
Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore - jseliger
http://kotaku.com/5484581/japan-its-not-funny-anymore?skyline=true&s=i
======
bh23ha
This poor person is suffering from culture shock. I'm an immigrant let me
explain.

Culture shock is not OMG they eat X here. Culture shock develops slowly from
the stress of being away from home and living in a strange land. You are long
over people eating X or what ever, and then one day you're just sick of it
all. Not exactly ALL of it, but you tend to fixate on the defects of the
strange place you're in and you're in a perpetually bad mood, very similar to
the stressed out shitty mood someone quiting smoking is always in.

Some of the points he makes are valid. There is lard in bread, I think that's
MUCH better then the hydrogenated fats of margarine. Lard may not be good for
you, but it is better then the alternatives.

And smoking is definitely bad for you. And as an European I feel that American
corporate culture bleeds far too far into everyone's personal life, much like
how the author feels about corporate partying in Japan.

The no-real friends thing also strikes me as something I can say about
Americans, who from my perspective seem to have trouble forming deep adult
friendships.

But the author and I have two options, get over it or go home.

The curious thing about culture shock is that it never strikes in the very
first moments of awe when you just arrive. It takes a little while. But then
you tend to get over it and then many months or some times years later it hits
you again, and this time it is WORSE. And many immigrants/ex-pats never got
over the second wave. They (we!) just end up pissed off at the host culture.

* _EVERY JAPANESE POP SONG IS ABOUT THE SAME THING_ * Yeah, that's kind of every pop song period. And this attitude is a classing sign of culture shock.

~~~
quant18
_And as an European I feel that American corporate culture bleeds far too far
into everyone's personal life._

Huh, I had the opposite experience when I worked for a small Dutch company.
The amount of enforced merry-making (not to mention all the emphasis on
consensus-formation) really got on my nerves. Never saw anything like it when
I was working for American companies. It _did_ remind me of my brief career in
Tokyo --- I'm not the only one to have noticed the superficial similarities
between Dutch and Japanese corporate culture [1], though apparently if you dig
deeper it's not as similar as it looks.

Of course, this may simply be a quirk of the industry I was in at the time
(options trading). It may also be a consequence of me rubbing Dutch people the
wrong way (when excusing myself from company bowling/drinking/whatever trips
or expressing dissenting opinions), while knowing how not to rub American
people the wrong way because I'm a lot more familiar with their culture.

[1] e.g. Joop Stam has done a lot of research on this:
<http://www.mb.utwente.nl/oohr/staff/professorate/stam/>

~~~
ytinas
You've never worked for an American company that tried to tell you what you
could/couldn't do outside of work? Either you've had good luck or I've had bad
because every place I worked for tried to impose their rules beyond the office
parking lot. Maybe it was due to working in a "right to work" state?

~~~
Vivtek
Yeah, really. Ever had a stern talking to because the political bumper sticker
on your car didn't align with the company image? That's uniquely American.

------
jmoiron
I'm actually very surprised this ended up here. For those who might not know
Tim Rogers, him and a few other college-age gamers started a recently defunct
site called 'insert credit' around 8 or 9 years ago to try to apply Hunter S.
Thompson style "New Journalism" to video game journalism.

Their articles had a high incident of insight to them that was largely the
result of repeated deconstruction and re-examination of the game design of
various 80s-era classics. Quite often the articles (some of which read a lot
like the linked article) were pretty entertaining.

Bringing personal experience into the essay or game review was always the
point, and Tim in particular tended to go off on completely wild tangents and
write in an almost incoherent and stream of consciousness style (perhaps,
"style"); from memory, in one review he pauses to go cook a burrito, then
describes the burrito cooking process, before resuming what he was writing
about the actual game in question.

This article is pretty classic Tim Rogers: an extremely long exploration of an
idea that touches on some interesting (if perhaps apocryphal) stories or
facets of that idea, but may or may not have a coherent underlying vision or
message.

~~~
cookiecaper
I've always admired the writing on Insert Credit, and I'm sad to learn that
they're gone now.

~~~
thristian
After Insert Credit imploded, the forums moved to selectbutton.net but without
any "main content" (the front-page stories are just selected forum threads).
Soon afterward, Tim started up actionbutton.net to host game reviews by
himself and other like-minded folks; they're generally just as good as the old
Insert Credit material, and of course more up-to-date.

~~~
jmoiron
I've found actionbutton to be a step below the old reviews, perhaps for
similar reasons that Tim now finds his honeymoon in Japan souring. The reviews
there tend to be a lot more about being entertaining than enlightening, and
their stated goal of having the average score being 1/4 stars has been thrown
to the wayside. I also don't really play games anymore.

There are a few potentially "important" things that I hope escapes IC and its
graduates and becomes more mainstream. Reviews that explain the context of
their creation, and reviews that examine the philosophy of the game design.
Unfortunately these are hard, require work, and don't look any better on the
glossy page. Some examples:

Rogers wrote a fantastic review[1] of Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song that
starts off by chronicling the entire career of its designer (Kawazu) and
reviewing some of his earlier games with depth and insight. There are clear
patterns evident in his early games, which are then used to give context to
and explain the current game under review.

The second is probably my favorite video game review, which is of Windwaker by
Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh[2]. EJRW is a better and more insightful (but less
colorful) writer than Rogers, but perhaps not as colorful. He made an old
forum post I distinctly remember lamenting the laziness of linear game design,
which is something of a cliche. When challenged for an alternative, he backed
it up with a very interesting review of the use of "danger" rather than
contrivances like keys or inventory items as a limit on exploration in Dragon
Quest/The Legend of Zelda.

As for this particular posting of Tim's, I don't really have much more to
comment. Like I said in my original comment, it's classic Tim Rogers, and it's
hard to explain what "classic Tim Rogers" is without just pointing people to
another 15-20 articles similar in construction and content. It feels odd to
write about it in a familiar tone since I was largely a lurker at IC (as I am
here).

[1] <http://www.largeprimenumbers.com/article.php?sid=saga>

[2]
[http://www.insertcredit.com/reviews/windwaker/windwaker1.htm...](http://www.insertcredit.com/reviews/windwaker/windwaker1.html)

------
jmillikin

      Long ago, manga aspired to be like Dragon Ball Z: graphically iconic, with a story more coherent than it probably needed to be. Now there's the ADHD-addled Dragon-Ball-Z-inspired One Piece, a manga for the Twitter age if there ever was one.
    

Pop culture was best when you, the reader of this sentence, were 12:
<http://i46.tinypic.com/1625ims.gif>

I remember watching DBZ after school, and while it is certainly "graphically
iconic", there is no legitimate way to claim it has a coherent plot. It seems
like the author is remembering his Saturday morning cartoons through some
rose-tinted cokebottles.

I won't even touch "Anime is terrible. It used to be okay."

~~~
dkarl
I would like to check out some manga to see what it's like. I almost posted a
request for manga recommendations on a LibraryThing manga forum, but I decided
against it. I tried writing up a description of what I was looking for, but it
devolved into rejection of a bunch of anime stereotypes:

\- No ordinary schmoes who turn out to have amazing supernatural powers.

\- Nothing that revolves around a series of contests with enemies of
escalating power.

\- No robots or exoskeletons.

\- It would be nice if the central character was an adult. An adult whose love
interest is not an adolescent.

\- While I'm on that topic, nothing that will make people think I'm a pervert
if they catch me reading it.

So, while I was wroting this up, I started checking out the lists of mangas
that had been previously recommended in the forum, and I started to feel like
I was shitting all over everything they loved, so I decided not to post my
request. People talk quite a lot about manga being a serious art form for
adults. Am I missing something?

~~~
jmillikin
The problem with forums _about_ anime or manga is that they self-select for
people who have been rejected from every other community. A solid science-
fiction or horror story can find discussion in the appropriate forums, but
nobody normal is interested in some high-school student's harem of magical
girls.

Here are some manga / anime recommendations. Some have not been licensed for
distribution in the US, or have been only partially released here, so you will
need to hunt a bit for fansubs. I watch only the animated adaptations, as
they're easier to hide, but feel free to order the original manga versions if
you don't feel ashamed about reading comic books. Not all are adaptations --
the movies, and a few television series, are original animations.

\- Monster < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_%28manga%29> >

\- Planetes < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes> >

\- Mushishi < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushishi> >

\- Mononoke < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononoke_%28TV_series%29> >

\- Tokyo Godfathers < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Godfathers> >

If you're willing to relax your standards a bit, there are many outstanding
series aimed at younger viewers.

\- Denno Coil < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil> >

\- Yokohama Shopping Trip <
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D> >

\- Kino's Journey < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kino%27s_Journey> >

\- Cromartie High School <
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromartie_High_School> >

\- My Neighbor Totoro < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro> > ,
or almost anything else by Studio Ghibli <
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli> >

\- The Girl Who Leapt Through Time <
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Leapt_Through_Time> >

\- Yotsuba&! <
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotsuba&](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotsuba&)!
>

~~~
dkarl
Very interesting suggestions, thanks! I'll certainly check out Monster and
maybe some of the others. It's interesting that sci-fi and fantasy still
predominate (and a couple of your suggestions do actually involve robots.)
Personally, I have no problem with genre fiction, but I'm partial to mysteries
(of the protagonist-solves-the-crime variety) and historical adventures (such
as the Horatio Hornblower novels.) Do you have any suggestions along those
lines?

P.S. I just added "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" to my Netflix queue, and
Netflix suggested something called "Xxxholic" for me. Well... I won't
prejudge, but that kind of thing certainly doesn't help dispel stereotypes.

~~~
jmillikin
"Robot" is an awfully broad category; none of my suggestions involve the
giant, piloted, super-powered robots. Monster is very good, but at 72
episodes, is unusually long for a mature series. You may want to look at Tokyo
Godfathers or Planetes first, to see if your interests match mine.

"xxxHolic" is a weird Japan-glish word; you can read it as "____-aholic". I've
not seen the series and can't recommend either way, but from the Wikipedia
article it looks like something you'd not enjoy.

Online recommendation engines seem to break when dealing with Japan-related
topics; I don't know why, but it could be that some people will watch anything
if it's 1) animated 2) from Japan, so the engines build false associations
between wildly different works. This happens in music also -- I once listened
to an orchestral re-imagining of some soundtrack by the Tokyo Philharmonic,
and now Last.FM won't stop recommending awful j-pop.

------
houseabsolute
I am really disappointed in the HN commentary on this one. A quarter of the
commenters seem to have stopped reading when they saw the anime criticism.
Half came in here to say that the guy sounds boring. And the remainder is
split between talking about patio11 (what the fuck is that?) and how long the
article was. Most of the criticism here seems to boil down to the same "you're
not Japanese" bullshit the author mentions in the piece itself. Is that really
the best we can do? This is probably the worst-commented article I've seen
since I started at HN.

I agree with others that the anime point is probably off-target. Nostalgia is
a big component of thinking things used to be better than they are.

The insights into Japanese company-culture are fascinating. American
corporations do make people do some incredible bullshit, but nothing on the
level of the official greeting he mentioned. The standing around on the street
thing and yelling is entirely odd.

I also liked some of the points about the subliminal impact of self-
deprecating language. From what I've read, and from the few movies I've seen
that deal with Japanese culture, it _does_ seem like there's something about
it that forces an distance between people that is hard to bridge. The host
clubs and the separate master bedrooms are a fascinating symptom of this
problem.

~~~
dschobel
Well since the audience here probably hasn't changed just for this story may I
suggest that the lack of coherent commentary reflects the unfocussed and
meandering style of the source article.

It does have some interesting snapshots of Japanese culture in there but they
are bookended by too many personal rants based on the author's peculiarities
so the result is part travelogue, part social criticism, part gaming
commentary, part manifesto.

~~~
houseabsolute
That could explain it. Another possibility is that this site has a higher than
usual percentage of nippophile users, and that they react negatively to
articles critical of that country, its culture, or its institutions. Either
possibility doesn't put an end to my disappointment.

~~~
camccann
_Another possibility is that this site has a higher than usual percentage of
nippophile users,_

Come now, you're not even trying. If you're going to be smugly derogatory
toward people who enjoy some bit of Japanese popular culture, the technical
term is "weeaboo".

~~~
houseabsolute
I enjoy some aspects of Japanese popular culture as well, anime in particular.
That doesn't mean I'm blind to the possibility others who have the same taste
might be biased against essays that portray the culture in a negative light,
nor to the fact that people with that taste are more common among the geek
set.

------
starkfist
I lived in Japan in the early 2000s. I don't know anything about anime or
videogames, but everything else in the article seemed accurate. Personally I
loved it, but I left before things started to wear me down.

Much of this is a critique of salaryman culture. Salaryman culture is bananas,
a bi-polar combination of Kafka-esque hallucinatory boredom during the day,
and 'girls gone wild' at night. Except, it isn't girls going wild, it's 48
year old men. It's interesting for about 2 weeks, and then becomes completely
tedious, and slightly scary if you care about your health at all. I'm
astonished that the Japanese still top the life expectancy charts.

When I wasn't working, I hung out with artists, skaters and surfers. I visited
small towns on weekends and spent a lot of time at the beach. Life outside of
Tokyo and the salaryman grind is much more relaxed, fun, and "good" weird
instead of "WTF" weird.

Whenever I have a friend interested in relocating to Japan I plead with them
to NOT work at a Japanese office. Only go there to work if you're the best
fixed-gear bike welder, or are a popular underground DJ, or some other sort of
"big in japan" folk hero. Anything that keeps you out of salaryman-land.

~~~
neilk
When it comes to entire countries, or even large cities, they usually have
every possible lifestyle within them -- somewhere. It's never what you know
about a place; it's who you know.

You may have to make different choices though. It's probably possible to be a
teetotalling vegetarian in Japan, but you might have to go to a monastery or
something. Whereas you could easily be a games developer with those traits in
the USA.

------
weeksie
I can't imagine living in Japan as a vegetarian teetotaler. There's nothing
wrong with that lifestyle but, man, pick your battles. Those things—the
working, drinking, and meat eating—are part of the culture and it's not
exactly a well kept secret.

I know that I love booze and meat so I'm not going to relocate to Bangalore
any time soon.

~~~
plinkplonk
"I know that I love booze and meat so I'm not going to relocate to Bangalore
any time soon."

Plenty of Booze and meat in Bangalore. Good Pubs, not so much.

~~~
weeksie
Booze and meat can be found in Bangalore, much the same way that vegetarian
food can be found in Japan. And I've been to a few of the pubs there. Well.
Yeah.

Not to say I didn't enjoy my stay, on the contrary I loved it; but I wouldn't
move there and act indignant because I couldn't get good quality wine and
steak.

The point was to illustrate that Southern India is a culture inclined to
vegetarian food and not drinking. And while you _can_ find meat (and some
semblance of wine) in Bangalore it's hardly the same as New York or Sydney (my
two "homes") in that regard.

~~~
plinkplonk
"Booze and meat can be found in Bangalore, much the same way that vegetarian
food can be found in Japan."

From what I understand from the article under discussion , purely vegetarian
food hardly exists in japan. I have no idea if that is true, but the situation
wrt meat is hardly the same in South India, so your comparison above is
demonstrably false.

"The point was to illustrate that Southern India is a culture inclined to
vegetarian food and not drinking."

Rubbish.

Your stay in Bangalore doesn't lead you to correct generalizations about South
India. In Kerala for instance, (one of the four states in South India),
practically everyone is a non vegetarian. Hyderabad(in Andhra Pradesh) is
famous for its nonvegetarian food, specially Biriyani. You have no idea about
the amount of liquor consumed either. Extremely large quantities of liquor are
consumed in South India. There is a thriving illegal liquor mafia which would
be very interested in your discuvery that South India is "not inclined" to
liquor. The people you interacted with during your stay here may have been
largely vegetarian, but South India is hardly "inclined" to either
vegetarianism or abstinence from alcohol, the way the OP describes Japan as
being "inclined to " non vegetarianism.Show me any locality in Bangalore and
I'll find you a couple of dozen non vegetarian restaurants in a 5 km radius.
And lots of liquor shops.

I've lived here 35+ years. I should know.

I'll grant you that you may not get a steak done the way you want it, but hey
I can't get a Masala Dosa in the average restaurant in Arizona. That hardly
means Westerners don't "incline" to potatoes (the major filling in a Masala
Dosa.

Most South Indian non vegetarians eat Chicken or Lamb (and not primarily Pork
or Beef as in the United States). Beef is _slightly_ rarer (but again not in
Kerala). You need to distinguish "meat" from the "exact dish I eat in New
York". I was saying there was plenty of _meat_ In Bangalore, not sausages made
Chicago Style (or whatever). Meat does not dominate the menu as much as in the
West, but it _is_ easily available almost everywhere.

Some _communities_ of people, e.g Brahmins or Jains or Buddhists are
vegetarians. These are minorities. Large chunks of Hindus, Muslims and
Christians are meat eaters (and alcohol drinkers). Apart from these minority
communities, People who don't _regularly_ eat meat do so because of economic
reasons not any "inclination" to vegetarianism.

~~~
weeksie
He was exaggerating about the scarcity, I've travelled Japan with vegetarian
friends and they could fine suitable food (and quite nice food when we were in
the mountains around Buddhist temples). In any case you're getting into a
nitpick about the general idea which is that a meat loving boozehound is going
to feel really out of place in India when compared to, say, Japan, Australia,
North America, Europe, etc. . . .

As one of those I wouldn't move to India and expect to have my cravings for
steak and a nice Bordeaux satisfied with any regularity. Just as I wouldn't
move to Japan as a veggo and expect to have my cravings for super awesome
tempeh dishes satisfied. And I certainly wouldn't complain about it like that.

~~~
plinkplonk
"As one of those I wouldn't move to India and expect to have my cravings for
steak and a nice Bordeaux satisfied with any regularity. Just as I wouldn't
move to Japan as a veggo and expect to have my cravings for super awesome
tempeh dishes satisfied. And I certainly wouldn't complain about it like
that."

Fair Enough! Fwiw, some Indians bitch and moan about American food habits when
they move to the USA so I am sure the habit is fairly universal !

~~~
weeksie
I agree completely. People will find things to complain about nearly
everywhere. Frankly, if I had an opportunity to spend more time in India I
wouldn't complain one bit because I really enjoy the country and I could be
quite happy going without my usual fair.

------
donw
ARTICLE SUMMARY:

I'm a vegetarian non-smoker living in a country where nearly everybody smokes
and all the native cusine has meat. I also don't like all the word-dancing
involved in office-level Japanese, not to mention the office politics, and I
especially can't stand the sheer pile of pointless (to me) social protocol.

Because I don't participate in most of what the natives do, I've had a hard
time making friends with said natives, and I'm lonely.

There's nothing wrong with me, of course. This is Japan's fault, and they
should fix themselves to be more like California.

END ARTICLE SUMMARY

Begin my take:

I'm a native Californian, currently living in Tokyo. Admittedly, I'm not a
vegetarian, but I don't smoke, and I agree that a lot of the stuff here can be
maddeningly irritating... if you try and apply your own value systems.

But you can't. It's a different country, they do things differently. If you
try and fight that, for the most part, you're just going to end up bitter and
frustrated. If you're going to live somewhere where the value systems are
different, you need to figure out what you need to compromise on in order to
keep both yourself and the natives happy.

The one nice thing about being a foreigner, is that because you're a
foreigner, you can get away with flaunting a lot of social protocol already.
If you even make a solid attempt at observing social niceties, you can totally
cock them up, and the Japanese will still be pretty happy that you bothered in
the first place.

Patio11-aka-Patrick, please feel to correct me where I'm wrong here. :)

------
gcv
I only read about half that article before losing interest, but one argument
jumped out at me: the mandatory office parties and drinking outings. This,
IMO, is not a Japan-only phenomenon, although I'm sure the Japanese put their
own cultural twists on this lovely concept.

After college, I went to work in a bank in New York. The in-crowd in my group
went out for drinks, together, at least three times a week. I never saw any
appeal in $10 martinis or $6 beers — especially with a bunch of people with
whom I just spent 10 working hours. Needless to say, it did not take long
before I was considered "not a team player." (My bosses liked me, so I did
well enough before I realized I loathe corporate life and left, but my peers
were not fans and caused considerable trouble.)

~~~
rick888
"I only read about half that article before losing interest, but one argument
jumped out at me: the mandatory office parties and drinking outings. This,
IMO, is not a Japan-only phenomenon, although I'm sure the Japanese put their
own cultural twists on this lovely concept."

You are right about this. Pretty much any place I have worked (I'm from the
US) has had office parties or other kind of outings. I almost always went
because it does help you get to know your boss and co-workers (it was only
about once-a-month). I don't really see a problem with it.

Your example of going out three times a week is a bit much (I wouldn't go out
that many times a week), but you could have at least gone out with them once-
in-awhile to show them that you don't completely hate your co-workers. If you
do, you probably shouldn't be working there anyway.

You can't take the human nature/social aspect out of working. If you don't do
these things, people will think you are weird/the outsider/don't like them.

Maybe you should run your own business?

~~~
plinkplonk
" I almost always went because it does help you get to know your boss and co-
workers (it was only about once-a-month). I don't really see a problem with
it."

I made it a point never to go for one after my first experience. In Bangalore
these take weird forms, usually wasting a holiday or a weekend, landing up in
some god forsaken "resort", where you can do exciting things like play
badminton or carroms, Quoits or Dumb Charades (I kid you not!), or quietly get
drunk in a corner, with some of the really bad companies throwing in a few
"mission and vision" style speeches from the powers that be.

Once I got a letter from a VP telling me to report to his office and explain
why I didn't attend the "office party weekend + mission and vision session"
over the previous weekend and I explained (quite diplomatically) that I didn't
give a fuck about these things and had no intention of ever attending anything
like this in the future either. He seemed completely shocked and speechless
and was almost in tears when I left.

My immediate superior later gave me a veiled warning that my " career progress
could be affected" by such "unorthodox attitudes" but, strangely enough, it
wasn't. I got regular promotions and raises and was "on the leadership track"
when I left because work was too boring. They didn't believe my reason for
leaving either ("I am bored out of my skull"), because I was a "senior person"
(I was 28!!) and was "poised on the leadership ladder" (yes they actually
spoke like that!).

These were large companies though. Small (less than 20 people) company parties
were often a lot of fun. I am so glad I don't have to work for large companies
anymore.

~~~
rick888
"These were large companies though. Small (less than 20 people) company
parties were often a lot of fun. I am so glad I don't have to work for large
companies anymore."

I agree with you there. I now only work for small companies for that very same
reason.

------
xiaoma
Insisting on a way of life completely at odds with where you live can be
stressful. I'm kind of curious how he ended up deciding to live in Japan. I
know wouldn't if I were a strict vegetarian, tee-totaling, non-conformist who
didn't like anime, didn't like rigid company culture and couldn't even
tolerate the existence of smoking sections at restaurants.

It's almost as if he's drawn to frustration.

~~~
rjurney
In my experience, the way it works is - at first everything in the foreign
culture is great. Its all novel, the language and culture, and every
idiosyncrasy is fascinating and every difference is a new challenge. In time
you adapt, and then things seem normal again and you enjoy participating
according to the rules of the new society. Once you're 'over it' though, you
come to realize just how much work you're putting in just to function. It
becomes extremely tiresome just getting by, and many little things irritate
you.

It sounds like he's in this final stage. It sounds like its time to come home.

~~~
GFischer
And what if you're tired and irritated... of your home country?

I'm in my own mini-crisis myself, and I don't know what to do (emigrating is a
bit drastic, but I'm considering it).

~~~
techiferous
Start your own micronation! :)

~~~
ramchip
"We're wheat-profitable!"

------
andrewljohnson
Someone should turn on the Patio11 signal and summon him to comment on this.

    
    
          00000
         0000000
        000P11000
         0000000
          00000

~~~
patio11
All appearances to the contrary, I do actually work for a living, and early
morning on release Monday is a bad time to drop a thesis on my desk and ask me
for comments.

~~~
clusterfu_k
just curious, what part of japan do you, or have you, live in?

~~~
jcl
FWIW: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406545>

------
clusterfu_k
I'm rather surprised by this article, mostly because I basically have the
opposite opinion about Japan. My theory is that I was born in Japan and lived
there for most of my life and so for me this is all just how life works. More
importantly, from a Japanese perspective, this is how we enjoy life.

It externally seems that I should have a similar opinion of Japan as him
because I am not Japanese and I seem to have had similar experiences. Yet my
exposure to the culture from birth leaves me taking for granted a lot of what
he fights.

When I first came to Canada to study in university I had grudges toward the
culture and way of life and I hadn't noticed until now why that was. It was
because my perception of "how things work" was challenged.

------
chaosmachine
_"When you buy Super Famicom games in used game shops, the gray plastic is
very often stained deep, ugly yellow from existing in houses packed to
bursting with cigarette smoke. Sometimes, the consoles themselves are so
yellow."_

That's actually due to the plastic used, it's not from smoke.

<http://vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/189>

~~~
dazzawazza
The plastic goes yellow but there is often a film of brown sludge that stinks
of cigarettes... it's not pleasant.

~~~
83457
Reminds me of the time I bought a used Dreamcast at GameStop and it had a disc
all scratched to hell in it and reeked of pot. Actually looked and smelled
like someone cleaned their pipe and dumped it in the system.

------
kazuya
The article is a bit amusing even for a native Japanese, but too lengthy for
me to read it through.

I happened to work at a big-business cubicle farm (or kind of) in Tokyo, but
there is no such obligatory parties. I have heard of that kind of stories but
they are almost caricaturized and exaggerated. If any, he was just unlucky
about it.

However I agree about smoking. That's so pervasive and annoying. But I found
our situation better than some of south European countries, and smoking in
public space is being illegalized.

It's totally okay for him to moan as he likes, but of course, don't take it as
he writes.

~~~
gommm
From my friends working in the game industry in Kyoto, it doesn't surprise me
that he had this kind of experience...

But, yes, on my end, working in a small company in Kyoto, it was not as
extreme. There were of course a few parties, but not much more than in Europe
or the US...

One thing though, when I first started work there, the thing that chocked me
is that nobody left work at 7pm (our official work time was 10am to 7pm). They
just kept on working as if being the first one out was a bad thing (and indeed
I've had comments from my coworkers to that effect later on when I started to
make an habit of leaving on time).

For the rest of his rant, I understand where he's coming from and I've
sometimes had the same criticisms as him. But now that I don't live in Japan
anymore, I miss it and want to eventually move there again... Go figure :-)

------
byrneseyeview
_Maybe I can sum up every little point I'm trying to make in this whole word-
slab by saying I don't like that so many people agree to do things that they
obviously hate doing._

This seems like a great description of the meat-free, booze-free, non-
comformist working for a big Japanese corporation. Why didn't he leave the
country 19,000 words ago?

------
jrockway
Yeah, Asia is different from the US. Different people, different cultural
values.

I went to high school in Japan for a year, so I disagree with some of the
author's points. Nobody tried to isolate me from the "real" students, for
example. Nobody really cared that I was different from them; there was too
much other stuff to worry about (exams, extracurricular activities, etc.) I
think a lot of people think that they are going to get special treatment for
being white, and then don't, and then call it racism. (And admittedly, there
is a little of that from normal people, and it is usually cleared up when you
are able to explain your situation in Japanese. Same as any culture -- until
you speak their language, you are considered retarded. We do it in the US,
too.)

Anyway, I know a lot of people in Japan that are software developers, and they
opt out of the whole "salaryman" thing too. In the end, it's your choice how
to spend your life. There is the easy path of least resistance, but if you
don't like that, then you can do something else. Just like everywhere else in
the world.

The only thing I don't like about Japan is the political and criminal justice
system. This is beginning to annoy Japanese people, too, though, so the era of
their third-world criminal justice system is probably coming to an end. Maybe
they will get rid of the rich career politicians too, although even the US
can't figure that one out :)

(Looks like they finally have the concept of a "trial by peers" now, although
it's not quite like the common-law system. Better than "you're guilty because
some judge thinks so", however.)

------
askar_yu
Completely agree that had it been short, it'd be much more interesting as
there are a lot of people who have interest in Japan, and they would love to
read about those experiences you have.

I doubt that the author is in any of the 'cultural shock' phases, as he starts
the article by saying " I've lived in Japan for a long time ". Nevertheless,
anybody living in foreign country with a different culture faces the trade-off
between preserving their previous 'ways-of-doing' (cultural values, ways of
behaving under various circumstances, etc.) and adjusting to the new culture
(thus, changing yourself to some extent). So the office culture of Japan only
seems to be one of these instances in the case of the author, and it also
confirms what I've known about Japan.

<i> "Why not "Tim-san"? I'm required to put "san" on the end of their names. "
</i>

From what I've heard (I've never been to Japan), Japanese don't attach '-san'
to foreigners names'. But I have to say, I liked this :) - <i> " \- ... This
is just how we do things in Japan, Tim. \- Well, [Name-removed]-san, you can
try putting 'san' on the end of my fucking name from now on, then, you know,
as practice. " </i>

------
Groxx
I hadn't considered the meat part before, but he's right, nearly everything
has meat in it. USA is getting pretty vegetarian-friendly, Japan not so much.

As to the other complaints: rose-tinted glasses looking back to "the good old
days", plus a bit of culture shock. _It's a frickin' different culture_ , of
course you're not going to understand / go along with it perfectly.

I'll fully grant that some of the cultural habits are downright dangerous (not
merely creepy), but every culture has that. Sounds like he's merely found out
recently that Japan isn't some holy grail location like he seems to have
thought it was, and is merely a location on Earth.

------
jason_tko
9 years in Japan.

Whenever someone criticises Japan, I'm always reminded of a comment I heard
years ago that stuck with me.

"If Japan changed to be exactly what you want, you wouldn't have come here in
the first place."

~~~
jason_tko
Although I was not actually aware there is lard in the bread, and I wish I was
not aware of that.

~~~
Vivtek
Twenty years married to a Hungarian has taught me that lard is _good_. It's
_liquefied bacon_. What's not to love?

------
maxwin
It is all about cultural relativity. This blogger grows up in Western culture
so it is so natural for him to perceive things or norms that are different
from his norms/culture as being weird.

For example, he complained a lot about the Japanese greeting "You're tired".
About how it doesn't make sense.

However, to many Japanese, it is just a way of saying "hi".

Dude, a Japanese coming to US will complain about the greeting "What's up"
being so freaking weird and rude.

Yeah, the sky is up!

------
wallflower
I'm eagerly awaiting patio11's comments on the smoking/meat/Sararīman culture.

------
mootothemax
Wow, this guy sounds like a lot of fun!

~~~
Estragon
Yeah, that was 20,000 words of relentless positivity.

~~~
houseabsolute
You are completely justified in complaining about the article's negativity.
It's not like he announced in the title or the first paragraph what it was
going to be about.

~~~
Estragon
It's not a complaint, it's a joke.

~~~
mst
I suspect you and the grandparent poster both need to replace the batteries on
your sarcasm detectors ...

~~~
Estragon
No, I see the sarcasm, I just don't see the point.

------
cookiecaper
Are people really so harsh to non-drinkers? That's sad. What about people who
don't drink for religious purposes? Are they better tolerated?

~~~
cdavid
I can only relate to my own experience (6 years in Japan now), but I have
never been in a position where I had to drink. I have never been in a very big
Japanese corporate company, but in both University, gvt labs and start up,
there have always been people who do not drink, and that has never been an
issue.

------
caffeine
He should move back to the U.S. for a while. I bet he lasts two weeks before
he's screaming for Chokukuro.

~~~
barrkel
I was wondering what the difference between this "chocolate croissant" and a
pain au chocolat was. (I have seen pains au chocolat described as chocolate
croissants in the northern CA area.)

------
elblanco
Funny I was reading this while on a trip to Korea. Different country, but some
of what he describes applies here as well.

But my final thought was "really, he's a vegetarian and he picked Japan as his
place to go?" I was talking this article over tonight with some friends over a
bowl of Sujabi <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sujebi>, which _could_ be
vegetarian-ish, but like most things in Asia, never really are. It had clams
in it, and the broth was boiled out of cow bones or sardines or something.
I've yet to encounter some food in East Asia that _didn't_ have some kind of
animal product in it.

------
DanielBMarkham
Good article, but about 3 or 4 times longer than it should have been.

------
ErrantX
The problem with anime and animation becoming dumbed down and trashy is a
global one.

(incidentally did anyone else struggle to read the start of this article - it
didnt flow very well)

~~~
glhaynes
The whole thing seemed amateurishly written. Left me thinking: does Kotaku not
have editors? Why did he suddenly directly address the reader as "man" three
times in one paragraph? Why did paragraphs seem rambly and disconnected? If
one's going to take the "asshole" tone, one needs to be likable or at least
amusing... maybe the author should read some Bukowski.

------
prewett
I'd recommend the book "Polite Fictions" to this guy. (I have a summary at
[http://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~prewett/writings/BookRevi...](http://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~prewett/writings/BookReviews/PoliteFictions.html)) I felt like I
understand Japanese culture a lot better (the little bit I see from here in
the U.S.) because of it.

------
mburney
This article makes me want to move to Japan.

------
kimfuh
Japan's quirkiness is what makes me love it so much. It's just so totally
different. You can find normal anywhere.

------
hkuo
The title should really be renamed "Tokyo: It's Not Funny Anymore". For anyone
that hasn't bothered to think about it, Japan is much richer and has more
breadth than this single city. It's unfair to critique an entire country based
on the experience of one place.

------
cmelbye
Did anyone actually read this novel?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Started out reading, then scanning, finally skimming for section heads and
interesting topics.

The problem is that the author didn't make a cogent point and back it up.
Instead he started off with a lot of excuse-making, then went into a list, but
kept deviating from the list to talk about video games (which, I guess, should
have been the topic?)

It had the feeling of a long list of grievances strewn together, ranted about,
and then tacked on to a couple of other conversations.

The strength of the article was in the negative first-person impressions of
Japanese culture. He should have stuck with that, cut out the apologizing and
made that just a sentence or two at the end. Then he should have tightened the
hell out of the prose and tried to make some kind of thesis that his stories
supported.

Other that that, the first-person stuff was good. But damn -- this guy is an
editor? The structure is a mess.

At one point he even admits how bad it is -- and then continues on in the
death march towards the end.

~~~
ErrantX
_this guy is an editor? The structure is a mess._

Aha it makes a little more sense now. Editors are usually poor
writers/reporters - their skill set is different (which doesn't excuse the
fact he clearly never copy-edited what he wrote)

------
petercooper
So, a list of problems some dude has with a country. You can come up with a
similar list for every country on earth, especially if you're suffering from
culture shock. Everywhere has its pros and cons.

------
MikeMacMan
Oy, if I had a yen for every time a westerner made some off-base criticism
that belied their understanding of Japanese language, Japanese culture, and
Japanese psychology...

------
teyc
writer is suffering from ennui. Just like yoga - any single posture held over
a long time becomes stressful.

------
brianmckenzie
I'm not sure who's funnier - the author or the people he's criticizing. It's
like a mobius strip of confusion.

------
sailormoon
Man, this guy's list of reasons for hating Japan is pretty much identical to
my list of reasons for loving Japan. Non-smoking, tee-totalling vegetarian?
Sounds like a real fun guy.

Got to hand it to him on the comedy shows, though, they're _awful_.

~~~
GFischer
So, you can't enjoy Japan or be a fun guy if you're a non-smoker and
teetotaler? (I'm both as well)

~~~
elblanco
Correct on both counts.

Until you can fight a live octopus down your throat between puffs on a cig,
and wash it all down with a gallon of beer, you can't be fun.

------
c00p3r
Just one remark - "hostess club" in Kathmandu are called dance bars. Same idea
- pay, talk and go away. Prices are ten times higher than on street. Juice
will cost you 10 bucks. And a men returns to buy even more dreams. Lots of
Indians, Germans (of course) and Russians. =)

------
Agile_Cyborg
Life would be an excruciating slog if I had enough time to write a fucking
novel about the things I hate in a place I chose to live.

------
scorciapino
> if a guy doesn't want to go to a party and get terribly drunk with everyone
> else in the company, then he obviously has some element of his outside life
> — a girlfriend, a hobby, et cetera — that is more important to him than the
> company

god...

------
Rauchg
Anime is awesome.

~~~
rglovejoy
Anime _used_ to be awesome. For me, it stopped being cool sometime back in the
late 1990s, when it went mainstream.

------
froo
tl;dr

edit - that's not entirely true, I got about 1/10th of the way through and
realised I could do more constructive things with my time.

~~~
cookiecaper
I think this is the kind of article that you scroll through until you find a
paragraph with some interesting words, read until you get bored, and do that
again until the end.

------
DannoHung
Tim Rogers is a nutjob. But he's got a few interesting points buried in there
regarding language.

~~~
Groxx
Only barely. English has plenty of similarly complicated words that are used
frequently without people understanding their meaning. Learning about those
meanings puts a bit of a shade on what people are actually saying, until you
realize people don't actually _mean_ it that way.

It's the same way with _irrashaimase_ ; it's a self-deprecating phrase (and
Japanese does indeed have a lot of them), but it's a stock phrase, and that's
how people use it. Similarly, a lot of our exclamations have origins in words,
even if we've forgotten them. For instance, why do we say "ow" instead of
"ai", or simply "aa"? "Ow" is significantly more complicated physically than
simply "aa!"ing. Other cultures say different things for exclamations, even
"spontaneous" things like pain, and that's normal. Getting uppity about it
isn't.

~~~
houseabsolute
Wait, your example from English is completely unrelated to Tim's point, which
is that they use words with some meaning that may not apply to the current
circumstances. Tim's argument is that that imposes a subliminal message,
which, repeated often and widely enough, has a negative effect on the society.
Maybe you have some argument against that, but you didn't make it in this
comment.

