The Kano Society

On the surface they may look very alike. Politeness is the surface of behaviour, often no more than mechanical good behaviour. While courtesy implies that good behaviour comes not from compulsion or habit or hope of advantage, but real concern for others, Originally the word meant rules of good behaviour at Court, but in Britain it was extended to life in general. A classi story about courtesy is the Duke of Wellington famed as the proudest man in Europe was walking with a noble lady past a gate in the wall. Through this gate came a workman carrying a heavy sack. The workman stood still, and the lady was about to sweep past but the Duke caught her arm and held her back. He nodded to the workman to go on first, saying‘Respect the burden Madam’. A wonderful example of courtesy. I have read in an ancient Indian Lawbook about right behaviour: ‘One should stand aside to give way to a Brahmin, the King, a man of more than 80, a pregnant woman, or a man carrying a heavy burden’. It shows a high level of behaviour in India in 500 B.C. Because this was following a rule laid down in the Lawbook, we call it only politeness; I would not say courtesy, because it is not spontaneous and perhaps not sincere.

In English today polite has the nuance of something insincere, just mechanical; whereas courtesy comes from the heart. Letters from Income Tax officials are polite; begin with ‘Dear Sir’,usually there is no warmth.If I write to a friend asking for help he may write back saying: ‘I will do what I can, but you will realize that it is difficult to get round the rules’. That is a polite reply, but it means that he has decided that he cannot, or will not, help me. But if he writes: ‘I am sorry you have this trouble. I will try to find some way to get round these overstrict rules’, that is a courteous reply, I know he will do all he can. Take the case where a friend of mine has managed to get an interview with an important man, he hopes to impress. When he gets back, I ask: ‘How did you get on?’ He replies; ‘Oh, he was very polite’. I know at once that the visit has been a failure, But if he says that the great man was courteous, I know at least some interest was shown in him. Both Japan and Britain are full of polite words and manners. In every generation, some of the young people try to shake off this surface of hypocrisy, as they call it, When one is young, one feels it is deceitful to say many polite things which we do not really mean, As we get more experience, we see that this is not deceitful, because no one is deceived. When the Income Tax man writes to me: ‘Dear Sir’, we both know that there is no affection. We have never met.

The only people who are deceived are foreigners who do not know English. If they see these words, and look them up in a dictionary, they will come to some meaning like: ‘Shin-ai naru Tonosama’. That is a surprise to them! In Meiji times, the Japanese acquired a sort of fairyland reputation because humorous Westerners would translate the almost imperceptible o- in Japanese words like ocha by the clanking English word ‘honorable’. Japanese contributed because they did not realize that the honorifics(and their opposites) should be omitted. I was sometimes embarrassed by being invited to a Japanese home with the words ‘It is small and dirty’. These words in Japanese had no meaning—they correspond simply to a polite tone of voice: ‘Please come in’. Even here I am wrong, because I had forgotten that the word ‘Please’ is itself one of the English polite phrases which have little meaning. One could just say ‘Come in!’ neither English nor Japanese would like such a bare phrase, without any clothes, so to speak. Admittedly some ornaments can turn into weapons. It is a surprise to us to learn that kisama and tamae can be insulting. We have a few of these in English, for instance kindly; ‘Kindly put that cigarette out’ is far from friendly.Japanese and English conversations are littered with sum imasen and shitsurei, and Thank you. If I help another Englishman, he will say Thank you, to which I reply Thank you. Quite often today, he will then again say Than you. Apparently he is thanking me for thanking him for thanking me for my help. We do not think all this: we just say it.

Why not just say what we mean, frankly and openly, with no softening conventional phrases? Many reasons have been suggested, but let me be frank. I believe that the two peoples have strength of character, but are not quick-witted. In fact, we both tend to distrust cleverness; ‘too clever by half’ is a criticism, which corresponded, I suppose, to the Japanese zuru-gashikoi. We are not quick with the tongue(naturally there are brilliant exceptions), we like to have a little time to think what to say. We are not stupid, but feel we must answer sensibly, not quickly. All the A so desu ka? and the Oh, really? with which we receive a remark are to give us time to think of something appropriate to say. Just a second is enough. If we replied instantly with a reaction, instead of the colourless So desuka? or Really? we might say something inappropriate or even tactless. Feelings might be hurt. It could become a quarrel. There would be a ‘breaking of the serenity’ as we like to translate shitsurei. We see examples watching small children. They speak impulsively and frankly, and cannot estimate the effect of their remarks, constantly offend each other, quarrell over tactless remarks. The politeness of our two nations is insurance against the danger of constant quarrels. My personal observation is that we have relatively few disputes and quarrels over trivialities.

I worked for over twenty years in the BBCs Overseas Services, broadcasting to different countries. In the canteen, the international broadcasters would have their meals with their fellow nationals. A Vietnamese table, an Indian table, a French table, a Russian table and so on.The Japanese table was always quiet and well-behaved, but some of the other tables had shouting arguments. After a serious quarrel, the English head of section sighed: ‘I wish some of our other sections could take a lesson in considerateness from your Japanese section’. He was not talking just about politeness. Japanese did not interrupt or bluntly contradict each other. They were tolerant, so there were relatively few quarrels. It was courtesy. I believe that after centuries of surface politeness in Japan and Britain, there has been some deepening into courtesy. Even mechanical repetition can sometimes have an effect.Pascal, the French mathematical genius and Christian mystic said to a man who wanted to believe in God but could not. ‘Act like a devout believer go to church every day, say long prayers, give to the poor. Do it very seriously, as if you did believe in God. After a time, you will find that you do’. I do not know whether Pascal’s friend did this, and if he did, whether it worked. But I have an idea that centuries of politeness, imitating true courtesy, have made some of us truly courteous.