The Concept of Giri

It is never easy to translate or explain the morals and ethics embedded in another culture. The Japanese concept of giri is one that does not really have a close English equivalent. Historically, the roots of giri can be traced back to Confucius, whose philosophy outlined the necessity of living with gi or righteousness. This can be understood as living your life performing actions that serve to enhance the greater good, rather than pursuing a path of self-interest. Through time, giri became an intrinsic aspect of Japanese culture, becoming especially important during the feudal period in Japan when bonds forged through loyalty offered protection that could mean the difference between life and death. Traditionally then, giri is an expression that displays the very highest regard for human relationships.

Today, giri can be felt in almost every relationship entered into: boss to subordinate; colleague to colleague; husband to wife, brother to sister and friends to each other. One of the most basic definitions one can give giri is a debt of gratitude that includes a self-sacrificing pursuit of someone else’s happiness or success. Very simply, it is a kind of obligation in which you perform your best for someone else.

Besides close personal relationships, giri can also be found in the wider context of social customs such as nengajo (New Year cards), and ochugen (gifts that are given in the summer). An important point about giri is that when acting involuntarily to help a person towards whom one feels giri, one must not take into account one's own suffering. The act should be performed selflessly. This to me is why the English word 'obligation' does not really convey the full essence of giri. Obligation describes a compulsion invisibly imposed from without that is felt strongly within, often with some opposition that may or may not be expressed. This in turn may lead to actions undertaken with reluctance or worse, resentment. True giri is much more internal and passive; it is an acceptance of the roles we each play in each other's lives and an agreement that sometimes our own wants and desires must be put to one side for the benefit of others. The feeling underlying this is that somehow, acting with the intention of enhancing the greater good will ultimately benefit the individual.

As you may imagine, giri has a very strong presence in business relationships in Japan. In truth, this can be one of the more frustrating aspects of working here. My husband is unable to tolerate alcohol, yet when he worked for a large Japanese corporation, the giri he felt towards his boss and colleagues required him to attend drinking parties with them and their customers almost nightly. To Westerners, aside from financial gain, the point of working is often to pursue personal growth and self-development. This places the individual's concerns above the welfare of colleagues or the company as a whole and means that pursuing your chosen career becomes the determining factor when making decisions. The fact that many Western companies actively encourage their employees to do this is one of the attractions currently drawing bi-lingual Japanese professionals to seek work with them. Traditionally in Japanese business, the emphasis has been not so much the pursuit of individual gain, but one more of support and respect for human relationships. The upside of this can be a working environment of mutual support instead of inter-office competition resulting in mistrust between contemporaries. The downside is that an individual can easily feel trapped in a situation which does not fulfil their own needs or inner sense of purpose.

In certain cases giri can lead to disempowerment, as situations that perhaps need not be tolerated, are. Too much emphasis on giri can serve to remove the responsibility of making decisions for oneself, at the detriment of your own happiness. A wife unhappily married for thirty years, for example, may remain with her husband through her overriding sense of giri towards him. This ability or willingness to interpret giri in such an extreme way may, however, be changing as the conflict naturally arising between giri and ninjō, or human feeling, the primary topic of many Japanese dramas throughout history, slowly disappears. Today, social critics decry the diminishing influence of giri on shinjinrui, the new generation of Japan, who, through modernisation and globalisation, are tending to pursue a more individualistic path in life that seems more than a little distasteful to traditionalists. This development of honne or inner truth, is currently one of the driving forces behind the changing face of Japan. It is one reason why the job market is adjusting to become more flexible as people feel less and less inclined to promise themselves to one company for their entire working life.

So, from its lofty birth as a concept of high morals, giri these days often assumes a more mundane role. One typical example of giri that you are likely to encounter while living and working in Japan includes giri-choco. Valentines Day has been interpreted in Japan as a day when women give gifts to men; the reciprocal equivalent being the commercially fabricated White Day, which occurs exactly one month later on March 14th. Giri-choco is the chocolate that one is expected to present to colleagues on Valentines Day. These gifts in no way indicate any kind of secretive, romantic yearnings, and for many they are simply a drain on resources. Given the choice, you would probably find that most people would prefer not to have to participate in this ritual. Buried deep within them however, are the traces of a once-strong thread of giri, something that is very difficult for them to break away from completely.

Despite the extent to which Western culture has pervaded, even invaded Japanese culture, many Japanese today who deal with foreigners in their daily lives feel quite strongly that their associates lack a sense and appreciation of giri. At the same time, the initial politeness and considerate manners of Japanese can, over time, come to seem superficial, lacking any real depth of meaning. It is always worth remembering in a cross-cultural situation that an individual is driven by a mysterious mix of personal, social and cultural forces that, if we cannot fully understand, we should at least try to accept. After all, some of these rhythms have their roots in such distant history that many of the people who display them may not even realise themselves why they do.