Anyways, this "life in Japan" article is probably one of the longest articles I've ever read online in my life. It was pretty interesting to read how life is like in Japan...Especially all the "weird" things that they do over there. I feel like I actually learned a lot just by reading about his experiences.
A couple of notable bits from his article (my comments in brackets).
- Everyone seems to be smokers.
- Everything has meat in it. (Salad without meat seems to be an unheard of concept there. Also, some people think that bacon is not even meat–I don't know what they think it is then).
- Office traditions. In many Japanese offices, you're required to scream "Good morning!" at the top of your lungs, clapping your hands to your thighs, as soon as you enter the office area every morning. Everyone in the office then shouts "Good morning!" back to you. (Even if you are the first to arrive at the office as he mentions...weird.)
- Work-related parties are mandatory. (This paragraph explains it best, and gives some insight into their thought process): The general consensus is that, if a guy doesn't want to go to a party and get terribly drunk with everyone else in the company, then he obviously has some element of his outside life — a girlfriend, a hobby, et cetera — that is more important to him than the company, so any work he does is less worthy of trust than any work done by anyone who "respects the company" enough to go to all the parties and match the boss drink for drink.
- As long as the boss sees him going and getting at the party, this guy is not going to lose his job anytime soon. In fact, he's going to get promoted, and he's going to be telling you what to do, and he's going to be pulling figures off the internet, and going, "Oh, it looks like this game called Halo 3 has twenty-seven guns in it. Our game only has, what, four? We need to step it up!" And you say, "Well, Halo 3 was made by a team of like six hundred people. We've got, uhh, about sixteen people." And then he pumps his fist and says, "We're just gonna hafta work overtime!" No we're not, asshole. (I just thought this was funny)
- I was looking at jeans, and an employee, standing nearby, was repeatedly yelling "Irrashaimase" at my roommate and I. "That's just how they do things." He must have yelled it maybe a hundred times. We were the only customers in the store. "Why is he telling us to come into the store if we're already in the store?" "Beats me, man," was my roommate's response. (That's one of the weirdest things I read in the article)
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