Kaonashi Ga Suki

I just finished reading this unsettling entry in Japan Window that shows how the importance of social harmony in Japan can sometimes go too far.

Now, as much as I’d like to start a discussion on the ramifications of the Japanese people’s stubborn adherence to social harmony to the point of a nervous breakdown, I can’t since I’m tired and I have a plane to catch in a little while. No, I’ll leave that discussion for next time. However, I will provide my own example that, while didn’t have a horrific ending, was a demonstration of the Japanese person’s need to restrain all emotions to preserve harmony.

I had only been in Japan for about two weeks when I saw this happen. I wanted to do a little exploring in town so I went for a walk. I was walking on the left side on the main road while a woman was riding her bike on the opposite side. The woman was pedaling very slowly because she was with her two very small children. The older child was walking next to her while the younger child was strapped onto the bike in a baby seat.

Now, there was a smaller side street that branched out towards this main road on the right side- the same side on which the woman and her children were walking. The trio had just started to cross this intersection when to my horror, a car came speeding out of the smaller street. It seemed to have come from a blind turn. My heart jumped because I was sure that in about 3 seconds I would be witness to a family’s elimination. But by some grace of God, the car stopped in time and didn’t hit the three, but it got close enough that the car bumped the back of the woman’s bike. As the car bumped her bike, the woman got off and put her hands on the car’s hood, as if trying to stop it.

I fully expected her to start screaming at the driver for nearly killing her and her children. I could see the woman looked scared and rattled over their near-death experience.

So what did she do?

Nothing. I couldn’t hear everything that was said since I was across the street, but I remember her muttering something in Japanese, which sounded so polite that it seemed to me she was apologizing to the driver! The driver never even got out of the car to make sure the woman and the children were ok; he just drove off.

I was surprised. If this incident happened here, the woman would most likely be yelling and cursing the driver for being a reckless jackass, and the driver would be apologizing profusely. Hell, if it happened here, the woman would probably sue the driver.

Why didn’t the woman say anything further? Why was she so quiet in spite of what almost happened? I realized later on that it might be because of the need to preserve social harmony. Yes, the woman and her children almost got killed because of this idiot driver, but they didn’t get killed-so there’s no use of making a fuss. Perhaps she didn’t want to seem disruptive or unreasonable.

My question though, is why the driver didn’t do a better job in apologizing, if he even apologized at all? Sure, he may have apologized to the woman and I just didn’t hear it, but from what I have seen about Japanese culture, when they apologize, they apologize big. I had to make sincere, from the heart apologies and bows to my boss when my train was TWO minutes late. I’ve also read accounts in which the president of a company would personally go to a customer’s house to apologize if the company feels they have somehow wronged that customer (ex: they were out of rice cookers). If an apology that grand occurs because of the company’s failure to please a customer, don’t you think that an ENORMOUS apology is in order after nearly killing three people? Don’t you think that the driver should have gotten out of his car and onto his hands and knees begging for forgiveness?

You’d think so.