Etiquette Question

[Aunty Ichigeki]

I keep getting correspondense from a Kyokushin dojo operator which begins:

"Osu! Shihan's, Sensei's, Sempai & Kohai". Now I'm not going anywhere near the apostrophe issue but... once upon a time I was told that it's inappropriate to address kohai as kohai! As a result everytime I see this I can't help thinking 'bad form'! Okay, I may be a little anal.

My question is... is it bad form or have I developed an irrationally strong belief based on someone's stray comment years ago?

He also signs his correspondence "Sempai So-in-so" & his email display name is "Sempai So-in-so". Same deal. Is this appropriate?

Thanks for your help.
Curious.

[Kurisu]

I hate it when people call themselves "Sensei so and so". I think the rule applies like the word, "san". I wouldn't call myself Kurisu-san, that doesn't make sense. In that regard, I think that if I called myself Kurisu Senpai or Kurisu Sensei it could come off as arrogant???

I'm hardly an expert but that's just been my experience. Some of the more notable people I've trained with have never called themselves Shihan _______. Every time I received a call from them it was "Hello Kurisu, this is ______." Does that make sense??

[Sensei Mark]

I can only add what i consider appropriate from my own personal point of view.

Most of the time when titles such as described above are used is is generally done so by both parties in a greeting or acknowledgment fashion and 99% of the time it is done so from the "2nd" persons perspective.

ie: When you greet someone or acknowledge their position or rank as opposed to you saying to them "hello i am Shihan, Sensei or Sempai so & so.

Normally if the person who you are greeting is a higher rank than yourself, then it is part of our "Bushido" customs to acknowledge them as such and one of the virtues which is then called upon from you is to humble yourself by doing so.

Again this is only my POV, what i would add is that in all of my 23 years of Kyokushin Training, i have never ever addressed my teacher Shihan John Taylor as "John Taylor".

This would be disrespectfull, as i know no other way. What must be noted is that we live & train in the west, but we take from the bushido code the positive aspects and traditions and try to intergrate them into our western lives.

As we all know, the time of living and training on mountain tops for years is not practical in todays society, and as such a fine balance of idea's and codes can overlap, and part of accepting this code is the acknowledgement of position or rank.

This contributes to keeping one humble, while the traditional formalities which karate-do offers the student are made available to them.

Please bare in mind, that i am not talking about those that prefer to have a title in front of their name as opposed to doing what needs to be done to warrant it out of respect.

So to end, i am a staunch Kyokushinkai traditionalist, i have and always will use the acknowledging formalities as it is a reminder to me, that others have trained longer and possibly harder than myself and as such i am reminded that i am but a very small drop in our kyokushin ocean.

[smoothsake]

Titles, at least in Japanese are never used in the 1st person. Kurisu is correct. It sounds arrogant that one would call oneself Senpai, Shihan, Sensei, Kancho, or Shogun . Japanese have a strong dislike for acts of conceit, in fact the whole culture can be summed up in one word: humble. It is the responsibility of the 2nd person to use the appropriate title to demonstrate the appropriate level of respect. Think keigo, which is the Japanese act of speaking to a person of higher status. There are something like 4-6 levels of formaility... don't ask me for details because even young Japanese can't do this correctly.

To address your original question Aunty Ichigeki, it is okay to refer to another as Kohai or -kun or -chan. Japanese have no problem looking down on juniors or buttering up youngsters. There is a small difference from the above example; one is looking down while the other is snobbing up oneself. The result is the same, but the action is uniquely Asian. Chinese and Koreans do the same thing with their titles.

PS: Interesting Japanese tid-bit... if you ever receive a Japanese postcard or handwritten letter, you will notice on a pre-printed envelope the sender will usually cross out the Chinese character "-san" after their name to lower oneself to raise the status of the receiver of the letter.

OSU!

[Lanky Sempai]

Originally Posted by smoothsake

Titles, at least in Japanese are never used in the 1st person. Kurisu is correct. It sounds arrogant that one would call oneself Senpai, Shihan, Sensei, Kancho, or Shogun . Japanese have a strong dislike for acts of conceit, in fact the whole culture can be summed up in one word: humble. It is the responsibility of the 2nd person to use the appropriate title to demonstrate the appropriate level of respect. Think keigo, which is the Japanese act of speaking to a person of higher status. There are something like 4-6 levels of formaility... don't ask me for details because even young Japanese can't do this correctly.

To address your original question Aunty Ichigeki, it is okay to refer to another as Kohai or -kun or -chan. Japanese have no problem looking down on juniors or buttering up youngsters. There is a small difference from the above example; one is looking down while the other is snobbing up oneself. The result is the same, but the action is uniquely Asian. Chinese and Koreans do the same thing with their titles.

PS: Interesting Japanese tid-bit... if you ever receive a Japanese postcard or handwritten letter, you will notice on a pre-printed envelope the sender will usually cross out the Chinese character "-san" after their name to lower oneself to raise the status of the receiver of the letter.

OSU!

I'm moving to Japan in a few months, the language and cultural formalities are very intricate, I am worried I may offend people without even knowing I'm doing so, I mange to do an excellent job of pissing people off in english, and I speak english since birth!! This worries me somewhat!! Maybe I should embark upon a self imposed vow of silence!! I think I could get by withh a smile and a couple deep bows!!

[Kurisu]

Thanks SmoothSake, it's nice to be correct once in a while

[nzproud]

Originally Posted by Lanky Sempai

I'm moving to Japan in a few months, the language and cultural formalities are very intricate, I am worried I may offend people without even knowing I'm doing so, I mange to do an excellent job of pissing people off in english, and I speak english since birth!! This worries me somewhat!! Maybe I should embark upon a self imposed vow of silence!! I think I could get by withh a smile and a couple deep bows!!

S Lanky Sempai > Watch "Lost in translation" over and over! lol I gave musashi a DVD which had lessons how to learn Japanese. She handed it back a couple of days ago. Have you checked it out? Ill bring it again tomorrow. I can also give u guys lessons.

[vapor]

Lanky Sempai,

The fear of being wrong, or looking stupid, will be the biggest hinderance in your life in Japan.

You will have to fold up and store away the little thing you carry around, known as PRIDE, for that is the only way that you will grow.

Opening your mouth to speak, even if the wrong things come out, will grant you the ability to learn extremely quickly.

I believe that you will find that those around you will not be pointing any fingers, but will actually go out of their way to help you, and make sure that you learn things the right way.

Depending on how serious you are to learn, there are 2 good language products that can help you on the way.

1) Pimsleur
2) Rosetta Stone

Both are a bit pricey, but I have worked with both companies in terms of marketing and new product development and am very impressed with both.

They have slightly different approaches.
1) Pimsleur is based off of a scientific study of the time it takes for something to go from short term memory to long term memory. The tapes have things timed that items are reviewed and repeated (often out of the blue) at the time in which they would slip out of your short term into the wild blue yonder, and pops it into your long term memory.

(this is actually quite similiar to how I first learned Japanese...)

2) Rosetta Stone is the company that you always see advertising on the back pages of the airline magazines.
Their approach is based on how you learn your mother tongue. Sight, sound, spelling and so forth.

It is a computer based program that you run off your PC....again very very affective.

Not to get off subject, but if you would like to advance your knowledge, and get a head start to make your time in Japan a more rich experience, then these may be two options that you would like to consider.

vapor

[musashi]

nz proud I must have got mixed up. I am using a laptop at the moment, so may I borrow it again please Sorry i dont know how that happened I must have doubled them up?

[Lanky Sempai]

VAPOR> Thank you, I will check those out, I assume they are easily available on the net? I'm lucky to have NZProud at my dojo, a native japanese speaker, I'll have to make his life hell with my terrible pronunciation!!

[vapor]

Those should be available online to purchase....or through other sources (mmmmmmmmtorrentsmmmmmm)

vapor

[smoothsake]

Originally Posted by Lanky Sempai

I'm moving to Japan in a few months, the language and cultural formalities are very intricate, I am worried I may offend people without even knowing I'm doing so, I mange to do an excellent job of pissing people off in english, and I speak english since birth!! This worries me somewhat!! Maybe I should embark upon a self imposed vow of silence!! I think I could get by withh a smile and a couple deep bows!!

I wouldn't worry about it one bit. For one, you are not Japanese so you can play the Gaijin-card. It is quite convenient. You can make all kinds of mistakes and shrug it off because nobody expects you to act like a Japanese. Again, even Japanese (particularly the young) can't play the game correctly all the time. Relax and have fun over there. It's a blast.

[Azimuth]

What is your dojo etiquette , and are there any differences between the different organisations ?

[ksan]

Originally Posted by Aunty Ichigeki

I keep getting correspondense from a Kyokushin dojo operator which begins:

"Osu! Shihan's, Sensei's, Sempai & Kohai". Now I'm not going anywhere near the apostrophe issue but... once upon a time I was told that it's inappropriate to address kohai as kohai! As a result everytime I see this I can't help thinking 'bad form'! Okay, I may be a little anal.

My question is... is it bad form or have I developed an irrationally strong belief based on someone's stray comment years ago?

He also signs his correspondence "Sempai So-in-so" & his email display name is "Sempai So-in-so". Same deal. Is this appropriate?

Thanks for your help.
Curious.

Osu

I use the same line but instead of the word kohai, i use "other respected budoka`s". This covers anyone who reads it and is linked to the dojo. I believe the word senpai, sensei shihan and otherwise is a title someone else use`s to adress you. I do believe its not apropriate to be used to speak about yourself in that way. It is a respect thing, that should come from being respected. My shihan`s never reffer to themselves as "shihan+name" Though official mail and email do get signed "shihan+name+grade+function inside organisation" (for example: Shihan ABCD, 7th Dan, Branch Chief of Country soandso). In that way i believe its the right thing to do, but when i was on the board of my national organisation i didnt use title and rank, just my first and last name and function inside the organisation.

So to summarize, i dont like the use of the word kohai (i try to avoid it all together). But i think Senpai soandos is not wrong in signing his mail the way he does, if not anything it shows you your dealing with someone with the right authority on the subject he is writing about.


Osu

Ksan

[Spirit]

I read somewhere (not sure) about Budo titles and it read (as it was read) like this
Firts name last name tiles, rank..
When I answer an e-mail or correspond directly with someone I'll end it with Sensei Mark, but if it is a general e-mail (with in our group) it will be Mark *&*& Sensei
I never use the tile kohai unless speaking with the teaching staff about the kohai class etc... or addressing issues repated to the kohai...

Mark made a very good layout on how things (through his onw POV) maybe, I would vaildate his point.

[ksan]

Originally Posted by Sensei Mark

i have never ever addressed my teacher Shihan John Taylor as "John Taylor"

I must agree with this. I have never adressed any of my senior instructors other than Shihan or Sensei (even outside the dojo). If there was a situation where there could be a mix up (more than one shihan or sensei present), only then i would use Shihan + first name (if i knew the person well), or Shihan + lastname (if i knew them less well)


Osu

Ksan

[kakatootoshi]

I cannot agree more with ksan that no one calls himself Sempai, Sensei, Shihan or so as these are honarary titles which should be used by the others to call you with.

If you are talking to someone of a higher rank face to face, just call by his or her title. If there are many yudansas mingled together or if you want to refer to someone to a third party, the most appropriate fashion is "last name + title".

If you are talking to someone of a lower rank, call him or her by the last name. If that person is a kid or very young, first name is okay.

Many Sensei/Shihan will only refer themselves by their last name in dojo correspondence. If he or she is to be in some more "official" correspondence that one way to do it is "full name + functional title". By functional title I mean "branch chief" or "dojo operator".

I think in Japan people never address a Shihan by "first name + Shihan" but I know this is accepted outside Japan.

So "do as the romans do".

OSU!

[ksan]

Originally Posted by kakatootoshi

I think in Japan people never address a Shihan by "first name + Shihan" but I know this is accepted outside Japan

Osu kakatootoshi,

The more i think about this, the more i think your right and i also think its also a thing of the last 10 to 15 years, because some of the older shihans who are gone now are still reffered to as shihan+lastname inside our organisation.


Osu


Ksan