Japanese 101 vs Our Word Is Our Weapon

Useful terms to unlock Japan:

tatamae - lit. 'what stands before' loosely translated as 'official purpose' this is probably the most important concept to unlock Japanese culture and explains a lot of inconsistencies, such as why the bins out the front of convenience stores have 'save the earth' written on them when the staff will grab an individual plastic bag for your purchase no matter how rediculously small it is, say, a toothpick.

honne - 'reality' the least important concept for you to understand. Slab of concrete? paint a dog with big eyes on it and now it is a childrens playground. Reality is a problem easily solved in Japan, simply by a team effort to ignore it as persistently as possible.

muri - 'impossible' a way to kill off arguement should you suspect it is becoming too rational.

shougania - 'it can't be helped' a way of excusing yourself from not intervening in a disastrous plan to everyone's detriment, or an expedient way to avoid conflict and bitch out.

shirano, zonsenu - 'I don't know, I have no knowledge' ignorance is an excuse in Japan, this is used for handling direct questions, for when a government official or otherwise has no idea about environmental legislation or safe handling of nuclear materials which may infact be all their job description really consists of. The young people say 'zenzen, shiranai' when referring to less than cosmetic Japanese history, eg world war II, or the riots by locals when constructing Narita airport.

nakama - 'group' if you don't fit in a group in Japan, there is something wrong with you. In Japan Maslow's heirarchy of needs have been reshuffled slightly to move the need for affiliation with the group as slightly more important than shelter or safety.

nakama hazure - 'cut off from the group' the earlist form of state sanctioned bullying in the form of a childs playground game, to instill a sense of fear of being different.

kawaii - 'cute' if something is deemed 'cute' it can achieve 70~80% market penetration in a week, it is the first and foremost prerequisite of a J-pop idol, talent is optional.

zoku giin - 'tribe' or 'family' within party politics these are who you look after.

okyo-yomi - 'sutra chanting' the nickname for parliamentary debate. Since asking direct questions is considered impolite and confrontational, questions are submitted by members of the diet the night before to the administrative bureacracy that is relavent, that stay up all night scripting the answers. Sometimes the middle man is cut out and the ministry scripts the question as well.

messhi houkou - 'self sacrifice for the good of the group'. An equivalent to wall street workaholia, this is more relevant to working unpaid overtime and never taking annual leave out of social convention and fear of embarrassment than any real desire to advance.

wakon yosai - 'japanese spirit, western technology' the mantra for Japanese modernization, hence the patriotic brand buying, the keeping foreigners at arms length and the emphasis on exports as the way to wealth, despite this being one of the earliest abandoned theories of economics.

The one phrase I do want to learn in Japanese is the cultural equivalent of ya basta enough is enough. If only the EZLN were a UN peace disrupting force.