“Win by losing”
This is an old saying that means that there is more valuable thing than winning.
Everybody has self-esteem, that makes himself difficult to lose face by admitting that he has lost, or that he made mistake. When the audience is bigger, it’s more difficult to accept his loss or failure, and one would go making excuses untill it is too late to draw back. In the end, he would lose accountability or ruin relationships with others.
It is embarrasing to admit his own failure, but it is a great act that needs courage. "Win by losing" is different from being a loser or compromising , or not admitting that he has lost. It is not persisting to his shallow pride, but to take more valuable thing deep inside. It is also related to a Samurai ethic of "letting them cut your flesh and break his bone". (Of course, if you don’t persue your pride at all, you will be considered disgraceful.)
Since there is such teaching deep in Japanese culture, Japanese has much flexible idea about losing. For example, imagine that you are sharing 6 chocolates between 5 people and you decide to choose who will eat the last one by ‘rock, paper, and cissors’. Will you say that the one who wins will eat it? In Japan, sometimes they say that "the one who lost will gain".
Maybe it sounds strange for you, but for me, it clearly represents Japanese spirit. A worry for standing out from the others, feeling sorry when you have won, and that loser should be praised in some way. Even in athletic events at school, people would praise the loser by giving award, maybe to comfort the pain of losing…
Although it’s contradicting with the persuit of victory, and it allows one to avoid dealing with his loss face to face, it sure is a way of thinking.
on June 28th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
In Padua someone always give his chocolate before doing “paper rock scissor” ^^ he he he. I have catch what you mean, thank you for this japanese hint.Think about the ones who loose it’s important, but it’s really strange to feel sorry when you win, if you can’t say that your happines it’s smaller than the sadness of who have lost. It’s important respect the loser and the winner, and it’s important to know how to help the looser tho get more stronger or know how say him that it’s not his speciality “paper rock scissor” ^_^
on June 29th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
In fact, this happened in my office where I sometimes work at. One of the worker bought icecreams for all, and there was one icecream left after each of us ate one. As I reclined from eating it because I’m on diet, they decided to do paper-rock-scissors…and I heard one of them say “the one who lost will eat it”. It sounded strange to my ear, though understandable, because it makes it sound as if they don’t want to eat that delicioius icecream:-P