Sunday, 21 March 2021

Hello and Goodbye, cultural differences

There’s a woman living across the street from us who often walks her two little papillon dogs around here. We don’t really know her, and we’re unlikely ever to be friends. She’s cordial enough but her house suggests a rather higher income bracket than ours, and that’s never a distinction it’s easy to bridge.

A papillon, like the one of the dogs our neighbour walks
Still. When we meet her with her dogs, while we’re out with ours, we always have a brief but pleasant conversation. And, inevitably, it starts with a courteous exchange of greetings.

Recently, I came across her as I was returning from the last dog walk of the day, at about 10:00 at night.

“Buenas tardes,” I said to her, because in English I would have said “good evening”. Since this is Spain, I simply translated the English greeting into the nearest expression I knew in Spanish.

“Buenas noches,” she corrected me, with firm emphasis on the second word.

It was dark, so it was night time. It seems that the correct greeting, for a Spaniard, is “Good night”.

That’s not easy for me to adapt to. “Good night”, as far as I'm concerned, is what you say when you’re parting company, or at least when one of you is about to fall asleep (which is a kind of parting, after all). Here it seems it’s a greeting too.

I had a similar problem in French, years ago. “Good evening” in English can be both a greeting and a parting. In French, “bonsoir” is the same. But “bonne soirée”, which would translate literally as exactly the same thing in English, means “have a good evening”, and you’d only say it on parting company.

French also doesn’t have a “good morning” or a “good afternoon” either, so it’s “bonjour” all day, until a slightly indeterminate time, usually when it’s starting to get dark, when you move to “bonsoir” instead. 

We English speakers shouldn’t get too superior about the French lack of those two greetings. After all, unlike French, Spanish, Italian, German or even Japanese (we'll be returning to that), English doesn’t really have a “good day”. I mean, it does, but anyone who actually used the expression “good day” would be indelibly marked as a foreigner, and probably one who learned the language from a book.

I have to say, that I don’t know when “buenos días”, “good day” in Spanish, glides into “buenas tardes”, though I think my experience of the other night has made it pretty clear that “buenas noches” takes over once it gets dark. But since “tarde” can also be translated as afternoon, I’d like to know when it starts, given that I now know when it ends.

I’ll get there some day. Or possibly some afternoon.

I’m confident of that because I carried out a similar research exercise once before. 

In preparation for a visit to Japan, for the wedding of two friends, I put a lot of effort into learning some Japanese. It was an exciting challenge which I took on with enthusiasm. Sadly, I now remember practically nothing of all I learned.

However, I do still remember that “Good morning” in Japanese is “ohayo gozaimasu”. “Good day”, on the other hand, is “konnichiwa”. 

So here was the problem I set myself to solving: when does “ohayo gozaimasu” meld into “konnichiwa”?

Danielle and I travelled to Japan a few days before the wedding. On our second night, we were in Hiroshima – all very moving, and seeing the A-bomb dome really sent a shiver up my back.

The Hiroshima A-bomb dome
One of the only buildings to remain standing after the blast

We wanted to visit Miyajima, which isn’t that far away. It’s an island the whole of which is considered a temple. So it has a temple gate set in the water, which is nothing short of magical. Or, rather, it’s set in the water when the tide is in. At low tide, it’s set in mud, which is rather more prosaic.

I checked the tide tables and high tide the next morning was going to be at 7:00. Which was disappointing, since we’d never be up in time to get there. But then, for the only time in my life, jet lag proved a blessing. We were both awake at 4:00. We got dressed in a hurry and rushed to station. We arrived in time for a boat which got us to the island just as the sun was rising.

And dawn was flooding the gate, with its feet washed by the sea, in light.

The Otorii or temple gate at Miyajima

It was truly magical.

We spent the next few hours walking around the island, spellbound by all we saw. As time went on, more and more people turned up. The Japanese tend to exchange greetings with others, even complete strangers, when their paths cross.

For two or three hours, it was “ohayo gozaimasu”. But as 11:00 am approached, I started to hear the first instances of “konnichiwa”. As my watch hands crept past 11:00, “ohayo gozaimasu” vanished and we heard nothing but “konnichiwa”.

So in Japan, for greeting purposes, day starts at 11:00. Before that it’s morning.

I enjoyed that small research success. Though, of course, what’s most interesting is what it demonstrates about the differences between cultures. We English speakers probably have a fairly clear notion of morning, afternoon, evening and night. But it’s fascinating to discover others don’t see things quite the same way.

And doesn’t it just show how terribly unreliable literal translation can be?


5 comments:

  1. I actually DO say “Good Day” in English a fair bit...particularly when I was a working person greeting a colleague or customer...I never have had any weird or negative reaction! Glad you clarified the Spanish; I am a Spanish speaker as well though never have had the opportunity to practice in a Spanish speaking country. Good info for my post Pandemic dream trip!

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  2. Japanese is a really tricky language in terms of protocol.
    I worked for a while at Kilquanity, see link.
    There are many instances of cultural differential.
    For instance, I was doing a lot of photographic documentation of the school and grounds, both while the school was empty, which it is every few months a year, and of course when the children were in situ.

    Having been doing something very similar at Summerhill School some years earlier, I knew well with the whole legal aspects of photographing and filming children, especially in a boarding school environment, which quite rightly, are wide reaching and very detailed.
    So to make my life easier I got the kids to take the pictures, myself in an editorial role.
    Which not only simple but a whole lot of fun to see how the pupils viewed the place, so many different points of view and priorities.

    So I suggested to Shinichiro Hori; the owner and "headmaster", that I do the same at Kilquhianity. Especially as all the pupils are Japanese and had the most up to date, state of the art cameras, way better kit that I had!
    But Hori San was appalled! Absolutely no way could I use any of the pupils pictures!
    Well then I have to get you to sign this reg. form, you have to do the police record thing and each and any child in picture has to have a parental consent form, countersigned by the headmaster... and there are more red tapes etc...
    He looked at me in a pitying sort of way, as if I had gone slightly insane and prone to babbling. "Just take any pictures you want! But don't ask pupils for their pictures!

    Quite the other way round. One of the things I was documenting was the building of a wooden pier to the large pond. The Japanese saws are the other way round too; the saw teeth and cutting action is the other way round, I never really get the hang it!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilquhanity_School

    http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/

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  3. Thanks for the comment, JennyM. Really interesting that you DO use 'good day', and I obviously got that wrong. Why, I wonder, does it seem alien to me? Curious...

    I too am looking forward for the dream trip time to reach us. I'd be happy just to travel around Spain a little more - at the moment, we're not allowed out of the Valencia region. I hope you get your wonderful dream trip soon.

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  4. Hi Malc - that's a great story. And it really makes the point powerfully, doesn't it? To me, as a fellow West European, your approach at Summerhill sounded original and interesting and a great way to get a new perspective on things. But it turns out that this wasn't the Japanese way of seeing it... Cultural differences are a minefield.

    Here's another example which I covered years ago in a different post:

    https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7520303675367700778/1808438661637302879

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