JLPT N1 particle usage question

I've never heard of a foreigner driving truck for a Japanese company in Japan. According to my father-in-law, most of the companies are in some way connected to the yakuza. Certainly not all, I would imagine, but in any event, did you take the test and get your professional truck driver's 資格? It's mandatory for a job in that field, is it not? Also, did you get the job of your own merit, or through the コネ of a relative or friend? I would think that, among any pool of potential applicants, the foreigner gets chosen last, regardless.

Shaggy Logic said:

i've never heard of a foreigner driving truck for a Japanese company in Japan. According to my father-in-law, most of the companies are in some way connected to the yakuza. Certainly not all, I would imagine, but in any event, did you take the test and get your professional truck driver's 資格? It's mandatory for a job in that field, is it not? Also, did you get the job of your own merit, or through the コネ of a relative or friend? I would think that, among any pool of potential applicants, the foreigner gets chosen last, regardless.

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Are you talking about most truck driver-thingy-related-companies or just companies? My dad did say the same about a lot of companies with truck driving thingy is related to the -youknowwhat-. I dont believe it though, well yet

I've actually been employed in the industry for quite a long while and I must admit it comes as a surprise to me to hear that there are people out there who apparently think it is a mob-controlled sector of the economy. Like any other sector, they have their fingers stuck in the pie here and there but it is nothing like what F-I-L and Kenji seem to think it is.

Yes, I got my license here. No, I didn't get my job through any sort of connection.

You have to realize that unlike in some fields where a connection may get you in the door, that's wouldn't be a particular help in this job since by its nature you spend all day out operating alone and have to be able to handle whatever comes up on your own; there's nobody there to cover for you. In some regular workplaces they might let you in as a favor to someone, figuring there's somebody there to watch over you and step in on anything you can't handle. That doesn't pertain in my line of work. So unless you're competent to handle all the verbal/written tasks that come up in the course of a day, it doesn't matter if you have a connection or not....nobody is going to put you in a truck with the customer's goods and send you out motoring down the road.

What's your background, Mike? Were you raised in Japan? Do you look foreign, or are you a halfie that can "pass" as a Japanese? My spidey sense tells me it wouldn't be easy for a foreign national to come over to Japan and get a job as a truck driver, even with passable N2 Japanese.

I am a standard Mk I Mod 0 white guy and was born and raised in Tennessee.

White foreigners from first-world countries don't have a clue what jobs they can or can't get outside the stereotypical occupations they all engage in because they engage in occupational self-ghettoization and never even try to do what immigrants in other countries do....just go out and get a regular job like a regular joe.

I decided that I wanted to make my ability to work and support myself here be even though I'm a foreigner and not do some job I can get just because I'm a foreigner. It's a whole different country when you do it that way, or such has been my experience, anyway.

I'm not a big Debito fan, but I wouldn't say that foreigners clump in certain industries simply because they choose to, either. That is, I don't think it's all self-ghettoization, although I imagine there is some of that too. I suppose I'm what might be called a realist when it comes to the social status of foreigners in Japan. We sometimes receive gaijin privilege and we are discriminated against sometimes, too. You got lucky and succeeded. I would bet that for every one of you, there are three who weren't even considered merely because they were outsiders. Your success might be tinting your perception pink.

I'd like to hear some stories of people who even bothered to try, then. I'm convinced that practically every first-world gaijin expects to come here and be involved in some field or position that in some way is based on the fact that they are foreigners. Whether it is their appearance, overseas experience/connections, or simply their foreign language ability. I'll believe they are shut out of other fields when I hear they have tried entering fields that in no way take advantage of their foreign origins.

Everybody is too ready to operate on assumptions of discrimination; just listen to yourself. Have you tried seeking work that has nothing to do with your gaijinity? Did it ever cross your mind to try? Or is it just easier to sit and cast aspersions of discrimination on people who never even had the chance to prove you wrong. I get tired of people complaining about the Japanese shutting them out and not being accepting when all too often the fault lies with us for not trying to get outside our own self-created gaijin walls.

Mike Cash said:

I'd like to hear some stories of people who even bothered to try, then. I'm convinced that practically every first-world gaijin expects to come here and be involved in some field or position that in some way is based on the fact that they are foreigners. Whether it is their appearance, overseas experience/connections, or simply their foreign language ability. I'll believe they are shut out of other fields when I hear they have tried entering fields that in no way take advantage of their foreign origins.

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I'd like to hear stories too. Unfortunately, I can't speak for anyone but myself.

Everybody is too ready to operate on assumptions of discrimination;

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So...you have spoken with 'everyone' on this subject?

just listen to yourself. Have you tried seeking work that has nothing to do with your gaijinity? Did it ever cross your mind to try? Or is it just easier to sit and cast aspersions of discrimination on people who never even had the chance to prove you wrong.

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Wow, man, it sounds like you have one hell of an ax to grind.

a) You don't know anything about me and what I do in Japan - what I've tried and what I haven't tried. So don't assume that you do.

b) I'm not casting aspersions on you or anyone. I think it's awesome that you work as a truck driver. All I said was that it was the first time I had ever heard of a foreigner driving truck in Japan. My guess is that you are a rarity.

I get tired of people complaining about the Japanese shutting them out and not being accepting when all too often the fault lies with us for not trying to get outside our own self-created gaijin walls.

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You'd have be pretty ignorant not to realize that this is a vertical society, in which women and non-nationals do in fact experience a lot of silent and overt discrimination. I've experienced it myself, directly. That doesn't mean I throw my hands up and give in, nor does it mean that I automatically assume I'm going to face discrimination and avoid any and all challenges. I love Japan, and enjoy my life here. But I'm not naive of the status of foreigners.

How about you guys to talk this private conversation on PM or visitor's message board on your profile pages? At least, this doesn't seem to be a topic about "LEARNING JAPANESE".

None of which changes the fact that we are too prone to assume the presence of walls or to erect them ourselves.

Complaints of discrimination which has actually happened is one thing. But how many times have you heard other foreigners griping about discrimination they presume is going to happen? Presuming that some Japanese person is going to engage in discriminatory behavior is every bit as odious on our part as is any actual act of discrimination on their part.

Want to know how I have obtained employment outside the standard white gaijin labor market of pretending to teach English to people who are pretending to learn it? The same way Japanese people get their jobs. I looked up companies that were hiring, wrote up a 履歴書, got on the phone, and went to interviews. Did I have to kiss a few frogs? Yes, I did. But rather than not even trying because of an assumption of universal Japanese discrimination toward foreigners I went out and gave them an actual chance to discriminate or not. Some did discriminate and wouldn't even interview me....telling me quite openly and in no uncertain terms that the reason they wouldn't hire me was because I was a gaijin. Cross them off the list and dial the next number. I know for a fact from personal experience that gaijin discrimination in hiring is NOT universal. Nor is a コネ required. I'm not even particularly unique; I know of a few other foreigners in the same line of work. The main things that would keep the typical white first-world person out of it are the aforementioned unfair presumptions of rampant racism on the part of the Japanese and the fact that there are very few white first-world gaijins who would contemplate working Japanese hours for Japanese wages.

I would really like to see people doing here what I believe most of them would expect of immigrants to their own countries of origin: learn the language and put forth the effort to assimilate, especially into the labor force. Instead what we typically do here is stay in our own few little fields that some aspect of our gaijinity allows us to make a living in and seldom if ever try to just do some regular job that takes no advantage of any aspect of our foreign origins or nature. Imagine if the Chinese community in America were all still just running laundries or laying railroad tracks.....that's the degree of break-out-of-the-mold assimilation that white gaijins have even tried to achieve here, as a whole.

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Toritoribe said:

How about you guys to talk this private conversation on PM or visitor's message board on your profile pages? At least, this doesn't seem to be a topic about "LEARNING JAPANESE".

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I was typing the post that follows your suggestion while you were typing and posting this one. I don't want it to seem as though I was ignoring your suggestion.

The grammar point in question got answered. The OP has been a participant in subsequent thread drift. If he or moderators wish to split this off or kill it then I have no problem with that.