私：よく、あなたの経歴で面接試験に通りましたね。
彼：面接では、自分もあきれるくらい嘘をつきましたよ。嘘も方便と言うでしょう？
Uso mo Hooben
Watashi: Yoku, anata no keireki de mensetsu' shiken ni toorimashita ne.
Kare: Mensetsu de wa, jibun mo akireru kurai uso wo tsukitmashita yo. Uso mo hooben to iu deshoo?
Me: Given your background, it's really something that you made it through the interview.
Him: I lied so much in the interview I even surprised myself.
* * *
Uso mo hooben, literally translated, means that a lie is sometimes expedient. It is used when, to get something of great importance, lying is deemed a justifiable means. Hooben means "a temporary expedient."
Some years ago I taught a class open to the general public called "Teaching Methodology for Japanese as a Second/Foreign Language" in Tokyo. One of the students now teaches Japanese at a university in America. Before this, the most he'd ever done was work as a truck driver; he said he'd never worked in a company. He left for America halfway through the course. Because he could speak both Japanese and English, he got a job as a teaching assistant in a certain university's Japanese language course. After becoming popular with both students and teachers, he was made a part-timer. According to him, "Uso mo hooben to wa, jibun no baai ni pittari no hyoogen desu ne (The expression, 'It's sometimes necessary to stretch the truth with a little white lie,' fits my situation perfectly)." I asked him what his "white lie" had been. He replied that when asked about teaching methodology he had said that he'd had personal experience using all the methods he was aware of.
Japanese are commonly assumed to be poor at public speaking and to be especially poor in interview - type situations. We have trouble demonstrating our talents in oral examinations. My friend, however, is clearly an exception. In other words, he went beyond talking about his own real talents. Indeed, it was this ^'exaggerating" that helped him get hired. He now plans to spend his life teaching Japanese in America and is studying for a master's degree in linguistics at an American graduate school. With an MA in linguistics it's likely he really will be able to get a full-time teaching position in America. The Japanese expression uso kara deta makoto (truth out of a lie) fits him just right.
Let me introduce some other uses for this expression. Many doctors will tell a patient they have diagnosed as having cancer, "It's just a stomach ulcer." When I consider the effect telling the truth might have on a patient, uso mo hooben de, shikata nai (not telling them exactly the truth is understandable)
to me. Many patients, these days, however, are asking doctors to tell them what's really wrong with them.
When a man takes a day off, it's more common for him to say something like, "My wife was feeling ill," than to tell the truth, "I wanted to play some golf." If he gets found out, however, he might lose the trust and respect of his co-workers.
The moral? Uso mo hooben to wa ie, amari tsukatte wa ikemasen (Though they may just be little white lies, I wouldn't make telling them a habit).