Comparison of the Japanese and American Cultures

Comparison of Japanese and American Culture Abstract There are some interesting issues engaging gender and cultural diversity in non-verbal communication. It begins by looking over gender variations in body language and the different uses of gestures and posture in comparing the Japanese and American cultures. Nonverbal communication is used in all social settings. Many times nonverbal communication is not seen for its real definition. In this period of internationalization the American education method is unequipped to handle successfully with the latest realism of a mutually dependent national country. American education is lagging at the end of the charts of Japans developed nation. America’s education needs to be retransformed to suit the needs of a rising nationalized financial system. Nowadays, humanitarians have inspirations of achieving the maximum level of schooling and they know it is vitally important for them to be successful. The steady declining of the American instructional method; the expectation for a victorious outlook for many appear desolate. The idea behind educational curriculums within schools must not only position onward the capability to master reading and comprehension skills, writing skills and mathematical and statistical problem solving, but also get each student ready from the primary, middle, and high school levels with skills in understanding the highly skilled requirements in the everyday working world. Comparison of Japanese and American Culture All societies differ among different cultures. Their cultures differ through customs, and education. A comparison of Japanese and American culture reveals a wide range of societal differences. Japanese culture is not always simple to comprehend, assessing it from an external point of view. The Japanese are a uniquely homogenous country. Japan has been secluded by natural features and by preference of their own, that moderately hardly any outsiders reside in Japan. A culture distinction that the Japanese discover in America is their greeting traditions. Although the greeting is one of the easiest ways for man-kind to communicate, both countries include diverse ways of addressing one another. Three differences include arrival, self-introduction, and leaving. The focal rationale for the diversity is that Americans exercise spoken gestures and the Japanese use unspoken gestures. Cultural beliefs offer implication to individual awareness of â€Å"who does what to whom wherever. † Nonetheless, the outcome of the various actions intended at oneself has been scientifically analyzed. Cross-cultural differentiations in generating a signification of self-fulfillment or self-actualization are communicated through feeling, labeling and characteristic attribution. The process of self-introduction varies between America and Japan. Americans are quick to have a discussion regarding their private matters. Americans usually converse about their relatives, spouses, or themselves. The Japanese prefer a more low key method. Japanese people are akin to chat about where they belong. For example, what school or university they attend, what there major is, or what type of club they have joined. Leaving a place or being in the American and the Japanese cultures depend on whether people are close in proximity or far away. Americans seem to say â€Å"bye† for either situation. Some Americans give a hug or a kiss when they leave one another. Unlike Americans, who immediately say â€Å"goodbye,† commonly Japanese build a trivial bow and glance back several times while waving their hand. Amongst the varied farewells, every Japanese individual who resides in America is shocked when they receive a embrace from an American, and they believe Americans are sappy. Japanese sense meaninglessness when Americans say â€Å"bye† and immediately leave. The variations in greetings are that the Americans prefer to be verbal and the Japanese prefer to be nonverbal. Americans are quick to exercise the verbal, so Americans say â€Å"Hi† or â€Å"How are you? Even people who are strangers say â€Å"How is it going? † Japanese people who arrive in America are puzzled whether they should react or be quiet. Japanese believe Americans are friendly and rejuvenating. Japanese people are likely to communicate a nonverbal language. Many Japanese just make a bow with a smile indicating respect. Usually, young people have to make a deep bow for their superiors. Not only gesture but also voice and countenance are very significant. Every American who is in Japan feels uncomfortable at first because they are not used to Japanese customs. Normally, we anticipate conversing face to face than when conversing obliquely, for example through letters. Nonverbal communication, such as one’s appearance, quality of voice, facial appearance, and body language all present additional information that enhances ones understanding. Nevertheless, when cultural diversity is engaged, this extra information can root added misunderstanding. Body languages are an essential part of greetings. Japanese usually bow as they articulate their greetings and Americans extend their arms for handshakes in the form of a greeting. Mainly Japanese who are accustomed with the global view are familiar to handshakes, but when it comes to embracing hugs and extending kisses very little Japanese identify the acts and manners implicated. Even with handshake greetings it can be uncomfortable since a lot of them are not capable of withholding bows while they extend shake hands. Bowing is an essential way of greeting and politeness for the Japanese. It allows them to acknowledge one another without invading each other's personal space; Americans do not take that into consideration when they are greeting each other. It also allows them to greet each other at a distance, whenever a verbal greeting is not practical. It foreshadows words in the vivid expressions of emotions. The Japanese feel that if they lose it, it would be like losing part of their courteousness. Making eye contact can be culture dependent. Americans might become uncomfortable when talking to their Japanese associates, who often do not control and maintain good eye contact during conservation. For example, Japanese would become angry if an American that was driving looked away from the traffic to make conversation with their passenger. Even and continuous communication is more than understanding words and etiquette. The tempo of communication seems to fluctuate amongst America and Japan. Regularly, Americans talk relentlessly. But Japanese continue gentler, pausing from time to time to evaluate the circumstances or to let the quietness speak for itself. Whenever English is the preferred language, the American's have a tendency to speak without having to pause and can simply devastate the Japanese, whose English aptitude is probably not elevated sufficiently enough to listen in and at the same time think of what to say next. Often the Japanese businessmen use an interpreter to avoid those types of situations. In contrast, Americans seem to get nervous when Japanese pause in conservation and their break in conversation seem like eternity before they continue speaking. To many Japanese, Americans seem to rely a lot on drawn out verbal dialogue where a simple chart or table is adequate. Conventionally, the Japanese rather brief verbal expressions. In fact, telling one they are skillful with words could be can be seen as a bad compliment, and referred to as being underhanded. Voice pitch plays a significant sociocultural role in the expression of emotion and politeness in conversational speech. (Yuasa 2008) The theory that the entire Japanese communal connection is modeled after the mother and child bond sets a tone for their country. The outcomes of affect and power models imply a multifaceted picture where juvenile American boys are taught to be self-sufficient, but juvenile American girls are pushed to exhibit dependence. Mothers that raise children in America try to validate their character through most favorable actions with kids who operate beyond a normal child's character produce boys that fight back and girls who are passive if they follow the Japanese rules of character development. The mother of an American child conforms her character as a mother by teaching her youngster to be independent. The mother of a Japanese child has the nurturing spirit to carry and hug their child as a way of showing their love. The Japanese model imitates the over controlling and overly understanding approach of native Japanese mothers. The Japanese mother who oversees or observes her child is given an incentive with distinctive characteristics validating reactions like hanging on to and supplying conduct from the youngster not expected for mothers and kids in the United States. Japan and the United States are eagerly focused on education. Both homelands focus on education as a shared accountability of the nation. Even though there are many comparisons, there are also differences among American and Japanese missions and visions of education, and there positions are aimed in different paths of transformation in both homelands. Schooling is also obligatory for both countries. In the United States most children begin primary education with kindergarten and depending on the district prerequisites; they complete their education in their senior year of high school. Since Americans are actively creating universal goals and targets, increasing and utilizing additional standardized tests for all scholars, and shifting in the direction of traditional based school improvement; the Japanese appear to want the reverse unassembled standardized standards, shifting away from the anxiety of nationalized examinations, and centering more attention on the creativeness and possibilities of each scholar. This is an objective that has frequently been disregarded in Japanese culture and the education reflections. Japan's education method allows teachers to inspire students learning throughout their well organized programs of study, securely joined together through all subject matters, that connects students and fabricates well-built classroom affiliations. Complete course group teaching aids Japanese schools to encourage their students by highlighting exertion over aptitude, connecting students, constructing well-built classroom associations, and uniting students under a common objective. Customary functions focused on the gender separation of hard work among a male wage earner and a female head of household have become defying in several current industrialized homelands by transforming women’s communal outlooks. A convergence of trends, including increasing female wages and employment rates, decreasing fertility and family size, rising divorce rates and numbers of female-headed households, and increasing education and participation in women’s movements, have undermined many of the incentives and requirements of a traditional family arrangement (Mason and Lu 1988). References 1. â€Å"What Japan Thinks of Us: a Nation of Crybabies? Newsweek April 2, 1990 2. Doi, T. (1996) â€Å"Foreward† Pp. Xv-xvii in D. W. Shwalb and B. J. Shwalb (editors), Japanese childrearing: Two generations of scholarship, New York: The Guilford Press. 3. Mason, Karen O. and Yu-Hsia Lu. 1988. â€Å"Attitudes Toward Women's Familial Roles: Changes in the United States, 197 7- 1985. † 4. Osgood, C. E. , W. H. May, and M. S. Miron. 1975. Cross-Cultural Universals of Affective Meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 5. Yuasa, I. 2008. Culture and gender of voice pitch; a sociophonetic comparison of the Japanese and Americans, 2009. Equinox Publishing Limited; Questia. com `