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 emotional communication with everyone that the said foreigner meet within this country.

Easier said than done. For most of us foreigners without local friends and social communities, the limited social environment offered by our workplaces often become the only way of attempting to form emotional relations with local Japanese people. Yet, because, after all, it is a workplace where individual and small group work tend to keep the communication limited to few people and only regarding work, getting to know anyone as beyond a colleague is difficult even we aggressively seek to meet them outside the workplace.

Sure, that is not to say that friendships cannot be made within the company walls. I do keep very good relations with some Japanese new grads in outside social activities, but it can be said that most of the "social activities" with coworkers still involve drinking where work and sense of corporate hierarchy does not disappear (and perhaps even get stronger). Two recent personal examples can surely illustrate exactly how we the new grads are not getting any closer emotionally to the Japanese after all these months.

Last Friday, coming back from a drinking party with other new grads (mostly foreign and Class of 2011), three of us were talking (in English) in the train on the way back. Suddenly, a drunk Japanese guy standing behind us told us to shut up and started picking on us for not speaking Japanese. Himself probably a salary-man just like me during the day, he wanted to pick a fight with me at the next station. Thankfully, we got out of the train in time so that he cannot find track us in the thick crowd.

And in a more job-related one, I, after writing my weekly reports to the Boss regarding how I feel at work for the past few months, were suddenly told that I should write more number-based facts and expert opinions (specifically noted that these do not include MY opinions) as the main (and pretty much only, since the reports are so short) content. The fact that messages regarding my emotions are not welcomed is, reluctantly, clearly noted (not to mention that now I have to spend more work time summarizing facts and figures when I already push some work to the weekend).

But these two examples, while being clearly point out that (1) Japanese xenophobia (only outwardly expressed when drunk) prevent them from understanding foreigners emotionally and (2) emotions have no place in a workplace (even though work and life do not have clear separation in Japan), are still not disturbing considering that the influence of alcohol and clear workplace power structure prevent clear communication, but the current measures undertaken in Rakuten to make the foreign new grads "feel at home" is even worse.

The Rakuten "Foster Care" program ask for (in other words, force against their will) all Executive Officers to invite foreign new grads to their houses and certain Japan-only events so that they can "settle down in Japan." The obvious negative connotation with the program name aside, the program actually manage to actually set into time-lined procedures on when and what the Officers should do with the new grads throughout this year. Its just absolutely hocking that even something as human as getting to know others emotionally can be, in this company, turned into a forced work-like activities featuring multiple KPIs.

Now that we the new grads know the Japanese we are attempting to bond with seek to only know us just enough to satisfy their number-related KPIs, I cannot help but close this one with with some dark humor: All things said in the world can be categorized into two things: fact-based Numbers and thought-based Opinions. And depending on what is the input and the output, four kinds of beings emerge: those who input and output Numbers are robots; those who input Numbers and output Opinions are consultants; those who input Opinions and output Numbers are i-bankers; and those who input and output Opinions are humans.