Japan-West Cultural Differences_Ver01. _ “What Exactly Is Japan's 'So-Yu-Wakede' Culture? A Look at Japanese and Western Meeting Styles”

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Feb 22, 2026

Hello everyone, nice to meet you.

My name is Shigenori Tanaka, the founder of Metric Japan Inc.

This is actually the very first blog post of my life, so I must admit—I'm a bit nervous😅.

Until the end of last year, I served as the President of the Japan subsidiary of a foreign company. Recently, I decided to take the leap and start my own consulting firm. I hope to share insights that will be useful to many of you.

One thing I strongly felt during my years in foreign companies is that Japanese and Western cultures differ in many ways, especially in how people communicate. When foreign colleagues visited Japan, I often toasted with them saying "So-Yu-Wakede!” at drinking parties. They had no idea what it meant, but happily shouted "So-Yu-Wakede!" with me anyway😄.

In Japan, people tend to avoid direct confrontation, pretend to agree in the moment, and refrain from asking questions. This may partly come from a lack of confidence in language skills, but I believe the deeper reason lies in Japanese culture itself—particularly "the idea that harmony should be valued above all," which still influences us today, both positively and negatively.

In many Japanese meetings, a manager may wrap things up by saying something like “So-yu-wakede…”— a vague phrase that signals the meeting is over, even though nothing concrete has been decided. It creates an atmosphere of consensus without actual agreement.

Unfortunately, this does not work with Western colleagues.

They expect clear decisions in meetings, and once a decision is made, they treat it almost like a contract. Of course, they may change their minds later, but the degree of change is usually much smaller than what we often see in Japan.

Japanese participants, on the other hand, may pretend to agree during the meeting, then complain afterward, and even try to overturn the "agreement" through behind-the-scenes discussions. From a Western perspective, this is confusing:

“But we agreed in the meeting, didn't we? You didn't really object at the time.” 

This can easily damage trust in international communication.

Does your workplace also have this kind of "So-Yu-Wakede culture?"

In my next post, I'll discuss:

“Is Japan's Nemawashi (behind-the-scenes coordination) Culture Really a Bad Thing?”

So-yu-wakede—that's all for today.

See you in the next blog.