>What's worse, one of the biggest overarching rules is "it is better to preserve social harmony and/or not risk embarrassment than to engage in honest discussio

>What's worse, one of the biggest overarching rules is "it is better to preserve social harmony and/or not risk embarrassment than to engage in honest discussion". Which means compared to Westerners, Japanese people rarely talk about their true feelings. Which is where the Japanese concept of honne and tatemae come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae