May
21

Abusive Japanese Police in Asakusa Tokyo

What I saw today is one of the most unbelievable and atrocious things I have ever seen in my life. It disgusted me to the core, and showed me a side of Japan even darker than I had seen up until now. It showed me just how far the Abusive Japanese police will go to prove their point.

This morning, I decided to take a jog along the Sumida river. As I approached the Asakusa area, I heard loud voices, like screaming, in the distance. Something had just happened. Not something good. As I got closer, police cars were arriving, and helicopters were already above on scene. As I approached the main bridge in Asakusa, police boats started to fill the water, and then somebody up on the bridge yelled, “OVER THERE”, in Japanese while pointing their finger.
It was at this moment that I saw it.

Im going to pause here and say that the next little bit gets quite tough to read (I know this as it was tough to write).
If you don’t think you can handle it, it might be best to stop reading here.

 

In the water, face down as in so many movies. There was a man floating. But this was no movie. And the sight of this took hold of me and my stomach tightened, my knees began to shake, and my eyes began to water. Little more than back, shoulders, and the back of this mans head could be seen, but it was a sight that I will not forget.

The police did their best to get to this man. Paramedics and emergency crews were nowhere in sight.
The police boat pulled up, and after about a minute of BS they finally managed to get him out of the water.

But it was how they pulled him out that was nothing shy of disgusting. They grabbed the back of his shirt collar and just pulled him by the collar out of the water as if he were a dog. Then, they left him face down on the edge of the boat. No checking for a pulse, to attempt to help in any way.
A human… A fellow country-man… treated like little more than.. I can’t even finish this sentence.

They got him to a dock and as they placed him down, the air they carried was “ok.. were done”. It was after about a minute or two of this that an Indian man standing about 20 meters down from me started screaming in Japanese.

G#%DAMNIT!! HE MIGHT STILL BE ALIVE! CHECK HIM YOU IDIOTS, he yelled.

Everyone around looked shocked, and amazingly, so did the police.
But even more amazing, was the fact that they then checked for a pulse, and started to try CPR.
Why did it take this long for them to do this???? Why did not even one of the 10-20 officers standing there think to take any action?

Unfortunately the man didn’t regain consciousness.

As they brought him up from the river bank, we all started to move on. It was at this moment that I noticed the Indian gentleman was carrying a baby only a few months old.
He nodded his head politely as our eyes met, and we made our way down the street separately.

As we at the intersection, two police walked up beside the man with the baby.
I guess he must have still been upset, because he started telling them that the mans life was on their hands.
It was at this point that things started to get out of hand.

Abusive Japanese Police

Abusive Japanese Police in Asakusa Japan

Note: for the sake of protecting his privacy, I have not included a picture of the man who was speaking to these “officers of the law”

The man in the picture on the right started telling the man go back to his own country.
He repeatedly told the Indian man, “You are not Japanese, so you don’t matter. Go back to your own country”
I hadn’t noticed until this moment, but the (Indian) man had tears running down his face.
He was not aggressive or loud at this point, but he was clearly determined to make these officers understand.

As he persisted with his message, the unbelievable happened. Even though he was standing with a baby in his arms, the Japanese police officer on the left (above) used the flotation device in his arm to very aggressively shove the Indian gentleman. But unfortunately he didn’t just shove the man, the flotation device came in direct contact with the baby, and shoved both of them.

It was at this point that the Indian gentleman went to shove the officer on the left back, but was grabbed by the officer on the right who told him “if you touch either of us, I will arrest you. Then it’s over for you”

The man stopped in his tracks. Defeated by his dirty foe.
I watched in disgust and snapped as many pictures of these two trash bag cops as I could.
For the sake of everyone’s reference, here is a more clear shot of the violent cop:

Abusive Police in Japan

The aggressive and abusive police officer

This all took place near the Hanakawado Koban where these 2 officers seem to work.

This type of thing cannot continue if Japan ever wants to move into the future.
There is so much more I want to add, but I will leave it here for now.

*Closing Note: While I have tried to remain as clear and accurate in this post as possible, I should close by saying that the details of the gentleman with the baby, have been slightly edited in the hopes of protecting his privacy from anyone who may read this. Fully accurate details have been used to file a complaint which will probably never see the light of day.

Aug
12

I Think Some Japanese People Want To Speak English

Why to Japanese people answer me in English when I speak to them in Japanese?

A question that many foreign Japanese-speakers find themselves asking at one point or another.

I had been speaking Japanese outside of Japan for about a year when I first set foot in Tokyo. I landed in the country excited to exercise my language skills and headed right to the nearest JR ticket counter to ask for a map and to buy some tickets.

Prepared with my Japanese language skills and a level on confidence which was probably undeserved at the time, I walked up to the counter and made my request in full Japanese. The staff smiled, opened a drawer, and replied to me in what I can only describe as a near-embarrassing attempt at English which came out jumbled and incomprehensible…

I stood, confused.

Why… why when I spoke to her in Japanese, did she answer me in English? And in broken English at that…

I couldn’t understand what she said but didn’t want to make her feel as low as she had just made me feel, and so I put on a smile in return and nodded my head pretending to understand what she had just said to me.

This is a situation that is all-too-familiar for foreigners in Japan.
You say something to a Japanese person in Japanese, and they respond in English.
It’s frustrating.

When I first got to Japan, this bothered me like crazy… It would happen at restaurants, on airplanes, while shopping, and even with friends. And especially in the beginning it felt like a punch in the stomach every single time.
I would always doubt my Japanese skill when it happened. I would wonder if my Japanese was so bad that they felt the need to push the interaction into English just to achieve an acceptable level of communication with me…

But over the years, as my Japanese language skills developed and grew in fluency, elegance, and overall pzazz, I came to realize that it was time to adjust my confidence level. It seemed that my nihongo skill level had little, if nothing, to do with it. The more I improved, the more my confidence grew. And the more my confidence in m Japanese skill grew, the more I began to understand that Some Japanese people just want to speak English.  And the more I understood this point, the less I cared when it happened. In fact, it has worked itself comfortably and naturally into my life to the point where I barely notice anymore.
But that doesn’t mean it goes unnoticed by everyone. Japanese people responding to your nihongo in English can be everything from discouraging to shocking, or for some, even embarrassing or disappointing.

On numerous occasions, I have had to laugh as I hear people say things like “I have had more chances to speak Japanese in my own country then when I visited Japan. Everyone here seems to want to practice their English”
Why do I laugh? Because it’s true.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to meet more Japanese people in social and business situations than I can even count. And I have found that there are 4 main types of English-speaking Japanese people that you will commonly encounter:

 

Type A – Can’t Speak English, But Want To

This type is pretty much harmless. They are generally friendly and may simply be fascinated with foreigners or English but had little chance in their life to use or try it. At the very worst, they are the type who view gaijin as a brand, and may even go through great efforts to befriend you.
Some people will take their attempts at English as “microaggressions” (aka a mild, unintentional form of racism), but in the end, I think it holds more of a child-like curiosity tone to it. (I once went a little far with this analogy comparing it to a young child seeing a new animal for the first time, and mimicking the animals sound in the hopes of achieving communication. They might just wanna be friends! – this analogy was not well taken by some. lol)

 

Type B – Can Speak English, But Have No Confidence

This type, much like Type A, are relatively harmless. Chances are, unless you actually ask them, or unless someone else says something, you may not even know that they speak English. They come in all shapes and personality types, and usually had a rather specific reason for studying English in the first place (whether it was for a certain goal, or simply a strong personal interest). While still very much aware of the fact that you are a foreigner (and potentially more aware than Type A of what that really means), Type B will usually be happy as long as they can communicate with you.

 

Type C – Can Speak English, But Don’t Really Care

I like this type. They can speak English, but will typically carry the communication with you in whatever language you set as the precedent. More often than not, the language will jump back and forth seamlessly in conversation with them, and there is more often than not, a general feeling of equality. Type C is the truly internationally-minded type and unfortunately they are also the rarest type.

 

Type D – Can Speak English And Want To Show It

This is the type to watch out for. They are the ones who will blatantly ignore your Japanese and respond with English, and they are commonly a little different from the average Japanese person. These people see English as “cool” and therefore want to be seen/heard speaking it as often as possible. Unfortunately, this usually comes from a deep seeded issue with their self-esteem, and therefore it doesn’t stop with English. It is far from uncommon for these people to be disliked by fellow Japanese and foreigners alike for being condescending or generally annoying.

Note: I have purposefully left out 2 types from this list
Type P, which are people like the JR staff above, who may just be doing it for the sake of “professionalism” and making things easier.
and Type O, which are the elderly people who will approach you in any range of situations just to practice their English.
I have left these types out, because 9 times out of 10, the person in types P or O will also overlap into one of the above 4 types.

So when it comes down to it, there is only one type that you really need to be concerned about; Type D. But even though three out of four sounds like pretty good odds, it’s still a little tough to put a population percentage statistic to each type, so it’s still up to you to identify and adjust your social filter.

I was going to add an entire section talking about what do do when a Japanese person responds to your Japanese in English, but instead, I’d really like to hear your thoughts. What do you do in that situation?

 

Closing Thought…
The scary part is that if you really think about it… You could apply almost every point in this to foreigners who speak Japanese….

 

 

Jun
28

Making The Best Of It – J’s Story – (The Hottest Brand in Japan Pt. II)

J made his living off of Japanese women. And quite a living it was.

In case the title didn’t tip you off, this piece is an addition to The Hottest Brand In Japan.
If you haven’t read it, I would suggest starting there~

The day I met my old roommate J for the first time, these words rang in my mind,

Japanese people love something exotic. Have you seen all those strange flavors of Pepsi in the convenience stores? We live on an island. An island filled with Japanese people, ruled by Japanese culture, and share a similar Japanese way of thinking. So what could be more exotic to a Japanese person than someone/something not Japanese? Even now [in 2010], most Japanese people cannot speak English, and so even the thought of interacting with a foreigner is unfathomable to some people. Which means when a Japanese person looks at another Japanese person who is hanging out with a foreigner, they see someone doing the unimaginable. It’s like watching someone do magic!! And everyone loves magic tricks right? So, we love to be seen with foreigners. For some it is a novelty, and for some it becomes a lifestyle, but it is what it is and it’s probably not going to change anytime soon, so it’s better to just make the best of it.

“Make the best of it….”

That is exactly what J did.

J came to Tokyo from New Zealand around 2006 and noticed within hours of setting foot in Tokyo how much of a brand foreigners are in Japan. J had started out as an English teacher which helped him earn decent money, but he wasn’t really enjoying it. Luckily for J, it was something he wouldn’t have to endure for long.
Within 2 months, J realized that he could cash-in the gaijin brand, and started making some adjustments.

“It started out with one of my private English students” J started to tell me.
“She was a Japanese woman, 39, single, and living with her parents. She seemed to have a lot of free time and money…
At the start she was paying me 5,000 yen (about $50-70) an hour for our lessons, and we would meet about twice a week for 2 hours at a time. But gradually things changed. The location changed from a cafe, to a bar, and then finally restaurants, with her paying for everything. And just as gradually, we stopped working on English… Before I knew it we were speaking only Japanese. And she was still paying. On top of all of this, she started asking to see me more often, and for longer durations. Before I knew it she was buying me clothing and even having me accompany her to events”

J quit his job as a formal English Teacher and started trying to build more of a base of similar clients. He said that he started with online sites introducing him to private students, and he would try to convert the students into clients.

“Probably only 1 in every 10 or 12 students became a client. And most who didn’t, realized what I was trying to do and would either get upset or stop contacting me completely. Some even accused me of being a himo (a weak man who lives off the money of women and pays for nothing himself). And as right as they were, the ones who stuck around made it all worthwhile”

Within 5 months of coming to Japan, J had a substantial client base and was bringing in a shocking amount of money on a monthly basis. He was well fed, well dressed, and even had one client offering to move him into an apartment near her family’s house and pay the rent for him.

“Most of these Japanese women just wanted to be seen with me.” J said as we talked about his clients one night.
“They take me out to crowded areas and packed restaurants, dress me up in clothes that they think are ideal, and keep me latched onto their side as if I was an expensive handbag.”

And although for some, this may sound like a wonderful way to live, J was equally vocal about the downsides.

“Outside of any moral talk, there are 2 major issues that I constantly have to face.”
These are the words that J placed in my hears in the first of our 11,083 discussions about the problematic side of his himo lifestyle.
“Scheduling and Sex. Most of these women want to meet on Fridays or Saturdays. But my biggest clients usually want to meet on these days and typically can’t commit until the last minute. So I am constantly pressed for excuses as to why I can’t meet people on these days, and then if none of my big clients take the weekend bait, I am either screwed for one of my biggest money-making nights of the week, or stuck apologizing to one of my other clients as I crawl back to them.”

I honestly can’t count the number of times I had to hear him complain about scheduling. He always seemed to work out a new system for scheduling, and something always happened causing it to fall through. And then, there were the sex talks…

“And sex… You just know that at one point or another, she is going to want sex. And the sex… oh the sex is a double edged sword my friend. A real balancing act. Simply put, there is a trend. The longer I manage to hold out sex, the more gifts I get, and the more time and money they put into me in hopes of it. But if I hold out too long, they eventually give up all hope and stop wanting to see me. And once they have finally gotten the sex, things get… well… awkward. They start forgetting to pay, and I conveniently forget to mention anything about it. I honestly just don’t want their money afterwords. And so they either gradually fade away and we lose contact, or they suddenly think that we are in a relationship, and well… that never ends well. So, sex… costs me clients.”

J hated losing clients. And when I say that he hated it, I am wildly understating the point. J would go into a funk for days after losing a client, and this funk more often than not, caused him to lose one or two more additional clients.
He always said that it was the loss of the client that bothered him, but I’d be willing to put good money on the fact that he was struggling to convince himself that he was not engaging in, well…. prostitution.

“I’m not taking money from these Japanese women for sex, so I am not prostituting”
That was his logic. And no matter what anyone said, he always defended himself with that point.

Eventually it got to a point where he didn’t even need to convert students. Women found J.
He came home late one Tuesday night full of energy and alcohol.

“So I was sitting in the park reading when this Japanese woman into her 40′s comes up and starts asking me all the typical gaijin questions. Her English was shit, but before long we were talking in Japanese and out of nowhere she smiles and tells me that she wants to take me out for dinner. So after 10 more minutes of blah blah blah, we walk out of the park and head for a restaurant. Not only did she pay for dinner and 2 bottles of wine, but as I went to get on the train she slipped me 10,000 yen (about $100)! Considering the time I spent with her, it’s lower than what I usually take in, but shit man… she came up to me!”

And so it began. This particular Japanese woman was the first of many who would somehow follow in her path in the months (and years?) to come…

In our late night talks, J always shared what he called the Incredibly Shallow Quotes of the Week with me.
I was always dumbfounded by the stuff these women would say to him.
Some of the weekly winners include:

You are the best accessory I have ever put money into!

I want the b#$% next-door to see me with a foreigner.

Having a white guy beside me helps show people just how smooth and white my skin really is!

You should bring some of your white friends so it looks like I know a lot of foreigners!

And my personal favorite:
Gucci on my left, gaijin on my right. I’m hot today!

J would always talk about how you can’t change the culture or the habits of an entire country, but you can capitalize on it and turn it into something good, or at least something profitable.
Despite all of J’s money and (success?) with his lifestyle, he was surprisingly jaded and negative when it came to Japanese people. He even got a custom shirt made with the words “The deepest part of a Japanese person is their wallet” printed on it.
I guess money doesn’t always buy happiness (cliche enough for ya?).

I always enjoyed the irony of a guy who took money from women in exchange for spending time with them, talking about how shallow and pretentious people can be. There was something poetic about the whole situation.

After about a year of living with J, I moved out. But that wasn’t before hearing some of the most amazing stories that I have ever had the opportunity to hear in my entire life~

J and I don’t talk anymore, but I think back to him from time to time.

Gotta wonder what J is doing right about now…

Jun
25

The Hottest Brand in Japan

Some people would call Japan and it’s people pretentious.

Take a walk through the streets of Tokyo’s Ginza district on any Sunday of the month, and you will have a fair idea of why they might think this way. And while there is much to be said on this statement alone, I will leave that for another post.

It is a well known fact that Japanese people love brand-names. A Japanese girl I met back in my university days owned a wallet that cost her over 150,000 yen (roughly $1,500 -$ 1750) and when I asked her how she got it, she told me that she worked an entire summer just for the sake of purchasing this single wallet…

And this love for brands doesn’t just come in the form of wallets, bags, and clothes… It reaches its way into everything from food and drinks, to schools, and even… people…

My name is X and I am a brand-name foreigner.

That’s right. Brand Name.
No, it’s not that I own many brands… in fact, I have never really been a fan of them. But rather, in this strange country known as “Japan”, I am a brand. And a seemingly fancy one at that!

I was inspired to pull this piece together after remembering a day many years ago when I was walking hand-in-hand with a Japanese girl in a countryside town near Kyushu. We walked past a group of girls who with eyes open wide, spit out a line that left me speechless:

“いいな～あたしも外人欲しい~！オシャレ！” (Aww~ I want a foreigner too! So fashionable!)

Me = Floored.

Now it is no secret that Japanese think it’s cool to speak English.
And it is no secret that Japanese think it’s cool to have foreign friends.
But it comes to a point where the line needs to be drawn.

If you read my post about finding your own in Japan, you will know how strongly I feel about re-calibrating our social filters in order to avoid unnecessary stresses. In my first few years in Japan, I met a great number of people. And while some turned out to be true friends, others seemed to have ulterior motives.

Years ago, I was (or at least thought I was) good friends with a Japanese man that we will call ‘Tak‘.
Tak was a pretty average Japanese guy aside from the fact that he spent his university days overseas in an English-speaking country. This is where we met.
When I met Tak, he went through truly great lengths to get to know me, and work his way into my social circle.
We spent several years together, studying, drinking, and generally just hanging out. Tak was even kind enough to show me around Tokyo and introduce me to a staggering number of his friends the first time I visited.
But when I moved to Tokyo, the nuance of our friendship seemed to shift.

When I arrived back in Japan, Tak insisted on getting together with me in the first week, and I happily obliged. He said that he wanted more than anything to introduce me to his new girlfriend, and as a long time friend, I looked forward to meeting her. But when he introduced me with the line, “This is X. He is one of my foreign friends!!”, to which she responded with “aww~ I wish I had foreign friends”, it set off a little light in my head and reminded me of a warning I once received from perhaps one of the most cynical Japanese friends I ever made. Her words rang in my ear,

You really shouldn’t trust Japanese people who try too hard to be your friend. To some Japanese people, foreigners are just like brands; Being seen with one is good for your image.

But after our dinner together, I felt re-assured that he was still the same great guy, and he just wanted to introduce me to his girl. That is, until the next time he invited me out…

We got together for dinner with one of his co-workers for dinner a couple weeks later. It was at this dinner, that I was introduced as one of his many ‘Gaijin’ friends. After which he proceeded to nearly ignore his co-worker and speak to me in English the entire night. The co-worker could not understand English.
When the co-worker finally commented on his own lack of English skill, without skipping a beat, Tak spit out the words, “X will teach you English! In fact, he’ll teach you for free!”

WHAT?! oh no no no…. I am not an English teacher.
… but that as well, is for another post…

Long story short, Tak and I exchanged  words. But in the end, he tried to pull the exact same routine 2 more times.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me three times, and you’re a dick.

Tak was a lesson learned. But in the end he only serves as an example of a single area of this issue…

One of the Japanese guys who works in my office has a girlfriend who is from Poland. He seems to genuinely care for her and always treats her with respect. But every single time he meets a new Japanese person in a social setting, like clockwork, he manages to work the line “my girlfriend is a foreigner” into the conversation.
It’s actually quite impressive.

Add to this, the number of times I have had a Japanese girlfriend use the words “Let’s go out somewhere today! I want to show you off!”, and you have somewhat of an epidemic….

Back in 2010 my best friend’s (Japanese) girlfriend pretty much summed it up:

Japanese people love something exotic. Have you seen all those strange flavors of Pepsi in the convenience stores? We live on an island. An island filled with Japanese people, ruled by Japanese culture, and share a similar Japanese way of thinking. So what could be more exotic to a Japanese person than someone/something not Japanese? Even now [in 2010], most Japanese people cannot speak English, and so even the thought of interacting with a foreigner is unfathomable to some people. Which means when a Japanese person looks at another Japanese person who is hanging out with a foreigner, they see someone doing the unimaginable. It’s like watching someone do magic!! And everyone loves magic tricks right? So, we love to be seen with foreigners. For some it is a novelty, and for some it becomes a lifestyle, but it is what it is and it’s probably not going to change anytime soon, so it’s better to just make the best of it.

And that is exactly what some people do…
I once lived with a guy from NZ who made his living off of capitalizing on this very point!

And honestly speaking, if this is the biggest of your problems while in Japan, I think it’s safe to say that you’re doing pretty good for yourself…

May
26

Finding Your Own in Japan

Culture Shock. Two words that mean so much to so many.

While to some people, culture shock in Japan may be as simple as having difficulty adjusting to Japanese food, it can be something much more serious for others. There are countless people who come to Japan and for some reason, become bitter, or shut off. They take shots at Japanese people and culture, and confine themselves to a very minimal social circle.

I’m going to go ahead and say that I am pretty much stating the obvious with this post, but it is an obvious point that is commonly and easily overlooked by so many people who come to Japan.

I truly believe that when living in Japan (especially a place like Tokyo) it is important more than ever, to surround yourself with people who match you. Not just fellow foreigners, but Japanese people who have similar mindsets, ideas, opinions, feelings, etc…
Obvious enough yet? Keep reading~

I have been living with and around Japanese people for over a decade now. And you don’t make the conscious choice to stick with something for over 10 years if you don’t like it.
And while my life right now is more or less exactly how I would like it to be, it wasn’t always this way…
The first while of my life in Japan was stressful. I went through a wide range of thoughts, feelings, and emotions and  spent years thinking,
- My personality didn’t match Japan or Japanese people
- My opinions were too strong (which still might be accurate haha)
- My ideas were unreasonable
- My words and actions were unacceptable
- My emotions were too rampant
- My clothing wasn’t fashionable enough
- My Japanese was first too casual, then too formal, then too feminine, then good to a point where people got irritated when I didn’t understand something they said
Etc….

Now, I have always been the type to voice what is on my mind and I have always enjoyed talking about Japan, life in Japan, and Japanese culture. And after some time and a large number of discussions with people ranging from tourists, to even psychologists here in Japan, things started to become more clear.

There is a phenomenon behind this that the majority of people don’t pick up on.
In the country we are raised in, we spend our lives filtering our social interactions. When we are in elementary school and high school, we often go through a stressful or awkward period where we are trying to find who we are. During this period, we interact with a wider range of people. Most of these people wont match us, but some do. And these few that do, often end up becoming our social circle.

From the time we develop our social circle, we (whether consciously or not) gain a more full understanding of the type of people who match us and the type that don’t. This understanding eventually becomes our social filter and we carry it with us wherever we go in life.
But this filter is not a broad one. For the most part, it covers personality types that we have grown to know and understand in a culture that we have an embedded understanding of, and overall comfort in.

So what does all this mean?

It means that when we come to a new country (like Japan) many people, if not all people, are essentially starting over.

Most people’s social filters will take time to adjust to a new culture and new set of personality types, and most people don’t even realize that this is what happens. Especially people who come to Japan at a later age, or people who truly believe that they have a complete understanding of Japanese people and Japanese culture, tend to suffer.

In our home country, with our social filter in place, we tend to interact the most with people who we feel will match us, and filter out the rest so effortlessly that they don’t have a chance to really enter our minds or our opinions. By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have gotten this down to an art form without even realizing it.
As we get older, our social filter gets a little lazy. We become less accepting and tend to generalize more (e.g. I get along well with foodies, but I don’t like bikers, etc…). And this is where the danger come in.
The majority of people move to Japan after reaching adulthood. At which point, not only is their social filter adjusted for life in Japan, but it’s also set up to generalize in very broad terms. Starting to see where the danger comes in?

And this can easily lead to a person thinking Japanese are rude, or I don’t get along with Japanese women/men, or even all Japanese people are racist.

Because of this, there are many people who either spend their time in Japan thinking that Japanese people in general aren’t for them, or even go so far as to give up on living in Japan and leave.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are just as many people who manage to adjust and quickly find a group of friends/colleagues/comrades who match themselves, and never experience this side of culture shock and the stresses that come with it.

The important thing to take away from this is that Japan is really no different from any other country. Japanese people, just like the people of any other country in the world run a wide range of personality types.
Some of these people will match you in every way, but most won’t.
The most dangerous and unfortunate thing that you can do is generalize all Japanese people into one broad category.
In the end, you are only putting undue stress on yourself and potentially creating a tainted view for yourself.

This article, is one that I will continue to update and re-write but for now I will publish it as-is. And we would all love to hear your thoughts and comments, so please toss them in below.

 

May
12

Working With Japanese People

I work for a Japanese company. And this means working with Japanese people. Not an easy task.

I still remember the day that I got the news that I would become a full-time worker in a Japanese company. I remember where I was sitting, who I was with, and even what I was drinking. It was a significant moment and one that marked a major change in my life here in Japan. I was excited. Very excited.
But this was a double edged sword…

While working for a Japanese company and working with Japanese people can be a great experience in more ways than I can count, it can also be one of the most crushing and stressful experiences that a non-Japanese person can experience.

Note:
I sat on this post for a while, really on the fence as to whether or not I wanted to post it.
Most of my experiences working with Japanese people have been good, if not great.
And I have a great deal of respect for every single person that I work with.
But that is not to say that it has been without its hard times.
And after hearing some horror stories from other people,
I realized it was time to put this post together…

I had always heard stories from friends of mine who worked in Japan as ALTs, programmers, consultants, etc.., that working along side Japanese people can be terribly stressful and more often than not feels like walking a tight rope above a fire pit while juggling chainsaws. There’s just so much that can go wrong…

But I never thought it would affect me. I have been living side-by-side with Japanese people for over 10 years and have been speaking the language just as long. I picked up on Japanese language and culture when I was young and was surrounded with people who I could speak and grow with. I studied Japanese business culture and Japanese business etiquette in anticipation of working in Japan, and got into a Japanese company at an early, but reasonable age.

And in my first couple of years working with Japanese people I came to understand exactly what everyone meant.
It was a totally different world than what I was prepared for.

Now, there are a large number of factors that contribute to the complexity and the difficulties one may have when working with Japanese people. And to save time, space, and your eyes, I have decided to put a few of these points in a list (which will probably be updated as time goes on), for easy reading and convenience:

The List

  • No matter how good your Japanese is or how long you have been in Japan. Unless you are a native-Japanese speaker raised in Japanese culture, you will be seen as a foreigner / outsider
  • Japanese people tend to form cliques or small groups (remember high school? Japanese people do!). Even Japanese people who are not a part of the clique or group are viewed as outsiders.
  • Most (if not all) Japanese people have 2 faces – one for work, social interactions, etc and one for family and very close friends (they will almost never show you the later)
    • Note: This is not a dishonesty thing as much as it is a working in harmony thing
  • Most foreigners do not understand the concept of ‘wa‘ (harmony) as it applies in Japanese social and work culture
  • Japanese co-workers or colleagues may not fully understand your job, and definitely assume that you understand nothing of theirs
  • Japanese people are not relaxed at work. If you are, you will stand out in a negative way
  • Your Japanese co-workers or colleagues may not completely understand what you are trying to say
  • You may not completely understand what your Japanese co-workers or colleagues are trying to say
  • Attempting to rectify either of the preceding 2 points can easily lead to getting stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sense that:
    • a) If you try to simplify your communication to make things more clear, you may end up being too direct
    • b) Trying to be indirect in English can lead to confusing Japanese staff even more
    • c) Trying to be indirect in Japanese if it is not your native language, can easily lead to dangerous mis-communications
  • Japanese tend not to forgive. Therefore, if any of the following happen,
    you are potentially in hot water for a while:
    • You’re caught being lazy, taking personal calls, etc (basically if you’re caught doing anything… you’re in the dog house)
    • You show up late even once
    • You allow yourself to get and or show frustration, stress, or anger
    • You argue with or make any negative comment to someone
    • You fail at an attempt to indirectly say something negative
    • You fail to follow the silent chain of command
    • You fail to communicate information in the proper format
    • You don’t have an answer ready when you are asked a question
    • You say that a request that has been made of you is impossible
    • You say “no” or “sorry, I can’t” to almost anything
    • You give your honest opinion rather than the acceptable shared opinion
    • You show up for work or leave work On Time
    • You converse with your Japanese co-workers either too much or too little

This list could probably get a lot longer, but for everyone’s sake, I will limit it to its current contents.

And trust me when I say that if you’re doing good, they will test you. It is far from uncommon for a Japanese person to suddenly say something direct and aggressive (this is usually done in a compact, brief comment that passes as soon as it came), simply for the point of getting a reaction.
Sounds childish? It is.
And for many people this tends to set them over the edge. They allow themselves to get flustered, or react, or even go and complain to the wrong person in the chain of command. And then you’re up the creek without a paddle…

So, it’s at this point that you’re probably wondering either what you can do to make working with Japanese people easier, or if it’s even worth it at all…

Some people will tell you that it will help you to learn the language. Others will tell you that having a strong understanding of Japanese business etiquette or Japanese business culture will be the key. And some people will try to sell you the idea that if you work long, hard hours, that even as a foreigner, you will surely be accepted in the Japanese workplace.

I am here to tell you that while each of those may hold some merit, it is my experience that none of them are worth a grain of sand in comparison to just not caring.
Sure, at first glance this may seem counterproductive to the cause, but in the end, just going in to work, doing your job to the best of your ability, being polite and considerate, putting in overtime every now and then, and simply not giving a s*** what your Japanese co-workers think of you is the only sure-fire way to get through the day with your sanity intact.

Maybe this is already you! And perhaps you haven’t had a single negative experience working with Japanese people. And if that’s the case, good for you!
But if not, then this is something to keep in mind.
It took me a while to learn this, and since I have, every day at the office has been a lot better.
Yes, they will still test you every now and then, but just put on a smile, comply and at the end of the day, detach!

There is a lot more that I was planning to add to this post…
I was originally going to make it more about racism in the Japanese workplace but it would seem that we will cover that in a separate post.

For now, I hope this helps.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, anecdotes, stories, and opinions in the comments section~

Apr
02

Why I Avoid Helping People in Tokyo

I was always raised to believe that we should help our fellow man. If someone is struggling, we should assist. If someone is in trouble, we should help. If someone drops something, we should pick it up for them.
But after years in Tokyo I have learned that this is not the case.

Speaking more accurately, it would be safe to say that this is not the case if you want to live a normal and happy life. Time and time again I have been through experiences that have proven to me that helping other people in Tokyo is more trouble than it’s worth. I have seen countless examples of this in a wide variety of situations ranging from being detained for three and a half hours after trying to help a woman who was suddenly grabbed by a guy on the train (while other ‘Japanese’ who helped were released within minutes), to having the better part of my afternoon eaten away because I decided to turn in a wallet I found on the ground.

And that’s where we will start this post. A seemingly harmless wallet. Sitting on the ground. I see it. I stop. I think. And then I make a terrible decision… I think to myself “whoa… a wallet. That’s pretty important… I better turn that in!“. (stupid, Stupid, Stupid).

It was a Sunday morning around 11 am. I’ll never forget that because I was on my way out to meet some friends that I hadn’t seen in years and we were going to have lunch together at noon. I was on my way to the station when I found a simple black wallet laying on the ground. With the koban (police box) being only about 100-200 meters away, I thought I would quickly drop it off before I hopped on the train. So I picked it up, and swung into the koban.

The initial reaction of the police was to greet me with a smile and to clear off the table where they keep the map, probably assuming that I was there to ask directions .  Anyone who has spent a long enough time in Tokyo, will tell you that the police are always much more friendly if they think you’re a tourist (For more tips on how to deal with Japanese police, please subscribe and wait for my post Japanese Police).

But the moment that I presented the wallet and began to explain (in Japanese) that it was found on the ground roughly 200 meters from here, things changed. For the most part, the majority of the officers were seemingly fine with the situation, however 2 of them stood staring at me as if I had just committed murder.

One of the nicer officers pulled out a form and asked me to take a seat. He had me fill out the form with my name, number, address, and details about where the wallet was found. All of this was simple enough, but part way through, one of the less-than-happy-to-see-me officers came up and picked up the paper. He took a good long look at my name and asked me to present my foreign registration card. As I went to hand it to him he quickly and aggressively snatched/swiped it out of my hand, bent it back and forth, checked the hologram, and then proceeded to call in a check on me.

Needless to say I was shocked. But since I knew nothing bad was going to turn up, I sat back and waited.
And while I waited he went into the back. He still had the lost-item-form that I had filled out, and was looking through a shelf of binders. Finally he pulled one out, and pulled it down. He then asked me if the address I had written down was my real address. I told him it was, and he replied with “Then…. if that’s the case, please point out your house to me on this map”. I did this with ease, and he proceeded to drop the binder on the table in front of me and flip through the pages. Finally he stopped at one that seemed somehow familiar.

“Is this your house?”. he asked.
“Yea”, I responded.
“Then which one of these rooms is yours? hmm?”, he said with a bit of a sarcastic tone.
“My room number is on the damn registration card. Figure it out for yourself.”, I replied with just as much attitude as he gave me (in retrospect, probably not one of my better ideas, and there’s a good chance I made things more difficult for myself by doing so)
“So you don’t know? You can’t point it out?”, he snapped back at me. Clearly frustrated with the attitude I had fed him.
“It’s this one, ok.”, I said pointing to my room.

He spent the next 5 or so minutes filling out some form from that binder, while looking at my alien registration card. After which he spent the next 10 minutes on the phone with the binder, the paper, and my card in front of him. Needless to say, I was getting pretty stressed out.

I had already been in this koban for about 20 minutes now, and I was pretty sure I was going to be late.

Finally, he came out from his desk in the back, and dropped a form that had a series of empty boxes and a pad of black ink in front of me.

“One by one, put your fingers in the ink, and then mark your fingerprint in the corresponding box”, he said as if I had just been arrested or something.
“Is this necessary? Do I really have to do this?!”, I responded as I got more and more irritated by the situation.
“Are you trying to hide something?”, he shot back in an antagonizing manner.
“Whatever, this is BS”, I mumbled as I started to mark my finger prints on the page.

At this point I was about as upset as I could be, and to make matters worse, he didn’t even bring me a tissue to wipe my hands with.
Finally, I asked him to get me a tissue, and he laughed with a “hmmphh” and walked away…
After 2 minutes of wondering if he was coming back, he came back and dropped a single tissue onto my lap.

“I need to confirm that you don’t have any dangerous items on you. Would you empty your pockets and allow me to pat you down?”, he asked in a tone that made it clear that I didn’t really have a choice.
“Yea yea, whatever. Just hurry up”, I said trying to stop my hand from clenching into a fist with frustration.

I emptied my pockets, and even let him empty out my wallet onto the table (which he later mad me clean up).

“You don’t have your passport on you?”, he asked as he patted me down.
“Do you? Who carries their passport with them 24/7!?”, I spit out without a thought.
“What type of visa are you on?”, he asked. Now looking me right in the eyes.
I told him my visa type and pointed out once again, that such information can be found on my alien registration card which he still held in his hand.
“But you don’t have your passport on you?”, again he wasn’t even looking at me.
“Are you kidding me?! Like seriously. Is this how you treat everyone who turns in lost property?!”, I practically yelled at him.
“So then where is your passport?”, he asked completely ignoring my explosion.
“Hmmm… I wonder where it could be. Maybe… Home. Where the hell else would I leave it!?”
“Ok. Well, you claim to live around here, so why don’t we go get it.” he said back to me.
“Why the hell do you need my passport anyway?”
“Because I need to see your visa stamp and verify that you are here legally”,  he said with a bit of a grin on his face.
“Listen, I need to go. I am already late for meeting someone”
“I need your passport. So let’s go” he said, gesturing towards the door as he exited the koban.

I figured that sitting here arguing with him wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I decided to get up and walk with him to my place. Another officer accompanied us, and as I walked down the street, I couldn’t help but wonder to myself what my neighbors would think if they saw me being escorted by 2 uniformed officers.

We finally arrived at my house, and they followed me right into the building. In fact if it wasn’t for a slightly similar incident several months before, they would have managed to step right into my room. But this time I knew that they didn’t have the legal right to enter my actual room and managed to hold them at bay with the fact that I knew that.
I stepped into my room and closed the door behind me, and yet our fine officer had the nerve to open it right back up.

“Close the f***ing door! I’m not cooling the whole building!”, I snapped at him from inside. Hoping that he wouldn’t notice that I didn’t even have the cooler on right now.

It’s not that I had anything to hide, but rather I just couldn’t bring myself to a point where I didn’t want to piss him off at least a little.

I quickly emerged from my room with my passport, and before I could even present it to him, he reached down and snatched it out of my hand.
We made our way back to the koban, and he kept my passport in his hand the entire time.
When we got back, he asked me to take a seat, and he went into the back, sat down, opened up my passport, and picked up the phone.

For the better part of an hour I sat. He spent 5 minutes on the phone, 40+ minutes talking to the other officers and looking through binders, and then another 2 minutes or so on the phone.
Finally he came out and literally tossed my passport and foreign registration card onto the table in front of me and then pulled up my lost-item-form.

“What was in the wallet when you found it?”, he asked as he stared right at me.
“I don’t really know. I only looked briefly to check if it was discarded or dropped”, I said calmly.
“So you didn’t take anything from it?”, he asked, absolutely flooring me with the directness of his question.
“You checked my pockets right?!? You even went through my wallet. Does it look like I took anything?! SERIOUSLY, What the hell is wrong with you?!”, I practically yelled.
“hmmph. haha. relax relax”, he said with a condescending laugh. He was obviously pleased that he had gotten the better of me.

After about another 10 minutes or so of confirming my story of where and how I found the wallet, he finally told me that I was free to go in a tone that would imply that the whole thing was no big deal.

 

Now… For the sake of getting The Japan Rants up and running, I will stop this post here for now and add my personal thoughts and reflections at a later date. But Don’t let that stop you from tossing in your thoughts now~

 


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