Face October 1981
Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.
This is one of his broadcasts to Japan
Zubari for October 1981
Face
In a recent book called Kashi no Ne, a Russian newspaper correspondent compared the British and Japanese, and one of the things he said was, that both these nations are rather concerned with ‘face’. He has lived in both countries, and he seems to like us both, but he is not blind to our faults either.
I think that the remark has some truth in it, but the British people are not so sensitive to criticism from others as the Japanese.
For instance, an Indian university assistant professor, an expert in Japanese language and history, told me recently that Japanese people would never tolerate any criticism from her of Japan. They would immediately say, “Look at the internal troubles which India is having!” She said to me: “Yes, India has many problems, and some of them are really very difficult to solve. But that is not the question. The question is, whether what I said about Japan was true.”
I said, “Well, Japanese people are not so used to criticism. And they still don’t realize that all nations are criticized in many ways. During the great wave of student rioting which swept the world a dozen years ago, British universities were almost unaffected. Recently, we have had some riots in British cities, and many other nations have made severe criticisms of some points in British society. When an American criticizes some faults in British social attitudes, it is meaningless for me to say indignantly, ‘Well, when you have had riots, many people have always been killed. In Britain it was only one, an accident.’ It is meaningless for me to retort angrily like that. What I generally do is to admit that there are things wrong, and ask what suggestions the Americans experience can make to us.”
I don’t feel that I lose ‘face’ by admitting some faults in Britain. I certainly don’t look down on a Japanese who admits faults in Japan: I admire his strength of character and cool judgement.
But I admit that, like a Japanese, I do not like to appear to lose self-control. There is a traditional method in England for curing children, especially girls, who have violent tantrum rages when they are in their early teens, and beginning to be careful about their appearance. The mother simply holds up a mirror before the girl, who sees her own contorted face, the eyes bloodshot with anger and the lips twisted. That often produces an effect like a cold shower.
I even heard of this method being used by a successful business-man. He was very able, but used to lose his temper when contradicted; this was a great disadvantage to him at Board meetings in the company. He took to carrying a little mirror round with him in his pocket. When he was contradicted, and felt his temper rising, he would excuse himself hurriedly and to go to the washroom; then he would look into the mirror and see his face beginning to flush. The ugliness of it used to cool his anger at once.
Do you think this method would work with Japanese? If it does work, I can think of some committees where almost all the members would go out together, to look into their mirrors! (Don’t be angry?)
I once asked an Italian about it, and he laughed and said, “No, it would be no good with us. We tend to think of ourselves as living on an opera stage. We’d look into the mirror, and then try to make ourselves look more furious!”
Well listeners – if there are any of you who tend to lose your temper, and want to cure it, try this method. Write and tell me whether it has been successful!
© Trevor Leggett