TRUTH and PERCEPTION

Yesterday, I talked about Pornography in Japan and said what you see is not what the reality is in Japan. In Japan, there is a saying that there are “HONNE” and “TATEMAE” in everything.

HONNE is the TRUTH
TATEMAE is the PERCEPTION or the way you want people to think

So, as far as Pornography in Japan is concerned, Japan has one of the most conservative restriction against it. But the truth is, it is everywhere. I have seen school kids walking in front of the movie theater that has many posters with sexual contents.

You see Japanese tourism advertisements that show Japanese people in Kimono, Temples and Shrines, Traditional Tea Houses and music. Those are the perception that Japan wants to portrait to visitors. But is that what Japan is? That probably represents less than 1% of Japanese people. When I visit there, I rarely see people in Japanese kimono. I will do a double take if I see any male wearing kimono in Japan.

Because of this TRUTH vs PERCEPTION, many Japanese people are very suspicious of things that seem to be too good. Many times, Japanese people believe the bad news and ignore good because they think good news are fabricated. Japanese people (companies too) rarely brag about anything. Because it may rebound negatively.

On the other hand, Japanese do not treat negative publicity seriously. They believe those negativities will go away if you do not react. You can see this in slow reaction to negative publicity by companies like Toyota, Bridgestone and the Tokyo Electric Company that operates failed nuclear power plants.

As the world gets smaller and smaller by the flow of information, companies and people in Japan need to learn how to respond to the publicities whether it is positive or negative.

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