迷惑です！（めいわくです）
Meiwaku is a
Japanese word that has a nebulous definition. It approaches the English word '
inconvenience' in meaning but it encompasses a much greater range of ideas. Most simply put, it's anything that causes trouble or shame for other members of the groups you belong to. Each person has the right to take pride in the
reputation of their group but at the same time has a responsibility to maintain that reputation.
The core of
meiwaku is the idea of group membership. Everyone is defined by the groups they are a part of: the neighborhood you live in, the school you graduated from, and even the company you work for. If you bring dishonor or hurt the reputation of the groups you're in, it reflects on the whole group. Because of this, there's a huge amount of self-policing and peer pressure within groups to conform to the standards of the group and of society.
Meiwaku range from walking in late to a meeting to executives embezzling funds from their company or accepting bribes to car crashes. The only way to atone for these
meiwaku is to apologize profusely in an overly melodramatic fashion by western standards: "I deeply, deeply, regret that a person of my wretched status inflicted a
meiwaku on my esteemed fellow members." Another example of these apologies are the yearly statements released by the Japanese government on
December 7, apologizing to the Japanese people for the great
meiwaku they committed in 1941. You don't even have to know the person to have a
meiwaku inflicted on you. Say you work for a large company, for example
Enron. It's discovered that several executives have been embezzling funds from the company. Even though you have never met the executives or even know who they are, they have committed an atrocious
meiwaku on the every employee of the company.
The whole concept of
meiwaku is meant to preserve the
wa; 和.
Wa is the Japanese word for "peace" or "
harmony" and represents the absence of conflict. Everyone can accept that social harmony is preferable to individualistic anarchy but in the United States, social harmony usually is balanced against the right of an individual to make their own choices. In
Japan, however,
wa wins out nearly every time; people having more loyalty to the harmony of the group than to their own interests. In fact,
wa itself is frequently not only a means but a goal in and of itself for society. By minimizing and apologizing for
meiwaku, both accidental and intentional, that are committed, people create a state of
wa.
Sources:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japan)
- Confucius Lives Next Door by T. R. Reid
Tulah, perasan pandai sangat! (refer to cerita mamat K*REA tempat kerja aku in previous entry)
本当に迷惑ですよ黄鵡やろう。
Meiwaku desuyo. Majide! Aaaahh.. Puas!
