slapdasch3
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- 1 Jan 2021
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A Few Things I Think I Know about Living and Working in Japan
1 You as an individual don't exist in Japan. It's very much a hierarchical society where everyone has a place in a kind of pecking order. People aren't comfortable unless they can figure out where you fit, or don't fit, in the overall scheme of things. Your status is determined by your role as amember of a particular family, the school you may attend, the place where you work and the immediate community where you live.
2 As a kind of corollary to point 1 above, in terms of social responsibility, you represent more than just yourself. For example, a group of students from the Japanese college where I taught got caught shoplifting. They were disciplined, but that wasn't the end of it. The school was required to send a delegation of higher-ups to formally meet with and to personally apologize to the store owners. Your conduct has repercussions and certain kinds of mistakes can lead to far-reaching trouble for those socially connected with you.
3 " The nail that sticks up must be hammered down." This is a concept not unknown in many places but it's especially true in Japan. Being or doing different in almost any way, will attract the kind of scrutiny that is not to your advantage. One example of this sort of thing was evident in a story told to me by a Japanese teaching colleague. She said she had gone to two different primary schools with art classes. At the first school, she was told by her art instructors that the sun should always be the color orange. Later, as a new student at a second school, she followed her training/ instincts, which told her to continue to depict the sun as orange. Her assignment came back with a note containing the following message: "If you wish to continue as a member of the class, you should know that in this school the sun is red, not orange."
4 Many learners at Japanese colleges and universities, contrary to the stereotype of Asians as model students, do not work very hard. Colleges and universities are considered ends in themselves in the sense that once you are accepted into a prestigious school, you are pretty much assured a spot at a high tier company. These companies have their own corporate cultures and are happy to instill their ways and standards into new workers with the "right" credentials. A number of Japanese students see college as a place to relax, make friends and establish contacts. They've labored tremendously hard at cram schools and practice testing to make it into college and will be worked to the bone once they hit their jobs in the "real world."
5 "Of all politics, academic politics is the least interesting because there is so little at stake."
The competitive nature of just about anything having to do with working and the work place means people in most jobs will form groups or cliques of like-minded individuals looking to "expand real estate." Working for Japanese at a Japanese college for over ten years gave me some insight into the ways power in Japanese academia is exercised and maintained and the lengths people will go to crush your career if you happen to be on the outside.
I'll give the short version of what was done to me. After 7 years of employment at my college, our dean came by my office one day and asked if I wanted to go through the process of upgrading my statusas a tenured lecturer to full professor. A long series of disagreements over details related to English Department teaching methodology and standards had instilled an obvious dislike in the dean towards me. This fact made me extremely wary about his motivations. Nonetheless, I figured, with the help of my Japanese wife, I could jump through the required hoops and get around any obstacles the dean might care to insert into the mix.
The dean outlined a process that included the need to have the school president give a stamp of approval for my promotion. I collected all the necessary paper work and documents needed on my end, turned it all in and was told a committee would make a decision in a couple of weeks.
After a month of hearing nothing, I requested a meeting with the dean. He avoided me for several more weeks, then finally made an arrangement to get together. The dean told me that the reason for the delay was that the president had held up the process by refusing to make a decision. Finally, the president had decided not to agree to a promotion.
Again, while leaving out a number of details, I later found out the dean never even gave the president my materials or had the chance to consider the promotion. The whole process had been designed by the dean to humiliate and put me in my place. It was also a way to send the message that the school wanted me gone.
One point related to this whole episode is that I don't believe I was singled out for "special treatment" because of being a foreigner. In Japan, if you don't get with the program, you'll get what's coming to you just as easily if you happen to be Japanese.
6 If I were to sum up, in very general terms, a major difference between Japan and U.S. culture is the following: Japanese care too much about what other people think and Americans don't care enough
1 You as an individual don't exist in Japan. It's very much a hierarchical society where everyone has a place in a kind of pecking order. People aren't comfortable unless they can figure out where you fit, or don't fit, in the overall scheme of things. Your status is determined by your role as amember of a particular family, the school you may attend, the place where you work and the immediate community where you live.
2 As a kind of corollary to point 1 above, in terms of social responsibility, you represent more than just yourself. For example, a group of students from the Japanese college where I taught got caught shoplifting. They were disciplined, but that wasn't the end of it. The school was required to send a delegation of higher-ups to formally meet with and to personally apologize to the store owners. Your conduct has repercussions and certain kinds of mistakes can lead to far-reaching trouble for those socially connected with you.
3 " The nail that sticks up must be hammered down." This is a concept not unknown in many places but it's especially true in Japan. Being or doing different in almost any way, will attract the kind of scrutiny that is not to your advantage. One example of this sort of thing was evident in a story told to me by a Japanese teaching colleague. She said she had gone to two different primary schools with art classes. At the first school, she was told by her art instructors that the sun should always be the color orange. Later, as a new student at a second school, she followed her training/ instincts, which told her to continue to depict the sun as orange. Her assignment came back with a note containing the following message: "If you wish to continue as a member of the class, you should know that in this school the sun is red, not orange."
4 Many learners at Japanese colleges and universities, contrary to the stereotype of Asians as model students, do not work very hard. Colleges and universities are considered ends in themselves in the sense that once you are accepted into a prestigious school, you are pretty much assured a spot at a high tier company. These companies have their own corporate cultures and are happy to instill their ways and standards into new workers with the "right" credentials. A number of Japanese students see college as a place to relax, make friends and establish contacts. They've labored tremendously hard at cram schools and practice testing to make it into college and will be worked to the bone once they hit their jobs in the "real world."
5 "Of all politics, academic politics is the least interesting because there is so little at stake."
The competitive nature of just about anything having to do with working and the work place means people in most jobs will form groups or cliques of like-minded individuals looking to "expand real estate." Working for Japanese at a Japanese college for over ten years gave me some insight into the ways power in Japanese academia is exercised and maintained and the lengths people will go to crush your career if you happen to be on the outside.
I'll give the short version of what was done to me. After 7 years of employment at my college, our dean came by my office one day and asked if I wanted to go through the process of upgrading my statusas a tenured lecturer to full professor. A long series of disagreements over details related to English Department teaching methodology and standards had instilled an obvious dislike in the dean towards me. This fact made me extremely wary about his motivations. Nonetheless, I figured, with the help of my Japanese wife, I could jump through the required hoops and get around any obstacles the dean might care to insert into the mix.
The dean outlined a process that included the need to have the school president give a stamp of approval for my promotion. I collected all the necessary paper work and documents needed on my end, turned it all in and was told a committee would make a decision in a couple of weeks.
After a month of hearing nothing, I requested a meeting with the dean. He avoided me for several more weeks, then finally made an arrangement to get together. The dean told me that the reason for the delay was that the president had held up the process by refusing to make a decision. Finally, the president had decided not to agree to a promotion.
Again, while leaving out a number of details, I later found out the dean never even gave the president my materials or had the chance to consider the promotion. The whole process had been designed by the dean to humiliate and put me in my place. It was also a way to send the message that the school wanted me gone.
One point related to this whole episode is that I don't believe I was singled out for "special treatment" because of being a foreigner. In Japan, if you don't get with the program, you'll get what's coming to you just as easily if you happen to be Japanese.
6 If I were to sum up, in very general terms, a major difference between Japan and U.S. culture is the following: Japanese care too much about what other people think and Americans don't care enough