Misunderstanding about "Mr. and SAN"
"Japanese call each other with Mr. They are very polite. But this is too stiff in the US. They had better learn American way calling others onn a first name basis. "
This was said by an American executive who was working with a Japanese company in the US. "Do as Romans do in Rome." When you do your business in the US, it does not do any good if you are thought as strange by Americans.
But I was bothered by his statement. This is based on the prejudice that Japanese are too polite and too stiff. There are various Japanese. He has no right to declare that ALL JAPANESE are stiff.
But then why did he say so? It is simple. People tend to take what others do in a different culture as if they are in the same culture, resulting in a misunderstanding. Understanding the differences is the first step to understand the culture.
Americans tend to call each other by their first name. Calling with the last name seems to be very standoffish. It is said that many executives want to be called by first name by subordinates. No wonder that Japanese calling each other with "SAN" seems to be stiff for Americans.
But we Japanese know that "SAN" is not used to make the relationship stiff. "SAN" does make the relationship more intimate. This is quite opposite to "Mr." which is used to make it more formal.
I know there are some companies that do campaign to call each other with "SAN" in order to have better communication in the office. As for me I can not even imagine calling the chief of the branch or the division with "SAN" because it is too intimate to call such senior people in Japanese. But it is proper enough for me to call them with "Mr." in English.
That is, while "Mr." makes the relationship formal, "SAN" makes it intimate. These two words are very different. What they mean are opposite. When you treat these two as interchangeable, you come up with a misunderstanding that Japanese are stiff. The American executive mentioned before just pretended to know Japanese customs well, but actually he only repeated an old stereotype based on an inaccurate translation. He must not have tried to understand Japanese language/culture. So I am bothered/miffed/offended.
Uh-oh!
If "Mr." and "SAN" are so different, why did we learn at school that they are equal?
Have anyone ever thought this small misunderstanding may be the cause of a bigger misunderstanding?
I notice that in our office we Japanese only have been called with "Mr." in English either by American staff or Japanese staff. I guess there seems to be a weird community in the office from Americans' view.
So we need to think. If "Mr." is to be translated not as "SAN" but as "DONO" or if it is as stiff as "DONO" ( though I don't think "Mr." is not that stiff), do you still want to use "Mr."?
We all might have learned wrong English. If you are American, you might have learned wrong Japanese.
I don't know since when "Mr." and "SAN" have been translated as interchangable. But I guess it was when people on the both sides of the ocean did not know each other well enough and a lot of misunderstandings were unavoidable.
Now we are going into 21st century. Isn't it time to reconsider it?
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