Turning Japanese

The cynical, angry, and depressed gaijin (CAD-gaijin). He is there to tell you about all the dirty secrets of the Japanese society, he knows the beast from inside out and he spares nothing. All the shocking facts about Japanese society lie in his memory cells, and to the true foreigners the information that is revealed by the CAD-gaijin is flabbergasting.

It is interesting however that the CAD-gaijin almost never speaks of the positive aspects of the Japanese life, and the downsides of the Japanese society is gravely stressing if not depressing. At first glance, one would think that foreigners are not meant to be part of the Japanese society, and the cultural requirements of being within this society is overwhelming. May be so, but I think there is more to this.

The best part of being a foreigner is that you are free of the society's bizarre ethics and politics. You don't care about what the politicians do in that country, nor do you care how the whole system works. You are free of all the bullshit, and you can just do your job, enjoy your days off and get involved exclusively with the things you like. There are exceptions of course, but I have managed this type of life in all the countries I have been in, and this is a major reason why I keep living as a foreigner. If I was ever unhappy with the country I live in, I would leave within the next opportunity, and lucky for us; people with phds in the technology industry have plenty of options to go by.

So back to the CAD-gaijin, (*insert Canadian accent*) why so cynical, angry, and depressed, guy?

Well, I have a theory, and it starts with the CAD-gaijin's audio-playing cells being stuck at the Vapors song "Turning Japanese". They are turning Japanese, they can't help it, and they loathe it. Unlike the A-Gaijin (or the Chinese equivalent A-WaiGuoRen), whom I'd like to discuss in another post, the CAD-Gaijin behave very much like the Japanese. CAD-Gaijin are polite, go the extra mile to make you feel happy and comfortable when assisting you in daily tasks, avoid asking questions to people of higher-level (because questions mean trouble), speak Japanese like the Japanese (this does not mean speaking Japanese fluently, but always using key words frequently such as "yes", or "little ...", and using appropriate formality in language addressed to different parties), have a strong dislike towards their job but do nothing (or too little) to change it, know their "level" in the complex Japanese hierarchy, and of course never really discuss work with their supervisees. The list actually goes on...

The CAD-gaijin is ofcourse not a Japanese, hence "turning", and they proudly display that is of theirs--which consequently is another Japanese trait. So what's there to do for the CAD-gaijin? They have integrated with the Japanese society far too strongly to be able to leave this beautiful country easily, so they are pretty much stuck here. They care too much about their surroundings to let go of the negativities that surround them and just chill. They need someone to be blatantly honest with them and tell them to stop whining, and take control. But since the CAD-gaijin is turning Japanese, that someone needs to be of higher  (or at least equal) "level".

Masters of Reverse Parking

http://www.cottontimer.com/2006/12/10/bad-parking-hell/

Everybody hates badly parked cars, even those who can't park themselves. Yet we see these badly parked cars everywhere, all the time. Turning the nose of a car between two lines seems such an arduous task, and a lot of people fail at it miserably; costing the availability of a (or two) parking space for another soul. Well this is not much of a problem here in Japan. People here almost always reverse park perfectly in the middle of the two lines, in a matter of few seconds. This is especially true for the ladies. As long as there are two lines drawn, no problem. I witnessed ladies reverse parking family cars in a crowded parking lot in just a few seconds while they talk on their cell phone. So this one is for all those amazing male drivers who always rip on bad women drivers, I dare you to challenge a Japanese woman to a park-off!

I No Speak Gaijin

It's no wonder that for a 17 year old, communication with a foreigner would seem difficult if not scary; especially if they are not fluent in foreigner's language. But for those who are older, communicating in other languages is really not that difficult. I realize that if I can understand 1 verb/noun out of 5, and the person in front of me is willing to use body language, it's not so difficult to communicate. In fact I find this quite fun. I look forward to my trips outside, where I can interact with Japanese people with little or no English. However, this is only possible/true for older generation (especially women). It is quite difficult, and most often impossible for me to get a conversation going with a young (18-40) Japanese. They are supposed to be more educated and more exposed to foreigners, but these factors do not seem to allow them communicate better.  Surely there are many reasons behind this observation, and the small sample of people I interact with can not give me the absolute big picture but here is an experience I had few months ago:

I was on a trip for rock climbing with "K" (one of the boys from the university club), and his friend, who is currently in another university was going to join us. I guess it is worth to mention that these boys are educated in "international" high schools and universities, which teach English to students at all levels, and they both are final year undergraduate students. While waiting for the newcomer to join us, I was enjoying a conversation in English with K, who speaks the language quite fluently. On his arrival, K's friend introduced himself to me with a very clear, almost American, accent: "Hello, my name is X. I am from Japan, and I only speak Japanese. Sorry, I can not speak English.", and that was it. The whole day was spent without an English word from anybody, or any glance at the Gaijin (me). I simply sat there watching them chatter along.

New Year in Japan

Japan must be the only developed country that does not celebrate the arrival of new year with loud fireworks and people partying in the streets. In fact the new year's eve was very quite here. I heard that a lot of people visit the temples but I could not be bothered to do so. I paid my visit to a temple on the 2nd of January. A sheer amount of people poured in to the temple for a short pray (made me feel like we were at a touristic destination in China).

Money and a quick prayer for a good new year.

Start of a huge line to pray at this mini temple.

It was interesting to see the Japanese people in religious rituals, but no as interesting as this:

I was lucky enough to witness this show live, and get a recording of it!

The order

It's been a while since I noted the things that happened in Japan, and it's certainly not because of the lack of interesting occasions but of negligence.

One thing that really kept astonishing me over the past few months has been the strict order/harmony/obedience to ethics and rules in Japan. Even though it is now well known to me that Japanese in general are quite orderly and well behaved in public places, they still manage to surprise me once in a while.

In January I was at the Kansai airport for a flight to China. I was sitting close to a group of drunken Japanese business men. Some of these men were seriously pissed, barely managing to walk straight when they tried. Even so, after they had their little party in front of the boarding gate, they still did not forget to clean up, recycling all the beer bottles and disposing all the remaining garbage. I was surprised that what most of the sober people in other countries "forget" to do, was carried out neatly by these guys. It reminded me of the time I spent at a camp with a group of 200 gentlemen who had the right to be there because of their high level of "education". I used to watch them litter every little patch they move past.

Another incident that surprised me was the sight of an unattended booth in a deserted location up a touristic mountain village. The booth had bags of tea, a money box, and a sign saying that a bag of tea for 100 yen.

Roads in Japan

Japan has the worst technology in traffic control among all the countries I have had the chance to drive in (N and S Cyprus, US, UK, and China).

The roads are very smooth and clean, but this means nothing when you are restricted to drive 30kmh most of the time. Yes on an average trip, my estimated average speed in Japan is around 25-35kmh. So a trip that is 70km away, is sure to take longer than 2 hours. There are many reasons for this:

Motorways are very limited in numbers and have a maximum speed of 60kmh (most common) or 80kmh, and there is a strict speed control via cameras and patrol cars.  Dual carriage-ways that are not motorways have a speed limit of 50kmh, and are controlled by traffic lights for every junction (every 500meters on the one that I use most often). The most common single carriage-way roads have a speed limit of 40kmh and they are controlled by traffic light that are upto every 200m in frequency. The existence of uncontrolled junctions or roundabouts has been obliterated from Japan (because they must be unsafe). On top of all this, the traffic lights have no sensor control, and they are on 24hrs/day. 

I remember a discussion by a group of lads at the army about the "need" to have a motorway from Lefkosa to  Magusa (the two major cities in N. Cyprus). They were complaining that with the current dual-carriage-way road it took around 45minutes to travel between those two cities (of approximately 65km). I wish them a year of driving in Japan with a fully modded racing car.

9.30 curfew

Last week I have moved to a new place, a university accommodation for visiting staff and students. The new place is quite nice, with ample space indoors and outdoors, away from the crowds and close to the campus. Before I moved in I warned them about my car, and they assured me I would have no problems.

Well, once I moved I was revealed of one small secret that could be a problem. The parking area of the building I live in is only open between 6.30-21.30, and there is no way to break this rule. When I asked why this rule exists, the common excuse in every traffic related decision surfaced: safety. When I argued that the university campus is open 24hrs, and whether that means the university main campus is unsafe, a dead-lock occurred and the topic was left there.

Seeing that long discussions with the staff that work at the building made no difference, I took the topic higher up, to the bureaucrats at the main campus. A week later I was given a key to the entrance of the parking area.