A Bilingual Handbook on Japanese Culture - ??????????????

Preface Although Japan is a pre-eminent industrial power-together with the United States it produces nearly 45% of the world's economic output-it does not always communicate effectively beyond its borders. Two basic reasons account for this: mutual understanding between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States, is insufficient, and Japanese and non-Japanese often experience difficulty when attempting to explain their respective cultures to each other. The purpose of this book is to address both reasons, from Japan's perspective. It attempts to increase understanding by providing basic knowledge, in Japanese and English, on several hundred key aspects of Japanese culture. This allows the readers of both languages to learn about Japanese culture in an objective, systematic way. Western readers, who often have only a small supply of knowledge about Japan, can certainly add to that supply. Japanese people already know their own culture, of course, but they probably know it in a subjective, subconscious way; since all Japanese have the same culture, there is little need to explain it to each other. The difficulty comes, therefore, when there is a need to explain their culture to non-Japanese, most conspicuously to Americans. Faced with that difficulty, many Japanese despair of explanations. They may feel insufficiently fluent in English to express themselves adequately or fear that Japanese culture is so different that non-Japanese will not be able to understand it. So they often elect either to give no explanation at all or to offer only stereotypical descriptions of the "We Japanese" variety. The former choice ignores the crucial truth that Japanese culture is in fact no more or less different than any other culture and just as deserving of explanation; in short, all cultures feel that they are different or distinctive and all are challenging to explain to outsiders. The latter choice is also unsatisfying; saying that "We Japanese" do an activity describes but does not explain. Both choices, therefore, are ultimately unsatisfying and will only frustrate. The communication challenge for Japanese, therefore, is not just to describe their culture but to explain why they practice it the way they do. We hope that this book, with its wide selection of topics and bilingual format, will support its readers in that effort. In that sense, this book can be considered as a manual to assist the reader in understanding-and explaining-the vast and fascinating array of Japanese culture more clearly ???? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????? ??????????? .....................??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????1993?10???????????6????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????