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Mentsu; face.
Mentsu wo ushinau; to lose face.
Mentsu wo tamotsu; to save face.
Kao o tateru; to give face.
(not to be confused with Western concepts of losing/saving face)
"The instinct to preserve face is something so ingrained in Japanese culture that many Japanese are not aware that it influences their behaviour. It’s not something that [the] Japanese often talk about...The desire to avoid causing loss of face for oneself, one’s organization, or for others can be said to be the motivation behind many things that Japanese organizations do that are puzzling to [Westerners]...Japanese companies seem reluctant to admit mistakes or discuss problems publicly...The persistent fear of loss of face is behind these otherwise inexplicable behaviours."
Saving Face: A Little Discretion Can Go A Long Way In Japan, by Japan Intercultural Consulting (source).
Mentsu wo ushinau; to lose face.
Mentsu wo tamotsu; to save face.
Kao o tateru; to give face.
(not to be confused with Western concepts of losing/saving face)
"The instinct to preserve face is something so ingrained in Japanese culture that many Japanese are not aware that it influences their behaviour. It’s not something that [the] Japanese often talk about...The desire to avoid causing loss of face for oneself, one’s organization, or for others can be said to be the motivation behind many things that Japanese organizations do that are puzzling to [Westerners]...Japanese companies seem reluctant to admit mistakes or discuss problems publicly...The persistent fear of loss of face is behind these otherwise inexplicable behaviours."
Saving Face: A Little Discretion Can Go A Long Way In Japan, by Japan Intercultural Consulting (source).
I've long been bemused by the lack of response from PD regarding community feedback. The suggestions forum here on GT Planet on is awash with innovative ideas & common sense solutions to pretty much all of the problems & issues plaguing the GT series, yet most of them seem to have gone completely unnoticed by PD. However, after being enlightened by @Slapped & @Majorwolf72 regarding the Japanese cultural phenomenon of Mentsu, I'm now beginning to understand why this might be the case. Please read the quotes below thoroughly, as well as some of the linked articles (especially the first one), & have a good long think about them before replying...
The problem lies with the Asian culture of losing face. Many years ago I worked for a company sourcing technical...thingymibobs from Japan...and on the whole, things well exceptionally well - until they didn’t and then it was an absolute...nightmare.
...from time to time something wouldn’t work as expected. When that happened we did a full analysis and worked out how to solve the issues. We then went back to the supplier with a report of the issue and also our proposed solution.
This is where the problems really began as there was no way in hell they’d implement our solution. They would throw everything...at the issue to solve the problem except implementing the solution we’d proposed, despite our solution being pretty much the only obvious way to correct the problem.
Naturally, this left us totally and utterly frustrated as we couldn’t use the products, and nor could we get the suppliers to successfully resolve the issues.
The answer to our problems came about when one of our team was in Japan...and the interpreter...explained to him the reason why our proposals were not being implemented, and it’s basically about losing face - I’ll explain.
It’s no problem for a product to have an issue...What is a problem, however, is providing the supplier/manufacturer with the solution. If a Japanese manufacturer were to implement our proposals then it would be an admission that they could not solve the problems themselves, and therefore face would be lost, hence why they tried everything else to solve the issues.
What we had to do was provide them with only a problem description, but in such a way that our already worked out solution was the only obvious choice.
I‘ve been trying to bring that message across to the good fellow Europeans and Americans here a dozen times at least, they still won’t believe you and rather tell themselves that reason will have to prevail...
Nothing will make a Japanese [person] accept your better solution to a problem...My dad was doing business with them way back...and always said: "If there‘s a problem, you have to start over from zero. Improvements they won’t do.“
It may seem strange and utterly stupid to us...But it is the way it is.
...I was born in an Asian country and raised in an Asian culture. That's why I can totally sympathise with PD's quirks and idiosyncratic ways of working.
So, in essence, every time we give PD solutions to problems in GT Sport, they wouldn't be able to implement them without "losing face". Maybe we need to find a way of bringing problems to their attention without overtly giving them the solution, & if we could do it in such a way that gives them face (kao o tateru) then all the better.
💡
More Information about Mentsu;
https://talkaboutjapan.com/save-face-in-japanese-culture/
http://www.locoinyokohama.com/2009/02/16/its-all-about-the-mentsu-面子-baby/
http://www.nihongonosekai.com/newspapers/Japanese_Naturally/articles/19880730jn.htm
http://successacross.net/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfsdernews/10.08.2010_To_save_face.pdf
Two very in-depth studies on Mentsu;
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=iaccp_papers
https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/9-XXIII-1-Lin-Tao.pdf
Discuss...
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