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Review focus: Kenbei, America, words, influence, coining new phrases, Japanese sensitivity
Asian Business Code Words Index NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine
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There in an old saying to the effect that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." That is true only in a very limited sense, however, because words are some of the most dangerous and deadliest of all human inventions. Since the age of speech began, words have angered, humiliated, and wounded people, caused fights and murder without end, and brought on wars that have resulted in the deaths of untold millions. Words are more important and more dangerous in some cultures than in others. Americans have traditionally been remarkable tolerant about words, but even today in a society that has become inured to the most vile and obscene language, there are still hundreds of words that result in emotional, irrational reactions that range from mild discomfort to wild rage. The Japanese are far more sensitive to words than Americans, and the influence that works have on the Japanese is correspondingly both broader and deeper. The Japanese are so sensitive to words that they have separate vocabularies and grammatical structures for different occasions, according to the sex of the individuals involved, and according to their age and their social relationships. Another characteristics of the Japanese is a strong penchant for coining new words, one of which, Kenbei, created in 1991 by popular novelist Yasuo Tanaka, quickly resulted in what one Japanese magazine headlined as a case of "mass hysteria." Tanaka created kenbei by combining the first part of the word of the expression ken'o suru (ken-oh sue-rue), meaning "to detest" or "to feel an aversion to," and bei (bay), the first part of the word for America, Beikoku (bay-koe-kuu). To say that the introduction of kenbei resulted in mass hysteria is an exaggeration, but the response to the word nevertheless highlighted both the Japanese sensitivity to culturally pregnant terms and their compulsion to create new ones. Kenbei was first used by Tanaka in an article entitled Yukoku Hodan (Yuu-koe-kuu Hoe-dahn), or "Foolish Talks on the Nation," published in the magazine Crea. (The title is a Japanese abbreviation for the English word creation.) Tanaka's article was a comparison of Japanese perceptions of the United States during the Vietnam War with those during the Persian Gulf War. He said that the Japanese feeling toward America had changed from liking the United States to a feeling of dislike. There was virtually no public reaction to the new word or to Tanaka's theses until shortly afterward when Bungei Shunju (Boon-gay-ee Shune-juu), one of Japan's best-known and most popular monthly magazines, published a piece written by Keio University Professor Jun Eto called Shinbei to Hanbei no Aida - Nihonjin wa Naze Amerika ga Kirai ka? "Between Pro-America and Anti-America: Why Do Japanese Dislike the United States?" Professor Eto, a nationally known and respected scholar, took the position that dislike of the United States in Japan had indeed become rampant, and that instead of the Japanese being pro-United States and antiwar, they had become both antiwar and anti-United States. Eto repeatedly used the work kenbei to describe the new feelings of the Japanese toward America. Both Tanaka and Eto were guilty of making things up as they went either for the sake of writing provocative articles - a time-honored custom in Japan among both popular writers and university scholars - or as a way of expressing anger at the United States for its attempts to pressure Japan into taking more meaningful steps to open its domestic market to imports. Just as could have been easily predicted, Professor Eto's article caused a nationwide sensation. News media throughout the country picked up on the word kenbei, which has a very strong emotional ring to it, discussed it endlessly in print and on the air, and within a month it had become one of the hottest words in the Japanese language. The furorw caused by the new word prompted several of Japan's leading poll takers to survey the public on their attitude toward the United States. All of the polls reported that not only was the United States still the country most liked by the Japanese, the number of Japanese who liked the United States had risen substantially from the previous year. The Japanese press reaction to kenbei was not a new phenomenon. Quite the contrary. Just like its counterparts abroad, the Japanese press is at its very best in making mountains out of mole hills. Unlike many of the fad terms regularly introduced in Japan by the press, however, kenbei is not likely to disappear. Like Frankenstein's monster, it now has a life of its own.
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Boye Lafayette de Mente is one of our regular monthly columnists at the 
| This month's column is excerpted from Japan's Business Code Words, by Boye Lafayette De Mente available from NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company |
© Boye Lafayette De Mente & the Asia Pacific Management Forum 1999
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