Mokusatsu

Once, during a game of Dungeons and Dragons, I was stupid enough to attack a raven which had been giving us odd looks as my companions and I travelled through the land of Barovia. As it turned out, the bird had been a were-raven, and a member of a secret society which wanted to aid us in our quest to defeat the vampire lord, Strahd von Zarovich. I had misread the signs, paranoid and possibly a bit xenophobic. What the raven had meant to be a friendly greeting, I had taken as hostility. As a consequence, we found ourselves pushed out of the local inn, shunned by NPCs who had been allies, for they had also been were-ravens. Dismayed and ashamed of my actions as the session drew to a close, I scoured the internet for a story I could use to mend the damaged relationship.
Eventually I found it: mokusatsu.
A Japanese word which literally means to kill with silence. It is also a word which was horrendously mistranslated by the American government in 1945, leading to one of the greatest atrocities ever committed.

The following is a quote from an NSA Technical Journal. The full essay can be found here: https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/tech-journals/assets/files/mokusatsu.pdf

"In July of 1945 allied leaders meeting in Potsdam submitted a stiffly-worded declaration of surrender terms and waited anxiously · for the Japanese reply. The terms had included a statement to the· effect that any negative answer would invite "prompt and utter destruction." Truman, Churchill, Stalin, and Chiang Kai-Shek stated that they hoped that Japan would agree to surrender unconditionally and prevent devastation of the Japanese homeland and that they patiently awaited Japan's answer.
Reporters in Tokyo questioned Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki about his government's reaction to the Potsdam Declaration. Since no formal decision had been reached at the time, Suzuki, falling back on the politician's old standby answer to reporters, replied that he was withholding comment. He used the Japanese word mokusatsu, derived from the word for "silence." As can be seen from the dictionary entry quoted at the beginning of this essay, however, the word has other meanings quite different from that intended by Suzuki. Alas, international news agencies saw fit to tell the world that in the eyes of the Japanese government the ultimatum was "not worthy of comment." U. S. officials, angered by the tone of Suzuki's statement and obviously seeing it as another typical example of the fanatical Banzai and Kamikaze spirit, decided on stern measures. Within ten days the decision was made to drop the atomic bomb, the bomb was dropped, and Hiroshima was leveled."

My character, having been drawn to this fantasy land from Earth, used this story to explain the misunderstanding that had occurred and mend the relationship between the were-ravens and the party. Despite the horrific mistranslation, both America and Japan now stand as significantly powerful nations on Earth. The two countries are now great allies. My Dungeon Master was so impressed with the story that I didn't even have to roll to see if my speech was a success.
Even though it was only a small moment in a roleplaying game, that has stuck with me. It is probably my proudest moment playing D&D.
The mokusatsu story stuck with me too. It's important to be patient and understand that people from different cultures have their own habitus. There will be slip ups in communication and misunderstandings. But I think being conscious of that fact is more important than anything, because only then can we strive to improve our communication.

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