Tolerance to the unexpected

I have changed the title and site URL of this blog again. I hope it does not trouble anyone too much as I had left this without any updates for quite some time.

The initial title I started this blog with was "More a Kiwi than a Kiji" meaning that I am becoming a Kiwi, the New Zealand national bird, than a Kiji, the Japanese counterpart and representing my sentiment as an expatriate.

The second and previous title was "Ray's Adverse Events Report in the Kiwi Life of a Zen Health IT Analyst", a very lengthy one as the result of trying to pack as much as information on who I am and what I do but I now think it very verbose.

So, I made the new one shortly "Trilogues within me" which I hope to stay for a longer time than previous two.

The new title reflects the increased significance of other two languages than Japanese in my thoughts, especially of English. Honestly, nowadays I am more relaxed in talking and corresponding in English than in Japanese even though the latter is my mother tongue.

It does not necessarily mean that things go more smoothly in English for me. Quite opposite is often the case. Actually more often things would go wrong in many reasons including different cultural expectations. However, I know misunderstandings cause more damages on the both sides in communications in Japanese, because those are less tolerant to the unexpected, namely mistakes.

Now I am so away from the ordinal everyday life in Japan or in Japanese culture, I am afraid my values are so apart from those of people living Japanese way of life.

A while ago, there were disputes in Japanese social media about a famous disabled author refused to dine in an artisan Italian restaurant because of the reservation without declaring need for assistance with wheel-chair access. Eventually the restaurant owner apologised with an excuse that he and his staff just couldn't handle the situation without prior arrangements and didn't mean any discriminations.

I think it is a good example that communications in Japanese suddenly became difficult when something unexpected happens. So Japanese are generally have been taught to behave according to others' expectations. I wish that tolerance to the unexpected becomes norm as the ever increasing global   exchanges require it even for people in Japan.

Ray Murakami