a new government structure, and the rejuvenation of business under e.g., Deming caused a significant shift in Japanese culture following the war.

Edit: This is not necessarily in support of the grandparent comment; rather, a caution against judging a culture based on historical anecdotes.

But at least you won't end up in court.

That's exactly what acceptance of failure sounds like to me. E.g. you abandon a chess game when you accept you'll lose. To just keep pushing for a situation you know is irredeemable is to deny you've failed.

A captured solider in war doesn't get to go home and try again after apologizing.

Also, going to war is inherently already a massive corruption of culture.

They were instructed to avoid capture by any means because they had been indoctrinated by propaganda that indicated horrific treatment by Allied POW personnel. While this was obviously false, it's interesting to note that Japanese knowledge of America's history with slavery, segregation, and Indian removal would have made this assumption not unreasonable, and further, may have influenced Japanese treatment of American POWs. After all, a major consideration in Japan's decision to go to war in the first place was the leadership's understanding that their lack of status as a white power would hamper their colonial ambitions. They were only a few decades removed from being excluded from the Berlin Conference, for example.

> they had been indoctrinated by propaganda that indicated horrific treatment by Allied POW personnel.

Sources? I have never heard of that yet.

I can't remember where I initially read it, but it's mentioned on both https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_prisoners_of_war_in_W... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_Japan_during_the... and presumably in the associated citations.

Can I ask where your disbelief is sourced?

Not true, there are lots of sources of information that gives the entire picture: it is a tradition from the ages of samurai.

That's an oversimplification. Pre-existing notions about warrior conduct certainly played a role, but "samurai" were a class (bordering on caste); attitudes descending from bushido were a top-down mandate, enforced by the officer class, not something widespread in common civilian life (save for knowledge of how one is supposed to act towards high-ranking personnel).

If you think that the domestic propaganda machine wasn't running at mach speed in order to shape public perceptions to what would be most beneficial to the Imperial Army and Navy, I don't know what to say. They definitely were, and they definitely pushed, from multiple angles, the idea that surrendering would result in a worse spiritual, material, physical, and psychological outcome than the alternatives (take your pick of whichever motivates you most effectively).

Only certain classes of officers if I remember correctly, and it more likely was motivated by preventing the leaking of intelligence under interrogation by the enemy, rather than really being about preserving honor. Of course it's probably easier to carry out seppuku if you convince yourself its honorable, rather than to just do it based on rationality.

Not all failure results in capture, so one particular failure scenario does not speak of the general view on failure.

When you learned about that, you did not read the entire paragraph: being captured was traditionally considered a dishonor (for the past 500 years, at least), it is a huge failure for a soldier (or samurai). Ritual suicide is the solution to that dishonor.

There are degrees of failure, some is considered to be beyond fixing.

That sounds like saying that the ongoing US war crimes at Guantanamo are important for understanding Google app engine service contracts. Just because Japan is far away doesn't mean that everything that happened there happened in the same place at the same time.

There were misunderstandings that there will not be good chances of dying painlessly if one was to be captured alive, based on Japanese norms and very scarce knowledge on American cultures. Better to pull the pin while you can than having to beg them for days to stab just an inch towards arteries, that's what "preserve honor" ultimately means.

Hmm. I suppose it’s subjective, but isn’t America’s acceptance of failure often cited as an element in the success of its entrepreneurial spirit?

And, wrt to samurais and failure, seppuku?

> isn’t America’s acceptance of failure often cited as an element in the success of its entrepreneurial spirit

Yes, the parent comment is entirely wrong. The US culture is hyper accepting of failure compared to most other prominent cultures, including Japanese culture (which in fact does not tolerate failure very well at all).

Yes, I think op is conflating the terms of apology and failure in this instance.

America accepts failed ventures, not individual mistakes. A business that collapses is a learning experience. But, while they are operating, a business must never admit to wrongdoing impacting customers or the public. There is great respect for failed business judgment, but very little for weakness.

Maybe it depends on the region/prefecture, but after 3 years working in Japan, my experience is quite different. The project suffers massive delays because nobody wants to make any decision and take any responsibility. My former boss (Japanese, but had worked for many years in the US), told me that Japanese managers don't want to take risks, because if something fails they need to apologize in public, and that is pretty much social suicide there.

On the other hand, the failure is generally frowned upon and avoided at all costs.

Unfortunately it can also be taken a bit too far. It’s not uncommon to essentially buy yourself out of punitive criminal justice via an apology and some cash (jidan/gomen money). It’s not totally unlike a settlement here, except it’s much more acceptable as an opening move (as a victim, you should seriously consider it). It seems to be inline with the goal of preserving social harmony and making “it” go away asap.

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