Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

I didn't get culture shock in Tokyo, because it's just so different to everywhere else I'd been that I completely stopped the usual comparisons and just gave up.

This guy is writing this after living 5 years in Japan. I would therefore not dismiss this as simple culture shock, it's a genuine critique of a culture after he's become accustomed to it.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPfB6GIjM9Q

Uh...

for some people, living long-term in another culture is hard. i certainly find it so at times. and this is despite being completely aware of the issue, the validity of other belief / social systems, etc etc.

it's a malaise at a very deep level - not something that can be addressed by conscious platitudes. i don't have a solution, apart from just continuing.

[ps the way i see it, our subconscious is "programmed" at a very early stage in our development, and is much less adaptable than our conscious. what we're talking about here is the result of long-term attrition between those subconscious assumptions and an inconsistent (but, or course, completely valid) reality. in some ways, respecting the other culture makes it harder - you can't simply dismiss it (except for periods of anger - i would guess this article was written in such a time). i also sometimes wonder if those that don't suffer this are simply repressing / unconnected with their subconscious to such a degree that they are unaware... the alternative is that their subconscious somehow adapts.]

The ironic part was that he would begridgingly list all the good points about living here too. In the end, he became a tangled mess. He disliked and liked being here, and also disliked and liked the idea of returning home. Sounds kindof the the same with the dude in this article. You feel like telling him to just pack his bags and return home, but you know that he won't because he'd miss the good parts of living in Tokyo and end up complaining about the US instead.

A major part of this is to do with always drawing comparisons to your original culture as a source of familiarity. The natives don't draw such comparisons. To them there is no "better" or "crappier" place. It's not Japanese work-life, it's just work-life. It's not Japanese food, it's food. Home is home, and that's just how things are.

After listening to my French friend, reading this article, and reading your comment, it seems to me that romantacising aspects of your home culture whenever you're pissed off about something in your host culture (and vice-versa), though inevitable, alomost never leads to happiness.

Huh, I had the opposite experience when I worked for a small Dutch company. The amount of enforced merry-making (not to mention all the emphasis on consensus-formation) really got on my nerves. Never saw anything like it when I was working for American companies. It did remind me of my brief career in Tokyo --- I'm not the only one to have noticed the superficial similarities between Dutch and Japanese corporate culture [1], though apparently if you dig deeper it's not as similar as it looks.

Of course, this may simply be a quirk of the industry I was in at the time (options trading). It may also be a consequence of me rubbing Dutch people the wrong way (when excusing myself from company bowling/drinking/whatever trips or expressing dissenting opinions), while knowing how not to rub American people the wrong way because I'm a lot more familiar with their culture.

[1] e.g. Joop Stam has done a lot of research on this: http://www.mb.utwente.nl/oohr/staff/professorate/stam/

There seems to be a non-romance/love existential philosophy/angst genre of pop songs. The Japanese version seems to use a different set of pastoral imagery than the American one, and much more of it. Not sure what that means.

http://gaijinhostsabin.justin-klein.com/the-rules-of-the-gam...

But as some comments indicate, some (or most) of the author's problems are actually not idiosyncratic to Japan. Although he has valid points, his problems will just stay there in different shapes even if he leaves Japan.

It feels like reality has settled in and his daily life has some deeper rooted problems than the stickers being placed on the barcode a certain a way.

Regardless he gives a view of the culture that you don't often hear about.

Then again, I used to watch TMNT after school and to this day will maintain that it was actually quite funny, even though someone older than me will, with some justification, villify that as well.

Some of this article was worth reading. The complaints about how things used to be better, however, were not.

You might have experienced a bad, emasculated version which was aired in America, stripped down to nothing but fight scenes and completely devoid of anything involving adult life. That version really sucked.

- No ordinary schmoes who turn out to have amazing supernatural powers.

- Nothing that revolves around a series of contests with enemies of escalating power.

- No robots or exoskeletons.

- It would be nice if the central character was an adult. An adult whose love interest is not an adolescent.

- While I'm on that topic, nothing that will make people think I'm a pervert if they catch me reading it.

So, while I was wroting this up, I started checking out the lists of mangas that had been previously recommended in the forum, and I started to feel like I was shitting all over everything they loved, so I decided not to post my request. People talk quite a lot about manga being a serious art form for adults. Am I missing something?

Wal-Mart makes their employees do this every morning, and they are the largest private employer in the US. IIRC there is footage of this is The High Cost of Low Prices.

I agree with your comment in general though. This article should pretty much be required reading for everyone in the US, since at least to me it's pretty clear that in another 20 years life here is going to resemble either Idiocracy or Japan depending on your socio-economic status.

It does have some interesting snapshots of Japanese culture in there but they are bookended by too many personal rants based on the author's peculiarities so the result is part travelogue, part social criticism, part gaming commentary, part manifesto.

He starts off by saying the reason he doesn't like Japan is he doesn't like anime. How high brow did you think the responses would be?

Many of his complaints just sounds xenophobic. Sure, some of the things sounds absurd, but I'm sure plenty of US customs would sound equally absurd to the Japanese.

And many of his complaints seem pretty absurd to me. Like complaining that they put a piece of tape on his drink if he doesn't get it in a bag. They do that in US grocery stores too, for milk.

For me, the most fascinating part about the Japanese society is the pastiche of mannerisms, catchphrases, and behaviors -- all copied from somewhere and never coming from an individual. There is a constant checking and double-checking that one is acting accordingly. These clues, on how to act, what to say, how to say it and when, are provided by tradition (easy defaults), television show hosts, celebrities, everything and anything external except from within.

At first it might seem that yelling something is a subjective show of raw, emotions, something very personal and unique, a show of anger or excitement, but in reality it is just a formula that is repeated many times, probably accompanied by a total inner apathy.

> From what I've read, and from the few movies I've seen that deal with Japanese culture, it _does_ seem like there's something about it that forces an distance between people that is hard to bridge.

It seems that both parties know they are participating in a formality theater but nobody wants to be the first to say "ah, fuck it, this is ridiculous".

Because of this drinking and participation in drinking if _very_ important. That is the only time when formality is allowed to be suspended and some semblance of real thoughts and feeling come out. It is the only time when you might find out what your perspective client really thinks about your product, or how loyal your employee really is.

While I agree that the way they shout good morning might be a bit strange, it does make sense. It makes everyone more polite, instead of rude. And speaking of politeness, Americans are way too informal compared to other cultures. As for greetings, I hate the "How do you do?" question which I think is pretty stupid/useless as this video shows - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p8u2LSyEwc

You may have to make different choices though. It's probably possible to be a teetotalling vegetarian in Japan, but you might have to go to a monastery or something. Whereas you could easily be a games developer with those traits in the USA.

For instance, he seems to be able to communicate in Japanese but he still doesn't grasp that "otsukaresama" and "irasshaimase" are really only greetings. I wonder what would be his reaction if he heard that in some places it's usual to say "ohayou gozaimasu" (usually meaning "good morning") when you get to the office in the evening.

Mandatory parties aren't really mandatory, you see. Many Japanese do "escape" the parties. You just have to do it tactfully. And so on.

That said, I agree with you about avoiding working in a Japanese office. The usual English teaching path seems to work for a lot of people, though.

I suggest he chills out and learns to go with the flow sometimes. But happiness is probably the last thing this guy wants, he's the type of guy who thrives on finding things at fault.

Plenty of Booze and meat in Bangalore. Good Pubs, not so much.

Meat is expensive in Japan. I buy a 400 gram steak and a Coke&brandy for $4.63 total.

You are right about this. Pretty much any place I have worked (I'm from the US) has had office parties or other kind of outings. I almost always went because it does help you get to know your boss and co-workers (it was only about once-a-month). I don't really see a problem with it.

Your example of going out three times a week is a bit much (I wouldn't go out that many times a week), but you could have at least gone out with them once-in-awhile to show them that you don't completely hate your co-workers. If you do, you probably shouldn't be working there anyway.

You can't take the human nature/social aspect out of working. If you don't do these things, people will think you are weird/the outsider/don't like them.

Maybe you should run your own business?

The only ubiquitous US workplace social function is the holiday party.

This was the best and most interesting part. The rest were minor cultural gripes; but Japanese corporate culture, from everything I've heard, is severely broken even by our low standards.

American and Japanese corporate conformity seem to be different in one aspect. The Japanese-style conformity, as described by the OP, seems to be about seeming like a "team player" rather than standing out. American-style Wall Street conformity is about the "hungry" image.

The best predictor of who will succeed on Wall Street is commute time (as a negative correlate). This is not because of the long hours or stress, but because of the image one projects by one's choice of neighborhood. (This is also why Manhattan real estate is so expensive; there's a professional stake in one's location.) 40-year-old MDs with families are "allowed" to live in Jersey, but a 24-year-old who lives in Brooklyn is just weird; either he doesn't expect to be successful, or he's saving (gasp!) and might do something funny like launch a startup. No one will get fired for failing to show "hunger", but you definitely won't get promoted.

My experience, however, has shown that "hungry" people (i.e. those with empty or overtly material ambitions) are generally one-dimensional, sociopathic backstabbers with mediocre ideas and whose overall worth is less than nothing.

It sounds like he's in this final stage. It sounds like its time to come home.

I'm not sure what needs commenting. The article is quite in-depth and mostly fits with my experience. I can add an anecdote, perhaps, on this part: The Japanese are so serious about work that even work-related parties are mandatory. If you don't go to a company party, you're not part of the team. If you're not part of the team, it's possible you're not actually working at the company.

This is very real. I live in a university dorm and I'm friend with one of the Japanese assistants working here. He was nearly fired because he wasn't going to nomikai (drinking parties) with the other assistants and the manager often enough. He wasn't going because he had to study for exams and prepare a trip. He got a long email from one of his older colleagues saying that "maybe he wasn't cut out for the residence assistant lifestyle" and that as the youngest one it was his duty to do better to fit in the group. All that even though he was, as far as I could see, the only one to actually socialize with the foreign residents (that's supposed to be his job)...

Incidentally, my university keeps a fairly strict separation between foreign and local students. Exchange students live in the same building as the sports club members for my university (the teams are required to live together), but we're not allowed to go into their area or for them to come. People who learn Japanese here are rather encouraged to stay together and not mix with the Japanese students (except those who want to practice English). It's what they call tatemae/honne: the uni wants to give an air of internationalism, but it doesn't really matter to them if it's true or not - just that it looks like it.

I'm in a way lucky to be in engineering, so that I take all my classes with local students, but I've had to deal with many exceptions and needed special permission from all teachers I take a lesson under. I'm literally the only undergrad exchange student on my campus. To their credit however, I've always felt welcomed by teachers - I feel like a few have travelled and actually wish their students were more exposed to other countries.

I've also seen a professor say to his new undergrad students (unpaid interns) that "from now on, the laboratory lifestyle is going to be the main thing for you" (main in English). Life in Japan is defined by your group, and it mostly goes from school, to laboratory (or intern work), then to the company. At each point people are expected to dedicate a lot of time to being with their group.

But, yes, on my end, working in a small company in Kyoto, it was not as extreme. There were of course a few parties, but not much more than in Europe or the US...

One thing though, when I first started work there, the thing that chocked me is that nobody left work at 7pm (our official work time was 10am to 7pm). They just kept on working as if being the first one out was a bad thing (and indeed I've had comments from my coworkers to that effect later on when I started to make an habit of leaving on time).

For the rest of his rant, I understand where he's coming from and I've sometimes had the same criticisms as him. But now that I don't live in Japan anymore, I miss it and want to eventually move there again... Go figure :-)

The problem is that the author didn't make a cogent point and back it up. Instead he started off with a lot of excuse-making, then went into a list, but kept deviating from the list to talk about video games (which, I guess, should have been the topic?)

It had the feeling of a long list of grievances strewn together, ranted about, and then tacked on to a couple of other conversations.

The strength of the article was in the negative first-person impressions of Japanese culture. He should have stuck with that, cut out the apologizing and made that just a sentence or two at the end. Then he should have tightened the hell out of the prose and tried to make some kind of thesis that his stories supported.

Other that that, the first-person stuff was good. But damn -- this guy is an editor? The structure is a mess.

At one point he even admits how bad it is -- and then continues on in the death march towards the end.

It's the same way with irrashaimase; it's a self-deprecating phrase (and Japanese does indeed have a lot of them), but it's a stock phrase, and that's how people use it. Similarly, a lot of our exclamations have origins in words, even if we've forgotten them. For instance, why do we say "ow" instead of "ai", or simply "aa"? "Ow" is significantly more complicated physically than simply "aa!"ing. Other cultures say different things for exclamations, even "spontaneous" things like pain, and that's normal. Getting uppity about it isn't.