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The Japanese salaryman is a strange beast. He wakes up early in the morning and takes a two hour train journey to work where he will spend the entire day apologising to his customers for not doing his job properly.

Exhausted after a long day, he is however forbidden to leave the office until his immediate superior has left even if he has completed all his work.

He will then endure the two hour return journey home spent asleep or pondering how to grope the young lady`s pert bottom in front of him without getting caught.

By 10:00pm he has arrived home. His children are asleep and his wife prepares him a meal and returns to bed. He eats his dinner in front of the TV and falls asleep in the kotatsu and the sequence of events are repeated the next day ad infinitum.

Why does he do this? There are two possible reasons:

1: He is a power hungry man marginalised by his family who he neglects in order to further his career. His job is the only place where he is treated with the respect and authority that he feels he deserves.

2: In order for the family he loves to be adequately fed and clothed he must work long hours in a job he hates.

Which do you think is the correct answer?

Recently I`ve started to actively pick fights with Japanese people which is something against my usual nature. I`m not sure if this is due to the length of time crammed up into trains, big city life or discontent with Japanese life in general (or recently having my trousers pulled down).

Yesterday a middle aged woman dropped a sweet wrapper on the floor so I shouted at her in English to pick it up. She ignored me so I stared at her as menacingly as I could and she looked away. My menacing frown is coming on a bit due to the practice.

Today a demented cyclist swerved around me almost causing me to fall over so I shouted, “What the hell do you think you`re doing?” which caused a couple of pedestrians walking near me to quicken their step away from me if nothing else.

I am however wary of picking fights with the Japanese. Apart from a secret fear they might be fully trained in several martial arts, I was once in the centre of Osaka in the daytime when two midget salarymen were fighting each other. One had a prety mean headbutt attack he pulled off though their other attacks weren`t as lethal. After a few more blows they picked up their scattered briefcases and walked away. I think it`s Japanese (salaryman) life.

Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, English, Fight, Salaryman, Midget