Laughing わらっている (笑っている)

I work with the Japanese people from Japan. This in itself isn’t anything special but the Japanese people I have in contact with usually have very little experience with American life/customs/culture. I mainly have this job because I can translate Japanese with some proficiency, although there is always room for improvement since my Japanese skills hasn’t grown since I left Japan when I was 7 years old. So conversational Japanese, I can do, complicated translations or words… no.

I work in particular with a guy whose English skills are pretty good. I can understand him most of the time.

Although, his English skills are good, he has this annoying habit of laughing when he asks me for something. It’s not a belly laugh but one of those nervous laughs Japanese people do when they aren’t exactly comfortable. Although his nervous laugh permeates the entire conversation.

Laughing has many meanings in Japan.

Now I understand why he (let’s call him A) does this, it’s a Japanese way of being polite when asking someone of something. It’s a way to say, I know I’m bothering you but can you please do this for me.

Japanese people tend to have a very hard time asking for something directly. Which annoys me like you wouldn’t believe. It’s my American side coming out. I think if you want something you should be direct and to the point, Japanese people rarely does this. So a conversation that should last a minute tends to go to 5 minutes.

This laughing also bothers me because my colleagues tend to misunderstand this laughing. When A asks me for something, I usually have to say “no” for one reason or another. This then turns the nervous laugh into the “I’m not pleased” laugh, which sounds exactly the same. My colleagues read this laugh as “I understand, I’m okay”, which it isn’t. His laugh means, “I’m not pleased, I’m going to suffer because of this!”

I tried to explain to my colleagues about this, but they don’t seem to get it. They then corner A and asks if everything is alright. Of course he’s going to say “YES”. That’s what they are bred to say, Japanese people are conformists!

Anyway, I’m trying to get his habit of laughing to go away. It’s not working, but I keep trying. It’s counter productive in an American working environment to laugh when you’re not pleased, Americans with no culture reference has no clue. If he stops laughing maybe he’ll finally say he’s going to have a problem with our “no” answer and ask for some explanation he could give higher ups… Although I try to give him an explanation before we end the conversation, not all my colleagues do.

I do feel for A because of the hassle he has to go through working in an American work environment. Hopefully before time is up he’ll learn to assert himself and stop the nervous laughter.