Note: As I continue to learn the Japanese language and culture, these Spotlight posts seek to highlight things I find curious, interesting, and meaningful. The relationship between language and culture runs deep. In fact, there are many points where it gets hard to tell one from the other. “Language is not merely an indifferent mechanism for cataloguing men’s experience but the language itself affects the cataloguing process…. The language system of each culture is a fluid factor in culture; it varies with each generation and serves as clue to its thinking as well as actually coloring and molding this thinking.” In other words, if I am going to learn how to reach Japanese people, I need to understand how Japanese people think. The process of how they think is intimately intwined with the language they use. Unfortunately for us, it goes far beyond simply using “Google Translate” to come up with the right vocabulary. Language embeds the foundational concepts of culture into everyday interaction. So, deeper we go into this wonderful world of language exploration! Much of this information comes from Charles Corwin’s Biblical Encounter with Japanese Culture (Tokyo, 1967).
Whether they are practicing Buddhists or not, Japanese people are deeply influenced by Buddhist thought through fundamental ideas held at the core of Japanese culture and society. This word for love (“ai“) is no different. Buddhism sees a dichotomy between loves that are either “defiled” or “undefiled.” Essentially, the difference boils down to whether the object of a person’s love is desired for selfish or selfless reasons. Desire for fame, wealth, carnal pleasure, or a general lust for life fall into the defiled idea of love in Buddhist thought. Buddhists see these sorts of self-pleasing desires as working against an individual’s progress toward detachment and enlightenment, the primary goals of Buddhist practice. Undefiled love, then, is characterized by selfless compassion for all sentient beings. In practical terms, however, most behavior falls into the first category so Buddhist scholars generally list “ai” among the catalogue of Buddhist sins.
The Christian concept of love is very different. The greek language of the New Testament employs several words that could be translated as love. Eros (sexual love), philia (friendly affection), stergo (family affection), philadelphia (love between brothers and sisters), philanthropia (love for humanity), and agape (love expressed in action). The New Testament writers chose to focus on the word agape and infuse it with additional meaning to present the astounding message that God’s love is above and beyond what humans typically express toward each other. Christ brought a new order, a manifesto of love. He not only declared that this was the supreme criterion in life but by His life and death showed that this love is intrinsic to the very nature of God. This is the endearing, sacrificial, pardoning love of God which moves out to embrace sinful men.
Modern usage of the Japanese “ai” tends to focus more on the ideas of “compassion” or “fondness” rather than what we in the West would consider the deeper meaning of love. Even so, it is not often used. In truth, so many varied concepts of Japanese affection are conveyed by the word “ai” — compassion, desire, eros, regret — that it has become unwieldy for the average Japanese person. Up until the Edo period, the Japanese language developed through Imperial court literature. In such surroundings, the slightest expression of innuendo, the mere glance of the eye, the wave of the hand in guarded moments were keys unlocking unseen vaults of human emotion. Buddhist frowning upon any human endeavor which released craving, desire, or passion furthered this dampening of affections.
Even today the word “ai” ( as in the forthright expression “I love you”) is too outright. Rather, the young suitor will tell his lover “I am fond of you” (anata ga suki desu). This is all she needs to know; he has told all. The kanji character of “heart” in the word fixes it in the mind’s eye as a human emotion springing from man towards a desired object. It expresses desire for possession and at the same time a regretting, since failure to possess or parting is man’s common experience.
What sets Biblical love off from Japanese ai is the contextual use of the Greek agape expressing a Divine love that soars above the human plane. It is a love which manifests itself in determined, one-sided acts of salvation, pardon, adoption, faithfulness toward the unlovely, undeserving, and unfaithful.
Japanese ai is reaching out to possess; Biblical agape is God’s reaching out to redeem.
~ Clay
Fowlers in Japan 