On Misunderstanding and Being Misunderstood
By Leina Fieleke ‘21, JFOU Fellow 2021-2023
An art history professor I had at Oberlin would always take a moment after the class laughed at an artwork. “Why is this funny?” he would ask. Until then, not many people had asked me to explicitly express why something was funny. This is now, however, one of the most common questions I find myself asking while navigating a new country and culture.
“That’s so funny,” my friend said, pointing at the book in my bag. I nodded vaguely, something I’d learned to do early on when I moved to Japan. By this time, I had learned to keep my book in my bag. I couldn’t explain it, but I had this strange feeling that somehow it was wrong for me to be reading it in public. This interaction cemented this feeling into a fact, but it wasn’t until a few months later that another friend explained why. He glanced at the title of my book and laughed. “You know that means pure-erotic stories, right?” he said. Alas, I did not.
Having someone explain my blunders the way my friend did has actually been quite rare. Whether it’s because my students suddenly laugh at something I said that wasn’t intentionally funny, or someone I’ve just met becomes off-puttingly quiet when I try to make a joke, I lose a lot of information in “cultural” translation everyday. I know literally what something means, but none of the connotations or nuances related to it. What is funny? Rude? Humble? Strange? Kind? These questions have been my biggest challenge since moving to Japan, and are often not taught in classrooms.
Although I knew communication would be a challenge for me in Japan, I never thought it would be quite the barrier that it’s become. I studied Japanese for three years at Oberlin, so while I still have a lot to learn, I am able to have conversations in Japanese on a variety of subjects quite comfortably. I naively felt prepared to communicate in Japan. And yet, I found myself vastly underprepared to communicate and perceive people’s thoughts in a culturally appropriate manner.
Never was this so obvious as when I’ve made efforts to make Japanese friends. I leave most of my interactions with the feeling that I’ve done something wrong, the same gnawing feeling I had when I casually read “pure-erotic stories” in front of my friend’s parents. A kind of nagging sense of embarrassment thats cause is near impossible to explain. We use so much of ourselves, our direct words, insinuations, body language, etc. to communicate, that I could hardly tell what was to blame. Did I use a culturally loaded word? Say something too boastfully? Was my tone misleading? Should I have bowed my head? Too much eye contact? The answers to these questions aren’t on the internet, and oftentimes it’s not something people feel comfortable talking about, never mind explaining in the moment.
The first time I had this kind of “cultural” communication explicitly explained to me was during a debate class at my summer language training. My teacher had given us articles to read on the morality of murder and then assigned us a side to argue for. While I was debating with one of my classmates, my teacher frequently interrupted us. Not for grammatical or vocabulary errors like we were used to, but because we were constantly saying things that were culturally inappropriate. Something as simple as “I disagree” had my teacher immediately unmuting herself: “No, that’s too strong! No Japanese person would say that. Say it like this…” I learned an entirely different way to excuse myself from a conversation, ask for a work-related favor, and to disagree with people. Anything directly translated from English for those situations was typically funny or incredibly rude. Moving to Japan has been the equivalent of these lessons every single minute of a conversation, but without the understanding teacher to correct my mistakes. Instead, I accidentally say things too strongly or in a funny way that, partially due to my language knowledge, is attributed to my character rather than cultural incompetency.
Why is that funny? Why is that strange? Why did it surprise me? These are the kinds of questions that I’ve been met with multiple times a day while living in Japan. Without concrete answers, I’m often left to sit in the discomfort of not knowing, or rather, giving a panicked smile to try and cover my confusion. Without the knowledge to express myself accurately, I found myself being frequently misunderstood and consequently becoming obsessed with being understood. For now, though, I’m trying to more humbly accept not knowing and not being understood. This acceptance has helped me find a version of myself that is less dependent on the opinions of those around me. If I accidentally say something funny or offputting, I try to value my intentions while also honoring the unintended effects of my words. The moments before understanding and being understood can be lonely, but at least they can make me laugh. And if I am lucky enough to overcome them, sometimes I can make the other person laugh too.
