It is said that misunderstandings happen when Japanese communicate with foreigners, especially Americans. We can say that many people have an interest in why Japanese are misunderstood and misunderstand. Many authorities write about it in books, many people buy or read them or some TV personalities discuss on TV. Also, their examples prove that we often meet such a case in an ordinary life even in a local city like Miyazaki, so many people want really to know the best way not to misunderstand foreigners. The paper will focus on nonverbal communication, especially facial expressions to understand real emotions of Japanese and Americans. This paper will also explain how important nonverbal communication is and compare the facial expressions of Japanese and Americans and contrast how the thoughts of Japanese and Americans are different. Finally, this paper includes a interview with an American living in Miyazaki.

"Nonverbal communication is defined as communication that does not rely on the verbal contents." (Miyake, 1995) Nonverbal expressions tell us more accurate information than verbal ones. A proverb says that the eye talks a lot more than the mouth. For example, you are told by someone that I hate you. If you take the word literally, you may feel sad. However, if you watch the person's face and you notice the person smiling, you know that the person really does not hate you. From this evidence we know that facial expressions are essential to relate with people and we should pay more attention to a person's facial expressions.

According to a study in the US (Okabe, 1988), a word could transfer only 35% meaning of communication. On the other hand, 65% of the communication was transmitted by nonverbal expressions. If the study is performed in Japan, called the "Silent Culture", the rate that communication relies on nonverbal expressions might get much higher.

Basically, it is said that Japanese express their feelings less than Americans do. A study of accuracy of facial expressions was done (Matsumoto, 1985) He researched six emotions, Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happy, Sad and Surprise.

The perfect acore is 8. The higher the points are, the more subjects could understand how people feel from their facial expressions.

The study of the accuracy of facial expression reveals that Japanese are poorer at understanding how people feel from facial expressions. Also, it can be said that Japanese are not good at expressing their feelings directly. The result also shows that Japanese show positive feelings of being happy or surprised as much as Americans, but Japanese show negative feelings, anger, disgusts, fear and sad, less than Americans do.

According to Prof. Miyake, a social psychologist at MIC, Japanese tend to be insensitive to other people. The reason is fundamentally that Japanese try to keep good relationship with others, so they attempt not to know about the others deeply. As a result, the Japanese face expresses feelings in a different way than the American's.

Cross-cultural communication is an interaction which happens among people from different cultures (Nabekura, 1993). That is, to know differences of culture can lead us to understand how foreigners feel and think. Therefore, it can be said that to compare both cultural backgrounds might help us understand quickly these differences. So, I will contrast them. First, I'll consider a Japanese cultural background and then, an American one.

According to The Japanese Relationship (Higuchi, 1992), Japanese nonverbal communication seems to be different from American's one. Japanese tend to rely on nonverbal expression when they have to tell emotional, mental things and what we are unwilling to say. Japanese infer what people want to say from nonverbal expressions. It is communicating their thought intuitively while being silent that the Japanese ideal communication. (Higuchi, p.111). On the other hand, there are many Americans who utilize gestures as communication. It is obvious that they make much of nonverbal communication though they tend to rely on words. (Higuchi, p.110)

Differences of relationships between Japanese and Americans might come from differences of dependence on people. Although Japanese desire to depend on others, the desire is met only when the others infer the desire without a word. In general, Japanese society is made up of people depending on each other. It is mentioned that Japan is a collectivistic cultures. In a collectivistic culture "people belong to ingroups or collectivistic which are supposed to look after them in exchange for loyalty" (Gudykunst, p.22) We rely on others, and also other rely on us. In Japan, these relationships work well. However, though American might be kind to others they never accept the desire to rely on people. (Higuchi, p.99) For example, when a Japanese talks with an American, the Japanese wants the American to infer their thoughts and feelings from facial expressions. The Japanese makes the mistake of thinking that the American could understand the Japanese person or his thoughts. In the case, misunderstandings happen between the Japanese and the American because the fact is that the American does not understand the Japanese. The Japanese thought they communicated with nonverbal expressions but the American did not think they communicated. As another example, Japanese does not refuse by saying "no". We want other people to infer "no" However, foreigners such as Americans does not hear "no" from the word, so they do not know that the Japanese told them "no".

Finally, I asked an American to know what kinds of misunderstandings foreigners in Miyazaki meet. He told me interesting stories that he got from 8 years life in Miyazaki. Here is his idea about why Japanese facial expressions are different from an American's ones. He thinks its differences contribute to differences of space. According to his idea, Japanese has little space to express their feelings by gesture and it might relate to less Japanese facial expressions. One the other hand, Americans have much room to express their feelings and they could reveal their feelings well.

It can be said that nonverbal expressions tell us more accurate information than verbal one at communication so it is essential to value the nonverbal expressions. However, paying too attention to it is dangerous because it is varies in different cultures. When communicating with foreigners we should consider them to have different cultural background. However, as a foreigner told me, foreigners seem to understand us well. As the result, comparing to a past, there might be little case that foreigners take us differently.

References

Higuchi, K. (1992). Nihonjin No Ningenkankei [The Japanese Relationship]. Kyoto: Enkyosha.

Matsumoto, D. (1985). Accuracy of the Facial Expressions. [Class handout]. Miyazaki: Miyazaki International College.

Miyake, K. (1995). Nonverbal Communication. [Class handout in Social Psychology Class]. Miyazaki: Miyazaki International College.

Miyake, K. (1996, June). [Personal interview].

Nabekura, T. (1993). Nihonjin No Ibunka Communication [The Japanese Cross Cultural Communication] Tokyo: Kitaju-Shupan.

Okabe, R. (1988). Ibunka Wo Yomu [Understanding The Cross-Culture]. Tokyo: Nanundo.

Steven, van Dresser. (1996, July 5). [Personal interview].

Gudykunst, William B. & Nishida, T. (1994). Bridging Japanese/ North American Differences. London: SAGE Publications.