I was having dinner with one of my business partners. He ordered his regular drink, his version of cosmopolitan with detailed instructions.
“No problem.”
The waiter answered and left.
“I always feel strange about this. ‘No problem’ seems to imply that I gave him a problem.” He shook his head.
I felt the same way when I came to the US twenty some years ago. Other phrases that bothered me were “You bet!” and “Of course!” that I heard after I expressed my gratitude. Do they mean “I bet you thank me” and “Of course you thank me”? Over time, though, the initial bewilderment faded away.
One afternoon, my son stormed into the house and shouted,
“Does a hot dog bounce?” What?
“Does a hot dog bounce, Mom?” I was taken aback by his seriousness.
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s what I thought!” He clenched his fist and stomped around the dining room. I was surprised by this burst of emotions, and decided to be calm to neutralize his anger.
“This seems to be a big deal for you.”
He clenched his teeth this time and groaned. Then, he started to explain. One of his friends bought a hot dog for lunch at the school cafeteria. He dropped his hot dog by accident, and my son saw it bounce on the floor.
“Mom, does real food bounce like that?” I don’t think so.
“I knew it!” He grew indignant with his discovery.
“Wait, but that wasn’t your hot dog, right?”
“Yeah, it was my friend’s, but it was sold at school. Schools shouldn’t sell fake things.”
He was mad because he felt betrayed by school. He had just started to learn that life wasn’t fair. But he still believed in institutions like school, until he had learned about the corruption within FIFA. Adults can deal with such things with a mourn-and-forget routine, but for a nine-year old soccer fanatic, it was a huge blow. The hot dog incident was a confirmation that righteous institutions can harbor bad will and harm others intentionally. Well, he didn’t say that; that was my interpretation of his anger. But I believed that I was not way off. Even for me, it’s hard to decide what to believe sometimes. In an attempt to keep our conversation practical, I asked.
“So, what are you going to do about this?”
“That is not a problem. I’ll tell my friends not to have hot dogs there.”
And he marched off to the kitchen to have a snack that was not entirely real food.
One of my son’s friends can’t have snacks at the school cafeteria any more. His mother has checked his lunch money account, and figured out that he’s been spending too much money on chips.
“But Mom, that’s not a problem! We all bought him a bag of chips on his birthday!”
If there’s a problem, I’ll find you a quick solution. This is an example of America’s positive thinking in action. I call this phenomenon a “fixing culture.” It doesn’t really provide a solution to the cause of a problem, but it can fix the situation well enough to get by.
And this can pose uneasy challenges to Japanese who live and work in the U.S. For most Japanese, fixing a problem seems an easy way out. There seems to be not enough reflection on what led to the problem. And in Japanese thinking, no reflection equals no learning. So, naturally, they fear that the same problem will pop up again soon.
When I explain this to American engineers, for example, they all agree with their Japanese counterparts. However, it doesn’t mean that they’ll change their attitude toward problems. They say, if it comes up again, they’ll fix it again. That’s usually quicker than dealing with it head-on.
One day, I was having Japanese curry-rice for lunch with my kids, and realized that I didn’t have a fork. I asked my son to bring forks to the table. He responded,
“No problem Mom! Watch and learn!”
He demonstrated how to cut green beans with a spoon. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. But I managed to compose myself, and insisted on a fork. He brought one for me, but kept eating everything on the plate with his spoon. My daughter seemed to have found an even quicker fix; out of the corner of my eye, I caught her eating with her fingers. I didn’t know what to say. Realizing that her actions had been witnessed, she claimed,
“This is much more efficient, Mom.”
I translate “No problem” as “I know how to fix this, although you may not like the way it is fixed.”
When I’m in my Japanese thinking mode, I, too, tend to raise my eyebrows to a waiter’s “No problem.” It sounds as if he is not really keen to serve me. When I ask for hot tea at a sushi restaurant, and a waitress pours me lukewarm tea with an attitude, I want to say, “You are not putting your heart into it.”
But hey, this is America. No problem! If I really want to experience excellent service, with “Right away, Ma’am,” I know where to go with my credit card.