Indirect Objection Archives - understand-culture

The Yamato’s Last Sortie

After American forces landed on Okinawa on April 1, 1945, the Japanese navy sent the battleship Yamato on a special attack operation to Okinawa. Rear Admiral Kami Shigetoku proposed it. The commander of the Combined Fleet, Toyoda Soemu, approved it. The vice chief of the Naval General Staff agreed, and the Chief of the Naval General Staff, Oikawa Koshirō, gave tacit consent. Itō Seiichi, who commanded the Second Fleet, strongly opposed it. In the end, he accepted it.

In “Kūki” no kenkyū (A Study of “Air”), the critic Yamamoto Shichihei used the sortie as his example. Everyone who called it reckless, he wrote, had detailed data and clear grounds. The force that made the final decision, and left no other choice, was the kūki, the air, and nothing else.

The Seas on All Sides

At the Imperial Conference of September 6, 1941, the cabinet of Konoe Fumimaro confirmed its policy. If there was no prospect of Japan’s demands being met by late October, Japan would go to war with the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. At the conference, Emperor Shōwa read aloud a poem by Emperor Meiji.

Yomo no umi mina harakara to omou yo ni nado namikaze no tachisawaguramu. In a world where I think of all the seas on every side as brothers, why do the winds and waves rise so?

Emperor Meiji had written the poem before the Russo-Japanese War, in a wish for peace. The Emperor’s recital is generally read as a sign of his wish for peace. One author reads it instead as bitter irony from an Emperor who saw war as unavoidable.

That Is My Heart

In July 2006, the Nikkei newspaper published part of a memo by Tomita Tomohiko, a former head of the Imperial Household Agency. It recorded words of Emperor Shōwa about the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine: Dakara watashi are irai sanpai shite inai. Sore ga watashi no kokoro da. That is why I have not visited since. That is my heart.

The last visit of an emperor to Yasukuni took place in 1975. Some questioned whether the memo was genuine. A committee appointed by the Nikkei concluded that the words could only be read as displeasure.

What a Fine Player

A common story about Kyoto describes a resident who finds the neighbor’s piano too loud. The resident does not say urusai, it is noisy. Instead, the resident says o-jōzu desu nā, how well you play. The magazine Gendai Business presents this as an example of Kyoto speech, along with the offer of bubuzuke, rice with tea, which means it is time to go home.

The same article admits that the image of Kyoto people as ikezu, spiteful, has become a fixed stereotype. A Kyoto shopkeeper describes real ikezu differently. In the shopkeeper’s view, it means saying what one wants to say while caring for the other person.

Delayed Responses

A study published in 2016 in a bulletin of Hiroshima University examined how speakers reach agreement in discussion. When native speakers of Japanese gave a negative response, they used demo or kedo, but, only once, and almost no other connecting words. They often delayed their responses instead. The study suggests that they delayed in order to prompt the other person to adjust their opinion.

In one example from the study, a native speaker softens a rejection with nanka, a filler, and a pause, and then proposes an alternative instead of stating the disagreement.

Reading the Air

Kūki o yomu (空気を読む): reading the air. The Daijisen dictionary defines it as inferring the situation from the atmosphere of a place, and especially judging what one should and should not do, and what others want and do not want.

In 2007, the abbreviation KY, for kūki yomenai, “cannot read the air,” was among the nominees for the year’s buzzword award, the Shingo Ryūkōgo Taishō.

Sixteen Ways

In 1974, the scholar Ueda Keiko described sixteen ways in which Japanese speakers express refusal.

Among the ways she described are a vague answer that is neither yes nor no, an excuse, “yes, but,” and a delayed answer such as kangaete okimasu, I will think about it.

Envoy of Consideration

In a street speech on June 26, 2022, the opposition politician Tsujimoto Kiyomi said that Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s nickname was kentōshi, the envoy of consideration. The name plays on his repeated answer kentō shimasu, we will consider it, and on the kentōshi, the envoys Japan once sent to Tang China.

Listening Responses

Aizuchi are the short responses a Japanese listener gives while another person speaks. Japanese linguists describe one type as used “without expressing a judgment of yes or no, simply to mean ‘I am listening’ or ‘I understand.'”

A study published at Ochanomizu University sums up the basic function of aizuchi as “a sign that one is listening.”

Polite Ways to Say No

Muzukashii desu ne (難しいですね): that is difficult. A common way to refuse a request politely without saying no.

Maemuki ni kentō shimasu (前向きに検討します): we will consider it positively. Sometimes used to avoid an immediate answer or to decline gently. It is not a promise.

Kekkō desu (結構です): that is fine. It can mean acceptance or refusal, depending on the situation.