Meiwaku: The One Japanese Word That Explains Japan vs America

Meiwaku is a single word that I think describes how differently Japan and the US operate. And you can see these differences in everyday life... from business to personal courtesy and respect.

Meiwaku means bothering others, and it’s something you do not do in Japan, even at the expense of yourself. Japanese people in Hokkaido build flat roofs so snow doesn’t fall on their neighbors’ property and inconvenience them. They don’t talk on trains. They don’t play music loudly in public. They don’t leave garbage anywhere. Tokyo has almost no public trash cans and is somehow one of the cleanest cities on earth... because people just carry their trash home all day.

I once saw a woman pour a bucket of water on the street where her dog peed... just to make sure no one else came along and stepped in dog pee.

But it also has negatives. And I see this in the business world. This may be an overgeneralization, but as far as my experiences go, it’s been across the board.

Japanese people do not want to take risks. Even when those risks are well within legal bounds but just aren’t culturally normal.

The aversion to risk is so strong that I often can’t even get clear answers on where the legal line actually is... because no one has ever seemed to walk up to it.

There’s a phrase you hear constantly in Japanese business — zenrei ga nai, “there is no precedent” — and it can shut down a conversation entirely.

Now in America... we cut people off to save ourselves one minute. We throw trash out the car window so we can keep our car clean. We blast music on the train. We smoke weed on the train. We BLAST music on speakers hiking in the woods!! I can go on. (I do none of these BTW)

But we are also wide open to taking risks. And maybe that’s tied to our culture of putting ourselves first no matter what. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at all costs. It doesn’t matter, I’ll get this done in whatever way possible, even if I’m operating in a gray area. I’ll worry about that later.

Think about it. Uber and Airbnb both launched by deliberately operating in legal gray areas. Both became some of the most valuable companies on earth.

Both would be unthinkable in Japan. Actually, Airbnb in Japan got hammered the moment regulators caught up , the 2018 minpaku law dropped listings from ~62,000 to ~13,800 almost overnight. 80% of the platform’s inventory in the country, gone in a weekend.

The cultural friction between “rent your apartment to strangers” and “don’t be a nuisance to your neighbors” was always going to win.

Of course there are other cultural aspects that play into this. The extreme shame Japanese culture puts on people who act outside these bounds. The reward, and often times even praise, you get in America for making things happen even if you have to operate in the gray.

When it comes to business, there seems to be an obsession in America with getting rich at all costs. Those are the people the average American respects.

And honestly, from my personal experience, there’s no other country with this American can-do attitude.

We’ve helped people buy homes from 15+ countries, and Americans are always the easiest to work with... because their attitude is usually “fuck it, I’ll make it work.”

And I have a lot of respect for that kind of attitude because without it, this business would not exist and I would not be writing this blog right now.

But this one word really got me thinking. How do you create a society where both things can be true? We respect other people and make sure we don’t inconvenience them, but we also have a can-do business attitude.

Because daily life in Japan is an absolute pleasure. If I could wave a wand and bring meiwaku to the US, I would do it in a heartbeat.

But I could say the exact same thing in reverse. If I could wave a wand and bring the American can-do attitude in terms of business to Japan... I’d do that too.

Maybe the two are incompatible, maybe it’s the same instinct (”don’t be the one who breaks the pattern”) applied to two different domains. The instinct that keeps trains quiet is the same one that keeps deals from closing.

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This content is for informational and educational purposes only and reflects my personal opinions and experience. I am not a licensed financial advisor, tax advisor, or attorney. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult qualified professionals before making any investment decisions.

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