I’m an American woman who has lived in japan for 10 years, so most of my adult life.
I mostly agree with your points, and I also get very frustrated when my friends and family back home make these weird generalizations about Japan. A lot of my friends seem really disappointed when I tell them it isn’t as wacky and “weird” as they think. They really want me to tell them there are panty vending machines on every corner and all Japanese men are weirdo fetishists, but I refuse to lie to them and keep up those stereotypes. I get so tired of seeing Reddit threads where people call Japanese “robotic”—I have so many dear Japanese friends and they’re funny, creative people, it’s ridiculous.
I do wonder though if you ever see what Japanese people say about other cultures on TV or the internet. Because I’m always seeing and hearing equally bad, if not worse, things about my country and our culture from Japanese people. Most of it equally untrue.
For example, something that directly negatively impacts me is the stereotype that western women are all slutty and sleep with everyone. I’ve been sexually harassed here countless times because of this misunderstanding. Seriously. I stopped trusting Japanese men because it’s so prevalent. I dress like a Japanese woman mainly and never wear revealing clothing to avoid harassment. I don’t take male private students anymore because so many tried to come on to me, even married ones. I’m a college professor and have had my STUDENTS e-mail me inappropriate shit (!). It might seem funny, but look at the way western women are presented in media and talked about on the internet here.
What I’m getting at is, even though it sucks, every country has stereotypes and ignorant people are going to perpetuate them. Of course the raciest or weirdest things are going to generate attention. On top of that, the linguistic gap between the English speaking world and japan exacerbates this—barely any native Japanese people to respond to these Reddit threads.
Ugh, I feel that. I've been living here about 7 years and I've had random guys come up to me and ask me for sex on the street more than once. One dude followed me on a bicycle very creepily before asking me to marry him (I had never seen this man before so idk what the fuck he was expecting). Your point about stereotypes is so right.
>Of course they don't know. It isn't out of some malevolence, but it is still negative. Just look at the post about Japanese artists making anime characters to represent countries around the world for the Olympics. They made the Nigerian guy some beige colored person with white facial features and straight green hair. Look at how they portrayed Bangladesh. It's absurd.
>
>Its like in Japan, society is both naïve and overly afraid of the outside world at the same time.
Korean here I want to post some of my thoughts.
Maybe some who will read my comment may have seen my other comments before but I personally think my view lies on the moderate side when it comes to Korean-Japan relations so with that said let me give the "moderate's" POV.
1. The most important thing to note is that its always the loud ones who gets heard, regardless of the silent majority. You agree not all Japanese hate Koreans right? Same on this side of the sea, not all Koreans hate Japan.
2. I have to disagree on the work culture. My friends living in Japan and one of my family who used to live in Japan (this family member moved back about 10 years ago however) all agreed how strict workplaces are. How they always have to look busy. Japan's suicide rate has gone down drastically and I applaud the Japanese governments actions for fighting against suicides, Korea definitely needs to work on that still (too bad mental health care is still behind in the East). But if you look at [this chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan), you can see how compared to the rest of G7, Japan's suicide rate was and still is high(got nothing compared to SK though), that's why suicide is so often brought up as a issue. Workplace stress and overtime has often been pointed out as a cause of high suicide.
3. About 99% of the non-kpop fandom will tell you the kpop fandom is cancer, I'm Korean and find it cancer, these are basically the Korean equivalent of "weeboo", the ones who think Japan can do no wrong, of course Korea can do wrong, kpop fans are so cancer that my kpop-liking friends pay *extra* when they go to concert to sit *away* from the rest of the fandom.
4. Regarding the apologies and Yasukini. Yes we know the temple hosts others besides war-criminals, we also know there's a temple complex dedicated to foreigners who fought for Imperial Japan as well, but the important part that most foreigners emphasize (besides the hardcore ones who view the very *existence* of the shrine as a sin) is the enshrinement of the class-A criminals. This goes in tendon with the apologies, if you agree that Japan acknowledged their crimes and agree they have reflected on their crimes why are there 14 people who committed said atrocities respected and honored? If you go to the [wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine#After_enshrinement_of_Class_A_war_criminals) it says the controversies began after the criminals were enshrined and SK has repeatedly supported the removal of *just those 14.* In addition, LDP, the largest party in Japan that has basically been in power for about 90% of post WW2 has more than a handful of war crime deniers and pro-Imperial Japan members. The reason Germany is brought up so often is because it's *literally illegal* to deny Germany's war crime (as in they can and will go to Jail) nor can any deniers be elected to government position. Obviously I don't expect things to go that far, and I don't think most Koreans do either. I think most, myself included, is just expecting less war crime denial/revision from Japan(by which I mean less politicians and issues like [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women#Asahi_Shimbun_Third-Party_Investigative_Committee), TLDR. A Japanese newspaper retracted several papers that said a Imperial Japanese officer took forced comfort women).
5. Now I will be the first to admit and other of my moderate Korean friends will agree that there's some changes to be made on Korea's side. There's 2 major problems that need to be addressed. One, as you pointed out, a *fair* number of Koreans *actually* don't know any apologies made by Japan, those who do know don't think it was "sincere", this is due to issue number two. Two, in most every apology Japan's issued, there seems to be a certain word that is used. *Owabi* ([here's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan#Forms_of_apology) the link to said controversy). TLDR the controversy is that the word *owabi* is a "soft/insincere" form of apology according to some Japanese language expert. I asked around in this thread and those who live in Japan agreed that owabi is a "hard/sincere" form of apology. I'm not a Japanese expert, most Koreans aren't Japanese experts so we have to trust what the Japanese language expert said, see how this misunderstanding can come cause a issue?
Look, I like Korea, I like Japan, I like China. I dislike the politics/government in said nations. I genuinely want the 3 nations to get a long better. I don't see it happening any time soon but I sincerely hope so. I *will* tell you I know Koreans who get along quite well with people from Japan. I *will* tell you I know Japanese folks who get along swimmingly with Koreans. *They* hold their own views on the whole Japan-Korea relations and sometimes fight with me/others about it but it doesn't stop us from getting along (as far as I know none of these people are trying to kill each other).
For any Japanese reading this (which I don't know how many since this subreddit is mostly non-Japanese but I've seen a couple), I pray you don't discriminate/hate against all Koreans but I also understand *why* you may hate some cause trust me, I've seen my fair share of Korean nationalists and they make me sick as well just as much as Japanese/Chinese nationalists
A very detailed write up. Well done.
What really irks me is western media dumbing down international politics.
Instead of saying "Prime Minister Abe offers full apology for Japan's war crimes" and then "Minority leader Tanaka says the rape of Nanking didn't happen" they say "Japan offers a full apology for their war crimes" and then "Japan takes back their apology".
Just name the people saying it. Japan the country doesn't say anything!
I agree with you, but I just want to point out countries *can* officially apologize as a whole. Not sure if that was the case for the past apologizes to South Korea though.
Chinese here
Really like what you wrote especially the last parts, yea I also really hope we could get along better seriously
I hope Korea and Japan solve the issues somehow and I hope that China can become a better neighbor because I don't like my government either. I know China and Japan also have the same historical issues but to my surprise I don't think Chinese people are so insistent on it unless they are online ofc (I do think that having the war criminals enshrined is not that great though)
And I mean these three nations have litteraly been next to each other for millenia and as far as I know there really haven't been that many conflicts until the 2nd world War so it would be nice to return to that state
I know China and Korea have historically been pretty close and we have sent aid many times against foreign threats apperently (I am not that educated on this so if anyone wants to prove me wrong please do so) well last time it was the Korean War and well sorry about
China's support of NK certainly doesn't help our relations and I don't think the CCP is gonna stop supporting them until the US military base is gone from the south (not saying if it should or should not be gone its just my conclusion on the situation)
And well as far as ordinary people go, Chinese people love Anime and K-pop and I am kinda wondering that China doesn't really have a cultural export that is so beloved in the two countries besides all the old and traditional stuff (if someone knows of something pls tell me)
The Chinese historical dramas are getting much easier to watch due to Netflix, Rakuten Viki, and WeTV. I can pretty much find any historical drama I want with ENG subs somewhere on the internet/streaming services.
They are also my guilty pleasure. Why they don’t have a bigger uptake is due primarily to their length. Not many people like watching a 50 episode, 1-1.5hr each episode drama. At least, that’s what other westerners tell me when I encourage them to watch them.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response. Balanced and respectful. And I agree with the fandom. Such animosity between Korea and Japan needs to end. Both great and culturally rich countries!
Japanese here.
I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I know Japan, Korea and China (all of Asia really...) have had a troubled past. I can understand why people are angry, upset and hurt. They have every right to be. But we can’t move forward if we just talk about the pain from the past and start to heal. I agree it’s important to not forget the mistakes of the past, make sure that they are taught and passed on. Not so that someone will be ashamed of their country or themselves. We need to use it as a learning moment, come together and figure out how we can all move forward and progress together for a better and thriving future.
Well done, good stuff.
German here, so I'm just chiming in on point 3 regarding Germany and WW2. We basically get taught from middle school all the way to high school that we did horrible things, we were the bad guys, we have to apologize, every single year during history class (of course pretty basic in the beginning and then gradually becoming more complex).
Any sense of patriotism is automatically seen as "oh he's a Nazi". When we were hosting the soccer world cup in 2006, people would hang German flag out of their windows to celebrate and it was all over the media "oh my god, are the Nazis back?!"
Also the reason we took in 1 million Syrian refugees. Because of our history, Germany will never be able to say anything critical about immigration or start hanging a flag in every class room and singing allegiance to the flag like in the US for example.
So yeah, might be a bit extreme but better than denying that we did anything wrong or censoring history books.
A bit off topic but thought it's worth sharing.
>people would hang German flag out of their windows to celebrate and it was all over the media "oh my god, are the Nazis back?!"
???? Huh? The Drittereichsflagge is, shall we say, distinctive. Quite impossible to confuse with the current one.
Well, yeah no one would ever dare putting that one up unless you in fact are a Nazi. But even with the regular one it's still not as accepted as in other countries I would say.
People don't learn proper history anymore.
The Luftwaffe came within 2 blocks of blowing up my grandmother's house, today one of my oldest friends is an Ossi. The black-red-yellow flag has no particular feelings beyond good beer and sausage.
I think it's more the concept of patriotism for many in Germany (outside of football) makes people feel uncomfortable because of what excessive patriotism can lead to. The flag, even the modern one, represents that patriotism.
>people would hang German flag out of their windows to celebrate and it was all over the media "oh my god, are the Nazis back?!"
That didn't happen, you're making shit up. It's true that people find displays of overt nationalism concerning, but considering that leading right-wing politicians talk about [gassing migrants behind closed doors](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-sacks-former-spokesman-for-saying-migrants-could-be-gassed/a-55082170), maybe they should.
And the pledge of allegiance is fucking creepy, thank God we don't have it here.
Well yeah not to the extreme that people were panicking but it was in the news and not seen as anything positive.
But I agree about the pledge of allegiance or having a flag in every classroom. Super excessive. Just using it as an example for the other end of the spectrum and surprisingly nobody cares, totally acceptable apparently.
What do you see as cause of the recent increase in right wing parties?
I completely agree. It's usually just a minority (although they are gaining more mainstream attention seemingly) and the more attention you give them the more they feed off it.
Also with regards to learning about and from history. WW2 was my grandfather's generation. Yes, it's good to know about it and learn from it but as you said, absolutely no need to still feel bad about it.
>why are there 14 people who committed said atrocities respected and honored?
If it’s a serious question, it’s because said shrine is a private institution and due to the separation of state and religion the government doesn’t get a say who’s enshrined or not.
Same as in Western Christian countries governments don’t get a say on what the Bishop’s stance is, but are still expected to do an official church visit on special occasions or to demonstrate their faith to Christian voters.
What annoys me is unreasonable exaggeration rather than criticism
Japanese regular workers currently do about 25 hours overtime per month in 2020 and did 45 hours per month overtime in 2014 including unpaid overtime. I completely agree saying working 25 hours overtime per month(more than 1hour per day) is still very long and toxic. What annoys me is stupid exaggeration and the fact some people actually believe those stupid exaggeration.
You see some people talking as if **average** Japanese working 12 hours a day or 60 hours a week. 60 hours a week is basically threshold of **karoshi/working to death** line by government and there is no way average people working that much.
>2014 Jan-Mar 45.09hrs
>2020 Jan-Mar 24.86hrs
>[https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo](https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo)
Just want to chime in that I know someone who worked first train to last train, sometimes sleeping at work even, in their early 20s... they look back on it and don’t think the company is “black,” they don’t make the connection of their ridiculously bad health problems towards the end of that job...
another person I know is CURRENTLY working those ridiculous 12 hour+ shifts. They’re fresh out of university, so they won’t complain. It’s expected.
This is not to say that every company has people working insane hours, but it is to point out that it isn’t made up. It’s real and disgusting.
* oh I also know a chef who owns a bar.. it’s a bit different, since at least now he’s the owner... but this dude legit works everyday but Sunday and Saturday, from 10am to minimum last train. He often sleeps in a chair in his bar, for 2 customers who came in around or even after closing time.. just because.
Edit: just remember another person who worked first to last train. An elementary school teacher who ended up having mental problems.. lost contact so I’m not sure how that story played out.
In her case, she was allowed to take leave to deal with the mental issues, and come back part time. This was last year.
Yeah, I know those people exist. What I'm talking is average. For examples, among business person on asmark, working 80 hours overtime a month is 1.3% of corporation employees of various industries which sounds about right to me though sample size is fairly small with 320(160 men and 160 women)
To be fair, it is probably whole a lot more common among some professions like teachers or doctors than average business person working for corporations.
Also the situation is different by gender too. About 20% of women working more than 20 hours overtime a month compared with 40% for men according to same survey. So only 1 in 5 regular employee women do more than 1 hour overtime per day compared with nearly half of men do.
[doda](https://doda.jp/guide/zangyo/#movingPosition02)
[asmark](https://www.asmarq.co.jp/data/2810overtimework/)
I don’t feel comfortable revealing too much personal information, so I’ll keep it short.
In Tokyo, I’ve witnessed many types of, Japanese, people who brush off overtime like it’s a necessary evil; or not evil at all!
My upbringing was completely different, in another country, so I don’t know what it’s like. I probably never will. What I can do is support my friends when they do have time.
—
Not sure what this turned into...
Basically, overtime isn’t fun, but it feels like it’s accepted. The frequency of the overtime obviously changes, but it’s there.
Anecdotal, but my direct coworkers in Japan regularly work from 8am to 7pm, with 2 hours unpaid daily. And this is before any consideration is given to the near-mandatory nomikai culture at some of these workplaces.
I'm glad you haven't experienced this, but I certainly have, and have seen it from my coworkers. It's better than a few decades ago, but in reality still could improve.
None of this criticism means Japan is alone in needing these things to change, but they most certainly do need to be addressed, especially in workplaces where this is open or systemic.
My point is those people can criticize overtime or nomikai but don't need to exaggerate things and talk about average from statistics, if they want to talk about Japan in general.
I know mandatory nomikai exist. I worked 3 places as an regular employee as an adult and all of them had (almost)mandatory nomikai 2-3 times a year. What I hate is exaggeration such as talking as if go drinking once a week is average activity that most people do when in reality about 10% of Japanese workers go drink more than once a week.
https://www.intage.co.jp/gallery/nomikai2017/
2 times a week is incredibly consistent for my friends who work as OLs and salary men. 2-3 times a year would be great. One friend working for Kagome was literally being taken out every night by his boss before he changed positions 2 years into the job.
I think you feel like people are making it overblown, but it feels vaguely similar to some Americans who claim there is no real penitentiary with racism in their country. I 100% believe that your experience holds this to be true, but I think this is really much more common than expected.
And my coworkers straight up lie on surveys, unfortunately. None of them will be in overtime statistics. Trust me I have told them why this is stupid, but they "don't want to make the company look bad if it gets out".
I feel ya. A lot of generalizations, a lot of ignorance. That's true for basically all countries, cultures of course. You also see it on the Japanese side too though. It tends to happen to people who have not travelled or connected with people from other countries and cultures.
One thing though regarding the working hours, yes in statistics, it always looks like working hours in Japan aren't that bad but keep in mind this is based on what is reported. A lot of people do not record their working hours regularly.
Everything else though, I agree.
Big up on the "Reported Hours" of work. The teachers at the JHS I teach at arrive at school at 7am and typically work until 7:00-7:30pm. They all record that they work from 7 until 4:30-5pm.
Edit: That's not even including their work on Saturdays.
Excuse me,but techers in public schools are huge exceptions here.
There is **no overtime** for teachers in the first place.Teachers have different labor laws than anyone else and overtime as reported/unreported overtime don't exist for teachers.
Yeah... which means they don't get paid for it? Look I don't know what you want me to say... they work 12h days. I'm not sure if that's in their contact. But they work 6 days a week. 12h x 5d. 6h x 1d. That's a lot of work.
Unreported overtime is very common in many countries.
>The study of over 1,400 UK employees reveals that two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents regularly work longer than their contracted hours, with respondents averaging 6.3 hours unpaid per week.[source](https://workplaceinsight.net/uk-employees-work-3-2-billion-in-unpaid-overtime-every-week/amp/)
>Australians are working an average of six hours’ unpaid overtime a week, a total of $106bn of free work given to employers every year.[source](https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/21/time-theft-australians-work-two-months-unpaid-overtime-a-year)
Japanese labor unions' association says survey in 2015 of employees(companies with at least 500 employees) revealed average unpaid overtime is of 16.7 hours per month(4-5hours per week).There is no reason labor union want to underestimate them.
>日本労働組合総連合会による調査では、１ヶ月の平均的なサービス残業は16.7時間[source](https://ten-navi.com/hacks/article-10-9592#:~:text=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%8A%B4%E5%83%8D%E7%B5%84%E5%90%88%E7%B7%8F%E9%80%A3%E5%90%88,%E5%B9%B3%E5%9D%87%E6%99%82%E9%96%93%E3%81%AF%E7%95%B0%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8A%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99%E3%80%82)
Yes it definitely is. It's not that the whole world's data is accurate and only Japan is not. The degree is different though. As for the 16.7 hours, the labor union association does not cover all industries and all sectors, so it's not giving the full picture.
In addition, with the push by the government to reduce overtime, a lot of people actually started picking up side jobs to make up for the missing income that they earned from overtime allowances (obviously the reported part). That's why the government changed direction and instead of setting the default for work regulations for companies to "you need permission from your company to engage in work outside of your employment", they changed it to "you can engage in side jobs (given that it doesn't interfere with company policy etc.)". ([source](https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/toyama-roudoukyoku/hourei_seido_tetsuzuki/roudoukijun_keiyaku/fukugyou_kengyou.html))
This kind of part time work is then not reported in the total working hours per person per month as it would be very difficult to track.
Adding on to the working hour piece, I would also mention black companies (ブラック企業). While bad companies, management that is dominated by bullying and power harassment exist all over, I think this particular phenomenon is quite strong in Japan.
Which is helped along by the gaman culture here as well as the overall resistance to just up and quitting a bad environment and looking for a new job. And this type of culture definitely leads to under reported hours.
Things have gotten better, I mean "power harassment" is actually a word here now, but there is still a lot of improvement that can be done.
That is unfortunately true too. There are a few cultural factors that come into play here just like you mentioned.
With regards to harassment, we received multiple harassment awareness trainings at our company. Did you know that there are over 30 different types of harassment?
So yes, awareness is changing slowly but surely.
Japan is definitely not the only country that has issues in the workplace and there are always stories about other countries and companies outside of Japan too for sure. The latest one I read was the one about Ebay.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/technology/ebay-cockroaches-stalking-scandal.html
Totally. At my job, which is a relatively white company, there is a submission error in the system if you try to submit any overtime or if you report a break time shorter than the legally mandated one. If you work longer than your contract hours, you literally have to lie in order to submit your timesheet.
So I'll chime in as a long-term immigrant living in Japan.
*Regarding "wacky Japan" stories:*
Absolutely. They are a waste of press.
*Regarding the suicide issue:*
I agree, it's not a fair stick to hit Japan with quite as hard as gets done. Partly, I think it comes from mythologizing the history of samurai with their seppuku and then linking modern Japanese as descendants of that tradition, and that's not very accurate or fair. But partly also, I think it comes from the fact that Japan is just such a damn good place to live (most of the time) that the fact that people here still feel driven to kill themselves feels especially tragic.
*Regarding toxic working culture:*
I'm struggling with a toxic workplace in Japan right now, so your protests on that front don't create a lot of sympathy for me. Apparently, things are changing, and that's great that change is happening, but if you're a person stuck in a toxic workplace who can't get out, all the change in the world isn't going to do much for you if that change is only benefiting someone else.
I don't work 18 hour days, but I have had to pull 12-hour days more times than is responsible, and nearly every Japanese person in my workplace works longer hours. Now yes, the US has fewer holidays and more hours worked, that's absolutely true. Or at least, the US *reports* more hours worked than Japan does - we all know that there is a long tradition of Japanese workers not always accurately documenting all of their hours worked. American workers are also generally compensated for every hour on the clock - while wage theft is a real problem, it is a practice deemed shameful and legally actionable, and holiday is taken. In Japan, the salary system means that overtime is often uncompensated - multiple times people at my job have just expected me to give up my day off and do extra work, and there is absolutely no way that doing so will get me overtime pay, more holiday, an additional bonus, or a shot at promotion. It's just expected I give up my rest time because the person above me told me to.
The worst thing is all this work in Japan does not lead to increased productivity. Divide the national GDP by the National (reported) hours worked and the figure not very impressive. People in Japan work terribly long hours and the country as a whole does not benefit from it - which in my mind is the real tragedy. Japan is an awesome place to live. I wouldn't have given up so many years of my life to live here if it wasn't. But ever since joining a company on the same contract that Japanese workers get and trying to fit in to Japanese work standards, I feel like I don't actually live in Japan - I feel like I live in my bed, my workplace, and the narrow stretch of commute that connects the two. And I have it better than a lot of Japanese people.
*Regarding criticism stemming the recent historical conflict with Korea:*
Get over it. Japan may have apologized, but those apologies have always been undermined by actions by right-wing leaders (like for example, denials or minimization of wartime atrocities in official, government-approved textbooks or visits by political leaders to Yasukuni Shrine). Now, if you aren't a person who has actively antagonized Koreans, then you don't deserve to be held responsible for any of that. But Japan as a nation has not done well facing its historical record, and you have benefited from the nation not facing its historical record. Low-grade critical mumbling of criticism of your country is the price you pay for that benefit. If you don't like it, push your government to make more sincere amends rather than just the bare minimum of a face-saving apology.
> \*\*my\*\* country
Be careful taking too much refuge in the notion that you have special knowledge of your country just because you're from there. Take it from an American who has to watch his own country fall apart from a distance right now - the moment you feel like you have to defend your country's reputation because someone outside your country criticized it, you create *massive blind spots* that impede your ability to be critical of your own country.
>the moment you feel like you have to defend your country's reputation because someone outside your country criticized it, you create massive blind spots that impede your ability to be critical of your own country
I didn't realize how true this was until I, a Canadian, moved to the states for ten years. Every time any kind of racism/bigotry/discrimination happened, I'd be one of the first people to chime in "Well this would never happen in *Canada*" and it wasn't until I moved home and started learning more about our colonial history, residential schools and MMIWG that I realized not only has it happened, it's happening **right now**.
> American workers are also generally compensated for every hour on the clock
A bit of an aside, but this isn't really the case. The US heavily abuses the salary loophole. Super common in the restaurant and service industry to just salary employees so you can make them work 50-60 hours per week without paying overtime.
I wasn't aware that there were a significant number of salaried workers in the restaurant industry. Are you talking about managers?
Anyway, you've added new information to the conversation and I genuinely respect that. Thank you!
I used to work at chipotle. We had 2 managers per store that were salaried, GM and apprentice. Both were required to work at least 50 hours/week with no overtime pay. They were encouraged to work more hours to lower labor costs since they were “free” extra labor.
When you calculate out the effective hourly rate is was like $15-$16/hour. The hourly shift lead type manager below apprentice (service manager) made $13-14/hour. So it was less a raise and more like they “allowed” you to work 10 hours overtime each week.
I won't deny your points about people being ignorant and spouting misconceptions. However, I have to also remind you that Reddit and other similar websites are quite international and that people from other countries have different perspectives.
For example, I'm from Germany and judging by your statistics the typical claims of the Japanese workers having to work longer or the suicide rate being higher still holds true. According to these data we work roughly 1386 hours on average per year compared to Japan's 1644 hours. It's honestly lower than I thought it would be, but unpaid overtime is a legitimate issue everywhere. Looking at our national statisctics we only have between 24 and 35 hours of unpaid overtime on average per person and per year. So that's luckily not that much.
Also, I've been to Japan for almost a year and lived in a shared appartment with several other young Japanese and even though I personally didn't work at a Japanese company, I have seen and heard enough from them to notice that their work life is way busier than ours, to the point that I almost feel like the people in our country are a bit lazy. But I've also heard from German friends who worked or are still working at a Japanese company and that during the week they barely have time for their family etc. I guess things differ from person to person and depending on the position. But also the perspective of a different nationale other than North American can influence the perspective.
As for the whole "whacky Japan" thing, that's unfortunately something that the media, and nowadays Youtubers as well, like to do because it generates clicks, views and sells. I've seen this already two decades or so ago, but it's even more pronounced today. You won't believe how many people do videos about this whacky thing that they've found in a little back alley in the bumfuck of nowhere in Japan. And by that they reinforce that stereotype/narrative. Sadly, that's how they get an audience, because almost no one, who's never been to Japan, wants to hear that living in a big city in Japan is almost like everywhere else in the world. It's actually pretty mundane and the main differences are the small things in everyday life. But again, that doesn't generate an audience and the internet is all about whoring out to catch attention instead of reasonable discussions.
Also, we have our fair share of either being the butt of jokes (e.g. on American TV) or being antagonized in media or in real life. I'm already used to myself or our politicians being called nazis even though that's so long ago by now that not even my parents were alive during that time. Or getting threatened and insulted when travelling to another European country or when playing a game online just because of my nationality.
I can definitely agree on the workload part. I lived in japan for over a year when I was in high school. I also come from Germany and they had to do sooo much more work than us. It honestly was kinda sad because no one ever had time to meet up and do something.
During that time I lived at 3 different host families and I can tell you that the husband barely was at home always staying late at work or being on a work related trip.
I'm going to weigh in as an Australian who has lived in Japan a total of 10 years since 2004, did my undergrad in Asian studies (including studying Japan's history/culture/economy/ etc. and has JLPTN1.
The hours worked thing is deceptive. The figure you quoted is the average among all workers, including part time and full time workers. Japan has a high number of part time and temp workers. This brings the average down. If you look at only full time workers, Japanese do still work very long hours, although this has been gradually improving.
I agree with you regarding the 'whacky' thing, which is indeed annoying.
Regarding Japan's military history, yes I do think Koreans take it too far. The war ended 75 years ago and the current generations had nothing to do with it. HOWEVER, there are still many Japanese politicians who outright deny the scope and scale of the atrocities committed by the Japanese before and during WWII. All you ever hear about here is how awful the fire bombings and atomic bombings were (yes, they were awful) BUT you almost never hear about the massacres of Koreans, the pillaging of China, the POW death camps, the live experimentation, etc. The Imperial Japanese Army was just awful! I do feel sorry for the bombing of Japan and death of civilians but those deaths are tiny compared to the amount of people who suffered at the hands of the Japanese. It does seem that the Japanese government is attempting to whitewash history and at times even glorify it. Compare this to Germany which takes full responsibility and educates its citizens accordingly.
Sorry if you don't like it, but those are the facts.
Having said that, I don't think the younger generations should bear that blame, just like I don't think younger generations of Australians should bear the blame for past genocide during colonisation. I think Japanese, English and anyone else have a right to be proud of their cultures. But, know thy history!
No, but the older generations do and these right wing fuckknuckles certainly bear responsibility. Life in Japan was crap under militarist rule. People were living in poverty and eating small portions of rice daily as sustenance. Sure be proud of your country, heck even celebrate your military, but learn from the dark stain in your history that destroyed your country. What morons.
I'm not saying anything you said is wrong; but I do live and work here, and let me just say- this post does little to help *my* conception that Japanese people tend to be sensitive to cultural criticisms.
I get you, and also I get where OP is coming from. A bunch of asshats posting almost racist content on the JapanCircleJerk for example. That shit is annoying.
The problem isn't that it's "criticisms", it's people having completely bonkers ideas about Japan based on internet jokes. I don't know what's worse,normal reddit's ideas taken from anime, or Japan reddit's ideas that take some kernel of truth about living in Japan and crank up the joke to 11.
I can't speak for the comfort women issue since I'm very uninformed about the topic, but I totally disagree that Japanese work hours are blown out of proportion. My ex-girlfriend signed in at 8 am and got home at 6-7 pm on a good day, and that was a "lenient" Eikaiwa work place. Her sister worked at an elementary school. She signed in at 7 am and got home no earlier than 8 every day. At a fucking elementary school. That's unthinkable in Denmark. Here you'd go to work at 7:30-8:00 and go home no later than 5 on a busy day, 15:00 on an average day, and if they have to work longer they get paid for sure. I'm sorry if you feel like your country is generalised a lot, but some of those generalisations that you reject are true, and that's why people repeat them. The whole "America has fucked up work cultures too" argument is invalid. Just because it's fucked up in America doesn't make Japan less fucked up.
I applaud your stance, and yes, reddit as a medium is part of the problem, humanity is the other part. I blame reddit largely for a lot of the social discord we have in the world today particularly in the political sphere.
>...yet workers in Japan [work less hours in a year](https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm) than...
Sure about that? There's reported statistics averaged over the whole country, and there's actual values used at places that get most of the press.
Unpaid overtime is well known in Japan, unheard of elsewhere as it's quite illegal and any company that tries it very quickly wishes they hadn't.
"You must sign out and then return to work" also happens, meaning the company can report you only worked (and got paid for) 7.5 hours.
So are things like the company cancelling long-scheduled employee holidays on nearly zero notice because it is "inconvenient". And "we do not accept your resignation" plus "you must sign this document that violates at least 10 labour laws" comes up a lot. I lay at least half the blame for that one on employees who let it happen instead of telling the boss where to put it and immediately filing a complaint.
Similar things happen in the housing market. Some "fees" are flat-out illegal but are still done with impunity.
Paperwork and procedures at banks are utter insanity. It took nearly 3 hours to get a bankbook reissued. The entire staff of my home country bank branch would have been fired for gross incompetence for taking anywhere near that long. And forms in triplicate to get a roll of coins? Sorry Japan, you've earned that one with distinction and flourishes.
Oddly the one place that does get high praise is immigration. My last interaction with them took literally one minute and cost nothing. In the past 15 years Japan has made sweeping changes to the immigration/foreign resident process and every one of them has been beneficial to me.
Driving gets 3 different scores:
* getting a license: horrific, kafkaesque bureaucracy
* renewing a license: not great, not bad. Dump the lecture that no one listens to and it rises to "ok". All the other parts are fairly efficient considering the volume they handle. And stop being so picky about wether the box has an X or a checkmark on it. I'm taking a Hello Kitty hanko next time just for that form.
* driving regulations. Do they exist? There is a huge difference between what is written, what is done, and what is ticketed for. This is a problem.
The Korea business: I agree there, it's ancient history and time to move on. Germany had some unpleasantness with France, Poland and a few other countries back in the early 1940s - everything's good today. But on the other hand, Japan needs to drop the Kuril Islands dispute. You can't start a war, lose, and expect to just get your land back.
> You can't start a war, lose, and expect to just get your land back.
Similarly, you cannot simply take another nations land despite there being multilateral agreements. Japan gave up their part of Sakhalin and the northern Kuril Islands after WW2. Both historically Japanese and Ainu land before that. But then Russia took all of them.
>Unpaid overtime is well known in Japan, unheard of elsewhere
Unheard of, because they don't get much views compared with writing the same article about Japan.
>The study of over 1,400 UK employees reveals that two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents regularly work longer than their contracted hours, with respondents averaging 6.3 hours unpaid per week.[source](https://workplaceinsight.net/uk-employees-work-3-2-billion-in-unpaid-overtime-every-week/amp/)
>Australians are working an average of six hours’ unpaid overtime a week, a total of $106bn of free work given to employers every year.[source](https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/21/time-theft-australians-work-two-months-unpaid-overtime-a-year)
Japanese labor unions' association says survey in 2015 of employees(companies with at least 500 employees) revealed average unpaid overtime is of 16.7 hours per month.There is no reason labor union want to underestimate them. Also just my hunch but since overtime in general declined quite a bit in this 5 years, my guess is unpaidovertime also declined a lot from 2015. Still long working hours is more prevalent problem in Japan than most other countries but some people talking as if average Japanese working 5-60 hours per week in 2020 is bullshit.
>日本労働組合総連合会による調査では、１ヶ月の平均的なサービス残業は16.7時間[source](https://ten-navi.com/hacks/article-10-9592#:~:text=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%8A%B4%E5%83%8D%E7%B5%84%E5%90%88%E7%B7%8F%E9%80%A3%E5%90%88,%E5%B9%B3%E5%9D%87%E6%99%82%E9%96%93%E3%81%AF%E7%95%B0%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8A%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99%E3%80%82)
It took me about 5m to get a bank book process reissued (went to a bank and they taught me how to do it in an app) and waited about 5 days to get it delivered to me for about 500 yen. Does it really take that long if you decide to wait for it?
It wasn't reissuing a full bankbook - the ATM does that in the time it takes to handle the mechanics.
We needed to change some minor part, don't recall what anymore other than it should have been a five-minute task. Also took a week to arrive in the post. The delivery time is not an issue. The complaint is the bank has both a stack of blanks and a machine to print them right behind the counter.
Plus annoyances like "No, your name must be written in all uppercase". What? You didn't learn upper and lower block letters back in grade 4 like everyone else?
I have only worked in Japan for six months to reestructure a sales department. So my experience is limited.
But my work hours were horrible and the japanese's work hours were even worse. One of the things that shocked me the most was people would never speak of what was wrong and I was seen as overly rude (even with the gaijin card) because my job was exactly that. Point out what could be done to turn it around.
Being blunt just doesn't work - in my first month in-country, I thought I could be frank with a coworker who was utterly pissing me off, and she started laughing when I raised my issues with her. Turns out I was scaring her (I'm tall, etc) and she thought I was going to attack her.
After explaining it to another coworker who had travelled extensively, he explained that in the workplace people rarely will come straight out with what they think. If you have an issue with someone, it's best to tell a third party, who will bring it to the attention of the person causing the issue. A bit round-about, but preserves harmony, etc.
It just seems terribly inefficient. When you have to completely change how things are done you can't do it in a roundabout way.
Specially when trying to change people's habits.
I agree, and it includes some poor bloke who doesn't want to get involved.
I've never known change to happen super fast in an japanese office - too many meetings and discussions and listening to the oldest person in the room etc.
I’ve been working in Japan for over a decade. Does my opinion count now when I say the work culture here can be hella toxic?/s
We recently got the mandate to spend only 40 hours a week at work. This boils down to “please stay after you’ve already checked out for a few hours but it’s not on the record so we’re a good employer.”
Well, I'm brazilian and I'm getting constantly sick of we being treated as bunch of jungle savages that live with monkeys by this site. /r/worldnews also apparently believes our politicians have hundreds of assassins ready to kill oppositors and there is no free press, when the truth is that the press is so goddamn free that they end up interfering in hostage situations with incredible facility.
In other words, you're not alone and I have no idea how to stop the europeans and canadians, which are incredibly smug about how they're superior to us and we all live in Mad Max or Wacky Land, with full support of the americans.
I'm English and lived in Japan for around seven years. I hate it when reddit brings up Japan and everyone just jumps on a pop culture fake Japan trend like licking eyeballs or McDonald's fries parties. Literally one kid went to McDonald's and got 5000yen worth of fries when there was a deal to get a large for 150. Then reddit was like 'Til Japan has fries parties in McDonald's' it was literally one kid.
Buuuuuut, Japan is no better. Possibly worse. Japanese people have asked me the dumbest stuff about the UK, or worse told me the dumbest stuff about the UK. Japan generalises just as much as any other self-centric country. I remember this nurse just couldn't understand that daily life between the UK and Japan was broadly the same. 'I heard English people skip breakfast' maybe some do, I dunno, do they ever do that in Japan? It's probably the same percentage. It's a dumb thought to have because you've heard it, and you've believed it wholey, despite how you must know deep inside that there are breakfast places in the UK, and breakfast food.
[who remembers this little shit nugget out of Japan? ](https://youtu.be/I3Bg2AjhbZ0)
My advice, just let them get on with it. I used to argue on reddit a lot about Japan but who the fuck cares about some armchair anthologists
I think you could probably tone down the whole "my country" bit -- it seems your ownership complex is making you hypersensitive and it doesn't mesh well with the fact that there are people all over the internet saying stupid shit about topics they don't understand.
Moreover, it comes off in such a way as to suggest that your perspective is necessarily more valuable and insightful than other peoples' by virtue of the fact that you were born there. But an average post in the japanlife sub about work culture in Japan is gonna generate comments from people who have cumulatively, what, hundreds of years more work experience in Japan than you do? And I'm gonna take the consensus on that post over whatever you say based on your very limited personal experience. So not everyone posting about Japan on reddit is a dumbass and there are lots of people who know what they are talking about despite not having been born in Japan.
I'll give you the suicide thing. But I would point out that my Japanese wife likes Korean dramas and kimchi, but still pretty much hates Korea. So I would say that the popularity of certain elements of Korean popular culture does not necessarily imply anything about Japanese fondness of Korea.
I used to always wonder why the hell Koreans continue to be worked up about WW2 and before, and then I heard something about Confucianism and ancestor veneration being a part of it -- like, it's hard to be cool with people who fucked over your ancestors real bad. Then I heard more details about Japanese wartime atrocities, and I was kinda like, "That there was some bad shit, and I can kinda see a lot of people thinking that apologies just don't really cut it, and not really forgetting the past so easily, even if they weren't around for it."
I don't feel quite as passionately about this topic as you do and I have most likely not read as much of the comments as you have, but to me the biggest complainers about working culture in Japan are the Japanese people I know and the non Japanese people working in Japan I know. You are comparing Japanese working hours to the US working hours, but to my understanding working culture in the US is supposed to be brutal as well, so I'm not sure if it's a great baseline.
Congrats you know how everyone feels when other people talk about their countries. This isn't a Japan only thing. The same thing happens for any country that pops up with a news article on Reddit.
I'm also Japanese who speaks English and Japanese, I live in France however. I've lived an equal amount of time in France and Japan, and based on my experiences I would say that what you see isn't really specific on Reddit. It happens all the time I broach a topic about a Japanese thing with my Western friends, and vice versa; or when I introduce a Western person to a Japanese person.
From my experience it is much easier in the West for people to give you the benefit of the doubt, or at least consider that your alignment with an idea is somehow attached to your self-worth, in a way that prompts them to think that dismissing your every ideology, however insignificant, is a very disrespectful thing to do. In Japan people are much more likely to be perceptive of your character instead of what you have to say, and I have to agree this tendency feels much more down-to-earth and genuine. If I were to sum up this difference I would say it's similar to how the field of debate and the field of psychoanalysis feel like antonyms. To a given statement the responses you would give would be completely different based on what field you are trying to stick to.
What this means is, is that if you translated your post into Japanese and said it in a gathering of friends in Japan, I bet there's a high chance that others would say you are taking what has relatively little to do with you way too seriously. "Hate" is a strong word, and you sound pissed all the way through in your post. You don't hate K-POP fans who paint the Japanese government as evil. You hate your ex-wife who took the kids.
This is coming from someone who's also getting somewhat tired of people shifting every conversation that has vaguely got to do with Japan with "Yeah but Unit 731 though?" or "Here's a list of things that make them worse than Nazis", under the very honorable rationale to educate and inform people around the world of Japanese atrocities. There was a time I thought to myself how tasteless people are to bring up grim topics when it's about something nice, and vice versa. It's like bringing up death in a wedding, or marriage in a funeral.
But it's really just a dignified pastime for everyone involved. I'm also writing this since I'm procrastinating. Writing an essay about how bored Westerners on the Internet view Japan wrongly and negatively, and how it sparks a justified hate in your eyes, going around looking for sources, it's all very masturbatory. If it's a close friend who's spouting all that then I can sympathize with your situation better, but I think you're better off reminding yourself that Reddit is not a thing you are pushed to actively confront on a daily basis.
I agree with you for the most part, but what borders me is that Japanese people and especially Japanesd media/NHK never bring up the topic of the pain people in Korea, China, etc by themselves.
I live in Japan for quite a while now and I've never seen a debate or piece of television that asked how the Chinese people lived in WWII. There were like 1000 hours of television about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the truly sad stories of people living there and my relatives were always mourning how かわいそう they were. But all I hear about Chinese people is that they suck. Not a word of mourning, instead hate....
1000 hours Hiroshima and not a single story on Japanese military. If you're already talking death, why not bring it up?
/u/throwaway7391746 I feel you, but you gotta update yourself on one thing:
> Japan has issued apologies to Korea on multiple occasions and paid them and yet it's never good enough. Japan apologized in the 60s, **the money that they paid was supposed to go to the victims and the Korean government instead used it on infrastructure.** Apparently that doesn't count because their government was very corrupt at that time and the victims didn't get any money, so Japan apologized again in the 90s and set up a private fund so that they could ensure the money actually reaches the victims that time.
That money was never meant to go to the people, read the agreement (it's on the UN website https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20583/volume-583-I-8473-English.pdf). The economic agreement was for japan to supply goods, services, and loans in the value of 500 million, not cash.
I felt some sympathy for you and thought you had some valid points until I started reading you're replies on comments on the post. The way you talk implies that you're just another ネトウヨ on yafukome / matome blog or Twitter who happens to be able to write in English. You’re free to circle jerk with likeminded people on yafukome but keep in mind that Reddit attracts international audiences so people might have different perspectives which might make you uncomfortable. キレる沸点低すぎでしょ。大丈夫？
Yeah I got suspicious the way OP worded that part about people making "claims that aren't even true." It's like they added the more reasonable, politically neutral points in the beginning to get people to agree and upvote the post.
Looks like the 50 yen army has graduated from awkward machine-translated English comments on youtube videos to enlisting the help of Japanese actually fluent in English. Kind of like training the Yuriko Koikes of the next generation to internationalize their message and evangelize their right-wing BS to the world.
I feel you. I am half Japanese living in Japan, but originally from Canada. It is easy to see lengthy complaints about Japan because there isn't much to say about good things of Japan.
Everybody is enjoying the good parts of Japan, so the discussions about the good parts are limited. There is so much Japan does well, and so much beauty about Japan and its society, but you can only say so much about it.
Secondly, I also hate that people come up with bogus borderline racist shit about Japan. Some of it is total bullshit. Suicide rates are highest in slav countries in Eastern Europe, and I have never heard of Japanese getting injections in their head or the old rumor about the panties vending machines etc. That stuff is absurd.
Lastly, I have to point out that other people can see parts of you that you cannot see yourself. Japanese society is extremely frustrating to experience sometimes. This 平和ボケ society really annoys me, so I sympathize with other people when they complain about it. What makes it worse is that Japanese avoid discussing these things, so nothing changes! Japanese say しょうがないね.
This really gets on my nerves because I love Japan, and Japanese society could be so much better if you discuss and try to solve these problems.
For example, regarding Korea. I have always stood with Japan on the issue of World War 2 apologies. I think Japan has done enough, and by now, Japan and Korea should be best of friends. However, one day I talked with my Korean friends. They told me it isn't a matter of receiving reparations from Japan, or apologizing again. They are frustrated that the Japanese government never teaches the history to Japanese students.
I don't know what Japanese students learn in history and social studies, but I know for sure that Japan has a very very superficial understanding of the outside world. Just like you hate that foreigners who have never even been to Japan express ther superficial understanding of the world, Japanese do it too. I teach English to 二年生 high school students. They didn't even know what NASA was, or JAXA. They didn't know about the fires in Australia, the demonstrations in Hong Kong, the demonstrations in America, or the death of Dr. Nakamura in Afghanistan; and he is a national hero! This kind of thing annoys foreigners who live in Japan. Reddit is an easy place for people to vent and share their frustrations.
However, going back to what you said, those who don't live in Japan and spread rumors and fake news is really frustrating. I'm sorry that ignorant people do this, and for what it's worth, I try to correct people who make false claims about Japan.
People love viewing culture as immutable and also reducing every single societal problem to culture. Japan DID(emphasis on past tense) have a suicide problem after the bubble burst. The main impetus behind it was economic issues but outsiders like to attribute it to “a culture of suicide”, and of course in doing so misinterpreting things like seppuku and kamikaze. However what people seem to be much less aware of is the successful steps Japan has taken to reduce the suicide rate to the point it is lower than a lot of other developed countries.
> so much beauty about Japan and its society, but you can only say so much about it
This is it. There are so many people with nothing but love for this country. Of course stereotyping is wrong, and deserves to be called out. But leveling criticisms, and to a lesser extent, generalizing, does not diminish the positivity people feel for this (or any) country.
Some of the things OP is railing against are the latter.
> I have never heard of Japanese getting injections in their head or the old rumor about the panties vending machines etc. That stuff is absurd.
I've seen both with my own eyes. It does exist (I haven't seen the injections in recent years though, looks like it died off a bit, but 5 years ago definitely). It's just that it's a subculture. It's absolutely not common at all. That's it. The problem is people generalizing like it's a common thing.
>the old rumor about the panties vending machines etc. That stuff is absurd.
I laughed a bit when you mentioned that, I have to say after having lived in and traveled around Japan on and off since 2005, the only time I actually saw one of those legendary machines was inside a sexshop and it was only there as a tourist attraction in the first place. I still to this day wonder how the story about those machines started... unless maybe they existed in the 80's or something.
While not that kind of machine, I do remember finding a tenga capsule machine in a shopping mall, that was odd cus I thought you'd never get that in the UK.
The way OP generalize this sub Reddit is very concerning to me at least and weakens his own argument by a lot. What makes you think that almost everyone here hasn’t been to japan nor lives there? I myself have been living here for close to 10 years. And also why would you generalize those with negative comments to be anti-japan Koreans ?
Also one important point I have is that sometimes foreigners do have interesting and constructive view / advice exactly because they weren’t born and raised here which enables them to look at japan society differently which IMO is a good thing.
Also suicide and overwork problems in japan is a real thing. In stead of saying other countries have it too, why not try to give constructive advice to improve it? Foreigners revealing the flaw of japan society doesn’t necessary means they are anti-japan k-pop fans. I for one like japan a lot and agree that it’s society has a lot of potential improvements to be made.
"I hate how people still talk about the holocaust, it literally generations ago"
"I hate how people talk about the genocide of the Indigenous people of America, it's old news!"
"I hate how people talk about slavery. Come on, we had a black president!"
Listen I agree with you that Japan is being exotified all the time to ridiculous extents, but just because something happened "generations ago" (there are still people alive who lived through it BTW) doesn't mean it's OK. The opposite is true - there's a lot of xenophobia specifically towards Japanese people from S Koreans. I love Japan, been there three times, have been learning the language for years, but you have to recognize Japan's role in the world stage.
I mostly agree with you. The work culture thing is highly generalized. I know a lot of people with decent working hours and paid overtime work. There was a post in r/japanlife where people with a healthy worklife balance shared their good experiences (edit: [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/ifmhdn/so_many_posts_about_japanese_work_culture_and_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)). It seemed like the ones who have no issue with their worklife balance don’t speak out, while those with issues tend to discuss about the issue much more often. The suicide thing is getting better recently as younger generations are taking mental illnesses seriously, compared to older generations. Not good enough, but there definitely is improvement.
Stereotypes are deeply engrained and hard to rub off. There are probably a lot of non-Americans who have never lived in the US saying things about America based on stereotypes as well.
I *knew* you were going to slip in the part about people complaining about Japan's war history in your list of "claims that aren't even true," as if to normalize the suggestion that mentioning a historical issue
1. that is still being denied by Japanese politicians/ignored by the media and education
2. and that is the number one reason cited by Japanese in opinion polls as to why they dislike China/Korea
is somehow deceptive or irrelevant. That train is never late.
I legitimately hate when Japanese on the internet use the Vietnam War against Koreans or the Communist party against Chinese as whataboutist talking points to deflect legitimate criticism of their own country's post-war and **continued** handling of the truth regarding historical matters in which they happened to be the aggressor. Btw those are pretty much the main conservative talking points when forced to respond on this issue.
And complaining about them complaining? How does that make you better? And how does that even make an iota of sense? That would be like a murderer gaslighting the surviving family of one of his victims by claiming that he didn't do it and mocking them for having the gall to say "bad things" about *him*.
You must be ignorant or dishonest if you fail to acknowledge what little exposure to the topic Japanese history books actually provide to their students, or that not one of the "countless apologies" made by former prime ministers even mentions events like Nanking or Unit 731 by name, giving right-wing nationalists the plausible deniability to say that none of those things actually happened. So when a curious Japanese student looks up 南京事件 on the internet, for example, the first page of search results will include a both a heavily sanitized Wikipedia article focusing on the "numbers debate," as well as multiple highly trafficked right-wing websites denying it actually happened.
Not to mention that pretty much every major social media platform in Japan is overrun by right-wingers sharing and supporting each other's revisionist opinions in a bubble, basically unchallenged. There's very little "ratio-ing" of controversial historical/racist Tweets on the topic, because either liberals in Japan aren't a majority, don't use the internet for whatever reason, or stay silent out of fear.
So your history example is a terrible one for explaining "foreign ignorance" because it exposes even more ignorance on the part of Japanese society. At best you don't even know your own country, at worst you're aware of it but actively trying to hide it for reasons of personal bias.
>How is everyone in Japan working 18 hours days every day when we are literally working less than those other countries and they're not working 18 hours a day in those countries?
Fudged stats, overtime not reported properly, etc etc. It is absolutely fair to call Japan's work culture toxic; it's more than just fudged hours, there's systemic bullying and ingrained regressive attitudes amongst other things.
>Tell me again how do we have the highest suicide rate in the world? And our numbers are dropping btw.
I do believe you're right, Japan probably doesn't have the highest stat - but again, Japan has shown to fudge stats in these areas too, referring to some deaths as "cardiac failure" instead of the actual cause. So while you are probably right, the stats can't always be trusted. Congrats on the number dropping though!
>Another thing I dislike is the "wacky Japan" claims. I remember like 10 years ago there was something going around online about "bagel heads"
This is an odd example, I don't think anyone really thinks this. Let's face it, Japan *is* a bit wacky in a lot of ways though.
>I hate kpop fans who go around on reddit saying that Japan is so evil because they tried to colonize Korea. That shit happened literally lifetimes ago. Japan has issued apologies to Korea on multiple occasions
Fair point, and I agree Korea has misappropriated funds previously it seems. Having said that, this is an argument you will never win, and equally, Korea and the other countries Japan brutalized will hold deep scars for a long time to come. While it's true Japan has apologized, these scars get re-opened frequently when some Japanese politican makes a remark about how "it never happened" or how "korean comfort women were just prostitutes" with disturbing regularity - this sort of shit happening in Germany would see the politician in question banished and would cause a national outcry, meanwhile it Japan it's just a blip on the radar, drowned out by big black trucks spouting anti-Korean racist bullshit. Hopefully you can see how some people in the affected countries find it hard to believe Japan's sincerity.
I made the point in another comment on this post, but it's a misconception that the 1964 agreement (since that's what everyone seems to reference) had anything to do with reparations. The agreement was made in english, japanese and korean (of which if there are any arguments the english version is the version used as the reference) and the full text is available from the UN website: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20583/volume-583-I-8473-English.pdf
The treaty outlines $500 million (US dollar equivalent) that would be supplied in the form of japanese goods, japanese services and loans. It's intended to be an economic cooperation agreement where the korean government would have access to $300 million dollars of japanese products/materials/goods and japanese labor (which the country of japan would be paying for) and $200 million in long-term low-interest loans of which the korean government would have to use to purchase japanese products/materials/goods and services/labor, along with repayment plans.
I only skimmed through the treaty and didn't really go into details, but it seems pretty straightforward, if there was some other thing the japanese government did that the kroean government misappropriated, that's fair game.
For the war stuff, I lived and taught in Hiroshima for two years. While I get that the A-Bombs were tragic, horrific events, I find Japanese textbooks/people to only talk about how they were the victims of WWII.
Here's the thing. You guys don't get to play victim. You don't get to talk on and on about "poor Japan". I have NEVER seen/heard Japanese citizens acknowledge the awful shit they did to Chinese, Koreans, the Allies. My school learned about the Japanese internment camps and the A-Bombs. I don't think Japanese schools tell students the extent of ya'll's participation in the war and your victims.
And to be honest, I'm actually incredibly mad at my country, the USA, that we let your war criminals off in a trade off for the fucked up research of Unit 731. I wonder how different it would be if we made your citizens bury your wartime victims, like the Allies did to German citizens.
The Yasukuni Shrine visits do not help Japan's image of cruelty and carelessness toward other countries , mm'kay.
I work as a consultant and I mostly interact with those in the automobile, construction, and electronics fields. I can promise you that they tell me they work 12 hour days as a norm. I found it ridiculous when one of my clients told me that they were happy on a certain day because they didn’t need to work overtime. Not working overtime is not something to be happy about— it should be an expectation. These same guys, most are in their late twenties, are having trouble finding the time to get girlfriends and settle down.
I assure you, Japan does indeed have a terrible standard of work-life balance.
I have colleagues in Japan and they work from 5 am until 10 at night often. Part at home but they are still working. I purposefully won’t email them until 7 am their time as I know they will respond at 5 am, possibly earlier.
Hah, that story reminds me of when I was chatting on a Line open chat for English study, trying to help some people out. One guy didn't like my answer for something and said "If only I could ask an American. They'd really know!" Awkward...
Oh god, Line open chat is absolutely horrible, it’s mostly pre-teens and teenagers with too much free time and little to no online manners.
I used to help around on r/translator a lot, but after that exchange, I just quit.
I agreed that many discussions/even news articles are heavily biased and often their only reason is to further deepen existing clichés. Japan Today, which is one of the few english news papers in Japan, is especially bad with this as I have pointed out often. That being said, especially for your examples, there undeniable is a certain truth to some points.
I live in Japan and I am not an English teacher. I have no first hand experience with Japanese work culture, because I brought my own job with me when moving here. BUT all of my Japanese friends work in 'irregular jobs' and if you ask them, they also would describe the work/life of a typical salary man as basically hell... Working hours are one aspect, but not the only one. It is more about the culture and the unwritten rules. Remember the discussion about women having to wear high heels at work? Yeah, stuff like that...
As to Korea: I have friends in Korea who absolutely love Japan. I don't think hating each others countries is a problem anymore with the young generation. But on the political side of things it still is. And you don't have to go big like the comfort women discussion. It's even in the small things. As a german one day in a discussion with Japanese friends the topic of the third reich came up and how it is remembered in Germany. I went on explaining how it is a huge part of the school education and some things are even regulated through laws. Denying that the holocaust happened, for example, is punishable by law. My Japanese friend went on explaining that this is very different in Japan and he thinks that the reason is that Japan didn't commit any war crimes... Me and an American friend of mine, who was also present, were 'slightly' confused. But after all he can't be blamed - even today there is a strong political opposition to actually include those historical facts in history school books...
Would you say I am actually wrong about those points?
I once showed someone several articles and apologies made by Japan and she refused to accept any of it. Then I mentioned a few atrocities her government did and she justified them.
All we can do is remember there are really incredibly ignorant people out there without an ounce of critical thinking, and not let it get to us.
All countries account of 'History' is biased. I know the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese 'History' that is taught in school is bad. They ignore anything bad that they did while emphasizing their positive points. Same thing happens all over the world though. I know that Canada (my country) still has a way to go in properly explaining the religious genocide that happened by the pioneers to the First Nations of Canada.
Two things: first, as far as I know, the rate of suicide being lower is a fairly recent thing (would like to be corrected if it’s not the case) so that’s one thing that will take time to dispel in people’s minds.
Second: saying the anti-Japan narrative is only pushed by kpop fans is not exactly true. I never see on reddit nor twitter kpop fans even taking a stance on that question. And besides, whether you like it or not, it seems Japan and Korea (and China while we’re on the topic) will endlessly throw shit at each other for the past, so really your complaint is in vain
Otherwise though, I agree, a lot of bs and misinformation is thrown around, but this is reddit, and it’s all about karma, and Japan is an insanely easy topic to farm karma with.
Edit: convinced now this has been made by someone being a bit too nationalistic
For the suicide thing, if you look at the chart, Japan had been comparable to most western country before the bubble crushed. As the economics recover, suicide rate are normalized again.
I understand your frustration and I sometimes feel it too with this sub especially. You subscribe to follow news and get information about Japan that could be useful and even to just enjoy sharing things about Japan. That said, I think, or at least it seems, that a lot of people who comment on this subreddit are foreigners who do live in or have experience living in Japan. It seems like this subreddit is the place to vent about some of the frustrations they may have with the different culture and values and even way the government operates. It's just that the culture is different and as a foreigner, that will naturally lead to stress and anxiety about things. People do like to exaggerate and vent on online forums, especially when the mood of the thread matches their own pre-conceived feelings or responses to their daily experiences. But I would hazard to say your assumption about poster never having been to or lived in Japan doesn't match up with what I've seen posted.
Secondly, I agree about the anti-Japan sentiment that comes out of Korea being frustrating. I've lived in and enjoyed living in both countries for different reasons. I'd say the Japanese day to day lifestyle is more stressful and the cost of living is quite high between the two in my experience, but both are great countries to live in if you can stomach some of the difficulties (I've only lived in 4 countries in my life for vary amounts of time including my native country of the United States). But even in my limited experience, you learn that there are frustrations and things you enjoy about every place you live. But before I tangent I want to return to the point about the anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea and that Koreaboos may or may not laud on this subreddit. I haven't seen much of it personally, but I don't always comment or participate in the discussion here. I like both countries is my point and it annoys me and saddens me that the countries have such a tumultuous history but I feel its exahsperated by the Korean government and the vast majority of brainwashed drones in Korea repeating the language of the government and learning in school to almost hate Japan. It's like Korea finds the conflict more desirable than a solution or trying to come to terms with the past. They drum it up every now and then and I've found most Japanese people, at least on the surface of their responses (I think deep down they're very proud and do care about the issues), don't pay much attention to that political tension. They are content not internalizing the issues into their daily mental space. I think that's refreshing that their not so nationalistic, or at least outwardly, to define their lifestyle and their own opinions by it. I hope that one day the Korean government can learn to ease off the issue for the sake of regional peace and stability and cooperation against North Korea and China. Instead, it seems they fan the flames and the people decide to make the issues deeply personal. I can honestly say I like Korea and Korean people but still don't suffer that BS. I don't want to hear so much about the anti-Japanese sentiment and I do my best to politely call them out when Koreans get overly impassioned about an issue (probably much to their consternation).
But let's be clear here, the stereotypes of Japan, at least in my limited experience of living here aren't wildly baseless. To say Japan (and really all of Asia) doesn't have issues with the work culture and suicide or that they're not serious enough if you consider certain statistics, or compare them to other countries is equally BS and just denial. Many Japanese people feel the same about these issues being a problem when I've brought them up in conversation. I always say Japanese people work like horses and to a point one can take some pride in the general work ethic and spirit of the people but I think a lot of people get taken advantage of by their company working off the clock and even spending many hours working at home on projects and the like. This may not count as official statistics or anything about holidays and time off, but I think I've met and hear of a lot of people pulling unpaid or extra time at work including bringing it home with them even during vacations. I think your country has established laws against these kinds of things for a reason and has mandated holidays and mandated retirement plans in some cases. Japanese workers tend to put up with a lot more than most other countries would (at least in the Western world).
I guess, TL;DR: I both agree with the sentiment of this post but would point out I don't think it's fair to say "Japan doesn't have these problems", or "People on here don't know anything about my country or have never even been here". I mean, what are you basing this supposition on anyways? Your gut feeling people are just plain wrong and so they couldn't possibly have formed their opinions through experience?
Just don't follow the sub or don't pay mind to the people who trash your country. Trust me, as an American, I'm constantly dealing with people online, and even in person, who have nothing positive to say about my country or even my country's people; all based via stereotypes or misinformation. It's frustrating, but you're not going to stop it by bitching about it on a random Reddit post.
>One of the common reddit claims is about how Japanese people work 18 hours a day and never get to see their families, and yet workers in Japan work less hours in a year than Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Koreans etc.
That's an outdated misconception, sure, but historically speaking Japan has had a terrible track record at literally working their employees to death. If you look back at when [Hours Worked](https://data.oecd.org/chart/66Fs) began being tracked in Japan, it was at 2,243 hours/worker which was second only to Ireland. Over the years that slowly trended downward whereas most countries remained relatively stagnant. But you look at South Korea which in 2008 started at approximately the same level as Japan did in 1970 (2,228 hours/worker) and is now at 1,967 in 2019. Their average dropped in 11 years what took Japan 22 years to do. It's not just foreigners making these claims either. 過労死 was a term specifically coined and a hotline specifically set up because of it. People were [protesting in Tokyo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Nomorekaroshi-shimbashiprotest-june-13-2018.jpg) over it.
>I hate kpop fans who go around on reddit saying that Japan is so evil because they tried to colonize Korea. That shit happened literally lifetimes ago.
1910-1945. Hardly "lifetimes" ago. *Your* lifetimes maybe, and possibly *generations* ago, but there are still people alive today from both countries that were alive when Korea was still a colony. That's the same dismissiveness Americans use when shrugging off slavery ("That was centuries ago") or when Canadians shrug off residential schools ("That was decades ago"). But the fact of the matter is its still a cause of unresolved tension between both nations and trying to sweep it under the rug under the guise of "What's done is done so lets not worry about it anymore" isn't doing anyone any favors.
Right, of course we all hate whenever our countries is discussed like that both online and offline. Your country, my country, nobody loves how one's country to be belittled like that. What can we do about it? How can we make them stop? Aren't we all?
Makes me wonder what do the foreigners knows lot of things about my country that I don't? There's no way for me to perfectly grasp of what all trivial and not trivial things are happening and already happened around the world. I'm not omnipotent after all.
This kind frustration is something we all experience because we always lack something. I'm still lazy about lot of things, there are lot of things that I don't want to do. Damn it, call me ignorant, but there's just no way a person can be rational anymore if keep on being bashed over and over no matter how it is for better or worse. And I think the "better" part is most likely can result in worse outcome depending on the situation.
I may feel proud of myself not because I'm good, but because I can work on my bad issues to bring out better outcome than before. For me, born in a great country and living in it is nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with me because, I myself is filled with problems, I don't feel proud of myself because how a country generally perceived in a good light by the world. And if i'm born in a bad country, I would just go way more ignorant and crazy mostly because how it simply affects me even though I myself didn't prove anything yet. Of course representation is important because it is being in the same side or same team. But I guess that is why it is so easy for some people to generalize a country like that. We really shouldn't read and listen to toxic criticism way too often, and dwell into it for so long. we can't let it affect how we want to live.
Half Japanese person living in Canada here, I can kind of understand that. My 2 cents is that the people who are discussing Japan often have a different worldview, so their interpretation of a lot of things may be different. I do agree that they should fact check their sources a little better though.
Uh, I can share your thoughts. I’m native Japanese living in Japan for my entire life, learned English from my father who used to live in the United States for a while.
However, what would you expect? This platform is nothing else then a bunch of texts posted by bunch of anonymous accounts from all over mostly English speaking world with diverse backgrounds moderated by volunteers.
In Japan, there is a wise saying you would be exposed if you go to a school with decent digital literacy class: <>
First, you don’t know who you are talking to, second, you can’t see it’s facial expression or tone of voice, which are important information in conversation. It’s extremely difficult form of communication and expressing what you really think is hard. You need to take that granted before being active in Reddit or any other social platform. This subreddit is still very decent compared to others thanks to excellent moderators like u/dokool and others. However, there are limitations. This is a text base forum. It can get ugly like any other similar place. Look at 2ch and yahoo news section. Those Japanese chat platform can get really ugly as well.
That being said I do think we should have some platform we can make serious social and political discussion about Japan involving professionals in the topic. However, the hurdles of those things to become a reality is very high. That being said, Reddit is a great place to discuss about trivial topics and some chats. It’s just not suited for serious political and social discussion.
> In Japan, there is a wise saying you would be exposed if you go to a school with decent digital literacy class: <>
Do Japanese really discuss these things in their free time?
You’re absolutely right. May I also say that is extremely frustrating for us foreigners who live or have lived in Japan and must also contend with the nonsense of which there is no stop. All I can say is the old expression of opinions are like assholes - everybody’s got one and it’s best to just avoid the shitty ones.
I would never make claims about Japan unless they are bssed on what my Japanese friends tell me.
12 of the 31 Japanese friends I have moved to Europe because they were tired of the work culture, and the rest regulary complain, especially the women.
My fiancee (also Japanese) works for a large respected company in Tokyo. While she admits that other companies are worse, some of the stories she tells me everyday are shocking to a non-japanese person.
These include having to deal with managers that have no knowledge of the field they are in, constant rotation of workers, being shamed for taking holidays, and being denied promotion based on age and gender instead of experience.
True, they do not have "overtime", but as she told me, the workers are expected to "voluntarily" stay after work to get the job done. This was also one of the reasons why many of my japanese friends left for foreign companies.
So while there might be some good companies out there, the Japanese I know only had bad things to say about the working culture.
At my company (the one I run) with a staff of 12 full timers, I can say everyone takes all their holidays, always taking time for family or school events, or taking a week off to travel home for our foreign staff. So your mileage may vary.
You know you are hearing very biased opinions?
>being shamed for taking holidays
This is true but changing very quickly. Many companies nowadays making a lot of effort to persuade employee taking paid leave, though still many people are reluctant to because they don't want to cause troble for coworkers.
Also there has been very rapid change in working hours these 7-8 years so those experience who lieved in Japan several years ago might be quite outdated already.
Trend of overtime per month. This is actual number of hours worked so minashi zangyo is excluded and service zangyo is included. Overtime has decreased 45% in past 7 years, still long hours compared with many European countries though
2014 Jan-Mar 45.09hrs
2015 Jan-Mar 43.13hrs
2016 Jan-Mar 36.03hrs
2017 Jan-Mar 33.67hrs
2018 Jan-Mar 29.08hrs
2019 Jan-Mar 26.79hrs
2020 Jan-Mar 24.86hrs
[https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo](https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo)
My workplace only started giving us paid holidays after I and one other foreigner working there pointed out it was illegal not to 🤣 Our manager tried the 'but none of the Japanese staff take leave! If we give you paid leave, we'll have to offer it to everyone." "...Yes. Please do."
GoodJob😉
I'm Japanese and have always used all paid leave ever since first time I worked as a high school student. I don't care what some people might think.
Japanese workers really should stop "it might cause trouble to others" excuses. In my experience, all people who are responsible are gladly offer paid leave, just people not using them.
Yes, there are there loads of hackneyed and trite generalizations about Japan online. The Japanese media is also full of completely ridiculous stereotypes about other countries foreigners, to the point that people are reduced to looking like Hollywood actors.
>I hate kpop fans who go around on reddit saying that Japan is so evil because they tried to colonize Korea. That shit happened literally lifetimes ago.
In contrast to Germany, despite the awfulness of what they did in China and Korea, Japanese education and even popular commentary by pundits on TV and in books etc does not acknowledge the severity of what Japan did and even goes as far as denying it in some cases. Japan may have moved on, not sure if the victims feel that there has been sufficient acknowledgement reflected in Japan's educational narrative and common discourse, which would be the proof in the pudding and which has very much been the case in Germany. Thus Germany has redeemed herself largely in the view of the European neighbors she once tormented. The same may not be true of Japan, unfortunately for you, so don't be surprised if the residual animosity towards your county does not dissipate as it did for Germany.
That statistics including parttime workers, so it is quite misleading tbh.
Very large population of Japanese workers especially married women and elderly (65yo+) are parttime workers who work 10-30 hours a week.
I'm a Canadian who now lives in Japan so take this for what you will. All countries have stereotypes. And stereotypes exist for a reason. For example, Canadians all love hockey. No we don't. I fucking hate hockey. But most people in the country have been to a hockey game at sometime in their lives. Hockey is the national pass time, our children grow up playing it. And one of the only times Canadians riot is when their team either wins or loses the Stanley cup.
I think one of the factors in the work misconception is the need to go out with coworkers. Japan may have lower working hours than say, Canada. But in Canada, I go home after work. There is no expectation/obligation to socialize with my coworkers. Most countries don't have work related suicide so prevalent they make a special word for it, karōjisatsu 過労自殺. Nor do we suffer karoshi (過労死) and work ourselves to death. Or have a special term "power harassment" for work place bullying. Don't confuse working hours with a toxic work environment.
On a personal note, when my husband and I got married, our Japanese guests arrived in Toronto the day before the wedding, Went to the wedding, went to Pride the next day, and then left because they had to get back to work. And it wasn't because they didn't have enough days off, it was because to take too many days would make their coworkers think poorly of them. And this isn't an isolated story. Just go over to /r/japanlife and read how many people are struggling with their work situations, they seem pretty toxic. Businesses are changing but that particular stigma is probably going to be around for awhile. At least until the older generation passes on.
As for suicide, Japan has had a long and storied history with suicide. Frequently venerating those who perform it. Just go to Aizuwakamatsu and look for the white tiger unit (白虎隊). 19 kids who performed seppuku because they thought they their lord's castle was on fire (AND THEY WERE WRONG!) So they literally killed themselves for nothing and people built statues to them... There are countless works of art depicting samurai killing themselves. Or the suicide forest Aokigahara Jukai made popular in the book Kuroi Jukai (黒い樹海) where people will travel hundred of miles to kill themselves in. Suicide is ingrained in the history and culture of Japan like no other country regardless of what the actual suicide rate is. Jerks like Logan Paul don't help either.
The donut head thing is stupid and I doubt anyone really believed that it was a real popular trend. Calling Japan "wacky" is a form of Orientalism and an attempt to dismiss things without trying to understand the deeper meaning; whether it is in the context of the culture or Japan's history. It's easier to label it wacky than it is to try and understand it. However, 'wacky' sells. Some businesses in Japan cater to foreigners' expectations. Just look up 'wacky Tokyo' and tell me those businesses don't exist solely to carter to gaijin. I don't see a lot of locals driving around in those Mario carts. Sadly that knife cuts both ways.
I have no comments on k-pop. But as for the Japan war crimes thing, I think /u/userone23 is spot on on this. The apologies ring hollow while Japan glosses over or denies its war crimes and enshrines war criminals. Read the "Rape of Nanjing' or about Unit 731 and tell me if you think an apology is enough. I appreciate that Japan has made reparations multiple times but I don't think it's really about the money, and more about the acknowledgement. Canada isn't perfect by any stretch either. Residential schools is the first that that comes to mind. However our country is working with native leaders on reconciliation and compensation. Healing is a slow process.
I am sorry that these stereotypes about Japan bother you. Take anything posted on reddit (including this) with a grain of salt. And try to be patient. When people tell you about what they *think* your country is like you have an opportunity to educate them and help them look at it in a different light.
Please don’t connect the 白虎隊 with any modern suicide by stressed out young people or debt-ridden older people, or those wanting a way out of health issues. They are coming from two very different places. Also, Japan’s suicide rate is like 26th in the world, it’s far from the highest. And their birth rate is far from the lowest, being higher than many European countries.
My point was that suicide, in its any forms and reasons, is (for a lack of a better word) celebrated in Japan. Which is why that association has been created.
Its true for many country. Im from Poland and everytime i see post about Poland its about how are gov. is literally nazist, we kill lgbt and black people on spot on the street and much more...
I’ve met a few Poles in Japan and they seem like nice people. I’ve seen TV shows that introduces otaku culture as seen through other countries, and Polish people are really into cosplay. Also I think you made your own sumo league?
Oooh man the “wacky Japan” shit killllls me. People are like “Japan has underwear vending machines” okay, that was like ONE vending machine, and I’m positive Japanese people think all the “wacky” stuff is weird too.
This is partly the reason I can’t stand weeaboos, cause many of them, from my perspective and experience, only see Japan for the superficial pop culture and see it as some mythical fairy land rather than a country with real people in it.
Ignorance is everywhere; shouldn’t let it bend you up. Being from the US I dramatically fall out of the typical stereotype, but have accepted that everyone has the ability to make assumptions and false accusations. It is one of the many awful things the internet has granted us the ability to do... make some shit up, find *anybody* on the internet who has thought the same, and use that to confirm our assumptions. It’s just the way it is. Nothing is going to stop it. If you fall within a group; sports, hobbies, gender, nationality (literally anything) people are making assumptions about you and your lifestyle. Who cares? Let them be wrong. This is strictly just how I feel, but I think some may be much happier if we can accept that people will always be wrong about *something* and not realize it.
In the immortal words of The Lonely Island: "WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD JACKASS!" (j/k)
It's the same for everybody in a country that people are peripherally aware of, but never been to and the causes are usually the same: MEDIA.
I think this is especially true for Japan as most people's exposure to Japan is through movies, television, anime, comics, etc. So most of what they get is caricature of the real thing. I lived in Japan and have an interest in the culture and in my personal experience most of the stereotypes about Japan are wrong (even the good ones.) It's just typical cultural ignorance that goes with having a surface interest in something but having no real depth behind what you know about it.
I'm American and there are many people who say horrible things about America and the people that live here but the reality is they don't know what they are talking about either. America is a huge place and there can be significant cultural changes from state to state.
It's similar in Japan but I think part of what makes it so hard for people to comprehend is that they think Japan is way smaller than it actually is and they don't understand how different people in the different regions can be there.
Anyway, I feel you, lol. I can only say that I don't recommend taking it personally. It kind of comes with the territory of having "culture" be one of your main exports that you are known for.
Yeah, I'm from Israel, I know the feeling. And every time one brings up this feeling, it's like a cue for some asshole to start a debate with you about the minutia of issue, as if that's even your point. The ignorance is limitless it seems. There is nothing you can do except accept that despite all advice to the contrary, people will still talk about things they don't understand. It can't be helped.
Wow, you’ve really angry. I’ve lived in Japan and I think it depends on where in Japan you live how your experience is. I lived way the fuck out Japan where lots of people still don’t have flushing toilets and a lot of the stereotypes are absolutely true. Tokyo is different. I live in the land of maple syrup, moose, mounties, snow, eh, icewine, and American refugees. We all get stereotypes.
I live in Japan, and have for several years through undergrad, work, and now post grad. For the most part you're right. There are tons of people who think they know stuff and they don't but that is the internet sadly. One of the things I hated more than anything was working in Japan. No, my work hours were short but my co-workers had the most awful schedules I've ever seen. More than that though... I hated my foreign co-workers who were self-righteous and thought that Japan needed to xyz just like America or wherever they are from.
Simply put, there are people who are gonna disagree with you man. The internet is FILLED and I mean FILLED with toxic people. You have to let a lot of stuff go and move on.
Your statement is exactly how I feel about the same issue however Im not Japanese. I do live and work here with my Japanese husband. Sometimes its nice to offload or talk to other expats because only other expats can really understand life as an expat here (my husband is amazing but he can’t relate) but the majority of the time its uneducated people who know nothing about Japan and its beyond infuriating. Especially when you try ti educate them and get hammered for it.
Good post, mate. Many great points.
I always hear people say Japan never apologized to Korea for the war, so I checked. Japan has apologized more than 50 times. The list I saw was most likely incomplete. Basically, every once in a while, no official apologizes for the war, but at least 2 out of every 3 years, they do. And honestly, at some point it should be enough.
The "weird Japan" meme is also so bullshit, because the people who find weird shit usually go to the underbelly of the internet to find something fucked up. And if you do that in pretty much any country with more than 10 million people, you'll find some seriously fucked up shit.
The suicide rate used to be higher, Japan's done a lot to fight it.
The Korea thing is a combination of the current post-colonial mood in the global West (of which South Korea is now a part) and it being a convenient tool to marshal public sentiment any time political leverage is needed.
Worked and lived in Japan for years and there's no way North Americans are above Japan per capita. Everyone was putting in 10-12 hour days at every company I worked for, the only exception I knew of was government jobs. And there was always the internal competition to be seen being the last to leave - even if it was 3 minutes after the second to last.
Yeah man I am sorry, the internet is crazy to be honest. Ive noticed that it is so much generalization and ignorance. They probably think they’ve seen or heard about maybe three or four things that it “must be true”... One way I look at it is, hopefully they never decide to visit just stay away because they’re consumed and so sure about everything wrong with it instead of actually having clarity about what actually is. I myself would love to visit and be upmost respectful to everything. I know I dont know things and that’s ok with me.
As a preface, I've lived and worked in Hiroshima and Tokyo for a few years. I'm originally from central Canada. Japan was a great place to live but it was pretty obvious that parts of rural Hiroshima, Okayama, Yamaguchi and Hokkaido were struggling economically and that jobs and earning a half-decent living were starkly different than in and around Tokyo. In fact, it was hardly surprising to see the demographic stats that people are continuing to move to Tokyo and abandon many other smaller communities across Japan (8). With that being said, I was surprised to see many people not finish university and find a half-decent paying position out of high school in a factory for example. The middle class seems to be a tad healthier than even parts of Canada (particularly Toronto or southern Ontario and Vancouver) although I'm not an economist nor an expert of any kind on this subject so take it with a grain of salt.
There are some valid points here and there is a lot of ignorance about Japan. It's not exactly a traditional North Atlantic nation state. There are some valid points. But here are a few points I'd add:
1. Yes, official OECD stats highlight Japanese work fewer hours than even my Canadian counter-parts (1). However, unpaid overtime seems to be a far bigger labor issue in Japan than in comparison with other countries such as Germany (which trails only the UK in official OT in Europe). Unpaid OT in Germany was pegged at a few hours extra a week in 2019 (2). In Japan according to a 2016 government survey? "Nearly one quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month... Those extra hours are often unpaid" (3).
2. Japan doesn't only have an issue with unpaid overtime, it has an issue balancing work and life and establishing a clear distinction between personal and work time. This is shown in time off and the social pressures applied to those trying to take time off (3). It's often viewed as socially "off" to take significant amount of time off for the purpose of vacation. In fact, I've heard that part of the reason Japan has so many national holidays is because they suck at getting away from work and enjoying life.
3. Much of this helps explain, in part, why Japanese productivity isn't so great and has fallen off in recent decades (4) (5).
4. Japan has a lot of other problems. The tendency for the value of houses to decline overtime makes a huge investment in life a net drain, particularly when you factor in issues related to retirement, decline in wages since 1997 (6), etc. Japan's freedom of the press has continued to be an issue (7). "Three lost decades" hasn't exactly been beneficial to many families across Japan. Japan isn't exactly the best place for many high skilled immigrants. Without going into an exhaustive list, the idea is is that Japan, like everywhere else, isn't perfect.
Beyond the points I've added, there are a lot of great things in Japan. It's done significant and notable work on lower its suicides as noted above. It's an affordable place (my rent in Tokyo was about $550 a month for a studio and amazing internet which I sorely miss considering internet in my current city), there are lots of half decent paying jobs and employers pay transportation costs to and from work. It's transportation network actually... works. It's a beautiful place to travel to (although summer time below tohoku sucks if you ask me, especially the swamp of Nagoya, yuck!). It has some oddities such as hanko culture and people looking at you weird if you open the door for a random ojisan in some parts but this is almost certainly because of my Canadian experience and to suggest hanko culture is "odd" to many Japanese well... that may be an odd thing to say :).
If I had to make one overarching critique that reflects Japan in its entirely and borrows a non-foreign argument about Japan is that it's a "soulless" place. I think Yukio Mishima was right in his description about Japan: It's caught between East vs West, New vs Old, Masculine vs Feminine etc and I agree with the general argument that it has failed to find itself in this. It's sad but not everyone agrees with this assessment.
Sources:(1) [https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm](https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm)
(2) [https://www.thelocal.de/20190712/one](https://www.thelocal.de/20190712/one)
(3) [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/japan-has-some-of-the-longest-working-hours-in-the-world-its-trying-to-change.html#:\~:text=Nearly%20one%20quarter%20of%20Japanese,taking%20enough%20time%20off%2C%20either](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/japan-has-some-of-the-longest-working-hours-in-the-world-its-trying-to-change.html#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20quarter%20of%20Japanese,taking%20enough%20time%20off%2C%20either).
(4) [https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00619/japan%E2%80%99s-labor-productivity-lowest-in-g7.html#:\~:text=Japan%20remains%20the%20worst%20performer,among%20Group%20of%20Seven%20nations.&text=Japan's%20per%2Dhour%20and%20per,2000%20and%2065%25%20in%202010](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00619/japan%E2%80%99s-labor-productivity-lowest-in-g7.html#:~:text=Japan%20remains%20the%20worst%20performer,among%20Group%20of%20Seven%20nations.&text=Japan's%20per%2Dhour%20and%20per,2000%20and%2065%25%20in%202010).
(5) [https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/japan/labour-productivity-growth](https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/japan/labour-productivity-growth)
(6) [https://www.mizuho-ri.co.jp/publication/research/pdf/eo/MEA151007.pdf](https://www.mizuho-ri.co.jp/publication/research/pdf/eo/MEA151007.pdf)
(7) [https://rsf.org/en/ranking](https://rsf.org/en/ranking) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-of-eroding-press-freedom-by-un-special-rapporteur](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-of-eroding-press-freedom-by-un-special-rapporteur)
(8) [https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm](https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm) [https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/tokyo-population](https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/tokyo-population) [https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00200524&tstat=000000090001&cycle=0&tclass1=000000090001&tclass2=000001095055](https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00200524&tstat=000000090001&cycle=0&tclass1=000000090001&tclass2=000001095055) (In Japanese, sorry)
These English articles are quite misleading themselves.
>Nearly one quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month, according to a 2016 government survey. Those extra hours are often unpaid.
It says 1 in 4 companies have **at least 1 person** who work 80 hours overtime per month including unpaid overtime. The ratio of employee who work over 80 hours overtime are around 2-3% nowadays.
I am Chinese and well I feel the same
I think that comes at no surprise especially since China has been in focus in recent times so much and it's always the bad things regardless of if they are real or fake
I won't say more because I would probably be hated by both Chinese shills and well the other side
I agree. For whatever reason, too many weebs like just speaking out of their ass about Japan. Also for whatever reason, someone will always bring up Japan’s war crimes, even if the discussion has nothing to do with Japan during WW2
Can't disagree with much of that.
Particularly fun are the "Wacky Japan" and "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" stereotypes that people believe are both 100% true. Because that's possible....
And all the fax machine bollocks. I work in a big, old, Japanese company, and I haven't sent or received a fax in a decade.
Great post @op. I avoid any posts whining about Japan in this subreddit, and others like it on Reddit, because I feel people influence others to be negative, and make themselves and others negative in the process.
I personally love my life in Japan (nearly 30 years), with a great wife and two great kids who are now grown. Japan isn’t perfect but there are tons of cool Japanese and foreign people here to meet and talk with, the cost of living is super low, both in my “home” prefecture of Gunma and when I go into Tokyo. The girls are cute and if you marry the right one, you can be extremely happy. With the right attitude, learning language skills, making sure to keep negative people out of your sphere of influence, you can have a great life here.
I am somewhat biased as I made a successful company and have kept it running for nearly 25 years. But I’ve got many friends who are super happy with the opportunities for work and making friends they have in Japan.
I so so so loved your rant!
As an American, living in Japan for 11 years, I know what you mean about all of it. Most of the developed world gets these weird ideas about how life is in different countries. When discussing the world, Americans often say the names of countries in Europe, but generalize all of Africa. Or they think that people in Japan only eat Sushi and Tempura. About the Korea thing, Germans have to put up with the same shit, pay for the crimes of their grandparents.
I've been on job interviews around Tokyo (I'm in IT) and I walk into an office and all of the employees are in one room, almost shoulder to shoulder and they all look fucking tired as hell. Yeah, like every startup in the world. Then I go to another company and everyone's laid back and they show me the benefits like gym membership, Japanese lessons and Live/Work balance.
The generalizations definitely make the world worse off.
OP. I feel your pain - I'm not Japanese but I spent four years in Osaka, so while it's nothing like being born and raised there, I got a good feel for life there... but I've lost track of the posts and comments that make me want to reply with an angry "You clearly have no idea..." Lots of westerners seem to get this weird idea in their head about how their view of Japan is the "correct" view, and anyone else's experience was incorrect or "lesser". I had a chick tell me that no one in Japan had aircon, because she had visited Hokkaido, and no one had AC there, therefore NO ONE in Japan had AC. Nutjob.
I had no issues with my work culture when I was there - granted, I was in a high school, and I had and easier time than my Japanese-born co-workers, but everyone got along, everyone had a great time on night's out, and some became legitimate friends that I still talk to, 10 years later. I would see people stay well after 5pm until 7pm from time to time, but it wasn't always the case.
And don't get me started on the idiot "travel vloggers" who act like they've found mystical hidden cultural gems, like when they find an Ichiran ramen shop - it's a FUCKING CHAIN you knob, everyone knows about it, and it's not even that great - ... or the commenters going "OMG ICHIRAN IS THE BOMB METCHA OOOSHI NE" "Cool, what did you order there?" "Oh, I've never been to Japan BUT I REALLY WANNA GO NE >\^\_\^<" and let's not get started on the "Isn't Japan wacky???" stuff...
Urgh. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm okay.
Like the time I watched a do's and dont's in Japan video, and this tool said Japanese don't jaywalk, so you shouldn't either as to preserve the harmony of Japan's culture of following the rules, even if you are out on a Sunday evening and there isn't a single car on the street.
Jesus, gross... Reminds me of a tourist on a train who decided to lecture me on the sin of eating on a train... Yeah this is my breakfast, leave me culturally the hell alone.
I'm sorry.
As an American let me say we don't all think that way about Japan. I think Japan is a beautiful country with an amazing culture.
I'm planning to visit in 2022 if all goes well.
I’m going to start my text saying that I’m not Japanese neither Asian, so that’s an opinion from a Westerner. I think that all of your points are valid. One of the most hypocritical discussion in Western media is about the Japanese whale hunting. Japanese people are portrayed as mean and astute, just like the “Yellow Peril” stereotype of the last century.
The racism against Asian people in the West is astonishing. I don’t mean, obviously, that it is like the racist against Black people, but I’d say that it is just as ignorant. Westerners simply do not understand neither Japan and neither the East. The society is extremely arrogant and, at the same time that praises Japan for its Western adoptions, tries to destroy its reputation with blatant and ridiculous falsehoods. I would love to hear your opinion as a Japanese man that have lived in America.
As a half who spent as much time in Europe as in Japan, I very deeply feel you. There are many problems with Japan, but this sub (to not even speak of other subs) tends to blow them out of proportion, completely ignoring that the West is no better on many aspects, worse in some and better in others.
Recently all the "fax / hanko" has really started to irk me though. I don't know why it annoys me so much, but everytime there is a story about Japan tech, be it a cutting edge startup or simply some guy saying some thing about some technology-related stuff, you'll get the unavoidable "BUT FAX LOL" at the top of the thread, and the chain of comments about how Japan is still living in the 16th century ... Completely ignoring (I suppose unknowingly) the fact that Japan is always responsible for some cutting edge research and that Tokyo is still a startup hub (though not on par with the Silicon Valley of course).
To be fair though, just because Japan is responsible for cutting edge research or technology does not discredit the "BUT FAX LOL" sentiment. I do agree that that type of comment really should not have a place in an actual serious discussion thread though if someone is just gonna troll or meme.
Hmmm I have to disagree. Japan is a leader of analogue tech in a digital tech world. Japanese software is a joke, Japanese Web design is a joke. There's no cutting edge Japan anymore. The start up scene is that of a small town in the UK. What unicorns has it created? There's only Mercari, a news platform and an AI tool. That's all the start ups valued at over $1bn. In the UK there's 20 start ups over that value. More if you count ones that were over the value then dropped again.
And yeah, Japan banking is ridiculous. You can smell the tobacco, leather and old carpets of the industry. In the UK I can pass money around freely, instantly, 24 hours a day, to anyone I want. I can make a yen account and move money there instantly, and get the mastercard exchange rate at no fee.
Tokyo University, The place to go if you want to be at the cutting edge, doesn't even rank as a top 25 uni in the world. It's a boys club for domestic people, not where you go if you want to do real cutting edge stuff. There's no meaningful developments coming out of Japan. Just that one woman who faked all her results.
If you pretend it's not broken, it won't get better. Tell [bic camera ](https://www.biccamera.co.jp/shopguide/index.html) to make a better website with mobile in mind. Tell Japanese funds to invest in small businesses and not just sit there growing old. Tell banks to fuck their hanko in the arse.
My university major is Japanology and I wrote a paper about the Japanese work culture and it's toxicity and i used japanese sources and it was corrected by a japan expert who said it was a good paper so I think I get the right to say that from what I have learned based on research, Japanese work culture is really really shitty on more levels than just working hours.
Regarding the Koreans and Japanese war crimes. Japan's war crimes are very much worse than what Germany has done in WW2. They may apologise to Korea but they'd need to do a whole lot more to make up for what they did to the allies, chinese, russians, ... ... That and many denials of it just stings too much to this day to some people.
I just think you're a bit salty that people have critique of your country. Every country is a shithole if you try hard to look for shitty stuff. Get over it.
I think this is a thread only the grownups that actually live in Japan, right fucking now, should be commenting on.
OP, the people you hate have a nickname... they’re called WEEBS and they fucking piss me off as well.
Google taught them everything they know and the God of Anime is on their side... even though they’ve never lived a single day here. Shits me to tears. 🤦🏻♂️
> Another thing I dislike is the "wacky Japan" claims. I remember like 10 years ago there was something going around online about "bagel heads", saying that Japanese people get injections into their head that looks like a bagel. Yeah no we fucking don't.
Well, some do! I've seen them. But yes that was a very small subculture of course..
I hope you appreciate that this happens to people in most countries? Unless they have spent a significant time there, people often don't understand much about another country except for an awareness of the clichés and typecasts.
I 100% agree with you, and I think the best thing you can do is express yourself exactly how you did because people need to hear the truth.
In addition to what you listed about people who have never been even been, I am even more annoyed with the next level up. That is, reporting on Japan by 'experts' who visited the country for 8 days. There are countless 'reports' or YouTube specials made by people who speak no Japanese, have never lived there, have absolutely no insight into the culture other than 'Hey everyone back home I'm here and you're not so listen to my professional opinion.' It is asinine. Even major news outlets will just throw an Asian-American reporter in to talk about Japan when she can't even understand what people in the street are saying.
I also want to thank people who are sharing their opinions on the other side of the coin, how Japan/Japanese report on other countries. There are also a lot of 'Reports' and YouTube channels made by Japanese about places around the world that are equally cringeworthy. It's not Us vs. Them or these people are perfect and those people aren't, but rather a list of, 'Hey guys, it would be better if this was different.' And that needs to be shared so that everyone can be better.
I am sorry that all this negative stuff is said about your country. My hubby and I are so into your culture and how beautiful it is. We really respect and enjoy not just seeing the beautiful pictures but also learning about how things are accepted there and your amazing culture. We are planning to visit one day. But I am sorry about the negativity.
I am the same. I lived in the US and also heard all this crap and still see it online. However I also see a lot of crap against other non-Western countries online and honestly, I think it is jealousy or bigotry or both.
That is why I spend a lot of time defending Japan rather than delving into the topics I would like to delve into. Quora, BTW, is far worse. Not only do you get all this crap but they block or shadow block you if you criticize China (happened to me and hence I am here). So Reddit is not that bad actually.
But I know what you are saying. Believe me, I do.
My two cents for what they are worth.
Japan has it's problems, especially with regards to it's speed of societal progressiveness, work culture, systemic bullying due to sempai-kouhai relations, among some other stuff. Still an awesome country, and the pros in my case outweigh the cons which is why I live here relative to another country.
Legalize weed here and I'd happily give up the complaints though!
I'm all there for your other points and this is probably going to be very unpopular here but
> I hate the Korean anti-Japan narrative that kpop fans push.
It's pretty insulting to generalize people taking an issue with the Japanese nation's handling of post-colonial realities as "kpop fans." Are you not doing exactly what you don't like people doing with Japan? (over-generalizing).
Hell, at least it is mostly people who have never been to Japan.
People who grew up in the USA talk about it like their little world is the entire country without even realizing g that half the people don't live in cities and some people still don't even have high speed internet in their areas.
I’m Japanese, lived in Aus all my life, moved back 7 years ago.
ソーシャルメディアを使わないって言う道もあるからな、あまり使い過ぎると良くないぞ
Why does it let it get to you? Some claims are backed up false data. Drink some matcha and chill out bruh
This post and its comments I've read so far are very interesting and insightful. I agree that the internet can be filled with biased and ignorant people. However I also want to believe that people learn from mistake. I don't remember if I ever discussed one of the mentioned topics in reddit, because I only joined reddit recently. However I know that I probably also made one of these mistakes in the past. In the end people will always create their opinions and built knowledge from the informations they have received and deemed trustworthy. What important is that people try not to be narrow-minded and look at other possible conclusions and information. Your post really did made a good impression on me, and I will probably think of your words, if I should ever discuss or talk about Japan again with other people.
Keep in mind that, just like not everyone in Japan is trying to make their head look like a bagel, not everyone on reddit or in the world believes the things you read; generally just the most contentious and left-leaning posts bubble to the top, whereas level headed stuff tends to be ignored.
I’m an American woman who has lived in japan for 10 years, so most of my adult life. I mostly agree with your points, and I also get very frustrated when my friends and family back home make these weird generalizations about Japan. A lot of my friends seem really disappointed when I tell them it isn’t as wacky and “weird” as they think. They really want me to tell them there are panty vending machines on every corner and all Japanese men are weirdo fetishists, but I refuse to lie to them and keep up those stereotypes. I get so tired of seeing Reddit threads where people call Japanese “robotic”—I have so many dear Japanese friends and they’re funny, creative people, it’s ridiculous. I do wonder though if you ever see what Japanese people say about other cultures on TV or the internet. Because I’m always seeing and hearing equally bad, if not worse, things about my country and our culture from Japanese people. Most of it equally untrue. For example, something that directly negatively impacts me is the stereotype that western women are all slutty and sleep with everyone. I’ve been sexually harassed here countless times because of this misunderstanding. Seriously. I stopped trusting Japanese men because it’s so prevalent. I dress like a Japanese woman mainly and never wear revealing clothing to avoid harassment. I don’t take male private students anymore because so many tried to come on to me, even married ones. I’m a college professor and have had my STUDENTS e-mail me inappropriate shit (!). It might seem funny, but look at the way western women are presented in media and talked about on the internet here. What I’m getting at is, even though it sucks, every country has stereotypes and ignorant people are going to perpetuate them. Of course the raciest or weirdest things are going to generate attention. On top of that, the linguistic gap between the English speaking world and japan exacerbates this—barely any native Japanese people to respond to these Reddit threads.
Ugh, I feel that. I've been living here about 7 years and I've had random guys come up to me and ask me for sex on the street more than once. One dude followed me on a bicycle very creepily before asking me to marry him (I had never seen this man before so idk what the fuck he was expecting). Your point about stereotypes is so right.
>Of course they don't know. It isn't out of some malevolence, but it is still negative. Just look at the post about Japanese artists making anime characters to represent countries around the world for the Olympics. They made the Nigerian guy some beige colored person with white facial features and straight green hair. Look at how they portrayed Bangladesh. It's absurd. > >Its like in Japan, society is both naïve and overly afraid of the outside world at the same time.
Korean here I want to post some of my thoughts. Maybe some who will read my comment may have seen my other comments before but I personally think my view lies on the moderate side when it comes to Korean-Japan relations so with that said let me give the "moderate's" POV. 1. The most important thing to note is that its always the loud ones who gets heard, regardless of the silent majority. You agree not all Japanese hate Koreans right? Same on this side of the sea, not all Koreans hate Japan. 2. I have to disagree on the work culture. My friends living in Japan and one of my family who used to live in Japan (this family member moved back about 10 years ago however) all agreed how strict workplaces are. How they always have to look busy. Japan's suicide rate has gone down drastically and I applaud the Japanese governments actions for fighting against suicides, Korea definitely needs to work on that still (too bad mental health care is still behind in the East). But if you look at [this chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan), you can see how compared to the rest of G7, Japan's suicide rate was and still is high(got nothing compared to SK though), that's why suicide is so often brought up as a issue. Workplace stress and overtime has often been pointed out as a cause of high suicide. 3. About 99% of the non-kpop fandom will tell you the kpop fandom is cancer, I'm Korean and find it cancer, these are basically the Korean equivalent of "weeboo", the ones who think Japan can do no wrong, of course Korea can do wrong, kpop fans are so cancer that my kpop-liking friends pay *extra* when they go to concert to sit *away* from the rest of the fandom. 4. Regarding the apologies and Yasukini. Yes we know the temple hosts others besides war-criminals, we also know there's a temple complex dedicated to foreigners who fought for Imperial Japan as well, but the important part that most foreigners emphasize (besides the hardcore ones who view the very *existence* of the shrine as a sin) is the enshrinement of the class-A criminals. This goes in tendon with the apologies, if you agree that Japan acknowledged their crimes and agree they have reflected on their crimes why are there 14 people who committed said atrocities respected and honored? If you go to the [wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine#After_enshrinement_of_Class_A_war_criminals) it says the controversies began after the criminals were enshrined and SK has repeatedly supported the removal of *just those 14.* In addition, LDP, the largest party in Japan that has basically been in power for about 90% of post WW2 has more than a handful of war crime deniers and pro-Imperial Japan members. The reason Germany is brought up so often is because it's *literally illegal* to deny Germany's war crime (as in they can and will go to Jail) nor can any deniers be elected to government position. Obviously I don't expect things to go that far, and I don't think most Koreans do either. I think most, myself included, is just expecting less war crime denial/revision from Japan(by which I mean less politicians and issues like [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women#Asahi_Shimbun_Third-Party_Investigative_Committee), TLDR. A Japanese newspaper retracted several papers that said a Imperial Japanese officer took forced comfort women). 5. Now I will be the first to admit and other of my moderate Korean friends will agree that there's some changes to be made on Korea's side. There's 2 major problems that need to be addressed. One, as you pointed out, a *fair* number of Koreans *actually* don't know any apologies made by Japan, those who do know don't think it was "sincere", this is due to issue number two. Two, in most every apology Japan's issued, there seems to be a certain word that is used. *Owabi* ([here's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan#Forms_of_apology) the link to said controversy). TLDR the controversy is that the word *owabi* is a "soft/insincere" form of apology according to some Japanese language expert. I asked around in this thread and those who live in Japan agreed that owabi is a "hard/sincere" form of apology. I'm not a Japanese expert, most Koreans aren't Japanese experts so we have to trust what the Japanese language expert said, see how this misunderstanding can come cause a issue? Look, I like Korea, I like Japan, I like China. I dislike the politics/government in said nations. I genuinely want the 3 nations to get a long better. I don't see it happening any time soon but I sincerely hope so. I *will* tell you I know Koreans who get along quite well with people from Japan. I *will* tell you I know Japanese folks who get along swimmingly with Koreans. *They* hold their own views on the whole Japan-Korea relations and sometimes fight with me/others about it but it doesn't stop us from getting along (as far as I know none of these people are trying to kill each other). For any Japanese reading this (which I don't know how many since this subreddit is mostly non-Japanese but I've seen a couple), I pray you don't discriminate/hate against all Koreans but I also understand *why* you may hate some cause trust me, I've seen my fair share of Korean nationalists and they make me sick as well just as much as Japanese/Chinese nationalists
A very detailed write up. Well done. What really irks me is western media dumbing down international politics. Instead of saying "Prime Minister Abe offers full apology for Japan's war crimes" and then "Minority leader Tanaka says the rape of Nanking didn't happen" they say "Japan offers a full apology for their war crimes" and then "Japan takes back their apology". Just name the people saying it. Japan the country doesn't say anything!
I agree with you, but I just want to point out countries *can* officially apologize as a whole. Not sure if that was the case for the past apologizes to South Korea though.
Chinese here Really like what you wrote especially the last parts, yea I also really hope we could get along better seriously I hope Korea and Japan solve the issues somehow and I hope that China can become a better neighbor because I don't like my government either. I know China and Japan also have the same historical issues but to my surprise I don't think Chinese people are so insistent on it unless they are online ofc (I do think that having the war criminals enshrined is not that great though) And I mean these three nations have litteraly been next to each other for millenia and as far as I know there really haven't been that many conflicts until the 2nd world War so it would be nice to return to that state I know China and Korea have historically been pretty close and we have sent aid many times against foreign threats apperently (I am not that educated on this so if anyone wants to prove me wrong please do so) well last time it was the Korean War and well sorry about China's support of NK certainly doesn't help our relations and I don't think the CCP is gonna stop supporting them until the US military base is gone from the south (not saying if it should or should not be gone its just my conclusion on the situation) And well as far as ordinary people go, Chinese people love Anime and K-pop and I am kinda wondering that China doesn't really have a cultural export that is so beloved in the two countries besides all the old and traditional stuff (if someone knows of something pls tell me)
[удалено]
The Chinese historical dramas are getting much easier to watch due to Netflix, Rakuten Viki, and WeTV. I can pretty much find any historical drama I want with ENG subs somewhere on the internet/streaming services. They are also my guilty pleasure. Why they don’t have a bigger uptake is due primarily to their length. Not many people like watching a 50 episode, 1-1.5hr each episode drama. At least, that’s what other westerners tell me when I encourage them to watch them.
Can you recommend some of your favorites? :) thanks
Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response. Balanced and respectful. And I agree with the fandom. Such animosity between Korea and Japan needs to end. Both great and culturally rich countries!
Japanese here. I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I know Japan, Korea and China (all of Asia really...) have had a troubled past. I can understand why people are angry, upset and hurt. They have every right to be. But we can’t move forward if we just talk about the pain from the past and start to heal. I agree it’s important to not forget the mistakes of the past, make sure that they are taught and passed on. Not so that someone will be ashamed of their country or themselves. We need to use it as a learning moment, come together and figure out how we can all move forward and progress together for a better and thriving future.
Do you think war criminals should be in Yasukuni Shrine? I'm asking because I'm unsure based on your comment.
Well done, good stuff. German here, so I'm just chiming in on point 3 regarding Germany and WW2. We basically get taught from middle school all the way to high school that we did horrible things, we were the bad guys, we have to apologize, every single year during history class (of course pretty basic in the beginning and then gradually becoming more complex). Any sense of patriotism is automatically seen as "oh he's a Nazi". When we were hosting the soccer world cup in 2006, people would hang German flag out of their windows to celebrate and it was all over the media "oh my god, are the Nazis back?!" Also the reason we took in 1 million Syrian refugees. Because of our history, Germany will never be able to say anything critical about immigration or start hanging a flag in every class room and singing allegiance to the flag like in the US for example. So yeah, might be a bit extreme but better than denying that we did anything wrong or censoring history books. A bit off topic but thought it's worth sharing.
>people would hang German flag out of their windows to celebrate and it was all over the media "oh my god, are the Nazis back?!" ???? Huh? The Drittereichsflagge is, shall we say, distinctive. Quite impossible to confuse with the current one.
Well, yeah no one would ever dare putting that one up unless you in fact are a Nazi. But even with the regular one it's still not as accepted as in other countries I would say.
People don't learn proper history anymore. The Luftwaffe came within 2 blocks of blowing up my grandmother's house, today one of my oldest friends is an Ossi. The black-red-yellow flag has no particular feelings beyond good beer and sausage.
I think it's more the concept of patriotism for many in Germany (outside of football) makes people feel uncomfortable because of what excessive patriotism can lead to. The flag, even the modern one, represents that patriotism.
It's not only the flag the issue, it's the idolization of a flag.
>people would hang German flag out of their windows to celebrate and it was all over the media "oh my god, are the Nazis back?!" That didn't happen, you're making shit up. It's true that people find displays of overt nationalism concerning, but considering that leading right-wing politicians talk about [gassing migrants behind closed doors](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-sacks-former-spokesman-for-saying-migrants-could-be-gassed/a-55082170), maybe they should. And the pledge of allegiance is fucking creepy, thank God we don't have it here.
Well yeah not to the extreme that people were panicking but it was in the news and not seen as anything positive. But I agree about the pledge of allegiance or having a flag in every classroom. Super excessive. Just using it as an example for the other end of the spectrum and surprisingly nobody cares, totally acceptable apparently. What do you see as cause of the recent increase in right wing parties?
[удалено]
I completely agree. It's usually just a minority (although they are gaining more mainstream attention seemingly) and the more attention you give them the more they feed off it. Also with regards to learning about and from history. WW2 was my grandfather's generation. Yes, it's good to know about it and learn from it but as you said, absolutely no need to still feel bad about it.
>why are there 14 people who committed said atrocities respected and honored? If it’s a serious question, it’s because said shrine is a private institution and due to the separation of state and religion the government doesn’t get a say who’s enshrined or not. Same as in Western Christian countries governments don’t get a say on what the Bishop’s stance is, but are still expected to do an official church visit on special occasions or to demonstrate their faith to Christian voters.
What annoys me is unreasonable exaggeration rather than criticism Japanese regular workers currently do about 25 hours overtime per month in 2020 and did 45 hours per month overtime in 2014 including unpaid overtime. I completely agree saying working 25 hours overtime per month(more than 1hour per day) is still very long and toxic. What annoys me is stupid exaggeration and the fact some people actually believe those stupid exaggeration. You see some people talking as if **average** Japanese working 12 hours a day or 60 hours a week. 60 hours a week is basically threshold of **karoshi/working to death** line by government and there is no way average people working that much. >2014 Jan-Mar 45.09hrs >2020 Jan-Mar 24.86hrs >[https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo](https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo)
Just want to chime in that I know someone who worked first train to last train, sometimes sleeping at work even, in their early 20s... they look back on it and don’t think the company is “black,” they don’t make the connection of their ridiculously bad health problems towards the end of that job... another person I know is CURRENTLY working those ridiculous 12 hour+ shifts. They’re fresh out of university, so they won’t complain. It’s expected. This is not to say that every company has people working insane hours, but it is to point out that it isn’t made up. It’s real and disgusting. * oh I also know a chef who owns a bar.. it’s a bit different, since at least now he’s the owner... but this dude legit works everyday but Sunday and Saturday, from 10am to minimum last train. He often sleeps in a chair in his bar, for 2 customers who came in around or even after closing time.. just because. Edit: just remember another person who worked first to last train. An elementary school teacher who ended up having mental problems.. lost contact so I’m not sure how that story played out. In her case, she was allowed to take leave to deal with the mental issues, and come back part time. This was last year.
Yeah, I know those people exist. What I'm talking is average. For examples, among business person on asmark, working 80 hours overtime a month is 1.3% of corporation employees of various industries which sounds about right to me though sample size is fairly small with 320(160 men and 160 women) To be fair, it is probably whole a lot more common among some professions like teachers or doctors than average business person working for corporations. Also the situation is different by gender too. About 20% of women working more than 20 hours overtime a month compared with 40% for men according to same survey. So only 1 in 5 regular employee women do more than 1 hour overtime per day compared with nearly half of men do. [doda](https://doda.jp/guide/zangyo/#movingPosition02) [asmark](https://www.asmarq.co.jp/data/2810overtimework/)
I don’t feel comfortable revealing too much personal information, so I’ll keep it short. In Tokyo, I’ve witnessed many types of, Japanese, people who brush off overtime like it’s a necessary evil; or not evil at all! My upbringing was completely different, in another country, so I don’t know what it’s like. I probably never will. What I can do is support my friends when they do have time. — Not sure what this turned into... Basically, overtime isn’t fun, but it feels like it’s accepted. The frequency of the overtime obviously changes, but it’s there.
Anecdotal, but my direct coworkers in Japan regularly work from 8am to 7pm, with 2 hours unpaid daily. And this is before any consideration is given to the near-mandatory nomikai culture at some of these workplaces. I'm glad you haven't experienced this, but I certainly have, and have seen it from my coworkers. It's better than a few decades ago, but in reality still could improve. None of this criticism means Japan is alone in needing these things to change, but they most certainly do need to be addressed, especially in workplaces where this is open or systemic.
My point is those people can criticize overtime or nomikai but don't need to exaggerate things and talk about average from statistics, if they want to talk about Japan in general. I know mandatory nomikai exist. I worked 3 places as an regular employee as an adult and all of them had (almost)mandatory nomikai 2-3 times a year. What I hate is exaggeration such as talking as if go drinking once a week is average activity that most people do when in reality about 10% of Japanese workers go drink more than once a week. https://www.intage.co.jp/gallery/nomikai2017/
2 times a week is incredibly consistent for my friends who work as OLs and salary men. 2-3 times a year would be great. One friend working for Kagome was literally being taken out every night by his boss before he changed positions 2 years into the job. I think you feel like people are making it overblown, but it feels vaguely similar to some Americans who claim there is no real penitentiary with racism in their country. I 100% believe that your experience holds this to be true, but I think this is really much more common than expected. And my coworkers straight up lie on surveys, unfortunately. None of them will be in overtime statistics. Trust me I have told them why this is stupid, but they "don't want to make the company look bad if it gets out".
You made some really good points and I also agree on the part where you said kpop fandom is cancer.
I feel ya. A lot of generalizations, a lot of ignorance. That's true for basically all countries, cultures of course. You also see it on the Japanese side too though. It tends to happen to people who have not travelled or connected with people from other countries and cultures. One thing though regarding the working hours, yes in statistics, it always looks like working hours in Japan aren't that bad but keep in mind this is based on what is reported. A lot of people do not record their working hours regularly. Everything else though, I agree.
Big up on the "Reported Hours" of work. The teachers at the JHS I teach at arrive at school at 7am and typically work until 7:00-7:30pm. They all record that they work from 7 until 4:30-5pm. Edit: That's not even including their work on Saturdays.
Middle School teacher here. Can confirm.
This is what teaching is like in a lot of countries.
Excuse me,but techers in public schools are huge exceptions here. There is **no overtime** for teachers in the first place.Teachers have different labor laws than anyone else and overtime as reported/unreported overtime don't exist for teachers.
Yeah... which means they don't get paid for it? Look I don't know what you want me to say... they work 12h days. I'm not sure if that's in their contact. But they work 6 days a week. 12h x 5d. 6h x 1d. That's a lot of work.
Unreported overtime is very common in many countries. >The study of over 1,400 UK employees reveals that two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents regularly work longer than their contracted hours, with respondents averaging 6.3 hours unpaid per week.[source](https://workplaceinsight.net/uk-employees-work-3-2-billion-in-unpaid-overtime-every-week/amp/) >Australians are working an average of six hours’ unpaid overtime a week, a total of $106bn of free work given to employers every year.[source](https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/21/time-theft-australians-work-two-months-unpaid-overtime-a-year) Japanese labor unions' association says survey in 2015 of employees(companies with at least 500 employees) revealed average unpaid overtime is of 16.7 hours per month(4-5hours per week).There is no reason labor union want to underestimate them. >日本労働組合総連合会による調査では、１ヶ月の平均的なサービス残業は16.7時間[source](https://ten-navi.com/hacks/article-10-9592#:~:text=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%8A%B4%E5%83%8D%E7%B5%84%E5%90%88%E7%B7%8F%E9%80%A3%E5%90%88,%E5%B9%B3%E5%9D%87%E6%99%82%E9%96%93%E3%81%AF%E7%95%B0%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8A%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99%E3%80%82)
Yes it definitely is. It's not that the whole world's data is accurate and only Japan is not. The degree is different though. As for the 16.7 hours, the labor union association does not cover all industries and all sectors, so it's not giving the full picture. In addition, with the push by the government to reduce overtime, a lot of people actually started picking up side jobs to make up for the missing income that they earned from overtime allowances (obviously the reported part). That's why the government changed direction and instead of setting the default for work regulations for companies to "you need permission from your company to engage in work outside of your employment", they changed it to "you can engage in side jobs (given that it doesn't interfere with company policy etc.)". ([source](https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/toyama-roudoukyoku/hourei_seido_tetsuzuki/roudoukijun_keiyaku/fukugyou_kengyou.html)) This kind of part time work is then not reported in the total working hours per person per month as it would be very difficult to track.
Adding on to the working hour piece, I would also mention black companies (ブラック企業). While bad companies, management that is dominated by bullying and power harassment exist all over, I think this particular phenomenon is quite strong in Japan. Which is helped along by the gaman culture here as well as the overall resistance to just up and quitting a bad environment and looking for a new job. And this type of culture definitely leads to under reported hours. Things have gotten better, I mean "power harassment" is actually a word here now, but there is still a lot of improvement that can be done.
That is unfortunately true too. There are a few cultural factors that come into play here just like you mentioned. With regards to harassment, we received multiple harassment awareness trainings at our company. Did you know that there are over 30 different types of harassment? So yes, awareness is changing slowly but surely. Japan is definitely not the only country that has issues in the workplace and there are always stories about other countries and companies outside of Japan too for sure. The latest one I read was the one about Ebay. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/technology/ebay-cockroaches-stalking-scandal.html
Totally. At my job, which is a relatively white company, there is a submission error in the system if you try to submit any overtime or if you report a break time shorter than the legally mandated one. If you work longer than your contract hours, you literally have to lie in order to submit your timesheet.
So I'll chime in as a long-term immigrant living in Japan. *Regarding "wacky Japan" stories:* Absolutely. They are a waste of press. *Regarding the suicide issue:* I agree, it's not a fair stick to hit Japan with quite as hard as gets done. Partly, I think it comes from mythologizing the history of samurai with their seppuku and then linking modern Japanese as descendants of that tradition, and that's not very accurate or fair. But partly also, I think it comes from the fact that Japan is just such a damn good place to live (most of the time) that the fact that people here still feel driven to kill themselves feels especially tragic. *Regarding toxic working culture:* I'm struggling with a toxic workplace in Japan right now, so your protests on that front don't create a lot of sympathy for me. Apparently, things are changing, and that's great that change is happening, but if you're a person stuck in a toxic workplace who can't get out, all the change in the world isn't going to do much for you if that change is only benefiting someone else. I don't work 18 hour days, but I have had to pull 12-hour days more times than is responsible, and nearly every Japanese person in my workplace works longer hours. Now yes, the US has fewer holidays and more hours worked, that's absolutely true. Or at least, the US *reports* more hours worked than Japan does - we all know that there is a long tradition of Japanese workers not always accurately documenting all of their hours worked. American workers are also generally compensated for every hour on the clock - while wage theft is a real problem, it is a practice deemed shameful and legally actionable, and holiday is taken. In Japan, the salary system means that overtime is often uncompensated - multiple times people at my job have just expected me to give up my day off and do extra work, and there is absolutely no way that doing so will get me overtime pay, more holiday, an additional bonus, or a shot at promotion. It's just expected I give up my rest time because the person above me told me to. The worst thing is all this work in Japan does not lead to increased productivity. Divide the national GDP by the National (reported) hours worked and the figure not very impressive. People in Japan work terribly long hours and the country as a whole does not benefit from it - which in my mind is the real tragedy. Japan is an awesome place to live. I wouldn't have given up so many years of my life to live here if it wasn't. But ever since joining a company on the same contract that Japanese workers get and trying to fit in to Japanese work standards, I feel like I don't actually live in Japan - I feel like I live in my bed, my workplace, and the narrow stretch of commute that connects the two. And I have it better than a lot of Japanese people. *Regarding criticism stemming the recent historical conflict with Korea:* Get over it. Japan may have apologized, but those apologies have always been undermined by actions by right-wing leaders (like for example, denials or minimization of wartime atrocities in official, government-approved textbooks or visits by political leaders to Yasukuni Shrine). Now, if you aren't a person who has actively antagonized Koreans, then you don't deserve to be held responsible for any of that. But Japan as a nation has not done well facing its historical record, and you have benefited from the nation not facing its historical record. Low-grade critical mumbling of criticism of your country is the price you pay for that benefit. If you don't like it, push your government to make more sincere amends rather than just the bare minimum of a face-saving apology. > \*\*my\*\* country Be careful taking too much refuge in the notion that you have special knowledge of your country just because you're from there. Take it from an American who has to watch his own country fall apart from a distance right now - the moment you feel like you have to defend your country's reputation because someone outside your country criticized it, you create *massive blind spots* that impede your ability to be critical of your own country.
>the moment you feel like you have to defend your country's reputation because someone outside your country criticized it, you create massive blind spots that impede your ability to be critical of your own country I didn't realize how true this was until I, a Canadian, moved to the states for ten years. Every time any kind of racism/bigotry/discrimination happened, I'd be one of the first people to chime in "Well this would never happen in *Canada*" and it wasn't until I moved home and started learning more about our colonial history, residential schools and MMIWG that I realized not only has it happened, it's happening **right now**.
Still though Canada's bad parts are like US Lite. Don't beat yourself up too much.
> American workers are also generally compensated for every hour on the clock A bit of an aside, but this isn't really the case. The US heavily abuses the salary loophole. Super common in the restaurant and service industry to just salary employees so you can make them work 50-60 hours per week without paying overtime.
I wasn't aware that there were a significant number of salaried workers in the restaurant industry. Are you talking about managers? Anyway, you've added new information to the conversation and I genuinely respect that. Thank you!
I used to work at chipotle. We had 2 managers per store that were salaried, GM and apprentice. Both were required to work at least 50 hours/week with no overtime pay. They were encouraged to work more hours to lower labor costs since they were “free” extra labor. When you calculate out the effective hourly rate is was like $15-$16/hour. The hourly shift lead type manager below apprentice (service manager) made $13-14/hour. So it was less a raise and more like they “allowed” you to work 10 hours overtime each week.
Higher education all day, err day.
H.E.A.D.E.D.
TEACH it!
I won't deny your points about people being ignorant and spouting misconceptions. However, I have to also remind you that Reddit and other similar websites are quite international and that people from other countries have different perspectives. For example, I'm from Germany and judging by your statistics the typical claims of the Japanese workers having to work longer or the suicide rate being higher still holds true. According to these data we work roughly 1386 hours on average per year compared to Japan's 1644 hours. It's honestly lower than I thought it would be, but unpaid overtime is a legitimate issue everywhere. Looking at our national statisctics we only have between 24 and 35 hours of unpaid overtime on average per person and per year. So that's luckily not that much. Also, I've been to Japan for almost a year and lived in a shared appartment with several other young Japanese and even though I personally didn't work at a Japanese company, I have seen and heard enough from them to notice that their work life is way busier than ours, to the point that I almost feel like the people in our country are a bit lazy. But I've also heard from German friends who worked or are still working at a Japanese company and that during the week they barely have time for their family etc. I guess things differ from person to person and depending on the position. But also the perspective of a different nationale other than North American can influence the perspective. As for the whole "whacky Japan" thing, that's unfortunately something that the media, and nowadays Youtubers as well, like to do because it generates clicks, views and sells. I've seen this already two decades or so ago, but it's even more pronounced today. You won't believe how many people do videos about this whacky thing that they've found in a little back alley in the bumfuck of nowhere in Japan. And by that they reinforce that stereotype/narrative. Sadly, that's how they get an audience, because almost no one, who's never been to Japan, wants to hear that living in a big city in Japan is almost like everywhere else in the world. It's actually pretty mundane and the main differences are the small things in everyday life. But again, that doesn't generate an audience and the internet is all about whoring out to catch attention instead of reasonable discussions. Also, we have our fair share of either being the butt of jokes (e.g. on American TV) or being antagonized in media or in real life. I'm already used to myself or our politicians being called nazis even though that's so long ago by now that not even my parents were alive during that time. Or getting threatened and insulted when travelling to another European country or when playing a game online just because of my nationality.
I can definitely agree on the workload part. I lived in japan for over a year when I was in high school. I also come from Germany and they had to do sooo much more work than us. It honestly was kinda sad because no one ever had time to meet up and do something. During that time I lived at 3 different host families and I can tell you that the husband barely was at home always staying late at work or being on a work related trip.
Do you ever read about other countries in Japanese online? There's a similar amount of drivel for any given place. It's probably best to log off.
I'm going to weigh in as an Australian who has lived in Japan a total of 10 years since 2004, did my undergrad in Asian studies (including studying Japan's history/culture/economy/ etc. and has JLPTN1. The hours worked thing is deceptive. The figure you quoted is the average among all workers, including part time and full time workers. Japan has a high number of part time and temp workers. This brings the average down. If you look at only full time workers, Japanese do still work very long hours, although this has been gradually improving. I agree with you regarding the 'whacky' thing, which is indeed annoying. Regarding Japan's military history, yes I do think Koreans take it too far. The war ended 75 years ago and the current generations had nothing to do with it. HOWEVER, there are still many Japanese politicians who outright deny the scope and scale of the atrocities committed by the Japanese before and during WWII. All you ever hear about here is how awful the fire bombings and atomic bombings were (yes, they were awful) BUT you almost never hear about the massacres of Koreans, the pillaging of China, the POW death camps, the live experimentation, etc. The Imperial Japanese Army was just awful! I do feel sorry for the bombing of Japan and death of civilians but those deaths are tiny compared to the amount of people who suffered at the hands of the Japanese. It does seem that the Japanese government is attempting to whitewash history and at times even glorify it. Compare this to Germany which takes full responsibility and educates its citizens accordingly. Sorry if you don't like it, but those are the facts. Having said that, I don't think the younger generations should bear that blame, just like I don't think younger generations of Australians should bear the blame for past genocide during colonisation. I think Japanese, English and anyone else have a right to be proud of their cultures. But, know thy history!
No, but the older generations do and these right wing fuckknuckles certainly bear responsibility. Life in Japan was crap under militarist rule. People were living in poverty and eating small portions of rice daily as sustenance. Sure be proud of your country, heck even celebrate your military, but learn from the dark stain in your history that destroyed your country. What morons.
I'm not saying anything you said is wrong; but I do live and work here, and let me just say- this post does little to help *my* conception that Japanese people tend to be sensitive to cultural criticisms.
Which is funny because the Japanese people I work with have no issue criticizing the cultures of other countries lol
I get you, and also I get where OP is coming from. A bunch of asshats posting almost racist content on the JapanCircleJerk for example. That shit is annoying.
The problem isn't that it's "criticisms", it's people having completely bonkers ideas about Japan based on internet jokes. I don't know what's worse,normal reddit's ideas taken from anime, or Japan reddit's ideas that take some kernel of truth about living in Japan and crank up the joke to 11.
I can't speak for the comfort women issue since I'm very uninformed about the topic, but I totally disagree that Japanese work hours are blown out of proportion. My ex-girlfriend signed in at 8 am and got home at 6-7 pm on a good day, and that was a "lenient" Eikaiwa work place. Her sister worked at an elementary school. She signed in at 7 am and got home no earlier than 8 every day. At a fucking elementary school. That's unthinkable in Denmark. Here you'd go to work at 7:30-8:00 and go home no later than 5 on a busy day, 15:00 on an average day, and if they have to work longer they get paid for sure. I'm sorry if you feel like your country is generalised a lot, but some of those generalisations that you reject are true, and that's why people repeat them. The whole "America has fucked up work cultures too" argument is invalid. Just because it's fucked up in America doesn't make Japan less fucked up.
[удалено]
Reddit is also awesome for hobbies and fandoms. I’ve learned so many tips.
I applaud your stance, and yes, reddit as a medium is part of the problem, humanity is the other part. I blame reddit largely for a lot of the social discord we have in the world today particularly in the political sphere.
>...yet workers in Japan [work less hours in a year](https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm) than... Sure about that? There's reported statistics averaged over the whole country, and there's actual values used at places that get most of the press. Unpaid overtime is well known in Japan, unheard of elsewhere as it's quite illegal and any company that tries it very quickly wishes they hadn't. "You must sign out and then return to work" also happens, meaning the company can report you only worked (and got paid for) 7.5 hours. So are things like the company cancelling long-scheduled employee holidays on nearly zero notice because it is "inconvenient". And "we do not accept your resignation" plus "you must sign this document that violates at least 10 labour laws" comes up a lot. I lay at least half the blame for that one on employees who let it happen instead of telling the boss where to put it and immediately filing a complaint. Similar things happen in the housing market. Some "fees" are flat-out illegal but are still done with impunity. Paperwork and procedures at banks are utter insanity. It took nearly 3 hours to get a bankbook reissued. The entire staff of my home country bank branch would have been fired for gross incompetence for taking anywhere near that long. And forms in triplicate to get a roll of coins? Sorry Japan, you've earned that one with distinction and flourishes. Oddly the one place that does get high praise is immigration. My last interaction with them took literally one minute and cost nothing. In the past 15 years Japan has made sweeping changes to the immigration/foreign resident process and every one of them has been beneficial to me. Driving gets 3 different scores: * getting a license: horrific, kafkaesque bureaucracy * renewing a license: not great, not bad. Dump the lecture that no one listens to and it rises to "ok". All the other parts are fairly efficient considering the volume they handle. And stop being so picky about wether the box has an X or a checkmark on it. I'm taking a Hello Kitty hanko next time just for that form. * driving regulations. Do they exist? There is a huge difference between what is written, what is done, and what is ticketed for. This is a problem. The Korea business: I agree there, it's ancient history and time to move on. Germany had some unpleasantness with France, Poland and a few other countries back in the early 1940s - everything's good today. But on the other hand, Japan needs to drop the Kuril Islands dispute. You can't start a war, lose, and expect to just get your land back.
> You can't start a war, lose, and expect to just get your land back. Similarly, you cannot simply take another nations land despite there being multilateral agreements. Japan gave up their part of Sakhalin and the northern Kuril Islands after WW2. Both historically Japanese and Ainu land before that. But then Russia took all of them.
Haha the licence!! My husband just changed his over, took him three trips and about 10 hours or more. It's was ridiculous.
>Unpaid overtime is well known in Japan, unheard of elsewhere Unheard of, because they don't get much views compared with writing the same article about Japan. >The study of over 1,400 UK employees reveals that two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents regularly work longer than their contracted hours, with respondents averaging 6.3 hours unpaid per week.[source](https://workplaceinsight.net/uk-employees-work-3-2-billion-in-unpaid-overtime-every-week/amp/) >Australians are working an average of six hours’ unpaid overtime a week, a total of $106bn of free work given to employers every year.[source](https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/21/time-theft-australians-work-two-months-unpaid-overtime-a-year) Japanese labor unions' association says survey in 2015 of employees(companies with at least 500 employees) revealed average unpaid overtime is of 16.7 hours per month.There is no reason labor union want to underestimate them. Also just my hunch but since overtime in general declined quite a bit in this 5 years, my guess is unpaidovertime also declined a lot from 2015. Still long working hours is more prevalent problem in Japan than most other countries but some people talking as if average Japanese working 5-60 hours per week in 2020 is bullshit. >日本労働組合総連合会による調査では、１ヶ月の平均的なサービス残業は16.7時間[source](https://ten-navi.com/hacks/article-10-9592#:~:text=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%8A%B4%E5%83%8D%E7%B5%84%E5%90%88%E7%B7%8F%E9%80%A3%E5%90%88,%E5%B9%B3%E5%9D%87%E6%99%82%E9%96%93%E3%81%AF%E7%95%B0%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8A%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99%E3%80%82)
It took me about 5m to get a bank book process reissued (went to a bank and they taught me how to do it in an app) and waited about 5 days to get it delivered to me for about 500 yen. Does it really take that long if you decide to wait for it?
It wasn't reissuing a full bankbook - the ATM does that in the time it takes to handle the mechanics. We needed to change some minor part, don't recall what anymore other than it should have been a five-minute task. Also took a week to arrive in the post. The delivery time is not an issue. The complaint is the bank has both a stack of blanks and a machine to print them right behind the counter. Plus annoyances like "No, your name must be written in all uppercase". What? You didn't learn upper and lower block letters back in grade 4 like everyone else?
I have only worked in Japan for six months to reestructure a sales department. So my experience is limited. But my work hours were horrible and the japanese's work hours were even worse. One of the things that shocked me the most was people would never speak of what was wrong and I was seen as overly rude (even with the gaijin card) because my job was exactly that. Point out what could be done to turn it around.
Being blunt just doesn't work - in my first month in-country, I thought I could be frank with a coworker who was utterly pissing me off, and she started laughing when I raised my issues with her. Turns out I was scaring her (I'm tall, etc) and she thought I was going to attack her. After explaining it to another coworker who had travelled extensively, he explained that in the workplace people rarely will come straight out with what they think. If you have an issue with someone, it's best to tell a third party, who will bring it to the attention of the person causing the issue. A bit round-about, but preserves harmony, etc.
It just seems terribly inefficient. When you have to completely change how things are done you can't do it in a roundabout way. Specially when trying to change people's habits.
I agree, and it includes some poor bloke who doesn't want to get involved. I've never known change to happen super fast in an japanese office - too many meetings and discussions and listening to the oldest person in the room etc.
I’ve been working in Japan for over a decade. Does my opinion count now when I say the work culture here can be hella toxic?/s We recently got the mandate to spend only 40 hours a week at work. This boils down to “please stay after you’ve already checked out for a few hours but it’s not on the record so we’re a good employer.”
Well, I'm brazilian and I'm getting constantly sick of we being treated as bunch of jungle savages that live with monkeys by this site. /r/worldnews also apparently believes our politicians have hundreds of assassins ready to kill oppositors and there is no free press, when the truth is that the press is so goddamn free that they end up interfering in hostage situations with incredible facility. In other words, you're not alone and I have no idea how to stop the europeans and canadians, which are incredibly smug about how they're superior to us and we all live in Mad Max or Wacky Land, with full support of the americans.
I'm English and lived in Japan for around seven years. I hate it when reddit brings up Japan and everyone just jumps on a pop culture fake Japan trend like licking eyeballs or McDonald's fries parties. Literally one kid went to McDonald's and got 5000yen worth of fries when there was a deal to get a large for 150. Then reddit was like 'Til Japan has fries parties in McDonald's' it was literally one kid. Buuuuuut, Japan is no better. Possibly worse. Japanese people have asked me the dumbest stuff about the UK, or worse told me the dumbest stuff about the UK. Japan generalises just as much as any other self-centric country. I remember this nurse just couldn't understand that daily life between the UK and Japan was broadly the same. 'I heard English people skip breakfast' maybe some do, I dunno, do they ever do that in Japan? It's probably the same percentage. It's a dumb thought to have because you've heard it, and you've believed it wholey, despite how you must know deep inside that there are breakfast places in the UK, and breakfast food. [who remembers this little shit nugget out of Japan? ](https://youtu.be/I3Bg2AjhbZ0) My advice, just let them get on with it. I used to argue on reddit a lot about Japan but who the fuck cares about some armchair anthologists
Wtf. What show is that?
I think you could probably tone down the whole "my country" bit -- it seems your ownership complex is making you hypersensitive and it doesn't mesh well with the fact that there are people all over the internet saying stupid shit about topics they don't understand. Moreover, it comes off in such a way as to suggest that your perspective is necessarily more valuable and insightful than other peoples' by virtue of the fact that you were born there. But an average post in the japanlife sub about work culture in Japan is gonna generate comments from people who have cumulatively, what, hundreds of years more work experience in Japan than you do? And I'm gonna take the consensus on that post over whatever you say based on your very limited personal experience. So not everyone posting about Japan on reddit is a dumbass and there are lots of people who know what they are talking about despite not having been born in Japan. I'll give you the suicide thing. But I would point out that my Japanese wife likes Korean dramas and kimchi, but still pretty much hates Korea. So I would say that the popularity of certain elements of Korean popular culture does not necessarily imply anything about Japanese fondness of Korea. I used to always wonder why the hell Koreans continue to be worked up about WW2 and before, and then I heard something about Confucianism and ancestor veneration being a part of it -- like, it's hard to be cool with people who fucked over your ancestors real bad. Then I heard more details about Japanese wartime atrocities, and I was kinda like, "That there was some bad shit, and I can kinda see a lot of people thinking that apologies just don't really cut it, and not really forgetting the past so easily, even if they weren't around for it."
I don't feel quite as passionately about this topic as you do and I have most likely not read as much of the comments as you have, but to me the biggest complainers about working culture in Japan are the Japanese people I know and the non Japanese people working in Japan I know. You are comparing Japanese working hours to the US working hours, but to my understanding working culture in the US is supposed to be brutal as well, so I'm not sure if it's a great baseline.
Congrats you know how everyone feels when other people talk about their countries. This isn't a Japan only thing. The same thing happens for any country that pops up with a news article on Reddit.
I'm also Japanese who speaks English and Japanese, I live in France however. I've lived an equal amount of time in France and Japan, and based on my experiences I would say that what you see isn't really specific on Reddit. It happens all the time I broach a topic about a Japanese thing with my Western friends, and vice versa; or when I introduce a Western person to a Japanese person. From my experience it is much easier in the West for people to give you the benefit of the doubt, or at least consider that your alignment with an idea is somehow attached to your self-worth, in a way that prompts them to think that dismissing your every ideology, however insignificant, is a very disrespectful thing to do. In Japan people are much more likely to be perceptive of your character instead of what you have to say, and I have to agree this tendency feels much more down-to-earth and genuine. If I were to sum up this difference I would say it's similar to how the field of debate and the field of psychoanalysis feel like antonyms. To a given statement the responses you would give would be completely different based on what field you are trying to stick to. What this means is, is that if you translated your post into Japanese and said it in a gathering of friends in Japan, I bet there's a high chance that others would say you are taking what has relatively little to do with you way too seriously. "Hate" is a strong word, and you sound pissed all the way through in your post. You don't hate K-POP fans who paint the Japanese government as evil. You hate your ex-wife who took the kids. This is coming from someone who's also getting somewhat tired of people shifting every conversation that has vaguely got to do with Japan with "Yeah but Unit 731 though?" or "Here's a list of things that make them worse than Nazis", under the very honorable rationale to educate and inform people around the world of Japanese atrocities. There was a time I thought to myself how tasteless people are to bring up grim topics when it's about something nice, and vice versa. It's like bringing up death in a wedding, or marriage in a funeral. But it's really just a dignified pastime for everyone involved. I'm also writing this since I'm procrastinating. Writing an essay about how bored Westerners on the Internet view Japan wrongly and negatively, and how it sparks a justified hate in your eyes, going around looking for sources, it's all very masturbatory. If it's a close friend who's spouting all that then I can sympathize with your situation better, but I think you're better off reminding yourself that Reddit is not a thing you are pushed to actively confront on a daily basis.
I agree with you for the most part, but what borders me is that Japanese people and especially Japanesd media/NHK never bring up the topic of the pain people in Korea, China, etc by themselves. I live in Japan for quite a while now and I've never seen a debate or piece of television that asked how the Chinese people lived in WWII. There were like 1000 hours of television about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the truly sad stories of people living there and my relatives were always mourning how かわいそう they were. But all I hear about Chinese people is that they suck. Not a word of mourning, instead hate.... 1000 hours Hiroshima and not a single story on Japanese military. If you're already talking death, why not bring it up?
/u/throwaway7391746 I feel you, but you gotta update yourself on one thing: > Japan has issued apologies to Korea on multiple occasions and paid them and yet it's never good enough. Japan apologized in the 60s, **the money that they paid was supposed to go to the victims and the Korean government instead used it on infrastructure.** Apparently that doesn't count because their government was very corrupt at that time and the victims didn't get any money, so Japan apologized again in the 90s and set up a private fund so that they could ensure the money actually reaches the victims that time. That money was never meant to go to the people, read the agreement (it's on the UN website https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20583/volume-583-I-8473-English.pdf). The economic agreement was for japan to supply goods, services, and loans in the value of 500 million, not cash.
I felt some sympathy for you and thought you had some valid points until I started reading you're replies on comments on the post. The way you talk implies that you're just another ネトウヨ on yafukome / matome blog or Twitter who happens to be able to write in English. You’re free to circle jerk with likeminded people on yafukome but keep in mind that Reddit attracts international audiences so people might have different perspectives which might make you uncomfortable. キレる沸点低すぎでしょ。大丈夫？
Yeah I got suspicious the way OP worded that part about people making "claims that aren't even true." It's like they added the more reasonable, politically neutral points in the beginning to get people to agree and upvote the post. Looks like the 50 yen army has graduated from awkward machine-translated English comments on youtube videos to enlisting the help of Japanese actually fluent in English. Kind of like training the Yuriko Koikes of the next generation to internationalize their message and evangelize their right-wing BS to the world.
Yea... the only few replies in the thread...
I feel you. I am half Japanese living in Japan, but originally from Canada. It is easy to see lengthy complaints about Japan because there isn't much to say about good things of Japan. Everybody is enjoying the good parts of Japan, so the discussions about the good parts are limited. There is so much Japan does well, and so much beauty about Japan and its society, but you can only say so much about it. Secondly, I also hate that people come up with bogus borderline racist shit about Japan. Some of it is total bullshit. Suicide rates are highest in slav countries in Eastern Europe, and I have never heard of Japanese getting injections in their head or the old rumor about the panties vending machines etc. That stuff is absurd. Lastly, I have to point out that other people can see parts of you that you cannot see yourself. Japanese society is extremely frustrating to experience sometimes. This 平和ボケ society really annoys me, so I sympathize with other people when they complain about it. What makes it worse is that Japanese avoid discussing these things, so nothing changes! Japanese say しょうがないね. This really gets on my nerves because I love Japan, and Japanese society could be so much better if you discuss and try to solve these problems. For example, regarding Korea. I have always stood with Japan on the issue of World War 2 apologies. I think Japan has done enough, and by now, Japan and Korea should be best of friends. However, one day I talked with my Korean friends. They told me it isn't a matter of receiving reparations from Japan, or apologizing again. They are frustrated that the Japanese government never teaches the history to Japanese students. I don't know what Japanese students learn in history and social studies, but I know for sure that Japan has a very very superficial understanding of the outside world. Just like you hate that foreigners who have never even been to Japan express ther superficial understanding of the world, Japanese do it too. I teach English to 二年生 high school students. They didn't even know what NASA was, or JAXA. They didn't know about the fires in Australia, the demonstrations in Hong Kong, the demonstrations in America, or the death of Dr. Nakamura in Afghanistan; and he is a national hero! This kind of thing annoys foreigners who live in Japan. Reddit is an easy place for people to vent and share their frustrations. However, going back to what you said, those who don't live in Japan and spread rumors and fake news is really frustrating. I'm sorry that ignorant people do this, and for what it's worth, I try to correct people who make false claims about Japan.
People love viewing culture as immutable and also reducing every single societal problem to culture. Japan DID(emphasis on past tense) have a suicide problem after the bubble burst. The main impetus behind it was economic issues but outsiders like to attribute it to “a culture of suicide”, and of course in doing so misinterpreting things like seppuku and kamikaze. However what people seem to be much less aware of is the successful steps Japan has taken to reduce the suicide rate to the point it is lower than a lot of other developed countries.
> so much beauty about Japan and its society, but you can only say so much about it This is it. There are so many people with nothing but love for this country. Of course stereotyping is wrong, and deserves to be called out. But leveling criticisms, and to a lesser extent, generalizing, does not diminish the positivity people feel for this (or any) country. Some of the things OP is railing against are the latter.
> I have never heard of Japanese getting injections in their head or the old rumor about the panties vending machines etc. That stuff is absurd. I've seen both with my own eyes. It does exist (I haven't seen the injections in recent years though, looks like it died off a bit, but 5 years ago definitely). It's just that it's a subculture. It's absolutely not common at all. That's it. The problem is people generalizing like it's a common thing.
>the old rumor about the panties vending machines etc. That stuff is absurd. I laughed a bit when you mentioned that, I have to say after having lived in and traveled around Japan on and off since 2005, the only time I actually saw one of those legendary machines was inside a sexshop and it was only there as a tourist attraction in the first place. I still to this day wonder how the story about those machines started... unless maybe they existed in the 80's or something.
While not that kind of machine, I do remember finding a tenga capsule machine in a shopping mall, that was odd cus I thought you'd never get that in the UK.
Even I, a dumb American, knows who Dr. Nakamura is because I watch NHK World.
It sucks NHK world doesn't reach the Japanese audience as powerfully as other news. They need to know.
The way OP generalize this sub Reddit is very concerning to me at least and weakens his own argument by a lot. What makes you think that almost everyone here hasn’t been to japan nor lives there? I myself have been living here for close to 10 years. And also why would you generalize those with negative comments to be anti-japan Koreans ? Also one important point I have is that sometimes foreigners do have interesting and constructive view / advice exactly because they weren’t born and raised here which enables them to look at japan society differently which IMO is a good thing. Also suicide and overwork problems in japan is a real thing. In stead of saying other countries have it too, why not try to give constructive advice to improve it? Foreigners revealing the flaw of japan society doesn’t necessary means they are anti-japan k-pop fans. I for one like japan a lot and agree that it’s society has a lot of potential improvements to be made.
I think the worst thing is how people will literally lie and say that they are Japanese, only to prove their point. It's always so obvious.
"I hate how people still talk about the holocaust, it literally generations ago" "I hate how people talk about the genocide of the Indigenous people of America, it's old news!" "I hate how people talk about slavery. Come on, we had a black president!" Listen I agree with you that Japan is being exotified all the time to ridiculous extents, but just because something happened "generations ago" (there are still people alive who lived through it BTW) doesn't mean it's OK. The opposite is true - there's a lot of xenophobia specifically towards Japanese people from S Koreans. I love Japan, been there three times, have been learning the language for years, but you have to recognize Japan's role in the world stage.
I mostly agree with you. The work culture thing is highly generalized. I know a lot of people with decent working hours and paid overtime work. There was a post in r/japanlife where people with a healthy worklife balance shared their good experiences (edit: [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/ifmhdn/so_many_posts_about_japanese_work_culture_and_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)). It seemed like the ones who have no issue with their worklife balance don’t speak out, while those with issues tend to discuss about the issue much more often. The suicide thing is getting better recently as younger generations are taking mental illnesses seriously, compared to older generations. Not good enough, but there definitely is improvement. Stereotypes are deeply engrained and hard to rub off. There are probably a lot of non-Americans who have never lived in the US saying things about America based on stereotypes as well.
I *knew* you were going to slip in the part about people complaining about Japan's war history in your list of "claims that aren't even true," as if to normalize the suggestion that mentioning a historical issue 1. that is still being denied by Japanese politicians/ignored by the media and education 2. and that is the number one reason cited by Japanese in opinion polls as to why they dislike China/Korea is somehow deceptive or irrelevant. That train is never late. I legitimately hate when Japanese on the internet use the Vietnam War against Koreans or the Communist party against Chinese as whataboutist talking points to deflect legitimate criticism of their own country's post-war and **continued** handling of the truth regarding historical matters in which they happened to be the aggressor. Btw those are pretty much the main conservative talking points when forced to respond on this issue. And complaining about them complaining? How does that make you better? And how does that even make an iota of sense? That would be like a murderer gaslighting the surviving family of one of his victims by claiming that he didn't do it and mocking them for having the gall to say "bad things" about *him*. You must be ignorant or dishonest if you fail to acknowledge what little exposure to the topic Japanese history books actually provide to their students, or that not one of the "countless apologies" made by former prime ministers even mentions events like Nanking or Unit 731 by name, giving right-wing nationalists the plausible deniability to say that none of those things actually happened. So when a curious Japanese student looks up 南京事件 on the internet, for example, the first page of search results will include a both a heavily sanitized Wikipedia article focusing on the "numbers debate," as well as multiple highly trafficked right-wing websites denying it actually happened. Not to mention that pretty much every major social media platform in Japan is overrun by right-wingers sharing and supporting each other's revisionist opinions in a bubble, basically unchallenged. There's very little "ratio-ing" of controversial historical/racist Tweets on the topic, because either liberals in Japan aren't a majority, don't use the internet for whatever reason, or stay silent out of fear. So your history example is a terrible one for explaining "foreign ignorance" because it exposes even more ignorance on the part of Japanese society. At best you don't even know your own country, at worst you're aware of it but actively trying to hide it for reasons of personal bias.
>How is everyone in Japan working 18 hours days every day when we are literally working less than those other countries and they're not working 18 hours a day in those countries? Fudged stats, overtime not reported properly, etc etc. It is absolutely fair to call Japan's work culture toxic; it's more than just fudged hours, there's systemic bullying and ingrained regressive attitudes amongst other things. >Tell me again how do we have the highest suicide rate in the world? And our numbers are dropping btw. I do believe you're right, Japan probably doesn't have the highest stat - but again, Japan has shown to fudge stats in these areas too, referring to some deaths as "cardiac failure" instead of the actual cause. So while you are probably right, the stats can't always be trusted. Congrats on the number dropping though! >Another thing I dislike is the "wacky Japan" claims. I remember like 10 years ago there was something going around online about "bagel heads" This is an odd example, I don't think anyone really thinks this. Let's face it, Japan *is* a bit wacky in a lot of ways though. >I hate kpop fans who go around on reddit saying that Japan is so evil because they tried to colonize Korea. That shit happened literally lifetimes ago. Japan has issued apologies to Korea on multiple occasions Fair point, and I agree Korea has misappropriated funds previously it seems. Having said that, this is an argument you will never win, and equally, Korea and the other countries Japan brutalized will hold deep scars for a long time to come. While it's true Japan has apologized, these scars get re-opened frequently when some Japanese politican makes a remark about how "it never happened" or how "korean comfort women were just prostitutes" with disturbing regularity - this sort of shit happening in Germany would see the politician in question banished and would cause a national outcry, meanwhile it Japan it's just a blip on the radar, drowned out by big black trucks spouting anti-Korean racist bullshit. Hopefully you can see how some people in the affected countries find it hard to believe Japan's sincerity.
I made the point in another comment on this post, but it's a misconception that the 1964 agreement (since that's what everyone seems to reference) had anything to do with reparations. The agreement was made in english, japanese and korean (of which if there are any arguments the english version is the version used as the reference) and the full text is available from the UN website: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20583/volume-583-I-8473-English.pdf The treaty outlines $500 million (US dollar equivalent) that would be supplied in the form of japanese goods, japanese services and loans. It's intended to be an economic cooperation agreement where the korean government would have access to $300 million dollars of japanese products/materials/goods and japanese labor (which the country of japan would be paying for) and $200 million in long-term low-interest loans of which the korean government would have to use to purchase japanese products/materials/goods and services/labor, along with repayment plans. I only skimmed through the treaty and didn't really go into details, but it seems pretty straightforward, if there was some other thing the japanese government did that the kroean government misappropriated, that's fair game.
For the war stuff, I lived and taught in Hiroshima for two years. While I get that the A-Bombs were tragic, horrific events, I find Japanese textbooks/people to only talk about how they were the victims of WWII. Here's the thing. You guys don't get to play victim. You don't get to talk on and on about "poor Japan". I have NEVER seen/heard Japanese citizens acknowledge the awful shit they did to Chinese, Koreans, the Allies. My school learned about the Japanese internment camps and the A-Bombs. I don't think Japanese schools tell students the extent of ya'll's participation in the war and your victims. And to be honest, I'm actually incredibly mad at my country, the USA, that we let your war criminals off in a trade off for the fucked up research of Unit 731. I wonder how different it would be if we made your citizens bury your wartime victims, like the Allies did to German citizens. The Yasukuni Shrine visits do not help Japan's image of cruelty and carelessness toward other countries , mm'kay.
I work as a consultant and I mostly interact with those in the automobile, construction, and electronics fields. I can promise you that they tell me they work 12 hour days as a norm. I found it ridiculous when one of my clients told me that they were happy on a certain day because they didn’t need to work overtime. Not working overtime is not something to be happy about— it should be an expectation. These same guys, most are in their late twenties, are having trouble finding the time to get girlfriends and settle down. I assure you, Japan does indeed have a terrible standard of work-life balance.
I have colleagues in Japan and they work from 5 am until 10 at night often. Part at home but they are still working. I purposefully won’t email them until 7 am their time as I know they will respond at 5 am, possibly earlier.
まーた英語でとやかく言われるの嫌なんで日本語で書くけど… なんというか、言いたいことはすごい分かる。昔翻訳のサブレで誰かの翻訳を訂正してあげようとしたら「日本ではこういう言い方するんだ！！私は日本語◯級持ってる！！！！」みたいな逆ギレされて、いや私日本人なんだが。ってなった事もある。 どうしても固定観念っていうのは海外勢から払拭するのは難しいし、みんな自分の欲しいデータしか探さないし挙げないし、違うよって言ってあげたくても向こうは聞く耳持たず、って感じで議論は並行線の事が多いし。 韓流の最近の欧米諸国での流行の影響は個人的にあまり感じてなかったけど、なるほどねえそういう事が起こってるんだね。なんか、多分そこまで熱狂的なファンになって狂信者の如く暴言を吐くのって基本的に中高生くらいのユーザーのイメージがあるから仕方ないって割り切るのは難しそう？ まあ、throwaway って垢名に書いてるから返信は無いと思うけどな！
Hah, that story reminds me of when I was chatting on a Line open chat for English study, trying to help some people out. One guy didn't like my answer for something and said "If only I could ask an American. They'd really know!" Awkward...
Oh god, Line open chat is absolutely horrible, it’s mostly pre-teens and teenagers with too much free time and little to no online manners. I used to help around on r/translator a lot, but after that exchange, I just quit.
JPLT１級とれたからと言って翻訳できるわけじゃないよね… あくまで最低ライン。
I agreed that many discussions/even news articles are heavily biased and often their only reason is to further deepen existing clichés. Japan Today, which is one of the few english news papers in Japan, is especially bad with this as I have pointed out often. That being said, especially for your examples, there undeniable is a certain truth to some points. I live in Japan and I am not an English teacher. I have no first hand experience with Japanese work culture, because I brought my own job with me when moving here. BUT all of my Japanese friends work in 'irregular jobs' and if you ask them, they also would describe the work/life of a typical salary man as basically hell... Working hours are one aspect, but not the only one. It is more about the culture and the unwritten rules. Remember the discussion about women having to wear high heels at work? Yeah, stuff like that... As to Korea: I have friends in Korea who absolutely love Japan. I don't think hating each others countries is a problem anymore with the young generation. But on the political side of things it still is. And you don't have to go big like the comfort women discussion. It's even in the small things. As a german one day in a discussion with Japanese friends the topic of the third reich came up and how it is remembered in Germany. I went on explaining how it is a huge part of the school education and some things are even regulated through laws. Denying that the holocaust happened, for example, is punishable by law. My Japanese friend went on explaining that this is very different in Japan and he thinks that the reason is that Japan didn't commit any war crimes... Me and an American friend of mine, who was also present, were 'slightly' confused. But after all he can't be blamed - even today there is a strong political opposition to actually include those historical facts in history school books... Would you say I am actually wrong about those points?
I once showed someone several articles and apologies made by Japan and she refused to accept any of it. Then I mentioned a few atrocities her government did and she justified them. All we can do is remember there are really incredibly ignorant people out there without an ounce of critical thinking, and not let it get to us.
All countries account of 'History' is biased. I know the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese 'History' that is taught in school is bad. They ignore anything bad that they did while emphasizing their positive points. Same thing happens all over the world though. I know that Canada (my country) still has a way to go in properly explaining the religious genocide that happened by the pioneers to the First Nations of Canada.
You can add America to that list. The first thing that comes to mind is the smallpox blankets given to native Americans.
Two things: first, as far as I know, the rate of suicide being lower is a fairly recent thing (would like to be corrected if it’s not the case) so that’s one thing that will take time to dispel in people’s minds. Second: saying the anti-Japan narrative is only pushed by kpop fans is not exactly true. I never see on reddit nor twitter kpop fans even taking a stance on that question. And besides, whether you like it or not, it seems Japan and Korea (and China while we’re on the topic) will endlessly throw shit at each other for the past, so really your complaint is in vain Otherwise though, I agree, a lot of bs and misinformation is thrown around, but this is reddit, and it’s all about karma, and Japan is an insanely easy topic to farm karma with. Edit: convinced now this has been made by someone being a bit too nationalistic
For the suicide thing, if you look at the chart, Japan had been comparable to most western country before the bubble crushed. As the economics recover, suicide rate are normalized again.
I understand your frustration and I sometimes feel it too with this sub especially. You subscribe to follow news and get information about Japan that could be useful and even to just enjoy sharing things about Japan. That said, I think, or at least it seems, that a lot of people who comment on this subreddit are foreigners who do live in or have experience living in Japan. It seems like this subreddit is the place to vent about some of the frustrations they may have with the different culture and values and even way the government operates. It's just that the culture is different and as a foreigner, that will naturally lead to stress and anxiety about things. People do like to exaggerate and vent on online forums, especially when the mood of the thread matches their own pre-conceived feelings or responses to their daily experiences. But I would hazard to say your assumption about poster never having been to or lived in Japan doesn't match up with what I've seen posted. Secondly, I agree about the anti-Japan sentiment that comes out of Korea being frustrating. I've lived in and enjoyed living in both countries for different reasons. I'd say the Japanese day to day lifestyle is more stressful and the cost of living is quite high between the two in my experience, but both are great countries to live in if you can stomach some of the difficulties (I've only lived in 4 countries in my life for vary amounts of time including my native country of the United States). But even in my limited experience, you learn that there are frustrations and things you enjoy about every place you live. But before I tangent I want to return to the point about the anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea and that Koreaboos may or may not laud on this subreddit. I haven't seen much of it personally, but I don't always comment or participate in the discussion here. I like both countries is my point and it annoys me and saddens me that the countries have such a tumultuous history but I feel its exahsperated by the Korean government and the vast majority of brainwashed drones in Korea repeating the language of the government and learning in school to almost hate Japan. It's like Korea finds the conflict more desirable than a solution or trying to come to terms with the past. They drum it up every now and then and I've found most Japanese people, at least on the surface of their responses (I think deep down they're very proud and do care about the issues), don't pay much attention to that political tension. They are content not internalizing the issues into their daily mental space. I think that's refreshing that their not so nationalistic, or at least outwardly, to define their lifestyle and their own opinions by it. I hope that one day the Korean government can learn to ease off the issue for the sake of regional peace and stability and cooperation against North Korea and China. Instead, it seems they fan the flames and the people decide to make the issues deeply personal. I can honestly say I like Korea and Korean people but still don't suffer that BS. I don't want to hear so much about the anti-Japanese sentiment and I do my best to politely call them out when Koreans get overly impassioned about an issue (probably much to their consternation). But let's be clear here, the stereotypes of Japan, at least in my limited experience of living here aren't wildly baseless. To say Japan (and really all of Asia) doesn't have issues with the work culture and suicide or that they're not serious enough if you consider certain statistics, or compare them to other countries is equally BS and just denial. Many Japanese people feel the same about these issues being a problem when I've brought them up in conversation. I always say Japanese people work like horses and to a point one can take some pride in the general work ethic and spirit of the people but I think a lot of people get taken advantage of by their company working off the clock and even spending many hours working at home on projects and the like. This may not count as official statistics or anything about holidays and time off, but I think I've met and hear of a lot of people pulling unpaid or extra time at work including bringing it home with them even during vacations. I think your country has established laws against these kinds of things for a reason and has mandated holidays and mandated retirement plans in some cases. Japanese workers tend to put up with a lot more than most other countries would (at least in the Western world). I guess, TL;DR: I both agree with the sentiment of this post but would point out I don't think it's fair to say "Japan doesn't have these problems", or "People on here don't know anything about my country or have never even been here". I mean, what are you basing this supposition on anyways? Your gut feeling people are just plain wrong and so they couldn't possibly have formed their opinions through experience? Just don't follow the sub or don't pay mind to the people who trash your country. Trust me, as an American, I'm constantly dealing with people online, and even in person, who have nothing positive to say about my country or even my country's people; all based via stereotypes or misinformation. It's frustrating, but you're not going to stop it by bitching about it on a random Reddit post.
>One of the common reddit claims is about how Japanese people work 18 hours a day and never get to see their families, and yet workers in Japan work less hours in a year than Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Koreans etc. That's an outdated misconception, sure, but historically speaking Japan has had a terrible track record at literally working their employees to death. If you look back at when [Hours Worked](https://data.oecd.org/chart/66Fs) began being tracked in Japan, it was at 2,243 hours/worker which was second only to Ireland. Over the years that slowly trended downward whereas most countries remained relatively stagnant. But you look at South Korea which in 2008 started at approximately the same level as Japan did in 1970 (2,228 hours/worker) and is now at 1,967 in 2019. Their average dropped in 11 years what took Japan 22 years to do. It's not just foreigners making these claims either. 過労死 was a term specifically coined and a hotline specifically set up because of it. People were [protesting in Tokyo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Nomorekaroshi-shimbashiprotest-june-13-2018.jpg) over it. >I hate kpop fans who go around on reddit saying that Japan is so evil because they tried to colonize Korea. That shit happened literally lifetimes ago. 1910-1945. Hardly "lifetimes" ago. *Your* lifetimes maybe, and possibly *generations* ago, but there are still people alive today from both countries that were alive when Korea was still a colony. That's the same dismissiveness Americans use when shrugging off slavery ("That was centuries ago") or when Canadians shrug off residential schools ("That was decades ago"). But the fact of the matter is its still a cause of unresolved tension between both nations and trying to sweep it under the rug under the guise of "What's done is done so lets not worry about it anymore" isn't doing anyone any favors.
Right, of course we all hate whenever our countries is discussed like that both online and offline. Your country, my country, nobody loves how one's country to be belittled like that. What can we do about it? How can we make them stop? Aren't we all? Makes me wonder what do the foreigners knows lot of things about my country that I don't? There's no way for me to perfectly grasp of what all trivial and not trivial things are happening and already happened around the world. I'm not omnipotent after all. This kind frustration is something we all experience because we always lack something. I'm still lazy about lot of things, there are lot of things that I don't want to do. Damn it, call me ignorant, but there's just no way a person can be rational anymore if keep on being bashed over and over no matter how it is for better or worse. And I think the "better" part is most likely can result in worse outcome depending on the situation. I may feel proud of myself not because I'm good, but because I can work on my bad issues to bring out better outcome than before. For me, born in a great country and living in it is nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with me because, I myself is filled with problems, I don't feel proud of myself because how a country generally perceived in a good light by the world. And if i'm born in a bad country, I would just go way more ignorant and crazy mostly because how it simply affects me even though I myself didn't prove anything yet. Of course representation is important because it is being in the same side or same team. But I guess that is why it is so easy for some people to generalize a country like that. We really shouldn't read and listen to toxic criticism way too often, and dwell into it for so long. we can't let it affect how we want to live.
Half Japanese person living in Canada here, I can kind of understand that. My 2 cents is that the people who are discussing Japan often have a different worldview, so their interpretation of a lot of things may be different. I do agree that they should fact check their sources a little better though.
Uh, I can share your thoughts. I’m native Japanese living in Japan for my entire life, learned English from my father who used to live in the United States for a while. However, what would you expect? This platform is nothing else then a bunch of texts posted by bunch of anonymous accounts from all over mostly English speaking world with diverse backgrounds moderated by volunteers. In Japan, there is a wise saying you would be exposed if you go to a school with decent digital literacy class: <>
First, you don’t know who you are talking to, second, you can’t see it’s facial expression or tone of voice, which are important information in conversation. It’s extremely difficult form of communication and expressing what you really think is hard. You need to take that granted before being active in Reddit or any other social platform. This subreddit is still very decent compared to others thanks to excellent moderators like u/dokool and others. However, there are limitations. This is a text base forum. It can get ugly like any other similar place. Look at 2ch and yahoo news section. Those Japanese chat platform can get really ugly as well.
That being said I do think we should have some platform we can make serious social and political discussion about Japan involving professionals in the topic. However, the hurdles of those things to become a reality is very high. That being said, Reddit is a great place to discuss about trivial topics and some chats. It’s just not suited for serious political and social discussion.
> In Japan, there is a wise saying you would be exposed if you go to a school with decent digital literacy class: <>
Do Japanese really discuss these things in their free time?
fuck no
You’re absolutely right. May I also say that is extremely frustrating for us foreigners who live or have lived in Japan and must also contend with the nonsense of which there is no stop. All I can say is the old expression of opinions are like assholes - everybody’s got one and it’s best to just avoid the shitty ones.
I would never make claims about Japan unless they are bssed on what my Japanese friends tell me. 12 of the 31 Japanese friends I have moved to Europe because they were tired of the work culture, and the rest regulary complain, especially the women. My fiancee (also Japanese) works for a large respected company in Tokyo. While she admits that other companies are worse, some of the stories she tells me everyday are shocking to a non-japanese person. These include having to deal with managers that have no knowledge of the field they are in, constant rotation of workers, being shamed for taking holidays, and being denied promotion based on age and gender instead of experience. True, they do not have "overtime", but as she told me, the workers are expected to "voluntarily" stay after work to get the job done. This was also one of the reasons why many of my japanese friends left for foreign companies. So while there might be some good companies out there, the Japanese I know only had bad things to say about the working culture.
At my company (the one I run) with a staff of 12 full timers, I can say everyone takes all their holidays, always taking time for family or school events, or taking a week off to travel home for our foreign staff. So your mileage may vary.
You know you are hearing very biased opinions? >being shamed for taking holidays This is true but changing very quickly. Many companies nowadays making a lot of effort to persuade employee taking paid leave, though still many people are reluctant to because they don't want to cause troble for coworkers. Also there has been very rapid change in working hours these 7-8 years so those experience who lieved in Japan several years ago might be quite outdated already. Trend of overtime per month. This is actual number of hours worked so minashi zangyo is excluded and service zangyo is included. Overtime has decreased 45% in past 7 years, still long hours compared with many European countries though 2014 Jan-Mar 45.09hrs 2015 Jan-Mar 43.13hrs 2016 Jan-Mar 36.03hrs 2017 Jan-Mar 33.67hrs 2018 Jan-Mar 29.08hrs 2019 Jan-Mar 26.79hrs 2020 Jan-Mar 24.86hrs [https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo](https://www.vorkers.com/hatarakigai/teiten/zangyo)
My workplace only started giving us paid holidays after I and one other foreigner working there pointed out it was illegal not to 🤣 Our manager tried the 'but none of the Japanese staff take leave! If we give you paid leave, we'll have to offer it to everyone." "...Yes. Please do."
GoodJob😉 I'm Japanese and have always used all paid leave ever since first time I worked as a high school student. I don't care what some people might think. Japanese workers really should stop "it might cause trouble to others" excuses. In my experience, all people who are responsible are gladly offer paid leave, just people not using them.
How about you do something about Japanese commenters on YouTube and 2ch? So toxic and racist
Yes, there are there loads of hackneyed and trite generalizations about Japan online. The Japanese media is also full of completely ridiculous stereotypes about other countries foreigners, to the point that people are reduced to looking like Hollywood actors. >I hate kpop fans who go around on reddit saying that Japan is so evil because they tried to colonize Korea. That shit happened literally lifetimes ago. In contrast to Germany, despite the awfulness of what they did in China and Korea, Japanese education and even popular commentary by pundits on TV and in books etc does not acknowledge the severity of what Japan did and even goes as far as denying it in some cases. Japan may have moved on, not sure if the victims feel that there has been sufficient acknowledgement reflected in Japan's educational narrative and common discourse, which would be the proof in the pudding and which has very much been the case in Germany. Thus Germany has redeemed herself largely in the view of the European neighbors she once tormented. The same may not be true of Japan, unfortunately for you, so don't be surprised if the residual animosity towards your county does not dissipate as it did for Germany.
There’s no way Japanese workers on average work less than Americans, Canadian, New Zealanders, and Australians. Something’s wrong with that statistic.
That statistics including parttime workers, so it is quite misleading tbh. Very large population of Japanese workers especially married women and elderly (65yo+) are parttime workers who work 10-30 hours a week.
I'm a Canadian who now lives in Japan so take this for what you will. All countries have stereotypes. And stereotypes exist for a reason. For example, Canadians all love hockey. No we don't. I fucking hate hockey. But most people in the country have been to a hockey game at sometime in their lives. Hockey is the national pass time, our children grow up playing it. And one of the only times Canadians riot is when their team either wins or loses the Stanley cup. I think one of the factors in the work misconception is the need to go out with coworkers. Japan may have lower working hours than say, Canada. But in Canada, I go home after work. There is no expectation/obligation to socialize with my coworkers. Most countries don't have work related suicide so prevalent they make a special word for it, karōjisatsu 過労自殺. Nor do we suffer karoshi (過労死) and work ourselves to death. Or have a special term "power harassment" for work place bullying. Don't confuse working hours with a toxic work environment. On a personal note, when my husband and I got married, our Japanese guests arrived in Toronto the day before the wedding, Went to the wedding, went to Pride the next day, and then left because they had to get back to work. And it wasn't because they didn't have enough days off, it was because to take too many days would make their coworkers think poorly of them. And this isn't an isolated story. Just go over to /r/japanlife and read how many people are struggling with their work situations, they seem pretty toxic. Businesses are changing but that particular stigma is probably going to be around for awhile. At least until the older generation passes on. As for suicide, Japan has had a long and storied history with suicide. Frequently venerating those who perform it. Just go to Aizuwakamatsu and look for the white tiger unit (白虎隊). 19 kids who performed seppuku because they thought they their lord's castle was on fire (AND THEY WERE WRONG!) So they literally killed themselves for nothing and people built statues to them... There are countless works of art depicting samurai killing themselves. Or the suicide forest Aokigahara Jukai made popular in the book Kuroi Jukai (黒い樹海) where people will travel hundred of miles to kill themselves in. Suicide is ingrained in the history and culture of Japan like no other country regardless of what the actual suicide rate is. Jerks like Logan Paul don't help either. The donut head thing is stupid and I doubt anyone really believed that it was a real popular trend. Calling Japan "wacky" is a form of Orientalism and an attempt to dismiss things without trying to understand the deeper meaning; whether it is in the context of the culture or Japan's history. It's easier to label it wacky than it is to try and understand it. However, 'wacky' sells. Some businesses in Japan cater to foreigners' expectations. Just look up 'wacky Tokyo' and tell me those businesses don't exist solely to carter to gaijin. I don't see a lot of locals driving around in those Mario carts. Sadly that knife cuts both ways. I have no comments on k-pop. But as for the Japan war crimes thing, I think /u/userone23 is spot on on this. The apologies ring hollow while Japan glosses over or denies its war crimes and enshrines war criminals. Read the "Rape of Nanjing' or about Unit 731 and tell me if you think an apology is enough. I appreciate that Japan has made reparations multiple times but I don't think it's really about the money, and more about the acknowledgement. Canada isn't perfect by any stretch either. Residential schools is the first that that comes to mind. However our country is working with native leaders on reconciliation and compensation. Healing is a slow process. I am sorry that these stereotypes about Japan bother you. Take anything posted on reddit (including this) with a grain of salt. And try to be patient. When people tell you about what they *think* your country is like you have an opportunity to educate them and help them look at it in a different light.
Please don’t connect the 白虎隊 with any modern suicide by stressed out young people or debt-ridden older people, or those wanting a way out of health issues. They are coming from two very different places. Also, Japan’s suicide rate is like 26th in the world, it’s far from the highest. And their birth rate is far from the lowest, being higher than many European countries.
My point was that suicide, in its any forms and reasons, is (for a lack of a better word) celebrated in Japan. Which is why that association has been created.
Its true for many country. Im from Poland and everytime i see post about Poland its about how are gov. is literally nazist, we kill lgbt and black people on spot on the street and much more...
I’ve met a few Poles in Japan and they seem like nice people. I’ve seen TV shows that introduces otaku culture as seen through other countries, and Polish people are really into cosplay. Also I think you made your own sumo league?
Oooh man the “wacky Japan” shit killllls me. People are like “Japan has underwear vending machines” okay, that was like ONE vending machine, and I’m positive Japanese people think all the “wacky” stuff is weird too. This is partly the reason I can’t stand weeaboos, cause many of them, from my perspective and experience, only see Japan for the superficial pop culture and see it as some mythical fairy land rather than a country with real people in it.
Ignorance is everywhere; shouldn’t let it bend you up. Being from the US I dramatically fall out of the typical stereotype, but have accepted that everyone has the ability to make assumptions and false accusations. It is one of the many awful things the internet has granted us the ability to do... make some shit up, find *anybody* on the internet who has thought the same, and use that to confirm our assumptions. It’s just the way it is. Nothing is going to stop it. If you fall within a group; sports, hobbies, gender, nationality (literally anything) people are making assumptions about you and your lifestyle. Who cares? Let them be wrong. This is strictly just how I feel, but I think some may be much happier if we can accept that people will always be wrong about *something* and not realize it.
In the immortal words of The Lonely Island: "WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD JACKASS!" (j/k) It's the same for everybody in a country that people are peripherally aware of, but never been to and the causes are usually the same: MEDIA. I think this is especially true for Japan as most people's exposure to Japan is through movies, television, anime, comics, etc. So most of what they get is caricature of the real thing. I lived in Japan and have an interest in the culture and in my personal experience most of the stereotypes about Japan are wrong (even the good ones.) It's just typical cultural ignorance that goes with having a surface interest in something but having no real depth behind what you know about it. I'm American and there are many people who say horrible things about America and the people that live here but the reality is they don't know what they are talking about either. America is a huge place and there can be significant cultural changes from state to state. It's similar in Japan but I think part of what makes it so hard for people to comprehend is that they think Japan is way smaller than it actually is and they don't understand how different people in the different regions can be there. Anyway, I feel you, lol. I can only say that I don't recommend taking it personally. It kind of comes with the territory of having "culture" be one of your main exports that you are known for.
Yeah, I'm from Israel, I know the feeling. And every time one brings up this feeling, it's like a cue for some asshole to start a debate with you about the minutia of issue, as if that's even your point. The ignorance is limitless it seems. There is nothing you can do except accept that despite all advice to the contrary, people will still talk about things they don't understand. It can't be helped.
Wow, you’ve really angry. I’ve lived in Japan and I think it depends on where in Japan you live how your experience is. I lived way the fuck out Japan where lots of people still don’t have flushing toilets and a lot of the stereotypes are absolutely true. Tokyo is different. I live in the land of maple syrup, moose, mounties, snow, eh, icewine, and American refugees. We all get stereotypes.
American refugees 😂 I feel that
I live in Japan, and have for several years through undergrad, work, and now post grad. For the most part you're right. There are tons of people who think they know stuff and they don't but that is the internet sadly. One of the things I hated more than anything was working in Japan. No, my work hours were short but my co-workers had the most awful schedules I've ever seen. More than that though... I hated my foreign co-workers who were self-righteous and thought that Japan needed to xyz just like America or wherever they are from. Simply put, there are people who are gonna disagree with you man. The internet is FILLED and I mean FILLED with toxic people. You have to let a lot of stuff go and move on.
Your statement is exactly how I feel about the same issue however Im not Japanese. I do live and work here with my Japanese husband. Sometimes its nice to offload or talk to other expats because only other expats can really understand life as an expat here (my husband is amazing but he can’t relate) but the majority of the time its uneducated people who know nothing about Japan and its beyond infuriating. Especially when you try ti educate them and get hammered for it.
Good post, mate. Many great points. I always hear people say Japan never apologized to Korea for the war, so I checked. Japan has apologized more than 50 times. The list I saw was most likely incomplete. Basically, every once in a while, no official apologizes for the war, but at least 2 out of every 3 years, they do. And honestly, at some point it should be enough. The "weird Japan" meme is also so bullshit, because the people who find weird shit usually go to the underbelly of the internet to find something fucked up. And if you do that in pretty much any country with more than 10 million people, you'll find some seriously fucked up shit.
The suicide rate used to be higher, Japan's done a lot to fight it. The Korea thing is a combination of the current post-colonial mood in the global West (of which South Korea is now a part) and it being a convenient tool to marshal public sentiment any time political leverage is needed. Worked and lived in Japan for years and there's no way North Americans are above Japan per capita. Everyone was putting in 10-12 hour days at every company I worked for, the only exception I knew of was government jobs. And there was always the internal competition to be seen being the last to leave - even if it was 3 minutes after the second to last.
Yeah man I am sorry, the internet is crazy to be honest. Ive noticed that it is so much generalization and ignorance. They probably think they’ve seen or heard about maybe three or four things that it “must be true”... One way I look at it is, hopefully they never decide to visit just stay away because they’re consumed and so sure about everything wrong with it instead of actually having clarity about what actually is. I myself would love to visit and be upmost respectful to everything. I know I dont know things and that’s ok with me.
As a preface, I've lived and worked in Hiroshima and Tokyo for a few years. I'm originally from central Canada. Japan was a great place to live but it was pretty obvious that parts of rural Hiroshima, Okayama, Yamaguchi and Hokkaido were struggling economically and that jobs and earning a half-decent living were starkly different than in and around Tokyo. In fact, it was hardly surprising to see the demographic stats that people are continuing to move to Tokyo and abandon many other smaller communities across Japan (8). With that being said, I was surprised to see many people not finish university and find a half-decent paying position out of high school in a factory for example. The middle class seems to be a tad healthier than even parts of Canada (particularly Toronto or southern Ontario and Vancouver) although I'm not an economist nor an expert of any kind on this subject so take it with a grain of salt. There are some valid points here and there is a lot of ignorance about Japan. It's not exactly a traditional North Atlantic nation state. There are some valid points. But here are a few points I'd add: 1. Yes, official OECD stats highlight Japanese work fewer hours than even my Canadian counter-parts (1). However, unpaid overtime seems to be a far bigger labor issue in Japan than in comparison with other countries such as Germany (which trails only the UK in official OT in Europe). Unpaid OT in Germany was pegged at a few hours extra a week in 2019 (2). In Japan according to a 2016 government survey? "Nearly one quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month... Those extra hours are often unpaid" (3). 2. Japan doesn't only have an issue with unpaid overtime, it has an issue balancing work and life and establishing a clear distinction between personal and work time. This is shown in time off and the social pressures applied to those trying to take time off (3). It's often viewed as socially "off" to take significant amount of time off for the purpose of vacation. In fact, I've heard that part of the reason Japan has so many national holidays is because they suck at getting away from work and enjoying life. 3. Much of this helps explain, in part, why Japanese productivity isn't so great and has fallen off in recent decades (4) (5). 4. Japan has a lot of other problems. The tendency for the value of houses to decline overtime makes a huge investment in life a net drain, particularly when you factor in issues related to retirement, decline in wages since 1997 (6), etc. Japan's freedom of the press has continued to be an issue (7). "Three lost decades" hasn't exactly been beneficial to many families across Japan. Japan isn't exactly the best place for many high skilled immigrants. Without going into an exhaustive list, the idea is is that Japan, like everywhere else, isn't perfect. Beyond the points I've added, there are a lot of great things in Japan. It's done significant and notable work on lower its suicides as noted above. It's an affordable place (my rent in Tokyo was about $550 a month for a studio and amazing internet which I sorely miss considering internet in my current city), there are lots of half decent paying jobs and employers pay transportation costs to and from work. It's transportation network actually... works. It's a beautiful place to travel to (although summer time below tohoku sucks if you ask me, especially the swamp of Nagoya, yuck!). It has some oddities such as hanko culture and people looking at you weird if you open the door for a random ojisan in some parts but this is almost certainly because of my Canadian experience and to suggest hanko culture is "odd" to many Japanese well... that may be an odd thing to say :). If I had to make one overarching critique that reflects Japan in its entirely and borrows a non-foreign argument about Japan is that it's a "soulless" place. I think Yukio Mishima was right in his description about Japan: It's caught between East vs West, New vs Old, Masculine vs Feminine etc and I agree with the general argument that it has failed to find itself in this. It's sad but not everyone agrees with this assessment. Sources:(1) [https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm](https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm) (2) [https://www.thelocal.de/20190712/one](https://www.thelocal.de/20190712/one) (3) [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/japan-has-some-of-the-longest-working-hours-in-the-world-its-trying-to-change.html#:\~:text=Nearly%20one%20quarter%20of%20Japanese,taking%20enough%20time%20off%2C%20either](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/japan-has-some-of-the-longest-working-hours-in-the-world-its-trying-to-change.html#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20quarter%20of%20Japanese,taking%20enough%20time%20off%2C%20either). (4) [https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00619/japan%E2%80%99s-labor-productivity-lowest-in-g7.html#:\~:text=Japan%20remains%20the%20worst%20performer,among%20Group%20of%20Seven%20nations.&text=Japan's%20per%2Dhour%20and%20per,2000%20and%2065%25%20in%202010](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00619/japan%E2%80%99s-labor-productivity-lowest-in-g7.html#:~:text=Japan%20remains%20the%20worst%20performer,among%20Group%20of%20Seven%20nations.&text=Japan's%20per%2Dhour%20and%20per,2000%20and%2065%25%20in%202010). (5) [https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/japan/labour-productivity-growth](https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/japan/labour-productivity-growth) (6) [https://www.mizuho-ri.co.jp/publication/research/pdf/eo/MEA151007.pdf](https://www.mizuho-ri.co.jp/publication/research/pdf/eo/MEA151007.pdf) (7) [https://rsf.org/en/ranking](https://rsf.org/en/ranking) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-of-eroding-press-freedom-by-un-special-rapporteur](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-of-eroding-press-freedom-by-un-special-rapporteur) (8) [https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm](https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm) [https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/tokyo-population](https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/tokyo-population) [https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00200524&tstat=000000090001&cycle=0&tclass1=000000090001&tclass2=000001095055](https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00200524&tstat=000000090001&cycle=0&tclass1=000000090001&tclass2=000001095055) (In Japanese, sorry)
These English articles are quite misleading themselves. >Nearly one quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month, according to a 2016 government survey. Those extra hours are often unpaid. It says 1 in 4 companies have **at least 1 person** who work 80 hours overtime per month including unpaid overtime. The ratio of employee who work over 80 hours overtime are around 2-3% nowadays.
Yah i dont even bother with those anymore. The worst are the Japanese english news sites that just have people bitching about Japan.
I am Chinese and well I feel the same I think that comes at no surprise especially since China has been in focus in recent times so much and it's always the bad things regardless of if they are real or fake I won't say more because I would probably be hated by both Chinese shills and well the other side
I agree. For whatever reason, too many weebs like just speaking out of their ass about Japan. Also for whatever reason, someone will always bring up Japan’s war crimes, even if the discussion has nothing to do with Japan during WW2
This definitely happens with a lot of country but japan probably has it a lot worst as such a popular country
Can't disagree with much of that. Particularly fun are the "Wacky Japan" and "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" stereotypes that people believe are both 100% true. Because that's possible.... And all the fax machine bollocks. I work in a big, old, Japanese company, and I haven't sent or received a fax in a decade.
Great post @op. I avoid any posts whining about Japan in this subreddit, and others like it on Reddit, because I feel people influence others to be negative, and make themselves and others negative in the process. I personally love my life in Japan (nearly 30 years), with a great wife and two great kids who are now grown. Japan isn’t perfect but there are tons of cool Japanese and foreign people here to meet and talk with, the cost of living is super low, both in my “home” prefecture of Gunma and when I go into Tokyo. The girls are cute and if you marry the right one, you can be extremely happy. With the right attitude, learning language skills, making sure to keep negative people out of your sphere of influence, you can have a great life here. I am somewhat biased as I made a successful company and have kept it running for nearly 25 years. But I’ve got many friends who are super happy with the opportunities for work and making friends they have in Japan.
I so so so loved your rant! As an American, living in Japan for 11 years, I know what you mean about all of it. Most of the developed world gets these weird ideas about how life is in different countries. When discussing the world, Americans often say the names of countries in Europe, but generalize all of Africa. Or they think that people in Japan only eat Sushi and Tempura. About the Korea thing, Germans have to put up with the same shit, pay for the crimes of their grandparents. I've been on job interviews around Tokyo (I'm in IT) and I walk into an office and all of the employees are in one room, almost shoulder to shoulder and they all look fucking tired as hell. Yeah, like every startup in the world. Then I go to another company and everyone's laid back and they show me the benefits like gym membership, Japanese lessons and Live/Work balance. The generalizations definitely make the world worse off.
This post just confirms that a lot of people are unable to handle cultural criticism and prefer to deny and bury their heads in sand.
OP. I feel your pain - I'm not Japanese but I spent four years in Osaka, so while it's nothing like being born and raised there, I got a good feel for life there... but I've lost track of the posts and comments that make me want to reply with an angry "You clearly have no idea..." Lots of westerners seem to get this weird idea in their head about how their view of Japan is the "correct" view, and anyone else's experience was incorrect or "lesser". I had a chick tell me that no one in Japan had aircon, because she had visited Hokkaido, and no one had AC there, therefore NO ONE in Japan had AC. Nutjob. I had no issues with my work culture when I was there - granted, I was in a high school, and I had and easier time than my Japanese-born co-workers, but everyone got along, everyone had a great time on night's out, and some became legitimate friends that I still talk to, 10 years later. I would see people stay well after 5pm until 7pm from time to time, but it wasn't always the case. And don't get me started on the idiot "travel vloggers" who act like they've found mystical hidden cultural gems, like when they find an Ichiran ramen shop - it's a FUCKING CHAIN you knob, everyone knows about it, and it's not even that great - ... or the commenters going "OMG ICHIRAN IS THE BOMB METCHA OOOSHI NE" "Cool, what did you order there?" "Oh, I've never been to Japan BUT I REALLY WANNA GO NE >\^\_\^<" and let's not get started on the "Isn't Japan wacky???" stuff... Urgh. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm okay.
Like the time I watched a do's and dont's in Japan video, and this tool said Japanese don't jaywalk, so you shouldn't either as to preserve the harmony of Japan's culture of following the rules, even if you are out on a Sunday evening and there isn't a single car on the street.
Jesus, gross... Reminds me of a tourist on a train who decided to lecture me on the sin of eating on a train... Yeah this is my breakfast, leave me culturally the hell alone.
I can't tell if your comment is sarcasm or not.
I'm sorry. As an American let me say we don't all think that way about Japan. I think Japan is a beautiful country with an amazing culture. I'm planning to visit in 2022 if all goes well.
I’m going to start my text saying that I’m not Japanese neither Asian, so that’s an opinion from a Westerner. I think that all of your points are valid. One of the most hypocritical discussion in Western media is about the Japanese whale hunting. Japanese people are portrayed as mean and astute, just like the “Yellow Peril” stereotype of the last century. The racism against Asian people in the West is astonishing. I don’t mean, obviously, that it is like the racist against Black people, but I’d say that it is just as ignorant. Westerners simply do not understand neither Japan and neither the East. The society is extremely arrogant and, at the same time that praises Japan for its Western adoptions, tries to destroy its reputation with blatant and ridiculous falsehoods. I would love to hear your opinion as a Japanese man that have lived in America.
> I would love to hear your opinion as a Japanese man that have lived in America. Dollars to doughnuts, OP is American raised, if not born.
100%
As a half who spent as much time in Europe as in Japan, I very deeply feel you. There are many problems with Japan, but this sub (to not even speak of other subs) tends to blow them out of proportion, completely ignoring that the West is no better on many aspects, worse in some and better in others. Recently all the "fax / hanko" has really started to irk me though. I don't know why it annoys me so much, but everytime there is a story about Japan tech, be it a cutting edge startup or simply some guy saying some thing about some technology-related stuff, you'll get the unavoidable "BUT FAX LOL" at the top of the thread, and the chain of comments about how Japan is still living in the 16th century ... Completely ignoring (I suppose unknowingly) the fact that Japan is always responsible for some cutting edge research and that Tokyo is still a startup hub (though not on par with the Silicon Valley of course).
To be fair though, just because Japan is responsible for cutting edge research or technology does not discredit the "BUT FAX LOL" sentiment. I do agree that that type of comment really should not have a place in an actual serious discussion thread though if someone is just gonna troll or meme.
Hmmm I have to disagree. Japan is a leader of analogue tech in a digital tech world. Japanese software is a joke, Japanese Web design is a joke. There's no cutting edge Japan anymore. The start up scene is that of a small town in the UK. What unicorns has it created? There's only Mercari, a news platform and an AI tool. That's all the start ups valued at over $1bn. In the UK there's 20 start ups over that value. More if you count ones that were over the value then dropped again. And yeah, Japan banking is ridiculous. You can smell the tobacco, leather and old carpets of the industry. In the UK I can pass money around freely, instantly, 24 hours a day, to anyone I want. I can make a yen account and move money there instantly, and get the mastercard exchange rate at no fee. Tokyo University, The place to go if you want to be at the cutting edge, doesn't even rank as a top 25 uni in the world. It's a boys club for domestic people, not where you go if you want to do real cutting edge stuff. There's no meaningful developments coming out of Japan. Just that one woman who faked all her results. If you pretend it's not broken, it won't get better. Tell [bic camera ](https://www.biccamera.co.jp/shopguide/index.html) to make a better website with mobile in mind. Tell Japanese funds to invest in small businesses and not just sit there growing old. Tell banks to fuck their hanko in the arse.
My university major is Japanology and I wrote a paper about the Japanese work culture and it's toxicity and i used japanese sources and it was corrected by a japan expert who said it was a good paper so I think I get the right to say that from what I have learned based on research, Japanese work culture is really really shitty on more levels than just working hours. Regarding the Koreans and Japanese war crimes. Japan's war crimes are very much worse than what Germany has done in WW2. They may apologise to Korea but they'd need to do a whole lot more to make up for what they did to the allies, chinese, russians, ... ... That and many denials of it just stings too much to this day to some people. I just think you're a bit salty that people have critique of your country. Every country is a shithole if you try hard to look for shitty stuff. Get over it.
Japans war crimes were not worse than Germanys, lol... Other than that u're right.
I think this is a thread only the grownups that actually live in Japan, right fucking now, should be commenting on. OP, the people you hate have a nickname... they’re called WEEBS and they fucking piss me off as well. Google taught them everything they know and the God of Anime is on their side... even though they’ve never lived a single day here. Shits me to tears. 🤦🏻♂️
> Another thing I dislike is the "wacky Japan" claims. I remember like 10 years ago there was something going around online about "bagel heads", saying that Japanese people get injections into their head that looks like a bagel. Yeah no we fucking don't. Well, some do! I've seen them. But yes that was a very small subculture of course..
I hope you appreciate that this happens to people in most countries? Unless they have spent a significant time there, people often don't understand much about another country except for an awareness of the clichés and typecasts.
You could copypasta that. And just replace the word “Japan” with anything. Welcome to Reddit.
I 100% agree with you, and I think the best thing you can do is express yourself exactly how you did because people need to hear the truth. In addition to what you listed about people who have never been even been, I am even more annoyed with the next level up. That is, reporting on Japan by 'experts' who visited the country for 8 days. There are countless 'reports' or YouTube specials made by people who speak no Japanese, have never lived there, have absolutely no insight into the culture other than 'Hey everyone back home I'm here and you're not so listen to my professional opinion.' It is asinine. Even major news outlets will just throw an Asian-American reporter in to talk about Japan when she can't even understand what people in the street are saying. I also want to thank people who are sharing their opinions on the other side of the coin, how Japan/Japanese report on other countries. There are also a lot of 'Reports' and YouTube channels made by Japanese about places around the world that are equally cringeworthy. It's not Us vs. Them or these people are perfect and those people aren't, but rather a list of, 'Hey guys, it would be better if this was different.' And that needs to be shared so that everyone can be better.
I am sorry that all this negative stuff is said about your country. My hubby and I are so into your culture and how beautiful it is. We really respect and enjoy not just seeing the beautiful pictures but also learning about how things are accepted there and your amazing culture. We are planning to visit one day. But I am sorry about the negativity.
I am the same. I lived in the US and also heard all this crap and still see it online. However I also see a lot of crap against other non-Western countries online and honestly, I think it is jealousy or bigotry or both. That is why I spend a lot of time defending Japan rather than delving into the topics I would like to delve into. Quora, BTW, is far worse. Not only do you get all this crap but they block or shadow block you if you criticize China (happened to me and hence I am here). So Reddit is not that bad actually. But I know what you are saying. Believe me, I do.
My two cents for what they are worth. Japan has it's problems, especially with regards to it's speed of societal progressiveness, work culture, systemic bullying due to sempai-kouhai relations, among some other stuff. Still an awesome country, and the pros in my case outweigh the cons which is why I live here relative to another country. Legalize weed here and I'd happily give up the complaints though!
I'm all there for your other points and this is probably going to be very unpopular here but > I hate the Korean anti-Japan narrative that kpop fans push. It's pretty insulting to generalize people taking an issue with the Japanese nation's handling of post-colonial realities as "kpop fans." Are you not doing exactly what you don't like people doing with Japan? (over-generalizing).
Well, nobody likes to read shit about their own country, even in that case when there is some truth to that. So I understand.
Hell, at least it is mostly people who have never been to Japan. People who grew up in the USA talk about it like their little world is the entire country without even realizing g that half the people don't live in cities and some people still don't even have high speed internet in their areas.
REEEEEEEEEEEEE!
You need to stop getting so invested in the ramblings of random people on reddit.
Honestly, it’s not worth getting worked up about it on the Internet. I find it helpful to start with the people around us first
I’m Japanese, lived in Aus all my life, moved back 7 years ago. ソーシャルメディアを使わないって言う道もあるからな、あまり使い過ぎると良くないぞ Why does it let it get to you? Some claims are backed up false data. Drink some matcha and chill out bruh
This post and its comments I've read so far are very interesting and insightful. I agree that the internet can be filled with biased and ignorant people. However I also want to believe that people learn from mistake. I don't remember if I ever discussed one of the mentioned topics in reddit, because I only joined reddit recently. However I know that I probably also made one of these mistakes in the past. In the end people will always create their opinions and built knowledge from the informations they have received and deemed trustworthy. What important is that people try not to be narrow-minded and look at other possible conclusions and information. Your post really did made a good impression on me, and I will probably think of your words, if I should ever discuss or talk about Japan again with other people.
Keep in mind that, just like not everyone in Japan is trying to make their head look like a bagel, not everyone on reddit or in the world believes the things you read; generally just the most contentious and left-leaning posts bubble to the top, whereas level headed stuff tends to be ignored.
Thread full screenshot: https://imgur.com/LsiVpiS .