34 posts tagged “japan”
Saw this, this morning during my morning web sweep.
The cultural insensitivity and painful frog-in-the-well syndrome displayed by yet another senior Japanese government official is just amazing. I suppose Mr. Ozawa would like to see 踏絵 in place at every区 &市役所 or 役場 with the requirements they be used upon registering a birth or that you have moved into their jurisdiction?
And I am not falling in the trap about whose religion is more self-righteous than whose. Religion is a good thing. Its only when its tenets are grossly misinterpreted and put into practice that humanity is the worse for it.
And sure everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but when one rises to a senior position anywhere, that right becomes a bit fuzzy as the line between what you believe in and what is could be policy that affects many becomes thin.
Last, what does this say of how engaged Japan really is in the world community? Taken at face value, I'd say all the discussion about 国際化 that I've heard ever since the yen was 361 to the dollar, is mostly lip service.
This found its way on a bookmarked site I visit at least once a day. Funny as whoever manages it, usually doesn't;t post this sort of thing.
Having spent my 'formative' period of time in Kansai, I developed an affinity for Kyoto, more so than Kanto, which I never really thought much of. And until son came along, I'd jump at the chance to go back to Kyoto even thought I was in Chubu.
A bit smarmy, but does at least take me for one, back.
On a professional networking site I belong to, there's an interesting discussion going on about experience in workplace bullying in Japan.
I've put my own 2 cents in as have others and the comments together, make for an interesting picture.
For myself, I cannot say I was the recipient or workplace bullying while in Japan, but I saw plenty of it. In my own opinion it was tolerated for many reasons. One cultural; or 'gaman 根性' (have I just made up a new word??). Another is the idea that this is tame ni naru stuff, or tough love much like a supposedly long-gone master apprentice relationship of old that one would otherwise be surprised to see alive and flourishing in even a large Japanese company.
Yet another is cold calculus; that the bully may be what he/she is and is making life miserable for those who report to them, but that objectives are being met, and if it means bullying, so be it. An personal example of this was the chief engineer tasked with the responsibility of rolling out the first in a series of now a very successful luxury car line. He already had a 'rep' as being a difficult person to work for. I can still remember well the day I had some business at his department and when I arrived, he was red-faced and screaming at the top of his lungs at his underlings, who were seasoned engineers in their own right, as if they were school children. And they just hunched over and took it. But the initial launch was a roaring success so,....
Last I feel is that even today, with some fluidity in the job market, an employee in a Japanese company still has nowhere else to go. Sure they can request a transfer, but the approval for that comes from the manager, who if is the bully.....
And final observation, these people are not turned into workplace monsters as they pass through the corporate portals at a company's 入社式, its nurtured and enabled waaaaaay before that.
There were a couple of books mentioned. Fear and Trembling, is a novel I am going to try and find, which covers I am told 職場いじめ . The other, a book I have read, is called The Accidental Office Lady which also touches a bit on職場いじめ.
While living in Japan and even now, I did/do not follow very closely Japanese politics. Didn't seem much point as the 自民党 has had a stupefying hold over the political process and also my sense that the real power is centered in the major government agencies and its bureaucrats, with politicians being 影武者more or less.
But the pundits here are right, all that is to change this Sunday. Perhaps it will, but the自民党has proven itself remarkably resilient and again there are of course the bureaucrats, who will still be there. I'll believe there's going to be change when I see the new ruling party, whoever it is, enacting reapportionment. Japan has never had its Baker vs. Carr moment (this was the 60's Supreme Court decision which directed representation be more accurately balanced towards the more populated urban areas). Thus while there may not be 'rotten boroughs', having an election district in Hokkaido, with more wildlife than humans, on the same footing as a ward in Tokyo is unbalanced.
Until reapportionment happens, I'll keep my money on The Same Old Same Old.
Son brought this book back from his ONU camp, partially read by him back and threw it on my lap with a 'You might want to read this.'
Funny that I've never heard of the book, which I am reading now. See it as a 'how-to' for aspiring samurai of old, variant of 五輪の書, translated into English perhaps as a window into the 'inscrutable' or guidebook for corporate go-go climbers here.
I am glad I am reading in now though instead of way back in the day when I first landed in the Land of Wa at Haneda (that's right, Haneda). It would have been too abstract to make sense out of/have meaning.
Reading some of the passages, I silently nod my head as I can remember experiencing-observing things mentioned in the book in corporate Japan. Guess somethings never change, they just morph to fit the times.
Thanks to a very good and helpful friend in Japan, we've made an end run around the over-zealous/ perhaps nothing better to do on that day, customs inspectors and now have seeds and now have some very healthy-looking sprouts..
A bit late in the growing season to be sure, but hey, its better than not having any at all.
With much trepidation, wife is now off to the land concerned more with an unquantifed risk of a flu virus, spread by 'carriers' from 'infected' areas, than it is with a unpredictable, belligerent country a mere hours away by plane.
Arrived early to allow time for lines at check-in and 'security'. Check in was not really a problem. The lines of departing passengers awaiting their turn through 'security' were long. Part of the issue is the design of Dulles Airport. It was built in 1962, in an age when air travel was simpler and civilized. Thus access to the departure terminals/gates is a bit choked.
While waiting for the wife to get through and on her way through 'security', it struck me; the manner in which the departing passengers were directed this way and that by the TSA people, through different lines reminded me of how cattle are driven through stockyards.
Needed to travel downtown to pick up a Japan Rail Pass for the wife. Cost $290 but its a week of 乗り放題 and if the 新幹線 is used during this time, the thing pretty much pays for itself.
On the way I stopped at the local mail sorting center to send off a packet/job application to a University on The Eastern shore. Its government relations, but I learned I may also be aiming a bit high. Oh well, one of my favorite sayings is, "The worst they can say is 'No'.'
While waiting to mail my packet I saw a guy with a very oddly shaped/wrapped package, which was a hockey stick addressed to of all places...........................................
Canada! Like they don't have enough hockey sticks of their own?
Then on the Metro into town, sat next to a guy dressed up in the standard suit 'n tie and black shoes, head bent intently staring into his Crackberry as if searching for the meaning of life. Were it not for,... it could have been me. Wish the mind was more agile, it'd be interesting to wrap a story around events like these.
After much teeth gnashing on my part, and "Oh what'll I do" on her part, wife's trip to Japan is still on. She'll just impose on herself, a one week quarantine, again thanks to her hare-brained mother, in Kyoto. She found a mansion offering a one-week rental, the one she chose, near Kyoto-eki. I could think of worse places to be for a week.
And with yesterday's events, the North Korean nuclear test and yet another missile launch, Perhaps the lemmings there will wake up and realize there are far more serious issue to deal with than cases of flu?
The fuss- the unbridled mass -hysteria which seems to sweeping Japan was up to now, a curiosity. My wife plans in a few days to travel back to her home to attend a family 法事, but now her mother says, she should not come, or if she does come , she stays away from the house she grew up in for at least a week.
My jaw dropped when I was told this .This is an uninformed, knee-jerk, overreaction fueled by news reports of a problem, which right now affects only 0.000022% of the entire population. I can speak for my family that it the situation was reversed, the doors would not be shut to me.
Yes, flu, any strain of flu can have severe consequences for the very young, the very old and others with respiratory issues, but in the greater sum of things, even if one did catch it, its just the flu, not the Bubonic Plague.
And then there is the 'foreign' element added in that an otherwise carefree and happy Land of Wa can keep itself free of any such blight simply by shutting down in effect, its avenues to the outside world.
If I sound angry and frustrated, it is because I am. Its hard not to be in the face of stupidity.
