Hello! I am Haihao, a new member from Japan

[Rosalisa]

Hi Haihoa and everybody,

The discussions really drew my whole interest in you and Japan. It's really great to have you here. You must be the first one we can talk to, right here. But I'm wondering why Japanese people are shy. The best things I admire Japanese people are their hard work and respect for seniors. No matter how well-educated you are, you need to respect the seniors! Is that true?

Rosalisa
_________________
If you want to change the world, be one of the change.

[Haihao]

Hi FangFang and Rosalisa,

It's very nice to enjoy your messages here and thank you for your interest in Japan and her tradition. I wish I could satisfy you with my poor answer to your questions but frankly speaking I am not so confident in my very limited knowledge especially about the interrelationship between different cultures and traditions.

So, I have to say, FangFang, that the placement of first and last names in written or spoken English for a Japanese is just the opposite to how it's performed in Chinese (as long as I know) although we do the same as in Chinese or other Asian languages in our daily lives as I said last time. It's just the rule or tradition and I can't help it.

And, thanks again, Rosalisa, for your knowledge and compliments for Japan. I think you are right about the hard-working and respect-for-elders traditions on the whole. However, in my personal opinion and from my very limited experences of American and Chinese cultures, I feel that Japan is more or less similar to the way of America's in many aspects including the respect-for-elders issue, on which Chinese people are doing very good. Of course, ultimately it depends on the person who has what kind of sense of value and what kind of conception of life she/he prefers.

Finally, as for the shy issue, Rosalisa, I also think you are generally right too and I would look on it as a 'national characteristic'. Comparatively we are not adept at self-expression and some people even see it as a virtue (of being not fully expressive or in other words less expressive or maybe the Chinese word 'Hanxu' could describe it more effectively, am I right, FangFang? ).

haihao

[FangFang]

Hello, Haihao
In fact, "Hanxu" is a neuter word. It means that you don't want to express yourself in a direct way so that others can't understand you easily. Whether it is good or not is hard to tell. Personally I won't take it as a virtue. Because sometimes it is really hard to understand somebody if he or she is too reserved.
"National characteristic", really???? Why do you think so? I think now many people around the word have had that "virtue". To much extent it is because of the mixtures of culture, economy and so on. You must know another Chinese word, it is "Aimei", something similar with "Hanxu", my Japanese teacher says Japan is a "Aimei de" nation, I can't understand it because "aimei' is a neuter word, too. I can't relate it to a nation, maybe you can share your viewpoints here. By the way, in Japanese which word has the similar meaning of "Hanxu" ?

F.F

[Haihao]

Due to my poor command of both Chinese and Japanese languages, I had no idea about a good Japanese word for Hanxu with its expressive sense in modern Chinese, so I used Hanxu in my last post. But I can give you a compromised one - Ganchiku （含蓄), the same Kanji as Chinese but neither the same meaning nor an equality in usage. We say, i.g. the poem has Ganchiku, meaning the poem has a good implication or inspiration.

Aimei is Aimai (曖昧）in Japanese, almost the same meaning and usage as in Chinese, meaning fuzzy. But we sometimes say Faji (fazzy) instead.

And, please do not get me wrong, FangFang, for my poor wording of 'national characteristic'. I didn't mean the 'virtue' (if it could be called so) monopolized by us but just a feature of Japanese as a whole.

Just some personal thoughts.

haihao