I'm sort of the opinion that if a vegetarian non-smoker non-drinker hates on Japan, all the more reason for me to love it.

Jarvik7 Wrote:If you snub everyone when you show up for work and when you leave, if you never partake in any of the social gatherings, if you don't talk politely/show respect where it's due, then eventually people will dislike you and it will have a negative effect on your career. That is true in every country.

Yes, it seemed to me that the article read more as a description of one person's inability to cope with social interaction. The hatred of Japan is, I think, merely incidental.

Well said J7.

Quote:His rant about おつかれ is baffling. Despite the literal meaning of the words, it is an expression of thanks for one's hard work. How can one hate being regularly thanked for working hard? He is really grasping at straws...

That's nothing. People say おはよう to each other all the time. PEOPLE NEED TO TELL OTHER PEOPLE THAT IT'S EARLY! They work so hard they don't know day from night! This is a horrible, slave-driving country.

Smackle Wrote:

Quote:His rant about おつかれ is baffling. Despite the literal meaning of the words, it is an expression of thanks for one's hard work. How can one hate being regularly thanked for working hard? He is really grasping at straws...

That's nothing. People say おはよう to each other all the time. PEOPLE NEED TO TELL OTHER PEOPLE THAT IT'S EARLY! They work so hard they don't know day from night! This is a horrible, slave-driving country.

That's one of my favourite movies. Ozu!!!

Isn't it just an attempted humourous rant born of frustration? The exaggerated parts aren't meant to be taken so literally. (The author seems a bit inflexible, so he's likely to face more frustration.)

I thought his solution to the tape/receipt issue was an amusing way to point out the absurdity of uncritically following a useless procedure. His observations of working in a traditional Japanese company are a fair representation, in my experience. I didn't read the entire article, but I'll add my own tl:dr perspective, fwiw. [mostly in response J7's comments, it turns out]

* Surely foreigners and Japanese can make critical observations without being Japan haters or complete misanthropes? I assumed the surly tone was for effect.

* The business culture he described existed before the boom economy and will slowly change for reasons unrelated to the post-boom economy. Sexual harrassment policies are driven more by issues of liability and insurance and won't have a major effect on subtle social interactions probably until the old guard retires. Employment equality and similar workplace policies are often implemented in form not substance and, likewise, will need time for the culture to evolve.

*People describe coerced behaviour - resulting from social pressure coupled with adverse consequences for non-compliance - as "mandatory." I think it's understood there's no explicit Rules set out. ;-)

*On the other hand, there is very detailed orientation for new employees at some companies. A level of detail of *the* proper procedures that many North Americans might find exasperating.

*Foreigners are often expected to participate in afterwork socializing too. It depends on the company and the person. I was the only non-OL female and was expected to join the guys. (I was even included in the dodgy after parties and got my own hostesses.) While it was often fun or interesting, after a few years, the novelty wears off and people would rather do fun things with friends, partner or kids. My solution was to organize a ski day when the Organizer baton was passed to me. We had a good time and some people organized a few other fun non-bar events. My liver enjoyed the rest. :-)

*I think the おつかれさま　bit was meant as humour, too. Just an example of the greater number of pat phrases that one is expected to use in Japan which can get annoying. Some people (Japanese included) would prefer to abandon some of the insincere protocol and have the freedom to employ less banal, more personalized utterances.

*My entire group would make fun of various "rules" yet felt powerless to change them. So they (we?) play assigned roles with fake enthusiasm. Strikes me as [unnecessary mutual pretending.] (Perhaps the nomikai to let off steam wouldn't be neessary if more changes were made. :-) ) Things aren't the same in every country. Some aspects of traditional office culture in Japan are more intense or different than in, say, North America. [One can complain about it, try to deny the difference, or deal with it.]

*Foreign employees are given more latitude, though. A silly example: I used to bring my own thermos of coffee because the machine coffee was dreadful. No one said anything. When my Japanese 'deskmate' started bringing in his thermos, however, he was teased relentlessly. He went back to machine coffee. Eventually, I did too. weird.

*I'm happy to learn about the proposed smoking ban. I used to sit in closed room meetings for several hours (sometimes full-day) with 3-4 guys smoking. (Telling the company president or important client to be more considerate wasn't really an option.) I don't see anything wrong with pointing out how slow Japan is to implement smoking restrictions compared to some other countries. The issue isn't limited to inconsiderate individuals.

The annoying little sacrifices, inefficiencies and inflexibility start compounding until ... Whenever I felt on the brink of %&#^*#@)!! ...some wonderfully positive aspect of life in Japan would bring me back to centre. And life goes on. :-)

*[Edits] btw, I describe a traditional corporate environment - there's obviously a range of corporate cultures.

I think the problem is mostly that he's yet another caustic, globetrotting editorialist type, the 'Japan hand' as I believe Marxy or Momus might say, stereotyping Japan in a kind of seamless way. He isn't doing it in a 'wink wink, I know a lot of foreigners do exactly what I'm about to do, but... ' way, even if he 'says' he's doing that. It's just a series of not really that humourous, oversimplified, overgeneralized, and very old and cliché ramblings. I guess he's counting on his kotaku readership or whatever to carry it as a 'successful entry', however these sites judge such things.

Many of the [edit: kotaku] comments seem to justify their positive replies with the old straw man, '(I know such and such person who... or Everybody) idealizes Japan and thus we really needed this overly negative rant to balance it', as if that kind of perpetuation is accurate/useful.

I figured most of the people responding [edit: here] are doing so in the same way we often deal with trite, banal forms of sarcasm (deadpan), because the 'roots' of the writing and its deleterious effects can be felt easily and there's an instinct in such instances not to dignify the form with an acknowledgement and play the game, as it were, and just cut past the BS.

Or maybe that's just me. ;p

I don't read much writing by foreigners on Japan generally. So what's more common - the overly negative, caustic rant types or the Japan idealizers? :-)

The style and content of that article isn't my cup of tea. I hesitate to criticize personal observations of life in Japan as being old and cliched, though, as we are all entitled to our first experiences/impressions. I don't know how long someone has lived in Japan.

Like others here, I just don't think that kind of article is meant to be taken too seriously. However, the OP asked for other perspectives and since mine differ from J7's, I thought I'd add them.

I'm feeling a bit dim, but I'll need to reread your post again to fully grasp the last bit. The who is doing what... [edit: still not 100% sure, so I'll leave it.]

Thora Wrote:I don't read much writing by foreigners on Japan generally. So what's more common - the overly negative, caustic rant types or the Japan idealizers? :-)

The style and content of that article isn't my cup of tea. I hesitate to criticize personal observations of life in Japan as being old and cliched, though, as we are all entitled to our first experiences/impressions. I don't know how long someone has lived in Japan.

Like others here, I just don't think that kind of article is meant to be taken too seriously. However, the OP asked for other perspectives, and since mine differ from J7's, I thought I'd add them.

I'm feeling a bit dim, but I'll need to reread your post again to fully grasp it. The who is doing what...

I don't think an intelligent, apparently high profile adult living abroad should be able to stereotype and rave about a country/culture for 50 pages on a very popular site, in 'article' form, earning social/real currency, without being criticized for it from a number of angles, which I think is happening here. He's repeating many clichés, however humourously he intends them, and there's no real 'seam' to pull at, no kernels of wisdom beneath the piece that shine past the bulk of it. I don't have much invested in criticizing him, since I don't even read that site (I've always found that whole site to be dull and generic ;p), and there's plenty of lower profile things to read.

I am interested in how the Web contributes to the dissemination of information, especially about other cultures and especially when the language barrier is strong and there's so much misinformation in pop form, and I don't think there's much use to equations like 'let's balance out one negative with another negative'. So if someone posts stuff like this for RevTK consumption (or the forum/self-study equivalent, Ben Bullock et al's criticisms of RTK because you know, we're all gimmicky kids who think finishing RTK1 = fluency), I will have at the knaves!

Fillanzea Wrote:Step 1: Watch every movie ever made by Hirokazu Koreeda.

Step 2: You're welcome.

I missed this comment! I would've said "Word." Also I would've mentioned we have Japanese subtitles for one such film, 'Even if you walk and walk... '

Although that's probably precisely the type of superb filmmaking mezbup doesn't like because it doesn't have top-notch CGI crammed high-speed into a 20 minute movie. ;p I can think of films in every genre/of all manner of styles that I think are superior to those of any other culture (not that I'm a huge fan of dividing films according to nationality/language, that's sort of the point of my learning foreign languages--otherwise I'd say S. Korea is where it's at with cinema, even with their own quota/budget difficulties). I will admit that Hollywood currently has the monopoly on bloated action films that operate at 4% efficiency and tend to have forgettable acting/scripts, but are worth killing time with between Japanese study sessions if procured for free.

@nest0r

If you haven't checked out dyske's blog yet, then I recommend it. There's postmodernism, Wittgenstein, Derrida, and cultural criticism. This is a nice starter article.

@Pessoa: I guess I had in mind people who dismiss the observations of newcomers as trite or cliche - forgetting that their own initial observations weren't so original. But you're right, a 'published article' (tbh, I don't know the author or the site) can be held to a higher standard than personal chatter or ramblings. Any criticism, however, might be better aimed at the article as a whole. Pointing out specific examples of hyperbole as inaccurate seems to miss the mark, in my view.

Since you mention Mr. BB, it's perhaps worth mentioning that he updated his page of reviews of the RTK book the day after that bizarre exchange here. He replaced his own review with a sampling of more balanced reviews from the site. So let's give credit where it's deserved. I'm sure your "having at the knave" triggered his more objective "dissemination of information" on the web which, hopefully, will help some Japanese learners. ;-)

nest0r Wrote:

Fillanzea Wrote:Step 1: Watch every movie ever made by Hirokazu Koreeda.

Step 2: You're welcome.

I missed this comment! I would've said "Word." Also I would've mentioned we have Japanese subtitles for one such film, 'Even if you walk and walk... '

Although that's probably precisely the type of superb filmmaking mezbup doesn't like because it doesn't have top-notch CGI crammed high-speed into a 20 minute movie. ;p I can think of films in every genre/of all manner of styles that I think are superior to those of any other culture (not that I'm a huge fan of dividing films according to nationality/language, that's sort of the point of my learning foreign languages--otherwise I'd say S. Korea is where it's at with cinema, even with their own quota/budget difficulties). I will admit that Hollywood currently has the monopoly on bloated action films that operate at 4% efficiency and tend to have forgettable acting/scripts, but are worth killing time with between Japanese study sessions if procured for free.

Comedy is more my thing. That and movies that aren't 2 hours long.

@vileru - Pretty cool, actually. Although I do already have a few books to dig into on Japanese theory/philosophy/aesthetics, as well as the need to quit my fatalistic addiction to AAAARG (don't Google that, it'd be wrong), ____ (redacted, first rule of that book site is to not talk about that book site), and 150 or so philosophy blogs, including Ian Bogost's Speculative Realism aggregator (and likewise a handful of requisite books for that particular sphere of thought).

@Thora - This turned into a fun thread though, eh? More interesting than the Olympics.

@mezbup - I love Japanese comedy, only a hairsbreadth less than S. Korean comedy (everything except the American-style toilet humour, although Aachi and Ssipak [animated mind-blowing action/comedy/whatever] managed to make that work) or certain British series (15 Storeys High & The Smoking Room being seldom-mentioned gems). They each have their specialties, though. Have you seen the Japanese film Kisaragi (2007)? I was surprised at how utterly brilliant it was. I was also pleased to recently discover and definitely not archive/share the raw novel (not sure which came first, film or novel, though). Also, I loved Summer Time Machine Blues. (I just made a list of like 200 films but if I post them I'll end up wanting to review them all.)

Tobberoth Wrote:I'm sort of the opinion that if a vegetarian non-smoker non-drinker hates on Japan, all the more reason for me to love it.

Don't hate Japan because a vegetarian, non-smoker, non-drinker loves it though (Actually, I drink maybe two beers on Friday nights)
A block of tofu is only 33円 at the 業務スーパー!

A lot of his article sounds pretty accurate to me. Sure, there are probably some exaggerations, but I've experienced most of what he has in the four years I've been here, and yeah, none of it strikes me as wrong or outrageous. I think the biggest flaw with the article is the gaming connection, which is almost zero, and the fact that he goes on and on about some stuff which are related to personal problems (mainly the vegetarian stuff; I have no problem getting vegetarian dishes where I live, and I'm not even a vegetarian.)

I'm not surprised that the overall tone of responses here is negative, though. I mean, this forum is a haven for people who want to go to Japan/learn Japanese/believe that Japan is the secret sauce.

And I disagree with the comments that he sounds like "he wouldn't do well anywhere" or that he "seems to hate people". Yes, some of his issues are personal (smoking vs. plastics and the vegetarian stuff), but the picture he paints (again, accounting for exaggeration) is a pretty accurate depiction of Japanese culture and society, as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: And now that I think about his vegetarian anecdotes, I think that while they are still personal gripes, I think that his point-- ie, the fact that he wrote about them is still grounded in the culture.

I go to a bakery here in town whose success is based entirely on it being near a "trendy shop" so while it started out serving what I considered pretty OK pasteries, the quality of its food has been in decline since it opened. I've watched them go from having a lot of edible things, to having fewer edible things. They've started slathering everything they make with mayonnaise and eventually narrowed down the part of the store I shop at to about one table full of things. In the past two weeks, the phased out one of their more tastier items for raisin bread and the last time I ate there with a buddy of mine, we almost simultaneously realized that as soon as they start putting mayonnaise on their cheese and tomato bread (an inevitability, we believe) it will be time to start eating elsewhere.

And on a related note, I've watched my town cannibalize two of its best and most unique eateries only to replace them with off-the-shelf izakayas in the last three years.

I don't know FutureBlues...I'm not disputing the accuracy of his descriptions but I do think he comes across as someone who has real trouble interacting properly with (any) society.

Quote:". . . You know, I don't really mind, myself, though you really do have to say good morning. If there were more people in the office, and not just me, they would think you were not part of the team. Even if it's just me in the office when you get in, you should try getting into the habit of saying good morning in my presence. This is just how we do things in Japan, Tim."

"Well, [Name-removed]-san, you can try putting 'san' on the end of my ***** name from now on, then, you know, as practice."

That kind of sounds to me like someone who just doesn't like interacting with other people (it sounds a lot like my dad actually...). I don't think there's anything wrong with that, personally- but the whole article gave me the impression that he really dislikes most people.

OK, I scanned over the book posing as a blog post (He really put a lot of effort into it) because FutureBlues said the gaming connection was zero. I too agree with much of what I did read, but every country has its negatives.
It is troublesome to walk into a convenient store and see manga aimed at pedophiles displayed openly.
The occasional lack of trash cans can be an inconvenience, as well as no public water fountains, or having to buy toilet paper.
I never eat out because I know there is fish or meat sauce in everything, even vegetable dishes.
The streets are clean but the air is dirty (compared to Hawaii anyways).
When people smoke on the train platform, I just walk to another area. I was a casino dealer in Las Vegas previously and had to endure tables full of cigar smokers as part of my job, so no big deal.
There are many things to bitch about if you live in Japan, but the positives far outweigh the negatives.

blackmacros Wrote:I don't know FutureBlues...I'm not disputing the accuracy of his descriptions but I do think he comes across as someone who has real trouble interacting properly with (any) society.

Quote:". . . You know, I don't really mind, myself, though you really do have to say good morning. If there were more people in the office, and not just me, they would think you were not part of the team. Even if it's just me in the office when you get in, you should try getting into the habit of saying good morning in my presence. This is just how we do things in Japan, Tim."

"Well, [Name-removed]-san, you can try putting 'san' on the end of my ***** name from now on, then, you know, as practice."

That kind of sounds to me like someone who just doesn't like interacting with other people (it sounds a lot like my dad actually...). I don't think there's anything wrong with that, personally- but the whole article gave me the impression that he really dislikes most people.

In that instance he's just talking about mandatory bullshit you have to say when you go to and from an office that is basically linguistic garbage without any meaning. Good morning and Otsukare are ways of telling everyone in the office when you come and go so that there is no question how many hours you've been at work. For us, people who are used to very personal language interaction, I think that sort of language really grates on the soul because it doesn't feel genuine. In fact, it often feels slimy.

Additionally, the man in the example dropped the conventional polite suffix (which he no doubt would use when addressing all his other co-workers) from his name because he was a foreigner, and then proceeded to give him a lecture on what he should and shouldn't be saying. Imagine if some guy walked up to you first thing in the morning and started lecturing you on how to improve your "Good Mornings" and then picked up the fresh, hot coffee you just poured yourself and walked off with it.

I'm not defending the guy, but this is a common situation in Japan. A lot of the time, Japanese people will treat you differently when they feel comfortable around you (say, more casually, whether its appropriate or not) while simultaneously expecting you to heed the unspoken rules of society, taking offense when you don't. It's a double-standard that's hard to get away from, because they see that you don't mind dropping the politeness, but can't deal with it when it comes back around due to their ingrained cultural expectations.

I understand all of that, and I'm sure a lot of this really is just him expressing his frustration with life in Japan...but I still get the overwhelming impression that a lot of it is caused by the fact that he just dislikes people in general.

With that quote, and even after you explained all the things about that situation which could be compounding his frustration...it seems to me that it isn't necessarily the situation that is at fault (frustrating as it may have been), but him. He basically severs his relationship with this person, whom he had been relatively close to prior to this discussion. At the very least, he isn't a paragon of social tact.

And it wasn't just that quote, but the whole thing which gave me the impression that he just doesn't like interacting with other people.

FutureBlues Wrote:the man in the example dropped the conventional polite suffix (which he no doubt would use when addressing all his other co-workers) from his name because he was a foreigner, and then proceeded to give him a lecture on what he should and shouldn't be saying.

I have personal experience with this. Not two months after I got here, I had a coworker swiftly correct me when I called him [last name]-san instead of [last name]-sensei, yet neither he nor most of the people I worked with ever seemed to have any qualms with referring to me by my first name without a suffix. Yes, it did irk me that they weren't willing to extend the same courtesy they expected from me, and no, I don't think this means I hate people.

I agree with FutureBlues, I don't think the guy would have problems in living anywhere, he exaggerated in the article for humour purposes I guess, the game relations part although was a big bullshit.

People here tend to go easy on Japanese culture.I've read a lot about negative aspects of Japan lately(in places like Tokyo Damage), and it didn't decrease my desire to study japanese but it made me think that if you look from an outside point of view, you can find a lot of bad things on your enviroment.

The worst thing I've seen in some posts here is this widespread idea of cultural relativism, that you can't judge a culture.That's bullshit, specially because you judge aspects of it not the whole.

blackmacros Wrote:I understand all of that, and I'm sure a lot of this really is just him expressing his frustration with life in Japan...but I still get the overwhelming impression that a lot of it is caused by the fact that he just dislikes people in general.

With that quote, and even after you explained all the things about that situation which could be compounding his frustration...it seems to me that it isn't necessarily the situation that is at fault (frustrating as it may have been), but him. He basically severs his relationship with this person, whom he had been relatively close to prior to this discussion. At the very least, he isn't a paragon of social tact.

And it wasn't just that quote, but the whole thing which gave me the impression that he just doesn't like interacting with other people.

Being a part of Japanese society involves being party to an extremely strict social contract that involves myriad rules. As a foreigner, luckily we fall outside of some of these rules in a grey area, mostly because the common Japanese individual has no idea how to deal with us. They never learn how to, and it shows-- in this example and all sorts of others. And, if anything, this man's example shows that the Japanese guy had no interest in pursuing any sort of friendship anyway-- their relationship was so paper-thin in the first place that all it took was a single missed "good morning" to end it all.

The Japanese guy expects the foreign guy to follow the rules, because, well, they are the rules. In Japan, rules are God. If the boss says you can't eat sandwiches on Monday, nobody questions it. You just don't eat sandwiches. My girlfriend lives in a dorm-- she's 21 years old and she quite literally isn't allowed to stay out after 10PM. Sometimes I say, "Well, what if you did? You know? Like, what if there was some emergency." And she says, "I can't. I won't." It's just an impossibility.

Once, on a weekend, she wanted to stay overnight at my place, but two days before she was going to stay over, she realized she had forgotten to ask three days in advance, and told me: "I'm really sorry, I can't stay over. I forgot to ask." So I told her, "Go ask them. I bet it's fine. What's one days' difference? Seriously?" She asked them and they told her no. Why? No reason. Those are the rules. They just are.

Japanese people-- kids especially are taught from the get-go to never question their teachers, or their superiors. Japanese elementary and middle school is less about learning facts and more about learning how to be a Japanese person-- learning the thousands of unspoken rules that you have to know to function in society here. As a Japanese person, you can't question the rules, because to do that would be to question the society. You'd be questioning your very identity.

FutureBlues Wrote:Being a part of Japanese society involves being party to an extremely strict social contract that involves myriad rules. As a foreigner, luckily we fall outside of some of these rules in a grey area, mostly because the common Japanese individual has no idea how to deal with us. They never learn how to, and it shows-- in this example and all sorts of others. And, if anything, this man's example shows that the Japanese guy had no interest in pursuing any sort of friendship anyway-- their relationship was so paper-thin in the first place that all it took was a single missed "good morning" to end it all.

The Japanese guy expects the foreign guy to follow the rules, because, well, they are the rules. In Japan, rules are God. If the boss says you can't eat sandwiches on Monday, nobody questions it. You just don't eat sandwiches. My girlfriend lives in a dorm-- she's 21 years old and she quite literally isn't allowed to stay out after 10PM. Sometimes I say, "Well, what if you did? You know? Like, what if there was some emergency." And she says, "I can't. I won't." It's just an impossibility.

Once, on a weekend, she wanted to stay overnight at my place, but two days before she was going to stay over, she realized she had forgotten to ask three days in advance, and told me: "I'm really sorry, I can't stay over. I forgot to ask." So I told her, "Go ask them. I bet it's fine. What's one days' difference? Seriously?" She asked them and they told her no. Why? No reason. Those are the rules. They just are.

Japanese people-- kids especially are taught from the get-go to never question their teachers, or their superiors. Japanese elementary and middle school is less about learning facts and more about learning how to be a Japanese person-- learning the thousands of unspoken rules that you have to know to function in society here. As a Japanese person, you can't question the rules, because to do that would be to question the society. You'd be questioning your very identity.

As far as I know, European countries are the only countries I've heard of that tell you that rebelling against authority is okay.

Was that so hard? This is the sort of stuff that is conducive to useful and fascinating discourse. Although I don't think it's love for Japan that's mostly motivating the posts in this thread. I do think there's value in the 'outsider' perspective, which is why I read 'expatriate' blogs on the topic, I'm just picky about the ones I do read (eg Mutantfrog Travelogue).

@jp* - I don't know, I've been impressed by the 'cultural relativism' on this forum. People that are willing to not immediately assume that their cultural values are the absolute correct ones. I've seen the lines people draw in the sand with their own values vs. what they know/hear of Japan, and they're pretty well-reasoned from what I've seen. If anything, there's still too much leaning in the 'the values I was raised with are better' direction, though.

Personally I'm really radical and intend to drastically overhaul Japan (I am the Anti-Missionary), but first I need to work on other countries. All in due time... *steeples fingers*