Tō-ji, a Buddhist temple of the Shingon sect in Kyoto, one of the many beautiful attractions in Japan you aren’t visiting.

Welcome to Straffinrun Tours.  Do you want to go around and see some of Japan’s oldest and most visited shrines and temples?  Experience the subtle beauty of a tea ceremony?  Try your hand at the wondrous art of ikebana?  Yes?  Get the f*** out of here because you bore me.  Use Google and save yourself a couple grand.  My tour is focused on exposing you to the concept of 本音 (pronounced honne) and 建前 (tatemae).  For that we will need to meet and watch real Japanese people doing mundane things in their daily lives.

Have you ever laughed at a bad joke your boss or customer has made because the social situation called for it?  If yes, you have practiced tatemae.  The Chinese characters 建前 translate literally as “constructed front” and can be seen as your social persona that we put up to keep us from beating each other to death.  Some people say it’s basically lying, but, well, they’re idiots.

Ever fantasize about slamming you boss’s head into the corner of his desk after hearing his bad pun for the 26th time?  Well, that would be honne.  本音 literally means “real sound” or, in other words, what you are really feeling at the moment.  Hopefully, you practice some impulse control and don’t run around calling a spade a spade.  It can be a bad idea.  Especially in Compton.

Pachinko parlor

So now that you’ve gotten the basics of honne/tatemae down, let’s find out what the little Nipponjins are up to.  First stop on the tour is a Pachinko parlor.  Noisy, smoky, and filled with dejected people gambling.  The game itself is ridiculous, but we’re not here to be bedazzled with blinking lights and digital breasts.  Over there!  Don’t look, but look at the woman in her 60s, wearing the tiger pattern blouse.  Her machine just went “reach” which means she has two of the three numbers necessary to win.  Will she?  Zannen (too bad).  She lost.  Did you see her reaction?  She pawed at the screen as if to say, “Oh, you’re a bad boy.”  Now watch the man in his 40s, wearing the suit.  His machine just went “reach”.  Zannen.  He lost, too.  Yet his was a stone-faced reaction despite having a 70% chance of winning \10,000.  The tiger blouse woman showed you her honne and the man, his tatemae.  You’ll notice about 90% of the players react like the man and 10% like the woman.  That’s Japan.  You don’t show your emotions in daily, public life unless you’re a freak.

Let’s get out of here and grab a drink.  I know a pub down the street.  Yes, it does say “Pub,” but remember that donut you bought at the bakery in the station this morning?  It had “Donut” written on the wrapper, but it had eggplant inside.  This is not your mother’s English.  “Pub” to them means a small bar where, usually, a youngish gal, the one-san, and an oldish gal, the oba-san, fawn over you and you pay through the nose for the pleasure.

The only pic I could find tagged “oba-san” that wasn’t granny porn.

“Aah, sutoraifeen-san. Hisashiburi, desu ne” (long time, no see).  The oba-san greets us as we slide into our stools, her 48-year-old bosom defying gravity due to the hiked up obi (sash) of her kimono.  She pours us two Jim Beam Ryes on the rocks from the bottle with my name on it that she pulled off the shelf behind the bar counter.  Talk to her.  She is a master of tatemae.  Your jokes will be hilarious.  You look like Bradley Cooper, and where did you ever find that sweater?  Goodwill?  I’m not familiar with that brand.  Is it a boutique on Rodeo Drive?

Here’s the rub; she doesn’t care about you other than you’re a paying customer.  She thinks you know that, but you see how good you feel regardless?  It’s dishonest honesty.  The true masters of tatemae don’t trick you into believing what they are saying is true, but rather allow you to bathe in the respect they are showering you with.  This is not your Western, “You look great.  Did you lose weight?” type of flattery.  It’s respect, so soak it in.

Unless you want to drop a mortgage payment, I suggest we get out of here.  Hopefully, you’re beginning to see from our experiences at the pachinko parlor and the “pub” that honne/tatemae permeate Japanese consciousness.  You get polite, speedy, and competent service at the convenience store because to do otherwise would be disrespectful of not only you, the customer but also of the clerk themselves.

So when you get back to The States and hear about “trigger warnings” and “micro-aggressions,” think about honne/tatemae.  Are the sensitive souls pushing this nonsense because they want a more respectful discourse, or are they simply forcing people to yield to their superior wisdom?  If it were truly about being respectful, they would show their tatemae and keep their petty grievances in the honne box.  Running around, pointing out trivial offenses is the exact opposite of what honne/tatemae is all about.  And for all the faults the concept has, it does provide a shield which can insulate you from nutjobs.  The next time you’re accosted by a pink-haired slob for using the wrong pronoun, just remember the oba-san from the pub and tell her, “Those black yoga pants really do smooth out the ripples in your thighs.”