Hansei Shinosai
I was helping a Japanese friend move a while ago and I noticed a book in her collection: "How To Deal With Americans Who Don't Hansei". The cover art was striking and I became interested.
"What's hansei?"
"There really isn't a word for it in English."
"So what does it mean?"
"Hmmm, it is hard to explain."
"Hansei" literally means "reflection". Figuratively it describes being conscious of your behavior and its impact on others. People who take pride in driving noisy cars do not hansei. People having loud conversations while walking past your bedroom window at 2AM do not hansei. People who stall checkout lines at the grocery store while they figure out whether or not they've got the money to buy what they selected do not hansei. Hansei is the reason why mobile phones are always on vibrate and only used for sms in public areas: text creates less disturbance than loud conversations. Hansei is at the center of Japan's iconic anti-smoking ads, reminding smokers not of their own health risks but of the disturbance they are causing to others. Hansei also means greeting success with modesty and humility. To stop hansei means to stop learning. With hansei one never becomes so convinced of one's own superiority that there is no more room or need for further improvement. George Bush is the international no-hansei icon; he does not self-reflect, and because of this he makes the same mistakes over and over. The Iraq War is a no-hansei disaster with no regard for world opinion and no plan for victory beyond the presumption that our supremacy makes success inevitable and guaranteed. Without familiarity with such a basic concept we are a nation whose parents did not raise us right.
This reminded me of 1984's Newspeak. Americans do not hansei because we do not have a word to describe hansei because there is no word there is no expression of the concept. I've always felt the absence of social awareness and self-reflection but until now I lacked the vocabulary to express it. I would like to introduce the word hansei to the common American vocabulary, and by doing this introduce hansei itself to the American zeitgeist. There is currently no English Wikipedia entry for hansei although there is a German entry. If anyone here speaks very good German and can take a crack at translating the article into English that would at least be a good start.
Update: If hansei interests you, please add it to your LJ interests.
"What's hansei?"
"There really isn't a word for it in English."
"So what does it mean?"
"Hmmm, it is hard to explain."
"Hansei" literally means "reflection". Figuratively it describes being conscious of your behavior and its impact on others. People who take pride in driving noisy cars do not hansei. People having loud conversations while walking past your bedroom window at 2AM do not hansei. People who stall checkout lines at the grocery store while they figure out whether or not they've got the money to buy what they selected do not hansei. Hansei is the reason why mobile phones are always on vibrate and only used for sms in public areas: text creates less disturbance than loud conversations. Hansei is at the center of Japan's iconic anti-smoking ads, reminding smokers not of their own health risks but of the disturbance they are causing to others. Hansei also means greeting success with modesty and humility. To stop hansei means to stop learning. With hansei one never becomes so convinced of one's own superiority that there is no more room or need for further improvement. George Bush is the international no-hansei icon; he does not self-reflect, and because of this he makes the same mistakes over and over. The Iraq War is a no-hansei disaster with no regard for world opinion and no plan for victory beyond the presumption that our supremacy makes success inevitable and guaranteed. Without familiarity with such a basic concept we are a nation whose parents did not raise us right.
This reminded me of 1984's Newspeak. Americans do not hansei because we do not have a word to describe hansei because there is no word there is no expression of the concept. I've always felt the absence of social awareness and self-reflection but until now I lacked the vocabulary to express it. I would like to introduce the word hansei to the common American vocabulary, and by doing this introduce hansei itself to the American zeitgeist. There is currently no English Wikipedia entry for hansei although there is a German entry. If anyone here speaks very good German and can take a crack at translating the article into English that would at least be a good start.
Update: If hansei interests you, please add it to your LJ interests.