Nemawashi

Ah Nemawashi! I felt like, after being here for six months I was finally making some real progress when Gunch and Watanabe explained it explicitly to me. Jane Goodall must have felt a bit like this when one of the chimps finally condescended to touch her or feed her or whatever it was. A breakthrough! I was privileged enough to learn it at the feet of not one but two 67 year olds. They told me everything. Nemawashi. I have sensed it and felt its influence. More disruptive has been the influence I have had on those around me because I don't know what it is.
Nemawashi! Let me explain...

The first part of the word Nemawashi (the Ne) is the kanji for root (like the roots of a tree). Gunch explained that when you plant (or dig up to replant) a tree you must work the soil carefully - loosening, digging, turning and patting - in an area wider than you think in order to ensure harmonious planting or upheaval. Nemawashi is groundwork and preparation. Its metaphorical meaning is a beeg part of Japan culture, Watanabe went on to explain (Watanabe, by the way, is the motorcycle chommie who now comes and hangs out at school quite regularly. I thought he was a Yamamoto. Apologies Watanabe!). You see, he began, The Japanese don't like conflict. They don't like to argue or debate. They don't like to antagonize or make anyone feel uncomfortable. Smooth social interaction is the most important thing! So? So before any delicate conversation that must be had - Nemawashi is performed. Days or weeks of gentle groundwork to ascertain every one's opinion and investment in a matter, the various whys and wherefores and then what the best possible outcome will be. With all this Nemawashi-ing, groundwork being so carefully laid, any meeting acting becomes simply symbolic because the decisions as it were have been arrived at weeks before - in a slow and private way.

And this is good thing to learn you may think, for the business world or when I have to say very big things to very important people. This will not be often though. So, a good thing to learn but not of day to day importance perhaps. Aha! Not so. Because, as the two men explained this stuff to me I began to think about something Yoko Jenkin told me before I even got here. What she told me seems to make so much more sense if I look at is through the idea of Nemawashi and the two ideas together promise to improve how I interpret everything and speak to everyone.

Yoko, my Japanese teacher in South Africa was the one who introduced me to the notion of subtlety in language and its paramount importance in Japan. She tried to explain to me the grammar rules for removing the subject form a sentence so 'I'm going to the shops' just becomes 'going to the shops' or even simply 'to the shops'. She said that saying absolutely everything in the sentence was mildly insulting as it insinuated that the listener could not work out these things for themselves. Some pretty subtle stuff. * These subtleties, which at the time just seemed to make Japanese conversation incredibly muddy and round-about, I now see are some of the elements of Nemawashi. That every word is groundwork. When Gunch and Watanabe said that Nemawashi is for saying difficult things, I think they mean, that is to say, Nemawashi is for everything! Because if you are constantly NOT saying something then the interpreter is constantly reading between the lines. It allows both speaker and interpreter never to have to go out on a limb and never face outright rejection of an idea or request. The subtlety gives speakers time to take stuff in and think about it and respond without offense. This might seem like quite a lot of work just to avoid words such as 'No' and for those of us who aren't hurt by 'No', perhaps it is a bit unnecessary. Here though 'No' is considered to be an aggressive word. A hurtful word. An enemy of the peace. For a culture that ascribes 'No' and its friends (the other negative words) such power, one can see why Nemawashi and talking around and around becomes a feasible way to communicate.

Sometimes I think of this mode as wonderful and artful. Its another example of how very deeply the respect and selflessness of Japan is entrenched. Other times I just find it irritating beyond words - generally when I come across new and unfamiliar Nemawashi tactics. Like 'Do you have a watch?' which doesn't mean, do you have a watch. It means 'What is the time?'. Hmmm... Or when I asked my supervisor 'Should I help you clean the classroom?' and he responded 'Maybe you don't have to' which it turns out, after months or guessing, means 'yes'. Ha! These situations are irritating.

Now I must counsel myself to be careful whilst learning Nemawashi and the Art Of Balanced Society Maintenance, not to consider it as better or worse than the way I am used to operating (A mistake I make often - thinking that I have been a total boob until now, and from now on, knowing this one new thing, I"ll be ace!). Nemawashi and the Art Of Balanced Society Maintenance is simply another mode, as different from what I am used to as the languages of English and Japanese themselves. Who knew how much difference and understanding was housed in the HOW? Hell!

*She also tried to make clear to me that present and future tense are in fact, the same tense - hence their conflation in Japanese (I still don't really understand this).