The Adjustments Required of a Missionary in Japan

by Kenneth S. Roundhill

Here is a down-to-earth commentary on what the missionary faces in Japan. The insights shared will also be of help to others trying to adapt to new cultural situations.

Here is a down-to-earth commentary on what the missionary faces in Japan. The insights shared will also be of help to others trying to adapt to new cultural situations.

You will probably be surprised how easy it is to get into Japan, providing you have some recognized sponsorship within the country. Our latest missionary got her visa in fifteen minutes flat. Only occasionally do the immigration authorities go to the trouble of examining the sponsor’s credentials, and then only because something has aroused justifiable suspicion.

Once in the country, adjustment varies with the individual, but the more obvious areas relate to communication and language study, culture and customs, and Christian work.

COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE STUDY
If you have a flair for languages, you will be in your element, for Japanese will stretch your powers to the utmost. Though not burdened with learning tonal inflexions, students of the Japanese language do face: the combination of at least 1860 characters with multiple readings; two different "alphabets" of 51 other scriptform simple characters to add studied variety and reading sense to each sentence; the all-important use of honorifics; the written language that is just that little bit different from the spoken; the verb-at-the-end-of-the-sentence grammatical construction; the incredibly rich synonym resources; and the increasing use of English words (not sentences) that must be pronounced in a way that would puzzle the Queen no end.

Even if you never get to speaking "Turkish like a turkey," you can arrive at effective, communication, and that is the important thing. I lived for some years with a Japanese family and found this very helpful. However, not having started language study here until I was 34, I simply had to maintain an attitude of faith that I would eventually get the measure of fluency in the language that would enable me to do the work that God had called me to do. This faith was especially necessary during the distressing plateau periods that seem to be common to the study of foreign languages. But faith did not circumvent the necessity of hard work!

I have had to maintain an attitude of curiosity, which, I was interested to find, Augustine thought to "be more important than frightful enforcement" in the learning of foreign languages. Children learn that way, of course, even if parents are apt to get tired of their questions. I also have found it helpful to jot down new vocabulary from real life situations, and for that reason I always have a dictionary and notebook handy when attending meetings where someone else is doing the speaking. One of the most difficult things is to determine to use the language you learn, no matter how little you have and how embarrassed you feel in the process. No one suddenly emerges "thinking" the language, except in dreams. Graduation from the best language school really means that some foundation has been laid for a life of study.

I found it helpful and necessary to get all my messages corrected by a national during my first term. If this isn’t done, the missionary can develop unfortunate pronunciation, speech habits, and grammatical muffs that are difficult to discard. Of course, you will have to ask the Lord for patience, especially if you are an activist. You will find all kinds of fascinating things to do, people to meet, and numberless demands upon your time by students anxious to learn English. Our mission has found it necessary to limit the new missionary’s activities, other than language study, during the first two years to one Bible class (usually English Bible class) a week. All this time spent in language study is far from being a waste, as there are things to learn about the people and life here that can only be absorbed with time and encounter on different levels. Some missionaries see things more quickly than others, so you might pray for the seeing eye as well as the retentive memory.

CULTURE AND CUSTOMS
The first things I saw in Japan made me feel the country was all back to front. Coming from a construction background, I was intrigued to find carpenters pulling their planes and saws towards them instead of pushing them. Why so noisily suck soup in order to "blow" it cool? Why say yes when you mean no? Who was so contrary as to start the practice of reading books from the back to the front and writing from the top to the bottom, and even saying people’s names backwards? Obviously enough too, it was the man’s land. The wife was called, "the back of the house!"

Don’t trust all your initial reactions. Actually, it was some time before I came to realize that my country did not have all the answers on how things ought to be done. Take soup-blowing, for example – if you must blow on your soup that is. When you blow hot air out of your lungs, scientifically speaking it does very little to make the soup any cooler. If you suck in cool air from the atmosphere with each mouthful, then you will be surprised to find how hot you can take it. The noise is just background music.

However, I must confess that arranged marriages did not yield so readily to scientific justification. National Christian leaders seemed to take pains to inform me their marriages had been arranged for them, as though there was something almost sinful, certainly shady, about falling in love with a girl and wanting to marry her. Since then, Japanese youth have come under massive conditioning in various ways and the situation today is very confused.

The Crown Prince married the girl he loved, boy and girl students walk the streets hand in hand and sometimes a lot closer, but young engaged missionary couples have to be warned that this is no indication as to how they should behave in public. Christian young couples, specially workers, show the greatest restraint. At church conferences and other meetings they act as if the other person does not exist! We are tempted to think they do not care a fig for each other. If you come to Japan engaged to be married, then this is an area where adjustment will be very difficult, but you will gain nothing by lack of mutual discipline.

Arranged marriages are still the norm, and even if a couple falls in love, usually they are wise enough to find someone to act as go-between for them in the ensuing talks between the families. Christians usually ask their pastor to act in this way, and sometimes missionaries. We also have found it necessary on occasion to arrange a meeting between couples we thought suitable for one another. This has been the full turn from our first and very negative reaction to arranged marriages.

In one case, the young man was a pastor and when we had introduced him to the young lady and left them with their tea, their biscuits and each other, the first thing we overheard the man say to her was, "Let us pray. " They saw each other from time to time and the girl confessed shyly they were hastening their marriage date because, "We are in love already, so why wait?" It has proved to be a very happy marriage indeed.

Young missionaries are apt to react against any custom that seems to infringe upon their personal freedom in any way. But I think you will come to see that God can guide a pastor or missionary or Christian friend to find a wife for some modern Isaac just as surely as he guided Abraham’s servant. Unless something practical is done to help some young people in this way, they can be victimized by wellmeaning non-Christian relatives or friends. They are not hesitant to help, and I have seen the resulting tragedy in a number of lives.

You will find, too, an amazing blend of things new and old. This can bring its own frustration. There is probably no country more literate and more receptive to and selective of foreign ideas, and yet so deeply rooted in the past. Frankly, it is not unpleasant to live in a country so electronically automated, so timetable conscious, so workhappy (post office employees are the frustrating exception, for they will strike just when we are eagerly awaiting the Christmas mail), and so replete with every conceivable taste in food and style of car. On several days of the week you can get up to six hours or more of stereo classical music on the radio, if you want it. That is one of the reasons why furlough is always a culture shock in reverse! However, you can’t dismiss about 2000 years of known history just by importing Twining’s tea bags, Beethoven, and some modern know-how.

For this reason, it is imperative that you come to Japan with the determination to adapt to and to enjoy traditional Japanese courtesy, even if you do wonder if it is for real. It is very real to them, even if because of inflation they have to replace the bus girl’s running commentary with transistorized recordings of her voice. Take the delicate balance of gifts as an example. You know how it is at home: "We would do the same for them, and they know it" – kind of thing, and so we take kindness very much for granted. Not here. If you call on a friend or stranger, you take a thank you gift with you. Some other kind friend at the start will tell you of what value to make it, for that is important too. If your neighbor keeps a weather eye on your home while you are absent, that means a gift too when you return after any length of time.

Hospitality also has its quirks. As foreigners, we find it natural to invite guests in and as missionaries it is a major ministry. We did this to our near neighbors soon after building our house here and fully expected to be invited back, but never were. If you are invited anywhere, usually you are fed from the time you arrive till you depart. Perhaps this is one reason why they do some of their entertaining in restaurants, but very little in their homes.

It took some time for us to realize that the students were happier to come if we let them pay for the food – and for the rented bedding when they come in a crowd for overnight conferences. In this way there is no lingering sense of obligation.

CHRISTIAN WORK – THE BIGGEST ADJUSTMENT?
Probably the first thing you will notice is the small number of people at church meetings. Most of the meeting places are tiny compared with church buildings abroad, and they are not always full. Ours sometimes is, but you can only get 30 into it at a squeeze anyway!

For this reason you will be pleasurably surprised at the lack of prejudice or open opposition to Christianity – apart from the militant Buddhists and Communists whom you will probably hardly ever meet anyway. Whether you are chatting to a fellow bather in a public bathhouse, or to drifters outside a pin ball parlor, or to students who come anxious to learn English, there seems to be little hindrance to speaking openly about the Savior and doing Christian work.

You know the Bible is a best seller even though the number of Christians is supposed to be less than 1 percent of the population. You know the gospel is faithfully preached over the radio even if at odd times. You get little or no rebuff from handing out tracts and any number of opportunities for personal work just because you are a missionary. The greatness of the opportunity argues for greater results. It is all very baffling and frustrating, but neither respect, curiosity, nor the keenest interest connotes receptiveness, especially when the Japanese come to know what Christianity is really about.

You can blame the Buddhist and Shinto conditioning of the centuries and the continued fear of the dead. You can blame the intricate social structures in a leftover feudalism, or the kind of shame complex that prompts so many to choose suicide rather than responsible living. Or you can just blame the devil. Francis Xavier said Satan invented the Japanese language "to prevent the spread of the Gospel!" Corrie Ten Boom said she felt more conscious of demons here than in any other country she visited. There are about 1600 temples and shrines in Kyoto alone. Couple that perversion with the nihilism and materialism in the 42-plus colleges and universities in Kyoto, and you have the kind of sophisticated backdrop that makes Paul’s experience in Athens come alive once more.

This is why each conversion in any church or college Christian group is a cause for great rejoicing. You will soon notice how individuals like this, and others whom we call seekers, are so much the object of prayerful concern and conversation among believers, pastors and missionaries. It is from among these carefully nurtured individuals that God has chosen some to minister to the thousands in mass rallies and through radio evangelism. A further encouragement will just be to fellowship with some Japanese Christians whose zeal for God, sincere faith and total dedication will be the greatest tonic.

The tests of cross-cultural fellowship with Japanese fellow-workers are bound to come, for the church-mission relationships here can be as complex as in any country with a century of Protestant history behind it. Just ask the Lord for the patience of faith, a saturation in I Corinthians 13, a total confidence in the power of the Word of God preached in the power of the Spirit, and you will find as many opportunities for appreciated ministry as you can adequately handle. Once you get dug in, you will not want to leave.

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