Pretty much anybody I've met who comes to Japan with the romantic ideas embraced by this article in there head ends up hating it. I'll be honest, I think that this "silence" thing was never a Japanese thing in the first place. I believe it is a misinterpretation of several cultural phenomena.
1. The Japanese language allows you to be more imprecise but still have people understand what you are talking about from context. If I've been speaking Japanese for a long time, switching to English seems like a pain because you have to spell everything out. Also, mood can be transmitted in words where in English you would need tone of voice. In novels, you don't have to describe that a person is irritated because you can simply choose to have them say something in an irritated way. Similarly, people can make absolutely cutting remarks without changing their tone of voice or getting agitated.
2. Culturally, most shared spaces are understood to be quiet spaces. Man, I hate riding the train in the UK. People think they are still in the pub. In Japan, you can spot the foreigners in public spaces with your eyes closed because they are invariably making a racket. This has nothing to do with silent communication. It's just silence. In other places Japanese people are very noisy.
3. Japanese people are raised in Japanese schools. This is where they are taught manners, how to behave, etc, etc. I taught in a school in Shizuoka prefecture, which has a relatively large Brazilian population. The children from Brazilian families are quintessentially Japanese because they have been taught the same way. It's very different than our method of letting parents determine how to raise their children. The result of this is that Japanese people have a huge base of common culture to work from. It's not that you "should infer it" -- it's blatantly obvious because it's been drilled into your head 1000 times when you were at school. And everyone has had the same experience.
There is no magical transmission of knowledge. And as you said, crappy marriages exist here just like anywhere else. Miscommunication is common. But lots of things are understood by context, by culture or are simply not spoken of. The timing of when, where and how you discuss things is completely different, too.
I would like to know more about Japanese schools. You seem to know about Japanese culture a great deal. Is there any material (fiction, non-fiction) accessible in English that talks of this 'national character building' occurring at Japanese schools.
I typed in some of my experiences, but it's too long for HN :-). Email me if you would like my to send it to you. My contact details are in my profile.
1. The Japanese language allows you to be more imprecise but still have people understand what you are talking about from context. If I've been speaking Japanese for a long time, switching to English seems like a pain because you have to spell everything out. Also, mood can be transmitted in words where in English you would need tone of voice. In novels, you don't have to describe that a person is irritated because you can simply choose to have them say something in an irritated way. Similarly, people can make absolutely cutting remarks without changing their tone of voice or getting agitated.
2. Culturally, most shared spaces are understood to be quiet spaces. Man, I hate riding the train in the UK. People think they are still in the pub. In Japan, you can spot the foreigners in public spaces with your eyes closed because they are invariably making a racket. This has nothing to do with silent communication. It's just silence. In other places Japanese people are very noisy.
3. Japanese people are raised in Japanese schools. This is where they are taught manners, how to behave, etc, etc. I taught in a school in Shizuoka prefecture, which has a relatively large Brazilian population. The children from Brazilian families are quintessentially Japanese because they have been taught the same way. It's very different than our method of letting parents determine how to raise their children. The result of this is that Japanese people have a huge base of common culture to work from. It's not that you "should infer it" -- it's blatantly obvious because it's been drilled into your head 1000 times when you were at school. And everyone has had the same experience.
There is no magical transmission of knowledge. And as you said, crappy marriages exist here just like anywhere else. Miscommunication is common. But lots of things are understood by context, by culture or are simply not spoken of. The timing of when, where and how you discuss things is completely different, too.