The silence in Japan

Chinmoku   - The silence in japanese society

     one of the  most prominent feature in the Japanese society is Chinmoku or we call it silence in English. The Japanese people use Chinmoku as a medium of communication. It means Japanese people use fewer words in communication. Specially, the Japanese people keep in silence when in the circumstances that they have to show anger, disagreements and other forms unnecessary communication.The Japanese believe that anger showed not be showed because it will destroy the group consciousness and may lead to fracture the friendship among the colleagues.Hence,they prefer silence and they think it will not affect the relationship. This is the reason why Japanese people take much more time to respond to questions in the conversations. They think twice before they are going to converse.

Then also they use the words and choose them very carefully when in conversation because they think it will influence the other person who you are talking.

.Hence, they believe that the Chinmoku concept build up the friendship and harmony among people.

Especially the Japanese people are very group conscious and they work as a group to do things from ancient times. When in this kind of a situation most of the Japanese people don’t go for arguments because they think that it will ruin the value of the group consciousness.By keeping in silence means to solve problems earlier stage. Then the Japanese people always avoid the ineffective conversations and this is seen as keeping in silence in most of the occasions. The Chinmoku than also gives the message to the people of the Japanese society to understand the feelings of the other people before conversation. In most of the time Japanese people don’t hurt the feelings of the people and its very good custom in the Japanese society itself.

The following two proverbs shows the value of silence in the Japanese society

1.Iwa nu ga hana-Silence is golden

2.Kuchi wa wasawai no motho-The awful expressions are coming out from the mouth

As far as I believe the chinmoku also leads to generate the power of the mind and to develop the spirit. In most of the cases Japanese people do not talk while working. This means talking interrupts the work and delay the work. If not the stability of the mind be interrupted by the talking. The main aim is to get the maximum profit by maintain the silence. The major influence of the Chinmoku came to Japan with the introduction of the Zen religion. According to the Zen religion truth cannot be expressed by the words. The certainty or the truth lies in the silence.