Recently, I made a mistake in class and I felt that I inconvenienced one of the Japanese English teachers. I won’t go into too many details for privacy’s sake, but he actually ended up apologizing to ME and he brought me some small cheap chocolates from a nearby convenience store the next day. I was a bit surprised, because I thought I had wronged him. I thought “wow, not only did I inconvenience him, he has to apologize to me?”
I was wondering if there was some sort of Tatemae meaning going on here or if it’s just a straightforward apology.
10 comments
I wouldn’t read too much into it. Just enjoy the chocolates and move forward. Trying to figure out why some Japanese behave the way they do will exhaust you and still leave you baffled.
Hard to say without more info but if you have a Japanese friend you could ask that would be best.
Maybe he wanted to make you feel better? My Japanese colleagues have done little things like that whenever there’s been an issue.
Depending on the “mistake”, it’s entirely possible that he felt responsible for not providing you proper information/guidance, thus avoiding the situation entirely. It can get convoluted, but as others mentioned, smile and move on.
If it’s a mistake that causes some form of an embarrassing situation (eg, misspelling a word or making a grammar mistake on a test), it could be that he was trying to make you feel better and tell you that it’s alright, no need to apologize or feel bad about it. Something to keep in mind is if the situation was reversed, you might want to return the gesture in the future for this person.
Looks like he wants to keep a good work relationship with you. I would return the favor and give him a small gift as well. Tell him that you are sorry for what happened and really appreciate his kindness.
Probably wanted to alleviate the awkwardness. Guessing you are new there, so the JTE knows they have to look after you until you get moved to another school.
He means “forget about it”.
I had a staff member cause me to have an issue with another staff member. So I felt guilty about annoying them and I bought them some apology sweets. The staff member that caused me to make the error (wrong instruction) felt guilty and got me a gift so say sorry, then the staff member I’d annoyed got me a thank you gift.
It’s just a circle of gifts. Get him a *”thank you”* / *”I’m sorry as well”* of equal value and it’ll be fine, just move on after.
Gah, I can’t stand this awkward circle of gift-giving. It creates more trouble and confusion than it’s worth! Personally I wouldn’t bother returning the gift. I’d just make it clear that I like him and want to “do good” for him. But maybe that’s just me!