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The greetings exchanged between
people, “good morning” in the morning, “hello” in the
afternoon, “good evening” in the evening and “ how do
you do” when people meet for the first time, are
gradually dying out. The
greetings include recognizing others’ existence in it’s
meaning. In the Age of Civil Wars, it was a custom
for even the opponents to exchange names, therefore,
greetings are the courtesy for others even at the least.
Without greetings, is ignoring other’s existence and it
can be taken as the attitude for not wanting any kind of
relationship with the other.
But as the time
passes by, there is a tendency for words showing
thankfulness, such as “thank you” and “thank you for the
meal” and expressions of the heart, the words to tell
others of your feelings, to fade away.
A woman working
in a computer company says, “ I realized that I’m even
contacting the person next to me by e-mail. I’m
afraid of myself, not knowing how to converse with
others and how to interact with others.” I hear
that in the forefront offices, people are taking a
second look at faxes because handwritten words relax
one’s heart. The present day might be an age
searching for an answer for how communication should be.
The first step to
facilitate communication between people is nothing but
pleasantly greeting others and expressing thankfulness.
Understanding the meaning of it, produces the soil for
cooperation. “Thoughtfulness of valuing others”
flows in there, and “decorum” is expressing its “spirit”
in a “form.”
For example,
students learn the etiquette of opening and closing the
fusuma (a papered sliding door used to partition off
rooms in a Japanese house) in 3 steps, in the decorum
class. Beginning with a signal that the fusuma is
going to open, the second step is “looking through the
situation in the room,” and on the third step you open
the fusuma to the extent that you can go in and out.
Students acquire consideration for others, like from
making 2 signs and opening and closing the fusuma on the
third step, which gives the person some time to get
ready.
The basis of
decorum can be put together as “spirit” and “form.”
Ogasawara School of Decorum systematized the “spirit”
and the “form,” and continuously passed it down from the
Muromachi era to the present. Decorum education,
one of the distinctive characteristics of Seitoku Gakuen,
incorporates the Ogasawara School, and under the
guidance of the head of the Ogasawara School, Keishosai
Ogasawara, we conduct classes.
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