A JAPANESE SOCIAL DILEMMA (Part 1)

(Related to Blog # 56, “To Bear or Not to Bear”)

(The photo is from the DVD of “Midareru” (Wavering) a Showa movie directed by Naruse Mikio and starring Takamine Hideko and Kayama Yuzo. The story is of unlucky lovers.)

It is very sad to see someone slide into dementia. An acquaintance‘s husband has been in this position for a number of years, and has now reached the point where he no longer recognizes his wife, children, or other people he used to be close to.

His wife is caring for him at home. She has consistently refused to put him in a facility, and doing all the care by herself, against the advice of several family members including her children and her sister, as she thinks the neighbors wouldn’t approve and would gossip about her.

These are the same neighbors who never under any circumstances help her in her complex and difficult life, and who are already gossiping about how the demented husband walks around the neighborhood committing (according to them) daily acts of indecency. In other words, the wife is worrying about losing the goodwill of people who don’t care about her or the situation.

This wife herself is also becoming a worry to those who care about her. She is starting to abuse her husband. I understand that she must be very frustrated, trying to do this job, which is already frustrating enough, against her family’s advice. The daily toll on her sanity must be awful. The husband is not violent or irrational, that is one blessing, but it can’t be easy day after day and hour after hour, caring in the most intimate ways for someone who doesn’t even know who you are and will never do so again.

This husband is a member of a family that is both prone to dementia and long-lived (a nightmarish combination). His mother died recently at over 100, having been severely demented for many years before that. He is only in his seventies. How much longer will the wife continue this? He could live 20 years or more from now.

Recently she had a big fight about this subject with her daughter, who has a small child and who used to visit regularly, but has not spoken to her mother, because of this fight, for a couple of weeks. Finally, at the insistence of the family, the wife agreed to put her husband on a waiting list for a nearby facility. A few months remain until his name will be at the top of the list, but at least she has made what all those around her feel is the right decision.

The fearful power of the surrounding society is centuries old in Japan, especially in rural areas, and is known as seken no me (“the Eye of the World”). If you are a member of this society, not only must you obey countless rules and customs of conduct and tradition, but you must do it while being watched by others who are just waiting for you to make the tiniest slip. In olden days, such as during the Edo Period, this was a matter of life and death. One of the best-known theatrical writings of the time, Kanadehon Chushingura, deals with a nobleman who was forced to commit suicide because he broke a social rule – he was wrongly advised about the proper dress to wear at a function, and turned up wearing something inappropriate. Not only the faux pas, but also the fact that it was publicly witnessed, was the driving force behind this terrible story. In those days, details of dress, conduct, home life, in every class, were all decided by ferociously upheld rules devised as a means of control by the government, and death was a common penalty. Neighbors were often used as sources of information about those who didn’t toe the line.

Later, during WWII, the neighbors were pressed into service as informants who would report to the oppressive domestic government about rule-breaking, such as too much luxury, anti-war sentiments expressed, etc. I think this kind of thinking (“don’t be a trouble, don’t do anything that would be noticed, don’t show the neighbors your true feelings”) has come down from these two very repressive historical times and continues to color the lives of those who live in traditional areas.

My mother-in-law was a teenager during the Occupation, and was teased in her bicycle commutes to school by American soldiers. Later, she made sure that her daughter-in-law (me) didn’t rock the boat in the village by coaching me extensively on what to say when visiting or greeting neighbors. She was also a great champion, to all the villagers, of my adjustment to the life. She never bad-mouthed me or talked about our private fights to them (as far as I know). This is one half of the great social pressure valve in Japan called tatemae-honne. Basically this means, to put up a good front outside, and tell the truth about your feelings (commonly supposed to be negative) within the privacy of your own home (or in a whisper when gossiping on street corners).

There are some equivalent ideas in English, such as “A saint abroad and a devil at home”,　“Don’t wash your dirty linen in public” or “Put your best foot forward”. My own mother “put away” her eldest daughter, sent her far away in order to have an illegitimate baby, because of worry about social reprisals. But I never witnessed actual fear associated with these ideas until I joined a Japanese family.

The group mentality, famously guiding every facet of life in Japan, takes many forms, and though one of these is this poor wife refusing to do something good for herself because of “what the neighbors will say” (the power of seken no me). It also still governs public life in general, and is one important reason why tourists, who don’t see the whole picture, tend to gush, “The Japanese are so polite”. But it also is the driving force behind such things as good service (none better), and people keeping a “good face” in public situations. If public discourse may seem a bit “tape-recorded” sometimes, the universal impulse is to hide one’s feelings in the name of preserving a peaceful atmosphere. (For whom?)

Of course, always lurking behind this is the idea of meiwaku wo kakenai (“don’t cause trouble”), which is the fundamental driving force from childhood in this culture. It is this that keeps people in general from giving or receiving help or even sympathy, and try to battle on alone through truly horrendous life situations like the one described above. Traditionally, it is money or gifts that enter the breach here, taking the place of individual sympathy – but that’s a whole other topic.

Aren’t we all a trouble to someone from the moment we’re born? It seems to me that it is much more understanding of the human condition to provide or receive help or sympathy on an individual basis, without worrying about being a trouble or causing trouble. It is also connected to one’s feelings of self-worth, which take a hit whenever we refuse to acknowledge our shared humanity.

(Continued…)

(Footnote: The demented man died in 2025, his funeral being the subject of another blog (#92).