Originally posted by KennethKu
I can assure you that is an Asian thing, rather than a Japanese way. They will seldom say no to you eventhough they are dead set against it or impossible to deliver. *sigh* They tend to take offence at you when you are simply being honest in telling them you can't help.
Hahah! I can attest to this from personal experience. My wife is Vietnamese, and the "little white lie" is part and parcel of the culture. It's really a matter of principle to them, and her. That principle clashes greatly with mine, which is one of directness and honesty. American culture would generally find this propensity to lie about many things in order to make others happy or to not lose respect immoral. But she finds my forthrightness and honesty (not that I'm perfect, obviously) to be immoral.
One of the odd consequences of this was that I was responsibile for cancelling magazine subscriptions because she couldn't refuse the telemarketers. It took a few years to convince her to let the answering machine handle it. Once she was on the phone, she was unable to hang up until she had made the other person happy. It was my job to make them unhappy. I've managed to scrape away some of that politeness over the years :rofl: and now she's almost as rude as I am.
As to bowing: vietnamese also bow, but not nearly to the extent that japanese do. The bows are perfunctory at best, small gestures of respect for elders and others. Their equivalent to bowing is built into their modes of address, which can be downright obfuscatory to us westerners, especially when translated (indirectly) to english. I'm, apparently, Uncle #2 to the children of my wife's older brother, but the daughter of my wife's older sister calls me something entirely different. It isn't even that simple, because the nieces and nephews have different modes for me depending on their gender and on their own relative ages and all that. Somehow, they keep it straight. I'm no real expert in vietnamese culture, however. My experience is limited to my participation with my in-laws.
So, taking this back to the bowing in class issue: let's replace the japanese class (with bowing) with a vietnamese class (with modes of address and a slight bow as a greeting). Being that modes of address in vietnamese culture and bowing in japanese culture are cultural constructs evolved over generations to help members of those cultures relate to each other, similar to western gestures of handshakes, salutes, curtsies, etc., why would some object to the japanese bow on religious grounds, but not the handshake or the modes of address? If I use the correct mode of address to greet my father-in-law (which I can't pronounce, but that's another problem), would it be a violation of my religious principles (assuming I had any)? Would it be a violation of those principles if a particular mode of address was required between student and teacher in the hypothetical vietnamese class? Importantly, if it is a violation of your religious principles, why do you think you would have the right to force your religious objections down the throats of everyone else, especially in what is a private forum.
The training effectiveness of modes of address, bowing, etc, is completely and utterly irrelevant to this discussion. If the rules require bowing, then so be it. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of provincial idiots using the shield of "religious objections" as a war cry against anything that doesn't fit perfectly into their miniscule world-views. It's pathetic.
