In “Hansei,” on Kirainet.com (an English-language blog about Japan written by a Spanish-speaking guy in Tokyo) Hector Garcia offers a very interesting look at a deep concept of Japanese culture. This is an example of one of those cultural differences which makes being a witness for the Gospel difficult for those new to the culture.
Hector explains that hansei is a combination of two words: Han (change, turn over, see from a different perspective) and Sei (to review, to examine yourself). So, basically, the concept is introspection or reflection.
However—and here’s what’s really interesting—when Hector’s team made a mistake and the boss called them in for hansei, Hector was prepared for “guilt.” The person who made the mistake should be assigned the blame. What he encountered instead was “shame” for the whole team.
Hector has a brief paragraph that touches on the Western culture influenced by Christian tradition vs. Japanese culture influenced by Buddhism:
In our cultures, influenced by christian tradition, the ideas of guilt and sin have been instilled since childhood in our minds. When we do something wrong, when we commit a mistake, the guilt kills us, sometimes we don’t want to accept it. On the other hand, Japan is a society where the most feared is not guilt, but embarrassment. Tanaka-san felt embarrassment for having failed the team, we as a team also felt embarrassment for having failed the boss, and our boss felt embarrassment for having failed us and having failed the company.
The contrast between Guilt and Shame is a common cultural conflict we Westerners rarely get (but is typically taught in missionary preparation courses). It’s important to understand the concept of “shame” is not the same as “guilt” (and does not arise from guilt). Not understanding this leads to a lot of cultural confusion.
In a Guilt-based culture, we say: “he broke the rules.” He has violated the law. The problem is the act, but not necessarily the person. A man is not necessarily defined by his actions: there can be reasons. So we focus on the act and discovering the motive for it. In a guilt culture, there are a four possible situations:
- I didn’t do it anything wrong;
- others think I did something wrong, but I didn’t—“if you only knew the whole truth”—and I’ll prove it (or extenuating circumstances)
- others don’t know I did something wrong, so I’ll struggle with internal guilt (maybe);
- everyone knows I did it, and I know I’m guilty & not contesting it, so I’ll be punished.
In a guilt-based society, the guilt can be removed by proving one’s innocence, or by paying the price of the crime. “I’ve done my time” is an expression of a guilt-based society. In this kind of setting, we might successfully get away with murder by committing a second murder—killing the witness of the first murder.
A guilt-based culture looks at heaven and hell from the perspective of adequate retribution for the crime (or the goodness). In other words, to a guilt-based culture, it’s not enough for hell to be eternal separation from God and all things good: there must be active punishment as well. Thus we get the proverb “hell is too good for him” for really bad eggs. A sinner might look at hell and say, “Don’t you think that’s a lot for this little crime?” Or, “Yes, I did this, but if you only knew—“ And the Western Church’s response is, “God knows the heart, and knows how bad you really are, and the truth of the situation, and your motivations.” All of this has to do with truth, justice, and retribution for sin committed—and if we can prove we didn’t do it, or we can convince others we didn’t do it, then we can get out of it.
A Shame-based culture says: “He is a bad man.” The focus is on the person and their place in society. Because he is a bad man, he does what is wrong (not the other way around, as in the case of repeat-offenders in a guilt-based society). We can expect more behavior like this in the future. It’s not that the action is wrong, but rather that the person is. He is bad, broken, cast out. He has let others down and not lived up to our expectations. He has violated relationship. In this kind of culture, what other people think or perceive is as important, if not moreso, than the reality of the situation. There are again four possible states:
- I did nothing wrong, and everyone knows it, so there’s no issue.
- I didn’t do anything wrong but others think I did, so I am shamed and dishonored
- I did something wrong but no one knows it, so I am not shamed—there is no issue
- Everyone knows I did something wrong, and I know it, so I am guilty and need to be punished.
In a shame-based society, a person can only be restored to right standing if he acts in a specific way or if he is ritually cleaned. He is always bad until he does something heroic (or someone does something on his behalf) which declares him good. As I understand shame-vs-guilt, a series of good actions don’t necessarily make up for a really bad past action. If the situation is bad enough, suicide is one possibility to regain one’s honor. Punishment is not about paying the price—doing my time—but rather about restoring one’s honor and the respect of others.
If you’ve ever been caught in the act and simply paid the price and went on, you’re operating off guilt. In fact, ironically enough, the many T-shirts that say “Singapore is a very fine place to live” are really operating off this methodology.
On the other hand, if you’ve ever had someone remind you of something you did ten years back, you’re in the midst of shame. If you respond, “And I’ve been paying for that ever since…” you’re pointing out the cultural conflict: they are treating you from a shame perspective but your implied cultural agreement is based on guilt. They shouldn’t be reminding you of it. (See extra-points-question below.)
In both systems, you can get away with something. In a guilt-based society, you can get off on a technicality (“we know he’s guilty as sin but we can’t prove it.”). In a shame-based society, it’s okay to do privately what should not be done publicly (as in the recent case in Thailand, where what happens privately is not an issue but when it becomes public it’s bad.) Guilt-based systems struggle to find out what is hidden (shout-out to one of my favorite television shows) while shame-based systems don’t let people get away with technicalities.
This also works its way out in the concept of “face” and “honor” in shame-based societies. You can see glimmers of guilt vs. shame in the fact that the East has personal networks of relationship and patronage; in the West we “qualify” if our credit report is good and there’s nothing bad marked on our histories or our background checks. Another glimmer of guilt vs shame: older people are cautioning youngers about not sharing too much on their Facebook pages, as it will come back to haunt them. On the surface it might seem about shame but it’s really about guilt: how to fix your credit report. How to clean up your Facebook page. How to wipe your browser history. This is all about erasing anything that might mark you as guilty. A shame-based outlook, on the other hand, says it doesn’t really matter what you have up for public view as long as it’s acceptable to your community or you have sufficient respect for them to overlook it.
So, here’s the Thursday School question:
- How does a Guilt vs Shame concept help explain or clarify events in North Africa, or this event in Thailand?
- If someone from a Guilt-based society comes with the Good News that Jesus “paid the price” of our sins, is it Good News to someone in a Shame-based society?
- What might be Good News to a Shame-based society?
- The “Extra Points Question”: I’ll bet you’re thinking, aha! There is the element in the Gospel where Jesus pays our guilt, where he forgives our sins. But what’s the other side of the promise which addresses this shame issue?
Post your answers to the questions in comments below. (This is not a graded test. Share what you think! Don’t feel guilty! 
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UPDATES / ADDITIONAL READINGS
- “A Criminal Past makes a Job Search even Harder” (New York Times) is an interesting illustration of the impact of a long-lasting record. Here, you’ve paid for the crime–but your record is not cleared. And since your record is not cleared, a current employer can hold a past record against you. The net effect is shame, but in a guilt context: and some are crying “no fair!”
- “Tweets from Ai Weiwei” (China Digital Times: reader beware, some really raw language) illustrates what happens when one person stands up against a shame-based society. In such a situation, one cannot call for sins to be corrected, but for society to be changed. Try to read this (again, beware the language) with shame in mind rather than guilt.
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