A Brief Analysis of the Greetings

Hi everyone,

Here at WSC, we had a brief discussion about the Greetings on the Blog. The following is a summary of our discussion. The main frameworks we used are Collectivism/Individualism, Masculinity, and Uncertainty Avoidance. As always, you are always welcome to ask any questions, write comments, and/or disagree. Hope you enjoy reading our analysis. WSC Class and Max.

Collectivism/Individualism: In the video, when saying "Hi," most of the Japanese friends greet twice in a coordinated manner. We noticed that they are great at coordinating themselves. The US students greet in a coordinated manner too, but at the same time, they express their own greetings individually, making different noises and saying different things. Both are very nice greetings, and both make me feel happy every time I watch them (Max).

Masculinity: We have focused on gender roles here. When initiating the greeting, the male student in the front cues a signal asking the female next to him to start the greeting. To me it implies the male's role to lead. Then, she points back to him, and both negotiate their roles a bit. Then, finally she leads the class to greet twice. The negotiation is important, to an extent, so that the other females would not be upset with her. I see this phenomenon very often among the Japanese mothers at the Japanese language school my children attend in the US. In the US, this could be the same, but in our class, anyone may initiate the greeting, regardless of gender.

Uncertainty Avoidance: We focused on whether the groups were rather prepared/rehearsed or being spontaneous. The Japanese friends have an appearance of being prepared and rehearsed about what they were going to say when greeting. On the other hand, the US friends did not rehearse or prepare the greeting at all. They simply greeted on the spot. Maybe this was due to the fact that I did not give much time for preparation, and I just invited them to greet and started filming. But, the students were fine with it.

We also have analyzed the mannerism/body language. One was that they appear to be shy (this implies lacking confidence and self-esteem in the US), and we discussed the importance of humbleness in Japan. During the semester, we will further discuss cultural values and beliefs on this area. Second was how they stand--this part is a bit removed from the greeting video. In the US, ideally one should stand tall and walk and speak confidently. In class we discussed how I myself demonstrate the same traits in my own ways of communication.

Then, right in the middle of our discussion, a male student walked in to the class. He was late for the class (with a legitimate reason). He stood and walked straight and confidently, right through the middle of the classroom while the discussion was happening. It was such a great demonstration of what we had being discussing in class. We joked about it and had fun talking more about it.