Although this discussion primarily deals with how pastors can better minister to Asian-Americans in the West, there are enormous implications and lessons to be learned from this insightful Q&A session with regards to how Westerners, in general, can better understand the mindset of many Asian-Americans. So, even if you’re not a Christian or don’t really give a rip about ministry matters, it’s worth taking time to listen.

Personally, I’m really thankful for this discussion because this shed a great amount of light onto my experience as an Asian-American. Balancing a predominantly white, southern-American, individualistic context with my home life of being raised by a Japanese mother, I felt firsthand what Dr. Julius Kim and Dr. Stephen Um described as a ‘confluence of Western and Eastern value systems’. This has been to my advantage in so many ways, but it has also left me a bit confused at times. 

“Oftentimes we develop leaders based upon the ways they express themselves vocally as well as in their actions, in their words and in their deeds. Oftentimes because of certain Eastern cultural value systems Asians tend not to put themselves forward. They’re much more deferential. They’re much more…accommodating…just being very sensitive to the context and to the other leaders around them. So they’re less vocal. As a pastor, you may look at certain Asian-Americans growing up and maturing in your midst, and say, “I don’t think he has what we call ‘leadership potential’. He’s too quiet. He’s too accommodating. He’s a great ‘server’, but I don’t think he could ever be a leader because through his words and through his actions he hasn’t demonstrated the kind of assertiveness that we need to see among the rugged individualism of American identity. Oftentimes we define leadership based upon that kind of rugged, individualistic, assertive character. What happens is, it is not that they do not have that ability, it’s that oftentimes they suppress it because of this confluence of both Western and Eastern value systems.”

-Julius Kim

This confusion, for me, is especially true with regards to the realm of ‘leadership’. As someone who is half-Japanese, it’s incredibly difficult in the U.S. to navigate these tricky and, oftentimes, biased waters. I’m not very assertive (I can force myself to be…it’s so incredibly awkward). I’m ‘overly-accommodating’. My concern, when it comes to decisions, is often directed toward the consensus of the group and what is best for ‘the team’. I don’t advance myself in conversations, but allow others to speak first. As Dr. Um says below, I feel I must be invited to partake of things where I feel under-qualified. To the average Westerner, I seem to be a disinterested, quiet, unassertive, people-pleasing, non-leader. Maybe this is why I was always ‘the dishwasher’ or ‘janitor boy’ at all those horrible jobs throughout high school and college?

“You might have Asian-Americans in your midst who are extremely capable servant leaders and you don’t know it. Because they don’t advance themselves. How do I know this? Because they run the board at your local hospital, obviously they have leadership there. Let’s say there’s no Asian-American specific church, but they come to a church that’s predominantly white and because they like the preaching and they like the vision, but perhaps…he or she has not advanced himself/herself and that person is just there and you might think of them as being disinterested. And you say, ‘Well, why don’t they just come and tell us?’ Somebody who is on the outside needs to be invited. The Gospel tells us that when it comes to authority and power it’s not about power accrual or accumulation. It’s all about power distribution. That’s exactly what Jesus Christ did on the cross. He emptied himself and became nothing and He gave of His power. He was rich and became poor so that you could become rich - He was willing to be impoverished. He was willing to be poor. That is a gospel principle.

You might say why don’t they initiate. Why aren’t Asian-Americans more intentional? Because, you see, when you’re part of a minority culture in a dominant culture, you need to be invited. Let me give you an example, I had one fellow who came and said, ‘Dr. Um, can I ask you something?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ He said, ‘Why do all the Asians sit together at the cafeteria at seminary?’ And I said, ‘I’ll answer that question if you answer this. Why is it on this side all of the white Americans are sitting together?’ He said, ‘Excuse me?’ I said, ‘When you are a part of the dominant culture, you don’t have, perhaps, what Harvie Conn has said an ‘ethnic consciousness’. In other words, when you’re a part of the dominant culture, you’re not aware as much if you were a part of a minority culture. So the minority, he/she knows they are a minority. The person who is a part of the dominant culture must invite and engage in power sharing. That is the only way you are going to be able to work through some of these issues.”

-Stephen Um

I realize many of these things are generalities - Dr. Kim and Dr. Um state that multiple times throughout this discussion. But they are true in most cases. And the reverse could be about said about ‘power sharing’ for Caucasians who enter, as minorities, into an ethnic church or business meeting, etc. Regardless, it’s given me a lot to think about. 

I think I am a leader. I know for sure I’m not the ‘rugged, individualistic Western leader’ that is often in demand as the stereotypical entrepreneurial church-planting man-beast. I don’t want to be that. I can’t be that. Is it against my nature or nurture? Who knows. Part of me regrets not knowing this stuff about myself when I was a kid. It would have saved me a lot of confusion and angst. What I do know is this mixture of Western and Eastern values I have carried throughout my whole life is a gift. I know it will serve me well in Japan.  

I’m just hoping they don’t need another dishwasher.

If you have the time, it’s worth reading this article and listening to the mp3 through the Gospel Coalition. 

Also, if you’re interested in another example of Eastern vs. Western dynamics, here’s another post we did last year about the phenomenon of ‘Arguing In Japanese’.

This article from the guy over at This Japanese Life is both hilarious and intriguing. Why do you think Japanese people don’t walk and eat/drink at the same time? This guy’s conclusion seems to make sense.

An excerpt:

Why doesn’t anyone in Japan drink soda while walking?

Google results are unsatisfactory. Is it considered rude? Dangerous? Had it never occurred to anyone that they could drink while walking?

Japanese friends answer with a shrug. “We just don’t, I don’t know why.”

People don’t walk and drink in Japan. They huddle around the vending machine, finish the beverage, dispose of the can or bottle, and then continue walking. 

The mystery steeped in the back of my mind until I stumbled across the term Vendo buried on Wikipedia’s Japanese food etiquette page. Vendo isn’t anywhere else on the Internet, leading me to suspect that this is a clandestine Wikipedia edit that went unchallenged.

But it works. And it helps me articulate what’s so fascinating about Vendo, “the practice of standing around a vending machine to finish the beverage.” It’s a collective habit. No one knows why they do it, they just do.

(via) - For the rest of the article.

Subcultures wouldn’t be subcultures if they weren’t a bit…inaccessible. Here’s the first post in a series to give you a taste of some of the undercurrents (past & present) in Japanese society.

Subculture #1 - Dekotora

This group of folks loves to dress up their cars, in the spirit of Pimp My Ride, but with a tad more Vegas-esque/Transformers vibe. This movement to make one’s semi-truck look like a slot-machine-on-wheels began in the 70’s and apparently it’s still rolling today (no pun intended).

he looks comfy…

I guess it’s popular enough these days to get a Wii video game made about it.

70’s clip that makes you anxious to see if the Road Warrior, Johnny Cash, or afro’s & bellbottoms will appear throughout it.

Tetsuya Ishida was a Japanese painter who painted scenes of ordinary Japanese life, but he often inserted himself into the paintings as one who was trapped in machinery or as a cog-in-the-wheel of society. He was killed in 2005 by being hit by a train (possibly suicide).  

His work is really stunning and communicates the loneliness, isolation and despair that a lot of Japanese men feel in the workforce. His gallery is definitely worth checking out.

Apparently, The Beat Motors are an up-and-coming band in Tokyo right now. Their sound is very Jet/The Strokes-esque.  Check ‘em out…you be the judge.

Hope these music-related posts give you some insight into the younger generation of Japanese people and how different their worldviews and lifestyles are from the traditional, older generations. A lot of the stereotypes of Japanese people and their customs are rapidly changing. 

Here’s a link to a Japan Times article back in May that commented on the three major subculture movements in Japan that have changed the face and values of mainstream Japanese culture.

An excerpt:

 

The formative culture of a country is its subculture. Mainstream culture is about the present; subculture creates the future. In Japan, there have been three seminal subcultures since the end of World War II in 1945.

The first was the politically radical one of the immediate postwar period. This postwar subculture was bohemian and decadent, given its impetus by writers such as Osamu Dazai and Ango Sakaguchi. 

The second subculture movement sprang up in the 1960s, thanks to the underground theater of playwrights including Shuji Terayama and Juro Kara, and filmmakers such as Nagisa Oshima. There was a robust iconoclastic power to this movement, which at times — as in Oshima’s films in that decade — turned ideological, reinforcing the anti- establishment political trends of the day.

The third subculture, which has become mainstream and is flowing with full force today, appeared in the 1980s. It wasn’t prodding, oppositional and subversive like its predecessors. Rather it was freaky, fashionable and fun — part of what was known in the ’80s as the fuiringu jidai, or “feeling era.” Its “don’t think about it, just do it” message was embraced by a young generation sick and tired of over-serious conceptual polemics, lead-weight angst and rat-race drudgery.

So, I finished that book Confucius Lives Next Door (which I’ll still be posting brief excerpts out of in the future). It was great. Although, it did lack the personal touch that usually makes stories so riveting and helps you remember all of those overwhelming facts in a manageable context. So I found this other book that I’m currently reading called The Secrets of Mariko.  It’s just as helpful as Confucius Lives Next Door for understanding the Eastern mindset and Japanese way of life - only way more powerful and engaging (so far). 

The book is written by Elisabeth Bumiller, a journalist who lived in Tokyo in the 1990s (her husband worked for the Washington Post). It is about a year in her life where she found a Japanese family, with the pseudonym ‘Tanaka’, and investigated their seemingly ordinary lives. It’s a beautiful book so far and really provides a window into the heart of the Japanese people through such an intimate encounter. 

An excerpt:

This book is a chronicle of one year in the life of Mariko and her family - the story of an ordinary Japanese woman at the close of the twentieth century in one of the richest nations on earth. It is about the interior lives of a handful of individuals in what at first seems to be a nation of maddening conformists - about their singular and complicated joys, ambitions, insecurities, disappointments, resentments, misgivings, and mixed feelings. It is also a story of postwar Japan, where economic triumph has been nourished by a measure of social coercion, a flawed education system, and often corrupt politics. It is about the burdens shouldered disproportionately by women, and why the Japanese self-image of a harmonious, classless society is partly myth. Woven into the history of Mariko’s family are the ghosts of Japan’s past - a legacy of war and defeat - and the demons in its troubled, neurotic relationship with the United States. Above all, Mariko’s story is a reminder that certain universal themes transcend borders. Like all of us, Mariko struggled to balance her own needs with those of her family. She also understood the euphoria and risks of emotional intimacy and the loneliness and safety of distance from others…

 I’ll keep you posted on it as I get more into it.

Morinosuke Kawaguchi gives a brief lecture on the amazing wonders of the Japanese toilet…and I mean amazing. 

An excerpt from Confucius Lives Next Door: 

“…I noticed a distinguished figure - a short, kindly-faced, white-haired gentleman in a handsome blue suit, with a dark tie knotted perfectly against the starched collar of his white shirt and a crisp white handkerchief folded into three perfect peaks in his breast pocket - standing in front of our house. Actually, he was standing in front of the house next door, but it is hard to know that in a Tokyo neighborhood, where the houses are narrow and separated from the place next door only by an inch or two of bare concrete. 

This nicely dressed gentleman was, in fact, our next-door neighbor, although we weren’t to know that right away. Japanese people - and particularly those of a certain age, like our neighbor - feel it is essential to maintain a degree of reserve, to keep some distance when dealing with others. There’s a word for this in Japanese: enryo, which my dictionary defines as ‘restraint.’ To the Japanese, enryo is a form of courtesy, a practice that assures you don’t intrude upon another’s privacy. For strict practitioners of this ethic it would be dreadfully bad form, it would be a fairly substantial violation of enryo, to introduce yourself by name on first meeting another person. And so it was with this gentleman; he addressed us politely and clearly surmised that we were moving in next door to his house, but he was not quite ready to go so far as to tell us his name. 

What he did do, though, was answer our questions about ice cream. Yes, there was in fact a place within walking distance where we could get ice cream. And it was American ice cream, at that; we would feel right at home. If we would wind down the hill and around the corner, past the pachinko parlor and the Mitsubishi Bank, we’d see a big billboard with English written on it. Beneath that sign would be the ice-cream shop-a place called ‘Satay-Wan.’

‘Satay-Wan’? It sounded more like a Malaysian beef house or a Chinese noodle stand than an American ice cream shop…”

“…It looked like any Baskin-Robbins ice-cream store. It looked like any Baskin-Robbins in any little shopping center in any American town, with the big red ‘Baskin-Robbins’ sign on top and a huge red ‘31‘-that means thirty-one flavors-in a white circle on the shop window. The minute we saw it, of course, we understood that mysterious ‘Satay-Wan.’

One of the problems facing American businesses that come to Asia is how to preserve the corporate name after it is rewritten in Chinese characters or another local alphabet. The matter is further complicated because a lot of Asian languages have fewer distinct sounds than English uses….The problem was even tougher for the hyphenated, multisyllabic business called Baskin-Robbins. In Japanese pronunciation, this name becomes ‘Basu-keen Low-Beans.’ Since ‘Low-Beans’ did not sound very ice-cream-like, even in Japanese, the chain rather cleverly advertised itself in Japan not by its corporate name but rather by its most salient feature, the famous thirty-one flavors. All over Japan, Baskin-Robbins ice-cream stores are known not as ‘Basu-keen Low-Beans’ but rather, more simply, as ‘Thirty-one.’”

Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living In The East Teaches Us About Living In The West

I’ve been reading this book lately (recommended by a friend) and I’m almost done with it. It’s fascinating and really helps explain the complexity and the beauty of Eastern thinking and living. T.R. Reid, an NPR journalist and author, was offered a job to live in Tokyo, Japan to work at a newspaper and this book is about his (and his family’s) experience. 

Anyway, Reid’s basic thesis seems bold even to himself:

“It’s an audacious argument: East Asians act the way they do at the dawn of the twenty-first century because of a few basic precepts laid down by a Chinese sage who lived at the end of the fifth century B.C….Confucius.”

Although it is a huge generalization and blanket statement to suggest that every Asian person and society is shaped by the teachings of Confucius, Reid’s book makes a very convincing case about how Asian culture and societies have developed because of the teachings, moral values and social structures put forth by this ancient sage. He posits that this is why Asians still are able to maintain their core values in a global market today - especially in Japan. 

The book, however, is hilarious, witty, insightful, and full of compelling anecdotes.  I’ll be sharing excerpts out of this for the next couple of weeks just to give you glimpses into the mystery that East Asia often appears to be to Americans. And, who knows, maybe you’ll even gain some insight about living in the West as well. 

You can see more of T.R. Reid’s stuff at his website.