Back in secondary school, I had a Japanese penpal named Mai. During one of her summer holidays, her family decided to come over to Singapore and I had the chance to meet her and to bring them around Singapore's tourism hotspots.
However, after only a day here, her mother fell sick due to the humidity and unbearable weather in Singapore and had to stay in the hotel room while the rest of us continued with our tour. On the last day of their holiday, I wanted to get something memorable for Mai's mother as it is a Chinese custom for the host to present the guests with souvenirs. After much deliberation, I decided on a pot of orchids, as it is Singapore's national flower and also not as perishable as compared to a bouquet of orchids. In fact, I even thought that she could bring it home as an unique souvenir and was pretty proud of my decision!
But alas, I had a shock when when I presented Mai's mum with the potted plant! Instead of thanking me, she took a look at the planted and commanded Mai to take it out of her sight. Her husband started saying something in Japanese and he too, had fire burning in his eyes. I could feel the tension in the room rise and I knew I had done something wrong. But, what? I tried to ask Mai but her parents were so furious that they literally pulled her away from me and boarded the cab to the airport, leaving me at the hotel lobby with the potted plant.
I wrote Mai a letter of apology when she got back to Japan and asked her what did I do wrong to offend her parents. It was only after a week or so when she replied me. She explained that in Japan, it is considered bad luck to give a potted plant to a patient. The word 根付く (nezuku) meaning "to take root" is similar to the word 寝付く (netsuku) meaning "to be bedridden"! Her parents had taken it the wrong way and thought that I was cursing her mother when I presented them with the potted plant!
Although I have since apologised for the incident, I did not hear from Mai from then on. A friendship was jeopardised due to an intercultural conflict which could have been avoided if I had consulted Mai about the choice of souvenir beforehand. I learnt from this experience that Japanese are very particular when it comes to culture and superstitions, so be sure to do your research thoroughly when interacting with them in order to avoid misunderstandings. In fact, this applies to people all over the world. Each and every country or race has its own set of unique cultures and it will be greatly appreciated if everyone learns to respect and embrace each other's differences.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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Hello Yuan Ru! I see that you are writing about a Japanese intercultural conflict, quite similar to mine in terms of what taboo is involved. In general, the coherency is there and I am able to catch the main points that you are trying to convey in each paragraphs. I like your last sentence in which you concluded the need to respect and embrace each other’s differences. Similarity, things are done without consultations and apparently communication is indeed very important to prevent all these misunderstandings! However, for this Japanese tradition that you have mentioned, does it refer to all types of potted plants or just a few plant species?
ReplyDeleteHowever, here are some minor problems to be highlighted or suggestions that I think might be right or wrong:
-Maybe the last sentence of the first paragraph can be re-phrased from “…I had the chance to meet her and to bring them around Singapore’s tourism hotspots.” to “…I was able to meet her and had the privilege to bring them around Singapore’s tourism hotspots.” This is just my opinion as I will feel weird reading “…to meet her and to bring them…”
-For the first sentence of the second paragraph, I would suggest either “…humid and unbearable weather…” or “…the humidity and the unbearable weather” since humidity and unbearable weather seems to be two different entities. I’m not sure if I’m correct on this.
-For the second sentence in the third paragraph, you mentioned ‘took’ and then ‘to take’. I suggest you to perhaps change ‘to take’ into ‘to get’ or something else. Just a suggestion.
-For the forth sentence in the third paragraph, perhaps ‘I could feel the tension in the room rising…’ sounds more dramatic with increasing tension and also avoid a possible tense error. =)
-I feel a little awkward with the first sentence of the last paragraph. I think that two ‘from’ and the word ‘since’ are repetitive and misplaced respectively. What do you think about ‘Although I have apologised for the incident, I did not hear from Mai ever since then.’? I have
-The third sentence in the last paragraph makes me a little confused. So do we research on Japanese culture when interacting with them or before interacting with them? I hope you see what I mean. Also, ‘In fact, this applies to people all over the world’ sounds a little ambiguous and I have to infer what does ‘this’ actually refers to. Is it referring to ‘research’ or ‘experience’?
I hope you won’t blame me for these long comments, but then, don’t need to feel shy to come to my blog and give me more valuable comments!
Regards,
Ivan
Hi yuanru!!
ReplyDeleteThe content of your post is very very similar to my post and ivan's post! All 3 of us talk about intercultural differences in other countries, which unfortunately led to a grave misunderstanding!
In your case, I really sumpathise you as it's not entirely your fault. You had good intentions from the beginning. However, it is also hard to blame mai's parents acting like this because from my understanding, the japanese are very superstitious in these kind of matters. It is hard for them to understand that Singaporeans do not have similar practices. Also, I feel that your case is very unfortunate as it has ruined a valuable friendship between you and mai.
Overall, I think your post is very well written because you have described the situation or conflict well and have evaluated and given your own take of this issue in the last paragraph. Well done!
Hi Yuan Ru,
ReplyDeleteLooks like your good will backfired dramatically. To have lost a friend in the process seems very harsh also.
I feel that Mai's mother could have been more forgiving in such a situation. While it may have been rude to them, once you had explained your actions, an apology from both sides may have been apt.
In fact, i believe that in most culutres, rejecting a gift may be taken as a pretty rude gesture.
I suppose in some ways this reflects poor communication skills whereby Mai's mother had let her emotions get the better of her. While her anger was justified on some level, i feel it would have been better if she had explained it to you on the spot to diffuse the situation.
I feel that in the 3rd paragraph, you could have started off with "alas" directly instead of inclduing "But alas". I suppose that the effect would be the same in such a sentence structure, please correct me if i'm wrong.
cheers,
aldrich
Dear Yuan Ru,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a sad story to me and I am sorry for your lost of friendship. It is also sad that you had to learn more about the Japanese culture in this manner.
I personally felt that your penpal’s parents overreacted too much. She should have considered that you were still a young girl at that time and would have little knowledge of their culture. Instead, I think that she should have just told you that giving a pot of flower is a taboo and advise you not to do so again. By reacting in that manner, it seems a little immature to me. It is not as if you are Japanese yourself.
I agree with you that we need to learn about other people’s cultures but many of us do not take the effort to do so, myself included! Thanks for the story Yuan Ru.
Regards,
Ken Jie.
Dear Yuan Ru,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very appropriate scenario given this post assignment. You do a fine job detailing the situation then evaluating your own behavior and that of your guests. I agree with Aldrich that Mai's parents' reaction to your well-intended gesture seems very harsh. In fact, I would have expected that they might have been disappointed that they couldn't accept the gift since they could not have taken it back to Japan due to restrictions on importing live plants. But the explanation given by Mai surprises me a bit. Still, the situation was what it was, and sadly, you paid for your misunderstanding by losing a friend. Of course, one has to wonder how worthwhile a friendship is if it can be broken (like a cheap pot) so easily, right?
Thank you for sharing this with us!
Hello everybody, thank you so much for your comments and sorry for the hiatus!
ReplyDeleteIvan: Thanks so much for pointing out all the language errors in this blog post for me. I will definitely get down to correcting the article asap!
I do agree with your second and third points about the humidity/unbearable weather and the repetitive word usages. However, I would like to clarify the first point you made. You mentioned that it feels weird to read that "...to meet her and bring them.." I wonder if the issue over here is the usage of "her" and "them" in the same sentence? Because that seems like the only issue to me over here but your suggested statement still carried the "her" and "them". Please do advise! (:
And I apologise for not stating what was I referring to when I used the word "this" freely in the last paragraph. I meant 'experience', my dear friend! That is a mistake that I've overlooked! Thanks for pointing it out to me!
Cheers,
Yuan Ru
Hi Sarah, Aldrich and KenJie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my blog entry and leaving your comments!
I see that all 3 of you seemed to empathise with my situation and felt that my penpal's parents over-reacted. Thank you so much for standing up for me (in a way, haha). However, I do not blame her parents either. Partly because they come from the countrysides in Japan, rather than cities like Tokyo where people tend to be generally more receptive and open to new ideas; hence, I presume that they are highly conservative and probably equally superstitious? Secondly, I think the language barriers between her parents and I simply worsened the situation. My grasp of the Japanese language is not strong at all and it does not help that they spoke in their Dialects with strong Kansai accent!
Cheers,
Yuan Ru
Hi Brad! Thanks for your comment!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Japan has a law against importing live plants! We learn new things everyday, don't we? Haha!
Although the friendship that I shared with Mai was short, I believe that it was truly unforgettable. But sometimes life is just like that isn't it? Fragile, like always ):