The Salaryman Conundrum
April 30th, 2006 by quaisiIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
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?
Posted in Life in Japan, Salaryman |
April 30th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
The life of a typical salaryman does indeed seem pretty bleak. I can’t imagine having to live that way, but most of the Japanese men that I know simply accept it as perfectly normal.
April 30th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Damn. Kind of sad when you put it so bluntly. I think what’s more sad though is the fact that some of them think it is perfectly normal.
April 30th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
Sadly, I would assume #2.
May 1st, 2006 at 12:15 am
I think this is oversimplifying big time. There’s more to life than this — I mean, there’s a lot more, there’s hope, there’s moving up in life, there’s saving for that house (or “mansion”). There’s watching his kids grow up, knowing that he’s working hard for his family. Remember, Americans work more hours than Japanese do. (I can attest to that — I am at work now at midnight on a Sunday night, and my staff is all at home sleeping)
May 1st, 2006 at 2:38 am
So this differs from the American businessman who lies. cheats and steals and tries to do as little as possible, leave the office early to meet secretly with his girlfreind before coming home to their spouse and children and ignoring them while he immerses himself in his TV. And by the way you can use the same sentence but just change businessman to business woman and you have the wife.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:43 am
3: Because that’s just the way it is. Human beings very easily fall into routines/patterns, and it’s scary for anyone, of any culture, to try and break them. Sure we have crazy entrepreneurs and idealists in the US, but they’re the exceptions, not the rule. For whatever reason–it was the only job he could get, it paid better than his last job–the salaryman took the work, and now he does it because that’s what he does.
I think it could be said that in Japan, breaking the mold is more difficult than it is for people of other cultures, due to the pressure to conform. “The nail that sticks up will be pounded down.”
Is he happy? Maybe. Maybe he’s fulfilled by the fact that he’s doing what he feels he’s supposed to be doing. Maybe not. You’d have to ask him!
May 1st, 2006 at 6:11 am
depends on the day, people are not constant in there views and emotions as we like to think
May 1st, 2006 at 9:58 am
Thanks for all your comments. I think it`s somewhere between 1 and 2. Japanese may be work mad monsters but I think it`s because of a sense of obligation and duty. They`re not happy to have to work so long but do it without a grumble.
On the other hand they do have a lot of authority over a lot of people in the company. Something that the long hours away from the family reduces in your home life.
May 5th, 2006 at 10:18 am
When I took classes in Japan, the head of the university there used to give us lectures about culture. He said, “Who do you think is the boss of the home? The husband? No! The wife is in charge. If I am watching TV and my wife tells me to go take a bath, I go take a bath.”
May 12th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
You are a typical, overgeneralizing, bitter, closed minded, ethnocentric foreigner who is deservedly called a gaigin . I am sick and tired of hearing people harp on the Japanese lifestyle as if their idea of a “proper” way of life is the only one. This comment on salarymen was the final one I could handle. It’s like when a good band comes out and then everyone copies them until finally that one last band just makes you lose it, That’s how I felt when I read that. The same typical bullshit that’s spewed from every self-righteous egghead who comes to Japan. Go home then if you don’t like it, or shut up and save everyone the same drivel they’ve heard a million times before at the pig and whistle from NOVA teachers blowing off steam. You suck and that’s all.
May 19th, 2006 at 1:00 am
That’s a little uncalled for, he’s only making an observation. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Fool.