31–40 of 101 posts
> I prefer someone blunt and clear who will say what they mean. I don’t care if they don’t say it in the nicest of ways, as long as they say it. Speak your heart! If that's the author's preference (fair enough), then Japan is not the right place for them (in that respect). Intercultural Communication 101. Either learn to deal with it and stop taking it personally, or move somewhere else. (Or, sure, go on a one-person…
Just take a deposit. Don't pay it back until they tell you they quit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saving face means that you made a mistake that has become obvious and you try to avoid owning up. That's not the case here. Example: if you ghost your teacher without quitting that's inconsiderate, and calling it "saving face" is saving face.
They're saving the author's face by not explicitly telling them that their services are no longer required. (They're obviously implicitly telling them, loud and clear.)
But how is ghosting saving face then? Wouldn't telling the teacher that the teacher is amazing, but for different reasons they can't have any more lessons be saving face?
Dating in Japan sounds absolutely horrifying, if this is the expected behavior to your private teacher...
Does Japanese aversion to confrontation trigger this behaviour?
> I prefer someone blunt and clear who will say what they mean. I don’t care if they don’t say it in the nicest of ways, as long as they say it. Speak your heart! If that's the author's preference (fair enough), then Japan is not the right place for them (in that respect). Intercultural Communication 101. Either learn to deal with it and stop taking it personally, or move somewhere else. (Or, sure, go on a one-person…
And the fact is Japanese people have no problem understanding what people are really saying. Things can be bluntly stated in Japanese even if their direct transliteration isn't blunt in English.
The primary "you need to understand this" difference about Japan rejection, IME, is that Japanese people readily accept anything other than an explicit yes as a clear no. Your average westerner tends to be really delusional about this, and the even the ones who accept it (like the author, apparently) are still hurt when it happens. Like, this sentence:
> “I’m sick today. I can’t make the lesson. I’ll contact you later”
Is practically a cliché of a Japanese rejection. This is a country where people will show up to an obligation half-dead, and absolutely never cancel something important at the last minute. If someone flakes on you with an excuse of sickness -- particularly if they don't apologize PROFUSELY and attempt to reschedule -- just accept that it's done. Anyone who has been in the country more than a few weeks has experienced this, and you'd have to be willfully obtuse not to pick it up.
(to be clear: I don't think OP is being obtuse. I think she's venting for catharsis, which is fine.)
> I prefer someone blunt and clear who will say what they mean. I don’t care if they don’t say it in the nicest of ways, as long as they say it. Speak your heart! If that's the author's preference (fair enough), then Japan is not the right place for them (in that respect). Intercultural Communication 101. Either learn to deal with it and stop taking it personally, or move somewhere else. (Or, sure, go on a one-person…
Cultural differences?