The Japanese Man has Six Faces

Back in 1980 (B.C. to you Xer's), there was a tv movie called Shogun. It was a loose account of a genuine English captain, Blackthorne, whose ship Erasmus was swamped on the Japanese coast back in 1600. After oddly being befriended by Jesuits, the Catholics enemy to the Protestant English. The Jesuits arrived in Japan first and had the lead.  Blackthorne learns to assimilate himself and rise politically within Medieval Japan's samurai clans.

Stay with me...the history lesson ends soon...

Another captain of Catholic persuasion, alerts Blackthorne to the very real danger of trying to stay alive in Japan. At the time, there were various warlords vying with one another to achieve that title, Shogun. The Military Governor of ALL of Japan. They weren't beyond murdering one another in grisly ways to attain that either.

So, upon departing Japan to sail back to Spain, the Catholic Captain says to Blackthorne: “English! A final warning to you, though your false heart doesn't deserve it! The Japanese man has Six Faces!”

I sat there as a 15 year old boy wondering what the hell that meant? “Six Faces? Is this some Buddhist tricky mental exercise? Is it just a weird Zen saying?”

I had no idea but certain phrases stuck with me throughout the years, filed away in my brain as: “Well, if we find out what it meant...we'll find out. Priority Level: Very Low.”

Yeah, until I was about in my very late 20's when I saw what it really meant. It couldn't have been simpler but it's one of those things where you have to live life, be scarred up by it, for years, to “get it.” You learn this after working for a while and you're first real lesson in it is usually navigating the politics of high school.

Girls learn this one far quicker and at a younger age though.

All of us, I, you, all present a “face” to each and every person. And that face is adjusted according to the information we have and what the political climate is a work or in the lunchroom. To successfully pull this off, you have to be “every thing to every one.” It's a nasty fence sitting, middle of the road tactic but as long as there is no hot war going on, you can survive. The other trick is the poker face. Never react to any information you may learn that actually surprises you. Watch some Japanese faces, they'll betray NO emotion even if you tell them that, with genetic proof, they descended straight from the Chinese, who they HATE with a passion.

Now in a hot situation, that's when you have to choose sides at the last minute, get off that fence, take temps and see who you think will win. Bingo! Join that team. Blackthorne joined and stayed with Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the two most powerful warlords in Japan. Tokugawa fought a battle and won then purposely decapitated 40,000 enemy samurai. Afterwards, he “reluctantly agreed” to accept the title of Shogun from the Emperor. Blackthorne became his political advisor and died of old age in Tokyo.

Do I have Six Faces? Fuck yeah, probably more.

So.Do.You.