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Showing posts from January, 2011

Does Corporate Japan Really Care about the Emotional Well-being of its Foreign New Grads?

For a foreigner to live in Japan for many many years as a productive, "regular" (in terms of what he does, a salary-man or Office Lady, for that matter) member of society requires the person to be REALLY emotionally attached to Japan as a society. Just liking "Japanese culture" (as many professes BEFORE they come to Japan, based on their knowledge of Japanese pop culture-based stereotypes) is really not enough for more than few months when that "newness" of being Japan wears off. What is required is a deep bond of friendship with the local people that act as a honest and unobstructed channel of understanding the individual Japanese persons intimately. It is about breaking the "personal barriers" the Japanese put around them against foreigners (and other Japanese as well) to "be nice" toward the others yet prevent others from acquiring too much of a position in their personal lives. All in all, it is about making unconstrained emoti

Amy Chua and the "Value" of Emotions in International Relations

In philosophy, there is a school of thought known as Absolutism, tracing back to the days of Hegel in its pursuit of absolute ideal standards in all fields of human society. From social structures and economics to governments and moral values, Absolutists held that there is that one elusive yet perfect model for humans of all backgrounds and beliefs to achieve absolute success. Some will discover the model earlier than others, but as knowledge is spread, the entire world and entire human civilization, will eventually converge the exact same application of the exact same model with perhaps a little regional variations. Not surprisingly, the enthusiastic cries of triumph at finding that ideal one-fits-all model has been heard throughout the existence of Absolutist thought. And some, most notably "Western-style democracy" and "free-market capitalism" has been highly justified with increased happiness of common people brought by personal freedoms and materialistic

Respecting Religions as the First Step for Globalization

So, today, I checked the total PV of my blog, and it turns out Japan, for the first time, has surpassed the US as the largest source of viewers of my posts. In other words, the blog has entered the period where more people come to me for understanding what is outside of Japan (more mentally and philosophically than physically, of course) rather than what is inside Japan (socio-culturally and physically). And since I have so far largely played a travelling passive observer role voicing opinions on real situations, perhaps, as many have suggested, becoming more proactive in my suggestions for improvements may serve the blog very well. Of course, as a new grad with rather superficial contact with Japanese people (occasionally drinking would not suffice as truly understanding Japanese culture...), the thing I can probably talk about the most is regarding how Japan can become less self-righteous ("this is Japan, do the Japanese way"), even secretively, when dealing with forei

Fearless Proposal to the Boss: Courage more than KY

In Japanese culture, the social protocol calls for utmost attention to the right "atmosphere." Certain actions can only be considered appropriate when the "atmosphere" of the time and place allowed for them to be carried out. In Japanese lingo, it is "reading the air" (空気を読む)and for every person deemed to be lacking in such skill, the term "KY" ("cannot read the air, "Kuki Yomenai," 空気読めない) is ruthlessly (albeit sometimes jokingly) applied. The presence of these KY people is definitely a source of massive awkwardness and discomforting bluntness in any social gathering, whether work-related or otherwise. Well, being careful to avoid KY-ness is obviously of high importance in certain work conditions. In the presence of one's superiors, or worse, external guests, doing anything KY, i.e. making overly argumentative comments against the others, aggressively doing something that should be reserved to the superiors, and so forth,

Japanese Attitude toward Foreign Workers in Japan

This day has been quite unproductive. I have been sleeping until 10am (got up at 5:30am as usual but went back to bed because it is simply too cold...), reading the news, and tracing my thoughts on bar-hopping and clubbing in a blog post...all this when I instead could have done finished many more job-related tasks that I am now pushing back to tomorrow and the days after. It is true that I practically spent half of the three-day weekend on work, frantically typing away to create documents and send emails, but it seems that the "invisible hand" that push me down to the desk is still not loosening a single bit. I do tell people that I am feeling this way, and all I am getting is "do not let your workaholic self take away your freedom." While I have made it clear that I am not going to lose myself just because I am now living in a country where social nonconformity is only understood as "craziness," I am starting to think that the Japanese managers,

Bar-Hopping and Clubbing All-Night-Long, Japanese Style

Western-style partying often involves drinking and partying it up with complete strangers, allowing people to enlarge their friendship circles in rather random ways. The Japanese, on the other hand, generally tend to be rather private on these matters, preferring to drink and go crazy in the comfort of their own separate spaces . So, those who do party Western-style in Japan has to be very, eh, different and not conforming with the social norms...must be an interesting crowd just by that. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to find out for myself this weekend. This Saturday, as I was lounging around at home, slowly finishing up some company tasks, a friend from San Diego suddenly called and said he is in Tokyo and wants to hang out. Sure, why not, especially since God knows when I will be in San Diego again. So we met up and headed for Shibuya. As we were discussing what to do over a dinner, the guy started talking about his clubbing experience in Roppongi. And here I was, been

On the Concept and Feasibility of Continued Excitement

People get bored of doing the same thing over and over, being in the same situation, and seeing the same people. For one to stop doing something after starting it may take only a day (like I am with computer games ), or maybe a few years (hopefully, as I am thinking nowdays ). But even for something of as much personal value as a significant other or high-paying employment, and no matter how difficult and how elated it was for one to get in the beginning, the day will come when it is no longer desirable, and worse, a bit disgusting. Of course, unless one finds a continued reason for keeping up the excitement for it. Often it involves a whole new aspect of the matter or object in question that was completely overlooked before. A hidden stage in a game (forcing programmers to be more and more sophisticated these days), a sudden new responsibility at work, and a newly discovered common hobby with the partner are all considerable for preventing that natural human curiosity from buyi

A Midnight Walk: from Asakusa to Kamata in 5 Hours

Sometimes, the greatest adventures (or stupidities, depending on how you think about it) occurs under the most unexpected circumstances during the most unusual timings. And yesterday was definitely one of those once-in-a-lifetime out-of-the-blue experiences that I will probably never have the chance to do again (nor would want to do again). The story starts with my visiting my relatives up in Saitama Prefecture for some dinner and conversations. I depart around midnight, expecting that, since it is the New Years holidays, the trains will run much later into the early morning than usual. In a way I was right, I managed to catch the empty last train from Saitama to Asakusa in northeastern side of Tokyo at about 5 minutes past midnight, drifting in and out of sleep as the train slowly pulled itself toward Asakusa terminal. The arrival time was half an hour past midnight, and the little historical neighborhood was deserted. The subways (the only public transportation in and out of t

First Post of 2011: New Year's Resolutions and a Career Beyond Rakuten?

As a new year opens up a new page for this blog (its 7th month in existence), it is time for me to continue reflecting on the potential direction my life will take for the next twelve months and look ahead to what may (and may not) happen in the next 365 days. The continued doubts about the correctness of where I am going with life aside, the calm (or put it in a better way, boring) few days of this 5-day break has really given me the time to rethink the possibilities and limitations facing me right now, without excess ideals or pessimism. To be honest, one year really is a long time. Given my love of traveling , come to think of it, I have not had a year since junior year of high school (5 years ago) that I actually stayed in one country for an entire year. The mental and structural freedom I get from these travels , especially foreign ones, often act as the energy and fuel for me to continue productive work with decent level of motivation. And with utter fear I have to say tha