"Gaijin"

"Gaijin" is a loaded word for almost every foreigner living in Japan.
It also, I think, epitomizes the amount of cultural misunderstanding
there is. (It means "foreigner" or to take it literally by the kanji its
written, "outside person." This isn't to say necessarily it means
"outside of our group" as "tanin" is a more appropriate word for
that specific meaning.) Something of a more politically correct
version of "Gaijin" is "Gaikokujin" meaning literally "outside
country/nation person."

I'm going to come back to this word a few or many times in my
subsequent entries, point by point.

I was told that a Canadian girl that lived here confided to one of 
her students (English teacher, of course) that she hated the word
"Gaijin." To the standard western ear, it sounds ugly. But why?
For Americans, the most similar word I can think of would be
"immigrant." It conjures a lot of bad meanings, I think. And
that is strange. Almost everyone in America is an immigrant.
But it's something of a dirty word. "Immigrant" is a dirty
word, so westerners here feel that "Gaijin" is a dirty word.
I don't believe that at all.

The next step would be to say it's a word based on a people
ignorant to the idea of "multiculturalism." There, there's more
of a point. Japan has just about a 1% foreign population. Why
would they be well-versed in multiculturalism? And if you're
living here, why would you expect them to act and talk as if
they lived somewhere else?

The thing that triggered me recently to write this post is that
I saw a news story about a person wanted for a crime on TV.
They gave a description of the person suspected of the crime.
It was a Japanese person.

How do I know? They didn't say "Gaijin." They didn't say
"Nihonjin" (Japanese person). Just nothing. If this were a
standard way of expressing "us and them," or even standard
vernacular for describing a suspect, THAT would be
discriminatory/racist/what have you.

Think about it. The foreign population is 1% here. If every
time a crime was committed by a Japanese person, they were
to describe the person as "Japanese," then that would already
put the crime level in Japan as part-Japanese and part-foreigner.
It's just automatically accepted that the crime comes from a 
Japanese person. 

What do they do in America? They say the perpetrator or
suspect is "Male / Black / age /height / build/ etc." Even
if it's a white person, they're going to say that. Race is
something that stands out. Even though America is something
like 70-% white, they don't refrain from saying "white" when
describing a suspect. Yet Japanese do.

Another reason not to hate "Gaijin" as much as you do.

Synergy

Over the past year I've thought about the generic fashion sense of
Japanese people, and it's made a lot of sense in a lot of different ways.

One way.. is something an American woman here mentioned, that 
Japan seems a lot like the American 30s-40s where men were men,
women were women, everyone liked to be dressed up to go out,
crime was not something to really worry about (though gangs are
often heard about), and so on. 

Tonight I saw this picture of Audrey Hepburn and I thought she 
looked a lot like the way that Japanese women today try to
appear.

Not only the fashion, not only the body type, not only the makeup
and somewhat chic/cute appeal, not only the meticulous hair, but
also the fashionable small pet dog.

About an hour after thinking that, I saw a quiz show on TV, where
they had to list 5 films Audrey Hepburn starred in. I was thinking
in Western mode, in American mode, and thought "I can only name
2 of them, how are the Japanese people on this show supposed to
name 5???" and in no time at all, they reversed my position. This
also relates to the philosopher Zizek (known from now on in this
blog as simply Zizek) talked about his visit here to talk about a
western philosopher. Not only did his audience know about this
philosopher, but they also knew his main influence in thought,
which was well apparent, as most of their questions were about his
influence rather than his thoughts alone.

Not only are Japanese more aware of her than most Americans,
a number of her films are some of the top ranking and most
watched films in Japan.　Her "Roman Holiday" which I've yet to
see, has been routinely told to me as the #1 best well-known
American movie among all ages in Japan. I'm inclined to believe
this is part of Japan's love for Italy (and numerous trips there)
as well.

The other image that comes to mind when I think of women's 
fashion in Japan is Julia Roberts as the prostitute/wife in
Pretty Woman. But that's for another entry.

Superior service

Today, as I ordered lunch delivery service from my computer, I started thinking  about the level of service I'm used to.

Here, it's certainly convenient. I can order a meal from any style of food in the world, with multiple choices for each. My lunch today was from my well loved New York style of food.

Then, I can order delivery liquor or flowers, laundry, cleaning products, jewelry safes, well, pretty much anything. All of this is, of course, available in the vending machines all around here. So in case I don't feel like walking out to a vending machine, I can have it delivered to my door.

Anyway, one nice thing happened when I ordered lunch today.

The delivery guy called me to ask where i am.  Turns out i had entered the wrong address. There was no accusation in that regard. I realized it myself. But we're used to being spoiled here, so according to him it's some computer mistake.

Then 5 minutes later i get a call from the restaurant. " we're very sorry, the mail must've arrived incorrectly. we understand your actual address is blahblah? okay well the food got a little cold from the delivery guy going to the wrong address so now we're making a new one for you. is it okay to wait a little bit more?"

That's very different from what I'm used to elsewhere.

Here, people are just supposed to take pride in their work and do a good job with a smile. its just accepted. There's no tipping here. People are thankful to have the job they have, able to make money, able to even make other people happy. All the sales people here are really informed and
helpful and of course theres no commission and no pressure to sell up.

You walk into a convenient store here (I'm boycotting 7-11 by the way) and every employee in the store says together 'thank you for coming' You get thanked for your purchase, handed the bag directly (they wait til you have a grip on it before letting go) And everyone thanks you again when you leave.

Buy something at a department store? they wrap it nicely and protected, if it's a food or drink, they'll pack it in dry ice to make sure it stays cold. They'll give you some bonuses in the bag, walk around from the counter to where you are standing, bow and hand it to you with both hands extended. Unless of course it's maybe more than $50 or maybe heavy, then they'll
carry it for you to the exit of the store.

It's little things like that.

Some pictures outside the previous post's shrine

 

Balancing nature and concrete

During my lunchbreak amid the skyscrapes I decided to walk over
to the nearby shrine for some relaxation. It's called Hie-Jinja, and
it's a nice hidden away bit of nature and old Japan right in the middle
of the city.  Generally Tokyo is like that. There are many shrines and
huge parks in nearly every area of the city.  So I'm sharing my exit
from the shrine on video.

My cellphone only wanted to grab 40 seconds at a time, so it's 
divided into two videos - the first  coming  from the shrine
into the exit tunnel (about 100 small Japanese gates over an equal
number of steps down to street level), and the second making it
to the bottom.

Part one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAB0SR6eq3A

Part two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ56-M3d-vk

Found In Translation

I'm now working in the translation department of a government/corporate collaboration. I recalled how I joined this department about half a year ago and decided to write a little but about business in a Japanese office.

My start here was something I'll never forget, and very different from my start at any other place. Some of what I'll write is typical of every Japanese company, some is unique.

The boss knew I lived too far to commute, I was living outside Tokyo at that time, and they wanted me to join quickly. So they put me up in a rather expensive "weekly mansion" (an apartment you can rent on a weekly or monthly basis). They gave me 10 days in the mansion (at a cost to them of about $1,200USD) so that I could have a 15 minute commute to work and my evenings as well as a few weekends to find myself an apartment in Tokyo.

Not only that, but the mansion was in posh Shirokane, an area of Tokyo mostly known for executives, exotic foreign sports cars, stylish middle aged women with diamond necklaced poodles 'teehee-ing' on the balconies of italian cafes.

They let me store 4 giant boxes of my non-essentials at the office for two weeks. They wrote out the forms and paid for those 4 giant boxes to be delivered overnight to the office, being picked up at the door from my home outside Tokyo. They asked me if I wanted to borrow any money to help with the move. They picked me up at the train station each time I made the trip, and paid the ridiculously expensive taxi fares for all the travel I needed to do.

They asked me what salary I wanted, I told them, and they said okay.
Further, they took my request of salary to mean my salary after taxes,
giving me a few hundred dollars extra a month. At this point I was just ecstatic.
They'd gone out of their way to do a lot for me, and I ended up in the city I'd
really wanted to live in. I work in Akasaka, a nice upscale business section of Tokyo.
There are skyscrapers and a big shrine surrounding the area and world restaurants all over the place.

My first 3 weeks of work were mostly spent playing on the internet and
studying Japanese from my desk. The company believes in weening people
into work very gradually. In fact, even now, my boss tells me that if I have no work to do,
I should study Japanese. Great, I can get paid to do one of my hobbies.

The second week at the company, they asked me to buy a monthly train ticket to get to my apartment from work. When I did, they asked me to see it, and added the cost of the train ticket to my salary. Paid transportation is nice, especially if I decide to walk or bike the trip instead.

I've found out I get 3 substantial bonuses throughout the year. My work is relaxed, hardly any overtime, I get an hour lunch break and a 20 minute break-break as well as however many smoke breaks a person could want. My boss and I goof around together. And I make good money doing what I like.

By the way, it's common for Japanese workers to sleep at their desks. Here, they usually fall asleep somewhat after lunchtime. They have a great technique where it really looks like they are reading something on their desk. It's not to avoid getting caught, it's just to keep up the image that they're working. more on that later.

One thing I like about Japan

One thing I like about Japan is Genki Sudo.

Here, you can see his latest pop music video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktTgNh3CT0Q:

He preaches peace and always holds up a "we are all one!" sign.
He thinks sensitive and positive thoughts, like this one taken from
his diary about brave, talking fish (I've cleaned up the english a bit):

"The other day I went to the sushi bar and found salmon roe [salmon eggs]. They are young'uns who are to go to the chopping board as soon as they are born in this world. There are also tuna and young yellow tail around who are old hands.
"Hey, salmon roe, you are impudent!" "You have never ever swum in the sea!" I thought I heard those voices and salmon roe might feel frightened, but they weren't. A rolling sushi bar is kind of a fashion show, and they stand out so attractively.
While I am eating them happily, I gained the energy and power of a spear carrier in this new generation. To those who will start a new life from April, such as entering new school or company, enjoy yourself and try hard with salmon roe spirit!"

But that's not all. He's also one of the toughest fighters in the world.
It seems like such a contradiction, especially where fighters in the UFC in america are all shaved heads, tattoos, goatees, the whole tough guy thing, and here's a peaceful guy singing about love and beating up people in competition.

Another thing I like about him is his creative, psychedelic mindset. Here is a collection of his ring entrances which are quite cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw7awoNuRFc

What a long time coming it's been

Well, this is something I've been meaning to do forever..

To document my time here in Japan from a perspective not usually seen.
As a foreigner here, most people live outside the real Japanese culture.
I've met people that have lived here 7 or even 13 years that cannot
speak Japanese. I find that unbelievable. However, being somewhat
similar to Japanese people in personality and having studied on my own
the language, culture, mindset and so on of Japanese people for over
6 years (over 4 years before setting foot in the country), and having a 
job working in a typical Japanese office, with Japanese friends and
so on - I think this gives me a unique inside look at Japan.

I plan to talk about Japanese people, foreign people, things I see,
thoughts, philosophy, but basically to try to keep everything focused
on "Japan" as the topic.