Japan

[rikoshi]

It's not funny anymore.

Having lived in Japan, myself, this hits upon so many things that are SO TRUE and yet which I had never been able to put into words before.

Comments

[ben_raccoon]

Juuuuuust a little creepy. o.o

[harlkyn]

I much prefer the American way of business.

The work day ends, work ends.

[sauces]

Fantastic article.

[confusedoo]

I dunno... I mentally tuned out at the 'I don't like drinking' part. I like to drink, maybe you figured that out? ;) I usually had a good time at company parties. I just didn't relate to the points that this guy was making very much.

This is not to say I idolize Japan... Even when I got there I was not the wide-eyed in love apologist, and over the course of two years I found plenty of dumb things. My 'complete list of things wrong with Japan' is pretty much the movie Lost in Translation. I have had that conversation that Bill Murray had in the hospital waiting room with an old Japanese person of indeterminate gender. Not a conversation like it, but literally word for word I think.

[darklingthrush]

Yeah, I also experience a number of different symptoms as the author, but feel that many of them stem from the same cause. For one, I totally can't get behind the "meat in everything" thing, because eating meat is something of a hobby for me, and I'm only tangentially able to relate to the corporate culture stuff because I've never had an office job in Japan. But I've run up against plenty of other symptoms of the repression, internalization, draconian bureaucracy, form-over-substance, detachment, etc. that fuel the things he mentions.

[darklingthrush]

Then again, this guy complains about Japanese passive-aggressiveness in one breath, then in the next talks about leaving a note for his smoker neighbor saying that they should just quit if they're not in love with cigarette smoke enough to hot-box their apartment 9_9...

A grain of salt is probably called for <3

[mikazo]

日本に誰もいつでも吸うのは残念ね。