A new feeling to add to our international repertoire: Do you feel ibasho today?

My old professor of psychology used to tell us about the Inuit people who would have ten words to describe snow. I've never been invited to a high tea by an Inuit family so I didn't have a chance to check if he was right. His point was: there are some concepts that we are lacking because every language invents his own concepts - and this limits and shapes our ways of thinking. Something that has no name just can't be discussed, analysed, compared, and so scientists will tend to ignore it. In the best case, they discover it by chance and will go back to Latin or classic Greek to name it.

A team of researchers from Clemson University decided to explore and test the Japanese concept of Ibasho. This concept doesn't exist in English. The feeling it describes has been extensively discussed and studied in Japanese, but hardly ever discussed in the international (understand: English) scientific literature. What a pity! When I read their paper, I was immediately hooked by this concept. It sounded like a very important concept that could describe some of the stressful consequences of living abroad. As a disclaimer I must admit I don’t speak Japanese and I have never been to Japan.

According to the paper, Ibasho describes a place and the feelings associated to being in this place: it evokes the "person's feelings of comfort and security in the places that he or she normally goes". They say that more than 100 books contain this word in their title in Japan! Ibasho refers to a feeling associated to a place, but it's also about the social contacts you have there, about the sense of "security, peace, satisfaction, acceptance, belonging and coziness" (Bamba & Haight, 2006).  

It's a really useful concept to use for expats, internationals, and travellers of all species. When arriving in a new place, nothing feels peaceful. There is no sense of home yet. Not in our living room, kitchen or bedroom. Not in the neighbourhood. Not at the office. The pub at the corner of the street is full of strangers who will stare at us or royally ignore us when we come in. Nothing provides this feeling of ibasho. And we will have to soon build our ibasho: Find a place where we'll meet friends, feel comfortable, feel at home, feel a sense of belonging to the community. A place where there is no stress, no worries, just nice people we trust and have fun with. This will take a lot of time. Can this ever be reached when security is a big issue and you have to live surrounded by high walls and protected by armed guards? Is this possible for international employees working for the poorest? Some of them described to me their guilt when coming back home in a comfortable place and leaving behind those who won't eat for another 24h.

The research doesn't explain how to create this place and this feeling of well-being associated to it. But it underlines that this feeling is very important for the expats to buffer stress and feel satisfied with their life.

I wonder how many concepts like this one, describing complex feelings, have yet to be discovered and imported from other cultures. The world has about 6800 languages.

How many other feelings don't have a translation in English? Send me other examples if you think about any J

References. H.A. Herleman, T.W. Britt, & P.Y. Hashima. 2008. Ibasho and the adjustement, satisfaction, and wel-being of expatriate spouses. International journal of intercultural relations, 32, 282-299.