LdP - U4 - test avec fluos et signets

Cultural Commentary In this Unit, we explore some ideas about socializing with friends in one’s own home. This may not seem like a very important topic, but as many foreigners in Japan discover, it can actually be a signiZicant and sensitive one. By and large, in Japan it is quite rare for people to welcome friends into their home. There are some common exceptions, such as mothers with small children (mama tomo) and students who have their own apartment. In contrast, in many Western countries it is common, and actually quite important to interpersonal relationships, to invite friends over to one’s place. As the Spanish respondent Maya states in her Ibunka Survey response on p 29, “If someone had never visited my home, I would feel strange about calling that person a friend.” In those cultures, most people try to keep their houses reasonably clean and tidy so that guests can be invited without too much preparation, and even sometimes visit on an impromptu basis. This can be a point of contention within Western-Japanese couples, especially when the Japanese spouse is female (since, despite progress, the home is still often considered the wife’s realm). A common pattern (described by Dave and Manami on page 31) is that Western men will insist on inviting friends over, not understanding how much stress this means for their wife. The wife will play along and put considerable energy into cleaning up, preparing food and hosting their guests appropriately. The husband later Zinds out to his dismay that she did not appreciate it at all and that he has to pay an exorbitant price for what he thought was a casual, positive thing. He progressively gives up on the idea. In this area of lifestyle, it is tempting to contrast “Western countries” and “Japan”, because there is an undeniable and powerful cultural gap there. However, there are also considerable differences among Western countries, in particular between American/Australian/NZ cultures and European cultures. In the US, a guest is usually given a tour of their host’s house in a gesture of openness and friendship. This is inconceivable in countries like France, except on the special occasions that are housewarming parties. In French homes, the living room and nowadays the kitchen are open to guests, but the bedrooms and bathrooms are not (bathrooms and toilets are usually separate). Guests are supposed to know this implicit rule of territory. The interaction styles that go together with these different “geographies” are also widely different. Americans expect their guests to help themselves, as Jeremy states on page 30: “Sure, I do (give a tour of my home to guests). I want them to be able to really relax. Once I’ve shown them around most of the rooms and where everything is, my guests are free to help themselves to any food or drink, and then they don’t need me to guide them. In this way, they can truly feel at home.” A French person, for example, will hesitate to help themselves to food or drink in another person’s fridge, even after being invited to do so. In British culture as well, this is “not the done thing.” Sometimes the gap in norms and expectations can cause some difZiculty. This was made acutely clear in the situation described on page 31 by Japanese respondent Masami, who went very hungry for a whole week at the beginning of her homestay in Australia. In the chapter on “The House” in her book Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience (University of Chicago Press, 1990), anthropologist Raymonde Carroll gives a clear explanation of these cultural patterns. She explains that in French culture the guest has the responsibility to know the rules, whereas in American culture the host is supposed to tell the guest if there are any limits on where they can go and what they can do. In this Unit in particular, the survey responses that describe the cultural patterns at play are quite a powerful demonstration of diversity. One of the aims of this course is to steer students away from simplistic “them-versus- us” dichotomies (sometimes alarmingly reduced to “Japan is this way, and (all) other countries are another”.) Careful reading of the responses will reveal the crucial fact that not all western cultures are the same. French culture is more like that of North America when it comes to the desire to invite friends to your home, but much more like Japanese culture in regards to guest behavior.

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UNIT 4 | CULTURAL COMMENTARY