More cultural lessons from Masquerade Hotel
Three further cultural points that can be gleaned from this detective novel
In a previous article (Winter 2020), I wrote about how the Japanese detective novel Masquerade Hotel shows the importance of apology in Japanese culture.1 Here, I consider three other aspects of Japanese culture it reveals.
Sensitivity to non-verbal communication
In passages containing dialog, speech is often followed by a description of the speaker’s tone of voice, facial expression, body language, or combinations of these. For example:
- “Mr. Fujiki said in a low voice” (67),
- “Naomi’s eyes were wide open” (62),
- “Mr. Fujiki knitted his eyebrows” (62), and
- “Mr. Fujiki’s face clouded over and he folded his arms” (62).
This is a writing technique used in both English and Japanese, but it seemed more frequent than I usually see in English novels, and it might be a reflection of the high-context nature of Japanese culture. In low-context cultures (such as most Western cultures), you can generally understand the message a person wants to convey mainly from their words alone. In contrast, non-verbal communication plays a bigger role in high-context cultures such as Japan’s.
There was at least one place in the novel where non-verbal communication changed how the listener interpreted what they heard. After being praised for his intellectual abilities by a colleague, Detective Nitta thought, “That’s just empty flattery” (375). But when he detected a serious glint in the eyes of his colleague, he reassessed his evaluation. Thus, non-verbal cues can affect how Japanese process the words they hear. While this is also true in low-context cultures, it assumes a far greater importance in high-context ones.
It’s important to learn to read the non-verbal signals that Japanese people give when speaking. We also need to be sensitive to how they might interpret our body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.
Know your place in the hierarchy
Another cultural aspect that came out strongly was the hierarchical nature of Japanese society. Bosses used casual, almost rough, language when speaking to those under them and coworkers used normal, non-polite language with each other. Juniors used polite language when talking to their superiors and hotel staff used super-polite language when talking to guests.
This aspect of culture came out in the storyline as well. The main character grew frustrated posing as a hotel receptionist, and so he and a colleague decided to do their own side investigation into one of the suspects. But when this came to light, instead of being praised for his initiative, he was reprimanded and told to stick to his assigned role. This contrasts with Western novels where a lone hero cuts their own path that goes in a different direction from that of the group.
The lesson for us is that we need to be conscious of where we stand in our hierarchies and be careful not to overstep our bounds. For example, giving suggestions about how do to things differently when working under a Japanese pastor might be interpreted as an attempt to usurp his authority.
Japanese morals
At one point, Detective Nitta said, “If a person has been brought up correctly, the difference between right and wrong will be so ingrained in them as to be common sense” (43). Thus, morality is what a person has been taught by parents and teachers when they were children. This suggests that it’s a common community standard rather than a principle based on an absolute reference point (which is similar to post-modern Western societies).
Later, Nitta recalls an incident that happened when he was a high school student. A fellow student was making fun of a trainee English teacher’s accent in front of the class and called upon Nitta, who was fluent in English, to read a passage from the textbook. Nitta was reluctant, but “his friends were egging him on and, he would definitely be labelled a bore if he stubbornly refused,” and so “there was nothing for it” but to read the passage (274). Reflecting on it later, he said, “It wasn’t as if I could have been the only good kid in the class” (275). This episode shows the power of peer pressure in Japanese society and how the opinion of the group can cause an individual to go against what they know is right and to do something they don’t really want to do. Peer pressure is not unique to Japan, but conformity to the group is a significantly stronger force than in the individualistic cultures of the West.
1. Keigo Higashino, Masquerade Hotel (Shueisha Bunko, 2014). 東野圭吾 マスカレード・ホテル (集英社文庫 2014).