The Key West Citizen

Method Of Thinking Creates
Chief East-West Difference

By WALTER SIARCKE

No matter how determined I was to visit Japan with few pre-conceived ideas, I arrived secure with suitcases of theories about the country and its post-war adjustment. Fortunately I had scheduled several months time there, because it took every bit of it for me to get balance after the rug of life-long impressions was pulled out from under me.

At first everything seemed so easy to know, the answers so simple, and the easy warmth of friendship so outpouring that it was some time before I realized all the recognizable signposts, by which we in the West judge life, had been subtly removed.

Therefore, I spent little time sightseeing, but much time talking and getting to know the people, in order to see if Kipling was right when he said, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."

To any appetite, Tokyo is one of the most exciting places in the world. Despite the fact that it is one of the largest cities in the world, there are few multi-storied buildings, and everything looks as though it would collapse with one medium-sized shake.

In the daytime, the city is about the ugliest of cities, but at night the lights come on, magic happens and she becomes the most enchanting and tempting.

Though there are a number of large night clubs offering any kind of entertainment—from virtuous to sinful, the town is honeycombed with thousands of tiny intimate bars which accommodate no more than a dozen people; so the feeling is much more like having been invited to a private party than of visiting a bar of strangers.

This is an indication of what it is that makes the city an experience rather than a travelogue museum. It is the people themselves and their sensitivity to those around them that creates the excitement of Tokyo.

From the minute you arrive in Tokyo, you can't help being impressed by the speed of life, the smiles and the instant concern as to whether you are happy and comfortable down to the gentlest wish. I had always thought the Japanese were a mask-like people so who showed little expression in their faces and less in their contact with strangers.

Perhaps they try to express outwardly the opposite of what they really feel in order to compensate and hide their emotionally expressive nature. If so, they do a poor job for I was greatly affected by their expressive faces, their immediate and physically expressed affection, and their obvious desire to give of both themselves and their possessions.

The Difference

Yet I soon felt lost, and had to find where I went astray. My mistake was in trying to understand their actions by the same yardsticks we use to measure our own, while actually a whole new and un-Western basis of comprehension is necessary.

We in the West live largely with and in our minds. We reason a thing out in terms of right and wrong. We hold the elements in our heads and make decisions on which we act. Japanese live much more by what they feel than what they think. They detect a degree of 'dishonesty in our actions because our decisions so often differ with our true feelings.

On the other hand it is hard for us to follow the life they live, which seems touched with insanity, because the logic so often breaks down. Because we are more mentally controlled we can feel a half dozen emotions to different degrees at the same time.

Japanese are inclined to focus so sharply on the present emotion which they are experiencing, that they seem to lose sight of all others.

What is to us a casual flirtation not losing sight of our obligations and responsibilities, becomes to them immediately a Madam Butterfly do-or-die romance with no thought but the moment.

On the other hand, we mistakenly think they are deceitful and two-faced, because from one moment to the next, they may seem to have forgotten what they believed to be of world shaking importance shortly before. Actually they haven't forgotten, it is just that the focus suddenly touches on another subject and they become totally involved in the new one.

As a people, the Japanese seem to combine the romantic intensity of the Latins, the sentimentality of the Russian people, the sophistication of the French, the manners of the English, the drive of the German, and the vitality of the American, all at once, and each 100 per cent since each emotion, when it experienced, is experienced fully.

Round About Way

The Japanese language is another indication of their living more by feeling than thought. With us, the verb is the most important word in the sentence; to them it is the least and comes at the end of the sentence.

None of the clauses in the sentence are dependent on each other in any pattern we could recognize. Everything is mixed up in such a way that you cannot know what a sentence means until it is over.

You must hold all the elements in your head until the end, then get the feeling of the meaning of the sentence rather than the fact. Even the modern Japanese say to each other, when they want a quick, positive answer, "Tell me in English, 'yes' or 'no.'"

I had always thought of the Japanese as a highly efficient people busily making complicated machinery and transistor radios; so it was a rude awakening to find that they are, in many ways, the most disorganized nation. You never approach a matter in a straight line, as their language shows, but rather in a round, graceful curve. Even house numbers are not marked; so that you must be given little maps printed on the backs of personal cards in order to find the homes of friends.

Our society is based on the Hebrew-Christian background of law and action which has brought forth many material freedoms and a greater comfort of life to the world which the whole Orient is trying to better understand and adapt.

It is hard for us to appreciate the apparently emotional approach of the Japanese; yet there is much they possess that could help us better enjoy what we have and with less wear and tear on bodies and nerves.

Whatever the 'Japanese ex-