interactions

It's important to remember these are people who lived as tenant farmers deep in the mountains for millenia, eating, working, and sleeping with people in villages where everyone shared the same last name. In the city the sort of hush-hush small town politics neccessitated by all kinds of proximity combines with the sensation of being surrounded by thousands of people.

housing

imports

japanese pop culture isn't defined by american imports like people seem to think. The only real post-occupation cross-cultural contamination was at the height of beatlemania. talk to any ossan over 50 and they'll tell you about listening to california dreamin' and bridge over troubled water on Koss headphones until they went deaf. Today it's staggering how disconnected the two countries are. the top youtube result of "breaking bad" in japanese is a video with 16,000 views. I've never met someone who has watched king of the hill or the simpsons, star trek is an unknown. There are plenty of big bang theory fans though, god help me.

The real rift started appearing in the 80's with glam rock and finally punk music extinguishing the coals. Lately online TV streaming has been closing the gap but it's a trickle, the explosions in popularity of media that is inherently hard to access doesn't happen often

According to the bookstore at Daikanyama French women don't get fat and have 10 outfits, live according to what they like, don't have trashbins in their rooms and get more beautiful as they age. Germans don't work that much and clock out at 5pm, live well on €25,000 a year, their women don't wear heels. New York women change their life with one red lipstick, Italians inexplicably see success in the end.

I wonder what bookstores overseas are like. Must be like "the Japanese live long because of ikigai, or karoshi while constantly nemawashing."

For euros it's a different story. The naive xenophilia goes both ways, except instead of some national character the japanese fascination continues to be alternate ways of living. The incomplete fantasies of living like a rural italian fisherman lounging around for most of the time or British schools "excelling" at preventative anti-bullying measures. The japanese love the dutch or french in the same hypothetical way you like movies you've never watched.

identity and foreigners

Being a foreigner is piss easy. Learn how to dispose of trash properly, don't catcall schoolchildren, don't eat on the subway, don't smoke while walking, and Japanese eyes will gloss right over you. Deviate from their expectations and you'll just reinforce very obvious delineating lines between the ingroup and outgroup (you), Ultimately Japan is an island and the social politics that arise from that aren't surprising. Are Hawaiians and Sardinians known for being open and welcoming?

internet

anime

It's a far cry from weeaboos who advertise their desires in the same indignance as furries, eager to shamelessly tell everyone that watching pirated anime is their hobby. Anime otakus in Japan act like closeted horsegirls, eager to conceal themselves from the social pogrom. Some series especially ones on Shounen Jump break through the stigma to shake off those connotations, simply becoming another set of faces, another brand. Liking Dragonball Z or Bleach doesn't make you an otaku in the Japanese sense.

nostalgia

While americans are eternally backwards looking, desperately nostalgic for post-war redlined suburbia there's not really a universally agreed finger to point at. The Edo and Taisho eras were the big cultural golden ages but it accompanied the backwards barbarity of unwashed assholes and arranged marriages. Wartime is wartime. The bubble era drowned Japan in cash and name-brand hedonism and the shock of the following recession felt like a reasonable correction to the absurdity of 12% interest rates. The early 2000's was colorful and embarrassing despite the hordes of young men unable to enter the workforce.

Saw a twitter post sacralizing post-war Japan. Which is just odd. It's a bit like fondly looking back on the destitution of post-war Britain. Food rationing for 9 more years, grotty black streets, clouds of smog culling pensioners, if you fantasize about all this you're probably Scottish. There was an elderly woman on TV hoarding rooms of futons as a consequence of her inability to afford any as a child. Looking through 50's photobooks it was common to see children without clothing or shoes standing on dirt roads, towering khaki servicemen scattering sticks of gum like they were street pigeons. Gran refuses to eat kabocha, sweet potato, or bamboo shoots because that's all that was available during rationing.

pride

the majority of Japanese i've met have fillipino-levels of national self-deprecation. English ability, international influence, economic growth, there's plenty of daggers to stab yourself with.

How many Japanese can name an equivalent national author like Shakespeare or Keats is for the English? Does one even exist?

competitiveness

How many appliances by japanese firms do you see at the store? Dashcams? Phones? TVs? Computer components? Appliances?

"In the past japan was good at this kind of engineering but if you add up revenue from all japanese electronics firms it doesn't even amount to half of Samsung's. Right now Japan is as low as it can go, there's no coming back."

"The angry replies to this are just like Americans in the 1980's destroying Japanese cars"

suicide

In other more heartless news Aokigahara has numerous signs put up by the local council that more or less reads "fuck off and die somewhere else" due to the mounting costs of clearing trash and human remains from the forest. So much for glamor.

samurai

There was some USN officer in 2014? that made a cripplingly naive statement to JGSDF troops like "you are Japan's modern samurai" which is a great example of the kind of cultural vacuum samurai lie outside of Japan.

military

animism

believe it or not people with names like "Blossom SmallMountain" and "Evening Wisteriafield" are deeply animistic despite their near-total estrangement to organized religion.

religion

accessibility

While the US is still the king of disabled infrastructure thanks to the ADA, Japan isn't far behind. Things get more fractious in less affluent areas still haunted with rusting showa-era detritus but the growing silver hordes will no doubt light some fires.

loanwords

bread

condiments

the gays

There's hordes of drag queens on TV. It undoubtedly originated from kooky palate-cleansing spectacle decades ago, people that were essentially eye-cauterizing court jesters to television producers. They were able to break the rules of anodyne grinning-pundit tv with displays of confident sexuality bleeding into cockgrabbing, deprecation, and straightforward critiques of male sexuality that no one else on stage could. It gradually evolved into thought leaders like Matsuko Deluxe and Miwa Akihiro offering advice to troubled souls on late-night shows, an elevated position that even experienced actors never see. Miwa in particular was the crown jewel of the prestigious new years show Kohaku, the same risk-adverse broadcaster having turned down Kyary pamyu pamyu for her disagreeable image. Drag queens get paired with TV juggernauts like Akashiya Sanma and Tamori when hosting shows and you can sense the studios' confidence in their chemistry, the mutual wealth of life experiences, the authoritative voices complementing each other's blind spots.

folk medicine

language

education

japanese universities are a joke, even the top 3. Professors are great but the workload is laughable and no one takes it seriously. Any mid-tier US university is like a slave plantation in comparison. Students are probably most busy preparing for their middle school exams.

Created: 8/2019

convenience stores

24-hour convenience stores are everywhere if you live in a city. While a bit more expensive they're life savers. I'm quite fond of the mini grocery stores, there's some deals to be had there.

drinking

Strolling around with an open can of beer is fine and there's no restrictions on public intoxication. Starting next year alcohol consumption and sales will be banned in certain districts in Tokyo due to the rowdy tourists in Shibuya leaving trash everywhere. People drink responsibly here. In the US you'd be down on all fours cavity searched on the sidewalk by the religious police. Buying alcohol is also easier, Americans would shit their own hips out if they found out you could buy drinks on ebay. "You havin a pussy drink bro?" is less relentless in Japan, although there are some cocktails more gendered than HRT injections.

crime

crime is rare. I've accidentally left cameras and wallets in restaurants and they didn't disappear. There are of course exceptions like wealthy foreigner-ridden Roppongi or working-class Kamagasaki, but even then it's limited to trashed bathrooms or pickpocketing. The random stabbings or Floridaman headlines are something you just don't see. If you drop something people will likely prop it up somewhere visible or hand it over to a police station. You'll see countless orphaned lens caps and gloves placed on bollards. I've had relatives leave money in self-service registers and it was still there when they came back. The use of bike locks are rare outside of certain wards, some shops in Kyoto don't even have locks.

sightseeing

It's an open question why more Japanese people don't vacation overseas it's poverty but the density in domestic sightseeing locations is probably why. There's never a moment of boredom if you have the time to travel around.

internet speed

wow you actually have more than 2 telecommunications companies to choose from. Japanese home internet is reputably fast, not like I would know.

it's almost not like korea

The Zaibatsu, literally "wealthy clique" in Japanese consisted of several giant conglomerates who stick their fingers in all kinds of business. The amount of financial and cultural capital they hold is staggering and in the 90's employment at any of their banking divisions was the golden ticket to a 7-figure income. Chaebol is the Korean equivalent, but their influence is even more prominent. The divide between employment in a big company and smaller company is much more radical in Korea, where low-paying menial labor is even more undervalued.

food

The quality of beef at normal supermarkets is staggering. Produce is also amazing, especially fruit. You also find some uncommon oddities from SE asia.

sweets

sweet things aren't that sweet. I went out for BBQ in the US and I was knocked catatonic by how sugary everything was. Even me who grew up destroying their insulin baseline with fundip and whoppers and candycorn and milkduds found it just too much. Good thing then that the japanese pride themselves on subtlety. goes back to the craftsmens tradition of subtle presentations, the vital bits being in the details. Sweets are refreshing, you could inhale cakes and pastries for hours without your liver bringing out the exit bag. Their use of dairy in sweets is also unparalleled. While Japan doesn't have a flourishing craft cheese industry the cream and butter used in bread and sweets are delicious.

poverty

Cheap food won't always destroy your body. There's a universal presumption in the US that cheap food is bad for you, and the inverse is also true. It explains the comorbidity of obesity and poverty, the existence of food deserts, the incestuous relationship between the federal government and agribusiness. In Japan especially inexpensive food doesn't have connotations of fast food, but central kitchens. Think sysco or school lunches. Vegetables are cheap without relying too much on underpaid transnational migrant labor. Poverty meals are interestingly soy-bean centric, from bean sprouts to natto to tofu.

business

pleasantries extends to (some)business. When out to buy green tea at a department store one of the Itoen employees referred me to their competitor across the floor. Unthinkable back home, they'd rather carbomb the competition than squander margins.

privatization

If I said privatizing nationalized companies works you'd probably have the sense to make me disappear. In this bizarro land it somewhat makes sense. The Japanese post, the subway system, there's several examples where privatization hasn't been a complete disaster.

Surprise! The Japanese Post has suspended weekend deliveries indefinitely, leaving businesses less productive, rural communities more isolated, and deliveries even more strained. Thank god shareholders got their return though.

The tokyo metropolitan subway is also set to be sold off, we're so fucked lmao

high trust

I'm a fan of a rum made from japanese brown sugar. I saw a twitter post by a distiller in Kagoshima advertizing an alcohol display at a supermarket. It was a little corner a bit like the Trader Joes booth that gives out free samples minus the captive employee. Complete with paper cups and open bottles for people to pour and sample liquor. That would not fly in the US because everyone is incentivsed differently. Bobby Orogon, a Nigeria-born comedian would often joke that back home anything that falls out of your hand is free game. That's how I imagine people think of the US. We accept the human margin, that inevitably there will be the column of deviants who won't adhere to any social etiquette, the people who smash TVs at walmart or shoot rude drivers through their own windshield. things like dashboard-mounted TVs are normal, vending machines aren't enveloped in steel cages, barriers to buying alcohol online are near-nonexistent. People are expected to take risky behavior responsibly and largely they do.

drug use

there's not much, maybe a homeopathic sprinkling from the golden triangle. It's frankly a wonder of the world that drug use precipitously declined after exiting the post-war era. In the countryside you'll still get your aluminium sheeting and iron drain grates stolen, but not by desperate addicts. The enduring antiquity-era archetypes of the dangerous countryside are not applicable here.

The US is still in the middle of an evolving synthetic narcotics crisis. Dutch police informants and journalists getting killed is no longer surprising. In Mexico cartels have begun scattering improvised landmines with guidance from former FARC militants. In Japan sometimes the elderly are rude to you.

no credit scores

slipping into a new property is easy as long as you have a stable income and a reputable job. many people don't have a credit card at all.

school violence

there's no school race wars, schools as a hub of violence tapered off in the 80's

folk beliefs

lots of superstitution was wiped out during the meiji restoration. Wildlife poaching for folk medicine is a near-non entity relative to countries like Vietnam and China.

digital gambling

Online and sports gambling hasn't hit in the same meteoric impact as the US, the theropods are still kicking.

traditional dress

Traditional garments aren't some twice a year cosplay to the state onion festival, nor are they modern fodder for nationalist revivals a la qipao or hanfu.

reflection

Not just here but any bit of travelling is a great reiteration to why the US is the greatest country on earth. Places can be safer, ruder, more convenient, dirtier, more exciting, less diverse outdoors, more unstable, but the US is truly somewhere special that has it all. When settling overseas often means taking a 50% pay cut, nervously watching inflation rates, or enduring eternally horrible weather then you know you've got it good.

If you want to work in japan(don't know why you would) bilingualism isn't a terribly significant advantage. It sounds like it would, and your average Japanese person will parrot that sentiment as well, hyping it up as a golden ticket out of 90 hour workweeks. For 20 years the government and big corporations have sung in unison, saying they need to be more globally-minded, yet that's always been just talk. For employers it seems like they don't really care, their desires are a smear and a blur. The desire for Japanese employees that can communicate well enough for business is so weak that many hire professional contractors to translate at exorbitant rates. There were several recruiting sites that used to take in pretty much anybody until they got swamped by new graduates lying about their language ability.

Japanese employers look for new hires seasonally on a very rigid schedule: New uni grads for top-tier companies, those switching jobs, then the rest. The majority get hired right away after graduating and if you're not within this demographic you're already considered second-tier. The system does not make concessions for foreigners. The applications, interviews, and contracts are in Japanese. If you're not fluent you're useless to any company worth working under. Second-rate companies don't offer commuting/housing stipends, visa assistance, your income will be less than $25k a year, and they will have no problems giving you unpaid overtime. These smaller companies are often headed by heavy-handed micromanagers whose behavior would be quickly extinguished at Sony or Mitsui. Normal salarymen regard their apartments as little more than hotels to sleep in. Come home at 11pm, wake up at 7am. The arudous, monotonous, or disrespected jobs are filled in with Vietnamese, Fillipino, and Burmese laborers.

careers

Name value is everything for a professional career. All you need to switch jobs is if you're competent, worked at Itochu, and have a pulse. Accrued skills being a secondary inference rather than front-and-center while whoring yourself out for recruiters. If you don't land a full-time position by 25 you're an irredeemable manchild, the bad yield of the workforce.

wages

Simply put the average American part-time worker makes the same amount as an entry-level office worker at a large japanese conglomerate. There's no HR deskmonkeys making $80k a year. The stereotype that people work like indentured slaves likely originates from the bubble era, where the average Japanese worker couldn't get rid of their earnings if they tried. Salarymen in the late 80's would clock in at 9, work until 10pm, drink with their co-workers into the morning and continue working without coming home. Work and leisure became hermaphroditic, with golf outings and dance clubs holding the same obligations as slaving away on a PC-98. The prime difference with today is that they were rolling in cash. Why sleep when you could be making big bucks? It all crumbled by 1992, to which the country was thrown into a multi-decade recession that took real estate 26 years to recover from. Suddenly the long hours were a product of necessity, a matter of nationalistic survival. By now it's just the norm, stripped of its reasoning and 50-hour minimum monthly OT quotas dot work applications like gangrenous infections.

Japan is ultimately a country in decline, fundamentally traumatized by the bubble recession rendered not even yearnful of the 80's because the wealth and social mobility felt like a distant fever dream. The government still infatuated by the ailing politics of Thatcher and Reagan continue to press the same buttons. In the early 2000's there was no consumer tax. As of 2022 the median annual income is $28,610, a figure already surpassed by South Korea whose annual GDP is 3 times smaller. That figure dropped from $42,299 in 1994. The percentage of contract and temporary employees have been exploding in number since the Bubble economy burst, further limiting those with limited opportunity to work their way up. Entry-level full-time positions, the kind that's been getting harder to get into, generally start at $20~30k a year and generally top out at $50k by the time you hit 60.

1984 How YOU can live LUXUIROUSLY on $13,356 USD a year Change careers with jobs that pay $40,069 USD(gold lettering)

On TV there was a nostalgiabait show covering Japan's more affluent past about bowling pin attendants and smoking in orphanages and such. If there's one emblematic crumb about Japan's current standing it would be a Regain commercial, an 80's energy drink that sounds like a minoxidil derivative. Their commercials had greased-up himbos blazing through officework with an amusing jingle. The award-winning catchphrase at the end "Can you fight for 24 hours?" conceptualized when Japan's economy was at its peak with paranoid American predictions about GDP lapping was reborn after the coup de grace of 2008. Today it's been revised to "Can you fight for 3, 4 hours?" the horrible admen settling for an ambiguous, unambitious question to a placated population who knows their place.

NEETs

poverty

mindful consumption

There's plenty of companies to boycott. DHC, Muji, Uniqlo, Rakuten, Suntory, Kowa, Kirin, Negishi, APA hotels, there's no shortage of research to do before becoming a well-informed consumer.

office dress

Unlike in Korea Japan still has rigorous office dress codes. Every morning at 7 you'll see this sea of black descending on the train stations like flies to carrion. You have a bit more options if you're a woman.

phone bills

Like many things phone coverage in Japan is still firmly planted in the 90's. Along with mobile phones it was considered a luxury 30 years ago and so the high monthly bills has been carried over. It was among one of the issues highlighted by the Suga administration, an ultimately futile attempt to shake off a distinctly anti-consumer stink that the government has had since Koizumi.

cinema

air quality

air quality can be bad in parts. Tokyo and Kyoto are surrounded by mountains and the ardent US regulations that stem the prevalence of low cc motorbikes has no equivalent in Japan. Every year there's clouds of dust that drift from the west, a mix of pollution and soil from arid Chinese regions. Korea has it worse. It also used to be much worse 40 years ago with near-daily smog warnings issued in Tokyo. All the roadsigns showing current air quality have largely disappeared.

gamblign

politics

News

Around 2009 facial paralysis enthusiast Simon Cowell got raked over in the British press after suggesting the creation of an X Factor clone for politics, covering topics like "should we be in Iraq and Afghanistan?" instead of sanctioned hate figures on the TV. No other country like Japan trots out comedians, actors, and "celebrities" as political commentators on the TV. Celebrities have been blasted for their advocacy on social issues but imagine if Louis CK, jeff dunham, and daniel iglesias was paid to do a round table on the war in sudan. When the nexus of social criticism comes from people who debase themselves for money surely it's the sign of an ailing country.

Many news channels are devastatingly shit, with some resembling clip shows with videos you would've bother uploading on youtube playing on national TV. A woman jumping backwards into a pool isn't news. A dog barking like a bird isn't news. The news is made to be as sedate and non-combative as possible, while tabloids are filled with the same sensationalist carrion peddlers as The Sun bizarrely the ones doing fearless reporting seemingly oblivious to the financial consequences. The sterility in presentation is actually quite jarring to witness. It goes beyond culling just the emotive value, fundamental details are often omitted. You will never see hard questions in an interview. You will never see career politicians be interviewed. Yet like any bored child, the news often throws tantrums to bring attention on itself. It was Asahi Shinbun, one of the largest and most prestigious newspapers in Japan, that peddled HPV vaccine injury conspiracy theories. The government, less popular than leprosy, is more than eager to lap up perceived "popular consensus" very quickly. Today the annual HPV vaccination rate for young women is a staggering 0.7% leading to 3000 extra deaths annually, parents making the critical mistake of trusting the news. It's almost insulting in the way that genuine social issues are overshadowed by some eye-catching road rage incident or thinly-veiled ads on the news. In 2021 Japan dropped 4 places in the Reporters Sans Frontières press freedom ranking to 71st, placing it above Liberia but below Hungary and Kenya.

police

NHK special on police corruption, a rare show of self-inflicted institutional damage. 3 workers at a small business were arrested for exporting industrial spray dryers to China. Under the Public Safety Agency's massaged definitions the simple spray dryers sold by the company was framed as having the capability to produce aerosolized biological weapons. They later lied to workers that the spray dryers in question were already being used for Chinese military use. One investigator testified that they were repeatedly told "who's going to take responsibility if the investigation falls apart?" by the agency. Incredibly the show got access to internal government communications, commerce officials telling public safety agents "please wait, please cool down" while jointly cooperating during the 3-year investigation. The 3 suspects were released without charge after 16 months in custody, 1 worker falling ill and passing away during that time. A subpoenaed investigator testified with "well, it was a fabrication." It's truly got it all. testimony falsification, suspect intimidation, nothing has changed. a twitter post reads "how do these people keep on living without slitting their stomachs?

an elderly woman in her 70's was arrested and held for 3 days for stealing inarizushi(300 yen) until Saga prefectural police learned it was given to her by a friend.

collectively it seems like your civil rights only extend to what orifice they can't explore. You are considered guilty until proven innocent by investigators, juries, and defense lawyers. Stop-and-frisk is a common sight. Accused of molesting someone on the train? Take your chances on a suspiciously high conviction rate. Accused of murder? Prepare your confession under duress. Bike cops look like power rangers though, so that's a plus. And you'll ejaculate during your hanging, so you'll have that to look forward to.

driving

being a car enthusiast is easier in the US due to some arduous smog laws that encourage new car sales. For the most part it's a sea of kei cars and mopeds without mufflers. Vintage cars older than 30 years on the road are a bit of a rarity. You can oogle at all the Skylines and Supras in the world though. I also spotted a Hakosuka in kichijoji.

Driving evaluations cost $2000+ and generally span multiple days. Living on-site at dorms is common. Driving instructors used to be the kind of job where berating clients was the norm and some of that is still around despite the precipitous decline in car ownership.

old men

There's plenty of precautionary figures, people you don't want to become. The kind of miasma that brings an air of evasive thinking as you nervously climb the indeterminate ropes of adulthood. Right now the flavor of the month archetype is the over 40's man, pounded raw by the recession and in the middle of a career plateau lashing out at strangers.

generational crises

As usual the questions about a shrinking middle class or dropping full-time employment is distorted into accusations towards the youths. "Why don't youngsters gamble or drink anymore?" is a sentiment often seen on the news, the National Tax Agency recently promoting alcohol consumption among under 30's to boost tax revenue. One of the government initiatives to combat birthrates was to ask the question "How do we push women to marry lower-income partners?"

young consumers' estrangement from: alcohol • eating out • tea • gum • baseball • skiing • debt • crime • talking • car accidents • traveling • gambling • CDs • movies • organized religion • smoking • driving • watches • brand goods • TV • radio • newspapers

With downward trending everything it's a common view among wippersnappers that the elderly are at the very least an economically privileged cohort. It's not uncommon to see over-65s on the TV using their monthly pensions on something derisible like horse races or pachinko when they're not busy running people over with their cars. That sort of generational animosity is the populist half of support that crackpot yale profs who suggest mass suicide enjoy (the other half being multinationals and broadcasting agencies who propel those fuckers into the public eye). At the same time there's a growing visible cohort of elderly working menial part-time jobs that didn't exist 15 years ago.

['I'd like to continue driving for 10 more years' The number of surrendered licenses and elderly driver-related car accidents at a standstill]

"Possibly from nervousness and unfamiliarity, there was an incident of driving backwards but he passed the evaluation without any problems."

"without any problems?"

sympathy

Around this time there's a lot of graduates coming to meet their former teachers. Honestly, as a school admin worker the extra work is a pain. Do teachers really enjoy meeting with their students?

It's fucked when men over 20 come in with their parents for evals when they just have a cold, both of them.

I am stunned that there are doctors who are willing to make posts like this even though the patients may have developmental or intellectual disabilities.

Sorry isn't that was X is for? If you don't like it maybe you shouldn't make a comment towards me?

the common outsider narratives of some inwards national solidarity and outwards hostility doesn't really ring true. Just go to Kyoto, japanese or not. Kyoto of course being the sacrificial anode for tourism like okinawa is to the defense ministry.

mexican food

there's like 2 mexican resturaunts

vices

scams