Social Conventions – Expected and Unexpected March 1985

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari for March 1985

Hello listeners! Today I shall say something about Social Conventions, which are sometimes surprising and unexpected. Each country has its own social behaviour and conventions – artificialities of conduct and speech. We are so familiar with those of our own country that we hardly notice them.

For instance, Japanese people and British people, say “Thank you” a great deal; Americans say it much less, and Spaniards do not like to say “Thank you” at all. It is not that Spanish people are ungrateful. But they do not like to say Thank you, because a man who is saying “Thank you” is acknowledging that he is in an inferior position. Spanish people do not like an inferior position they are very sensitive to their ‘honour’.

But British and Japanese people do not feel inferior when they say “Thank you”. We think it is simply politeness. In fact, we do it so often that it is almost meaningless; we say it unconsciously. As it is unconscious, it is not really polite; it is just the form of politeness.

Foreigners, when they first see the Japanese bow, think that the Japanese are tremendously polite people; but, in fact, the politeness is the action, and not necessarily in the heart. (Sometimes a rather deep bow is clearly sarcastic.)

When one think a of ‘social conventions’ it is generally things like the ‘thank you’ habit, or the Japanese bowing habit.

Conventional politeness is famous. But there are other conventions, in other countries, which are the very reverse. There is ‘conventional rudeness’ in some countries. Like the conventional politeness, it is very impressive and surprising when first met; afterwards, when we realize it is merely a convention, we ignore it. For instance, in Egypt, if two men have a quarrel about something, some piece of property, it is quite usual for one of them to bring in all kinds of other accusations; he may say, “And it is well-known that you are a very bad father to your children,” or “And you are known to take big bribes.” These insults are not taken seriously. When the quarrel is over, they are all forgotten. They are just ‘conventional rudeness”’

I first encountered this ‘conventional rudeness’ when living in Egypt; the Egyptian Government had a dispute with the British Government. This was reported in the English-language Egyptian newspaper, but to my amazement, the paper said not only that there was this dispute and that the British Government was completely wrong. The paper added that the British Government was engaged in a slave-trading operation in another part of Africa, and in large-scale drug smuggling in still another part. I said to a friend: “How can they say such things? They bring forward no evidence at all, and it is quite impossible.” He laughed and said, “None of the readers will take this seriously. It is just a normal thing to insult someone when you are quarrelling. Next week, when the dispute is over, none of this will be mentioned. It has no meaning at all.” He was quite right.

© Trevor leggett