Thursday, February 22, 2007

Honne to tatemae

Honne is one's true feelings. Tatemae is how one acts in public.

This concept dominates every area of Japanese life outside the home. Can't stand your co-workers? Too bad, pretend you like them. Feeling tired and want to go home at the end of the day? Say "yes" and go out for a round of drinks that will last for into the night. Want to throw that annoying house guest out? Ask them to stay longer.

This never-ending putting up a front probably explains the extremeness in a lot of Japanese past times, such as love hotels, those wild game shows, hentai, etc. Simply put, these things are an outlet for the repressed honne of the average Japanese person.

I can say honestly I'd never last in a culture where I had to continually smile at people I couldn't stand and was expected to hang out with them after work. I'd go nuts!

However, the Japanese are raised with this idea from the time they start school. Junior high and high school students wear uniforms and always work and learn in groups rather than alone. Students don't go from class to class, but rather stay in the same class room with the same people all day while the teachers come to the class room. The students do everything in groups. Achieving classes rather than individuals are sought out for praise and rewards. After school is over, the students cooperate to clean up their class room.

This behavior likely goes back to the days when a person couldn't leave their han without putting their lives at risk and couldn't break away from their family's legacy. In other words, if you were born into a fishing village, you stayed in that village all your life and did what your father before you did.

That meant of course that you were around the same people your whole life. You had to work with those people to plant and sow crops, catch fish, etc. There was no room for petty grudges. Therefore the idea of hiding one's "honne" behind the facade of "tatemae" to maintain "wa" (harmony) was the reality, necessary for survival.

Even though it's not like that anymore and a person can pursue whatever career they'd like and move far away from their place of birth, the old ways remain and pervade the modern culture.

OK, with this understood, it sheds a new light on Kenshin and the way he acts for me. Kenshin of course is a tortured soul who hides his pain beneath his patented "rurouni" smile and says everything's OK.

As Westerners we say he needs to open up, get it off his chest, confess his feelings for Kaoru and sweep her off her feet with flowers, chocolates, etc. Guess what folks! That's not Japanese!

Kenshin's not going to do any of those things because those go against his culture! Kenshin says everything's OK and smiles because he doesn't want to worry his friends because that is what a properly polite Japanese person does! In his eyes, there's no thing wrong with hiding his true feelings most of the time.

As for confessing to Kaoru and sweeping her into a searing embrace and kissing her breathless, not likely. The most we as Westerners can hope for is a hand on the shoulder, perhaps an arm around the shoulder (ala Jinchuu Arc) or holding hands (in the last volume). To us, such an act is mundane, but to a culture where showing off one's personal feeling isn't done, it's a bold move.

So there ya have it. Kenshin isn't a self-styled martyr who delights in torturing himself by hiding his pain beneath his smile. He's a polite Japanese guy doing the polite Japanese thing.

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