"For generations in Japan the individualistic, aggressive type of person was a misfit, and in most ordinary situations was not tolerated. If they went beyond a certain point, however, they were apt to be shortened by a head."

Boye Lafayette de Mente is one of our regular monthly columnists at the Asian Business Strategy and Street Intelligence Ezine. A noted author with over 30 years of experience in China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries, Boye's tips on doing business in Asia are both pragmatic and enlightening. Some material is taken from Boye's many books exploring Asian cultural and business, business etiquette, customs, and language.

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With a Little Lye in Your Bones

For generations in Japan the individualistic, aggressive type of person was a misfit, and in most ordinary situations was not tolerated. One of the few occupations open to such people was as revolutionary-minded priests whose harangues could be ignored if they were not too persistent. If they went beyond a certain point, however, they were apt to be shortened by a head.

Japanese antipathy toward aggressive people acting on their own is a natural result of their emphasis on consensus and group-behavior. Any other kind of behavior was considered immoral and a direct threat to the security and survival of the group.

One of the best-known and often repeated mythological stories about the divine ancestors of the Japanese and the gods who created the Japanese island has to do with a god, Susanoo no Mikoto, who broke ranks, behaved in a rudely aggressive and individualistic manner, and earned the wrath of the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses. He was subsequently sent into exile.

While a number of historical Japanese heroes became heroes because they took an individualistic stance and stood up for the rights of others, they almost always paid for their actions with their lives. Individualistic behavior was thus seen as admirable only under very special circumstances, and the person concerned had to be willing to sacrifice everything.

The more common morality tales in the Japanese experience are those of people sacrificing their individuality and their own interests for the sake of a group - their family, their village, their clan or their country. This, in fact, was the core of Japan's traditional culture - the basis for the national polity of the country.

In the traditional Japanese context, the more cultured and refined a person, the less aggressive and the less individualistic he would be. The passive, cooperative personality was glorified as the ideal human being. People who displayed self-assertive tendencies were often described as aku ga tsuyoi (ah-kuu gah t'sue-yoe-ee), or "being strong in lye". Lye, in this case, refers to the astringent sap found in some plants and is something that has a very harsh taste.

The opposite of the aku ga tsuyoi person is one from whom all of the lye has been extracted - an aku no nuketa hito (ah-kuu no nuu-kay-tah ssh-toe). In other words, a person who is kind, generous, puts the welfare of others before himself, and goes out of his way to help people without any expectations of gain.

As often the case in Japanese psychology, however, there is a fine line between having too much aku and too little. A person with no aku at all is so spiritless, so passive, that he is incapable of helping himself, much less anyone else, and is looking down upon.

Most Japanese still recoil in the face of overtly aggressive behavior, considering it arrogant, thoughtless and selfish. The challenge facing Westerners, who are often conditioned to have lots of lye in their personalities and therefore tend to clash with Japanese ideals, is to settle on a degree of self-confidence and self-reliance that comes off as having "fighting spirit" which, in contrast, the Japanese admire.