His post was as follows:

In Japan, most of life revolves around not losing face. Let there be no doubt, these three companies have now lost face, big time. But every gram of reasoning behind these terrible pull-outs is the concept of the Japanese not losing AS MUCH face as they might have done without an economic crisis. I thought I’d put ‘Japan Losing Face’ into a Google search to see what it spat out. I came across this rather heavy article:

http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/face/

Rather than plow through the lot, here’s the important bit:

‘In high-context cultures, group harmony is of utmost importance. People in these cultures dislike direct confrontation, and for the most part avoid expressing a clear “no”. Evasion and inaccuracy are preferred in order to keep appearances pleasant. There is a danger of losing face simply by not reaching an agreement with another person or group, if that was the goal. Being humiliated before the group, or losing face before one’s constituents, can be a fate worse than death in some cases.[7]‘

Right, be aware that I’ll never be able to explain how important ‘not losing face’ is to the Japanese.