Toyota and trust: Was the Akio Toyoda apology lost in translation?

This article was published in Christian Science Monitor 25 February 2010

Stung by Toyota recalls, Toyoda had to convey sincerity – and bridge the gulf in communication styles between Japan and America.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda’s testimony before a US congressional committee Wednesday may have been the most public nonmilitary confrontation between the two radically different cultures since American Commodore Matthew C. Perry first “opened” isolationist Japan to trade in 1854. Perry’s awkward meeting with his foreign hosts is recounted in numerous texts, paintings, and illustrations; Toyoda’s was broadcast worldwide.

I use the quotation marks deliberately. The virtue of openness and transparency in all facets of interaction is very much an American concept – not to mention that more than a century and a half after Perry’s landing, Japan still harbors what many Americans consider archly restrictive and protectionist trade policies.

In Japan, indirection, subtlety, and a degree of opacity have been prized for centuries, and to very specific cultural, ethical and geographical ends.