Turning Nihonjin

Something very odd happened this week: I had a meeting with two VERY Japanese people from the MOST traditionally (a.k.a. backwards) Japanese organization in the company... and it went really well!

Here's what happened: on a project I manage this organization had been demanding more and more, to the point where the supplier working on it was already operating at a loss and everyone involved on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This organization asked for yet one more irrational thing, and I'd just had enough. My Latin blood made me vent (to my office mates) for hours. But something in my gut told me that Latin candor wouldn't get the job done. So here's what I did:

I created a matrix in Excel (no, no numbers were involved, but Excel is the favorite Word processor in Japan) with the project's background, starting with the time when God created Earth and Adam and Eve... All very tidy in a one-page matrix. Then I set up a one-hour meeting with the troubling party. After thanking them for their kindness to make the time to meet with me, I proceeded to explain my one-pager in a record 35-minute-long uninterrupted stream of sentences uttered in a most polite and monotonous tone which I never envisioned being capable of.

At the end of the 35 minutes I announced that the preamble was now complete, and took an additional two minutes to make my three or four "recommendations and requests" (in the West we would call this "fuck off and get the asshole I've been having to deal with out of my sight").

When I finally shut up at the end of minute number 37, the most senior guy was the first one to open his mouth. He thanked me for a very "Nihonteki" (Japanese style) explanation, affirmed that he had understood, an agreed to all my recommendations and requests.

All issues had been happily resolved by the end of the meeting. The problem is - I don't know whether I should be proud, ashamed or frightened of what happened... Am I turning Japanese???