Cross-cultural communication （158）　

158) Thoughts on “Iikagen”
The Japanese word “Iikagen” is often used to mean ‘careless’ or “sloppy.” However, according to reference books, it also includes the meaning of “just right.” Looking back on my 70-plus years of life, I find that the former meaning has been overwhelmingly prevalent in my actions and words. However, I think there have been cases of the latter meaning, “just right,” about once every ten times.

During my student days, I spent a month backpacking from London to Sicily in southern Italy. During this trip, I had many opportunities to interact with young people of my generation, and I developed a rather negative impression of them as careless individuals who did not follow rules. For example, when I visited the Parthenon in Athens, a white woman of the same age standing behind me in the ticket line asked me to buy her ticket as well. Since I knew from our previous conversation that she was a working professional and not a student, I showed my student ID and purchased tickets for one student and one adult. She then laughed and said, “Are all Japanese people as honest as you?” In other words, here, it's almost common sense that if you show your student ID and say there are two students, even if one isn't, you can get the student rate. I experienced countless other instances of behavior that, from a Japanese perspective, seemed careless but were considered common sense by most young travelers.

After this European experience, I graduated from medical school and spent three years as a resident in New York. New York was a melting pot of races, and I felt there were even more casual people than European travelers. This was the case in that melting pot of races, including Asians. This made me realize that in countries other than Japan, this level of “casualness” might be considered “just right.”

When I returned to Japan in 1983, the country was caught up in the bubble economy. However, that bubble burst abruptly after 1990. As an employee at a national hospital, my life remained unchanged regardless of the bubble or its collapse, so I began to reflect on this phenomenon in my own way.

The bubble collapse caused many prominent banks to suffer losses of tens of billions of yen. When I asked acquaintances in the banking industry, they told me that even during the bubble, if there was a discrepancy of even one yen in the accounts at the end of the day, all the staff would spend hours checking it over, shouting, “Don't be careless!” Yet it was these same large banks that had made reckless loans during the bubble, resulting in massive losses.

When I looked into European history, I found that in the 17th century, investment in tulips in the Netherlands became so heated that it led to a bubble collapse across Europe. Such memories are deeply ingrained in the DNA of Europeans, and I suspect this has led to a mindset where people believe that being too rigid is risky, and that it's better to relax and go with the flow?a “Don't worry, be happy!” attitude.

Japan, which had only recently adopted a Western-style capitalist system during the bubble era, seemed to lack sensitivity toward the economy, both at the government and individual levels. The Great Depression triggered by the collapse of the American bubble in the late 1920s also feels like a result of the shallow history of capitalism.

I have now entered the latter half of my life. From here on, I intend to live with a sense of ease, striving for a balanced approach in both words and actions.

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