Cultural learnings of Japan for make benefit of Arakawa

[Arakawa]

I spent just under two weeks in Japan. A day in Tokyo, a few days in Fukuoka (did not succeed in conquering it, Kabapu knows his stuff too well), then a couple of days in Tokyo again. I speak a bit of Japanese, read a smaller bit of Japanese, and had some practice before going. Also curious to hear if/when other people have been to Japan & explored in depth.

General Learnings

1. I knew about Japanese culture mostly from its projections onto anime-fanfic stuff and from language practice with Japanese people coming to Toronto. The former is a very distorted image and the latter is a bit biased because it's mostly the Japanese people who are dissatisfied with life in Japan who take the step of going abroad. But it seems as though, compared to the chaos of North America, life in Japan is predictable and can be rather gray. It seems like there are neat opportunities but they are scarce relative even to the small generation of young people. You compete very hard, get in at the opportunity for your level, and then are just kind of stuck there. If it's the kind of opportunity where you improve by doing the same thing for decades, you eventually become a gray haired Master of <Random Thing>. (If anime-fanfic is to be believed, you eventually travel to Nerima and use your Mastery of <Random Thing> to defeat Ranma.) Otherwise, you are salaryman. I talked to two Japanese people in Toronto who sensed themselves becoming salaryman and decided to flee the country. For those who do not flee the country, there are lots (lots, lots, and lots) of small comforts and a general sense of order and well-being that Americans just don't have -- these offset the grayness.

I believe One Punch Man's origin story is a commentary on the crisis of 'you are salaryman'. Incipient salaryman was so bored he decided to be a hero because a hero can punch things for fun. Fun fact: on the domestic flight, the guy next to me was watching One Punch Man.

For software in particular (the field I'm most familiar with) salaries are not too good and people hit a ceiling in terms of interesting stuff to work on. Then salaryman. Some of them start to entertain ambitions of going to North America to pursue more esoteric specialties, or even the Bay Area. Bay Area people may be able to comment on the wisdom of doing so.

2. Although Japan has its peculiar island-nation-Zen-Shinto vibe, a lot of the more modern stuff seemed to rhyme peculiarly with my mental image of the 1930s or 1950s vaguelyAmericaish. Something about tired office workers in suits eating at meal-ticket chain diners like Yayoiken, which happened to be playing really old, really melancholic jazz that particular evening.

Also, when they go for a Western interior, they sometimes go for a really Western one to the extent that is no longer found in the west. See for example: Chatei Hatou, the most infamous kissaten with the Gray-Haired Coffee Master who has been brewing coffee behind the same counter for (decades) and has probably been to Nerima at least once to destroy Ranma with coffee equipment. I went there to defeat jetlag, it felt basically like walking into a scaled-down scene from Porco Rosso except all the Adriatic air pirates have been replaced by Japanese freelancers with laptops and iPhones.

3. People are generally accommodating to foreigners. A lot of this seems to relate to the hospitality culture and automatic deference to 'okyakusan'... which means tourists really experience Japanese society on a sort of easy-mode. A little knowledge of local conditions goes a long way and a complete ignorance of such knowledge reportedly empowers foreigners to perform an obscure special move called 'Gaijin Smash'. I tried to avoid the Gaijin Smash route in favour of maintaining local harmony.

TV advertisements on the Oedo line emphasized the importance of being accommodating to foreigners as lots of them will be coming in 2020. Nice. In the meantime, Japanese arbeiters in North America are being screwed by the rent. Not so nice.

4. The trip was 95% tourism rather than pure tourism. I had one or two interactions with Japanese people where I was playing a role outside of 'customer' or 'random foreigner on street' and was no longer on 'easy-mode'. It proved that, in principle, I could study up to pass a JLPT and apply to some of the more international sorts of tech companies in Tokyo. In practice, it would be stressful, and I have some idea of just how stressful it would be because I already had one previous gig with 'Asian boss' dynamics.

More learnings to follow.

[Dracos]

Mmm, So Salaryman == Jobber?  Thanks for sharing, just a bit curious.

[Arakawa]

Mmm, So Salaryman == Jobber?  Thanks for sharing, just a bit curious.

Argh, my unfamiliarity with One Punch Man ruined the comparison. Totally misremembered that episode. Actually Saitama failed to become a salaryman. So, indeed, that would make him a part-time jobber. Totally different.

What made me misremember is that, based on my own conversations, the thing is, if Saitama'd barely squeaked through to Some Random Salaryman Job, it doesn't look like he would be any less bored. Now, as for whether the salaryman life might have prevented him from doing that crucial Workout Routine... I dunno. While the stereotype leans towards late night drinking, I did see a guy in Ueno park doing a pretty serious gymnastics routine in salaryman uniform (minus outer jacket). (It goes without saying that when salarymen do strenuous things like gymnastics or eating curry-rice, the outer jacket is taken off.) Another guy quit his job that took all those exams to get and is decompressing by spending a year in another country. So someone like Saitama might end up in the same place after a while.

I hope the thread title encourages people not to take my insights too seriously. Probably the more valuable part of my Cultural Learnings was the language practice here in Canada, but those are more-personal conversations. They did give some context to what I saw in Japan.

And likewise generally, reading other people's cultural learnings has not been accurate for me. There is a broken telephone effect. But still interesting.

But no matter how inaccurate the exercise I must still tell of Yanagawa.

[Anastasia]

This is really neat. I get a feeling of cultural mish-mashing and synthesis from Japan, something your second example reinforces.