I can’t believe how busy I’ve been at work the past couple of weeks. . . I feel like I’m slowly metamorphosing into exactly the kind of stereotypical salaryman whose pathetic existence I pity. Pretty soon I’m going to have to start chewing Lotte’s ‘No Time’ gum because I won’t be able to take three minutes to brush my teeth in the morning.

There’s actually a word in Japanese that means “death from overwork”: karoshi. Companies here are known to literally work their employees into the grave. In fact, in recent years there have been several lawsuits from families demanding compensation for the deaths of husbands and fathers sacrificed for the sake of the bottom line. Thankfully, I’m nowhere near that point (yet). Actually, if I were to reach such a level, I reckon I’d be more likely to flip out and kill someone else rather than succumb myself. I’m just that sort of “take action” kind of guy.

Anyway, back to work. . . .

I’ll leave you with the last of the photos from Kamakura. Enjoy!

Man, it’s been a long week. With two very important meetings yesterday and today, the past five days have been a blur of pre-meetings, PowerPoint presentations, business cards and cheap hookers (well, maybe not that last one).

The good part is that the meetings went well and may have laid down the groundwork for some major global expansion in the next five years. The bad part is that I’m soon to expire from exhaustion any minute now. . . a two-hour train ride to my former office in Ibaraki and a two-hour ride back, both yesterday and today. . . three hours of sleep last night because my boss absolutely needed the minutes from the first meeting by the following morning and apparently assumed that transcribing 8 hours of detailed discussion would be a breeze for me, since “Jeff, your English is so good!”. . . and then, when I went to give him the minutes I had stayed up half the night working on, he decided that he doesn’t need them until Monday after all (!).

I can’t wait to just close my eyes and sleep.

Before that, however, an aside: this week I was reminded that living stereotypes are alive and well. The guests visiting my company were all very nice people, however they completely fit the mold of the stereotypical American: they were overweight, they were loud, they ate chocolate bars for breakfast, drank nothing but Coca Cola, and despite being visitors in a country known for its exotic and tasty cuisine, opted to eat at steakhouses both of their nights here instead of sampling the local fare.

All of my hard work throughout the past three years of trying to rid my coworkers of their misconceived notions about Americans — down the drain in a mere 36 hours. . . .

To follow up on last Friday’s post (and to drag this site even further into the gutter). . .

On Saturday night I was up late, flipping through the channels on TV, when I happened to stumble upon a program featuring the aforementioned “bikini-clad models competing in physical challenges.”

In the particular challenge that was being shown, an inflatable water slide had been placed in a swimming pool and women were racing up the slide in pairs to try to grab a small flag perched at the top. Sounds innocent enough, right? However — for a reason my inferior non-Japanese mind was unable to fathom — after obtaining the flag, both contestants then went on to affix a pair of giant pink nipples to their swimsuit tops.

Yes, you read that correctly. I couldn’t make this stuff up, folks.

Fortunately, I had my camera handy and was able to take a few photos. The quality is expectedly poor, but I’m sure someone will get a kick out of the sheer absurdity of it all.

As one might suspect due to the overwhelming amount of Japanese pornography available on the internet (or so I’ve heard), sexual imagery is everywhere in Japan. From skin mags displayed in convenience store windows to advertisements depicting alluring women in revealing attire to TV game shows in which bikini-clad models compete in physical challenges, one is constantly exposed to titillating and suggestive images.

In fact, not a day goes by when I am not confronted with the sight of nearly-naked women.

But I digress. . . this post is not about my love life. (Thank you, folks! I’ll be here all week.)

The reason that I bring this up (aside from the fact that I’m a lecherous sleaze) is that last night Judy told me about something she witnessed yesterday that I thought I would share.

For those of you who don’t know, Judy is a preschool teacher at an international school here in Tokyo. One of her class’ daily activities is a walk to a nearby park for outdoor playtime, and yesterday was no different. However, when she and her students arrived at the park, she was surprised to see two youngish-looking girls dressed in schoolgirl outfits, surrounded by several photographers. The girls were playing on the slide, the swings and the monkey bars, all the while coyly flashing their panties for the cameras.

As you might imagine, the children responded to this sight with great curiosity and repeated askings of “What are they doing?”. Thankfully, due to their ignorance and naiveté (bless them), Judy was able to quell their inquisitiveness by saying, “Oh nothing, just taking pictures. Now, let’s go play over there.”

While she was naturally appalled that those managing the photo shoot would carry out such an activity in the middle of the day in a location where children were bound to be playing, she was perhaps even more disturbed by the sheer nonchalance of the other people in the park, who seemed to take no notice of the risqué goings-on just feet away.

Perhaps their impassivity was a cultural thing, or maybe repeated exposure to these sorts of occurrences simply causes one to become indifferent. Who knows? But what I do know is that if I ever happen to witness such an event, I’ll be sure to try to obtain photographic evidence.
For, um, sociological research purposes, that is.

Within the rigid hierarchy of a Japanese company, the shacho (president) is the big man on top. When he says “Jump!”, you don’t just ask “How high?”, but also “For how long?”, “What should I think about when I’m up there?” and “May I please kindly fellate you afterwards?” Needless to say, whatever shacho wants, shacho gets. We underlings exist for the sole purpose of pandering to his every whim whilst taking it up the rear with a smile.

For example, yesterday evening, my coworkers and I were all busily engrossed in our work, when the president came downstairs from his office and announced that he wanted to go out drinking. The bedlam that ensued was highly entertaining — I’ve never seen people scramble so quickly to simultaneously shut down their computers, pack up their belongings and put on their coats, all the while responding enthusiastically to every word that came out of the president’s mouth.

The nomikai (drinking party) itself was pretty uneventful, but it marked the third time that I have gone out drinking in the past 7 days. Not a record by any means, but heavy drinking mid-week tends to throw one’s routine off-kilter. The president tolerated our lowly presence until he was satisfied with the outcome of the evening and then promptly departed, leaving behind ¥30,000 (about $275) to cover the bill. Upon shacho’s departure, a coworker of mine who had spent a few years in the States when he was younger immediately spat out, “All right, let’s get the fuck outta here!”

I still can’t figure out why it’s so hilarious when non-English speakers use foul language, but there’s no denying that it is.

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Here are some completely unrelated photos from Kamakura:

On Saturday Judy and I were in Ginza, where we happened to see Sakaguchi Kenji and Shinohara Ryoko, two relatively big celebrities in Japan. Although I didn’t see any cameras around, it appeared as though they were preparing to film something, as Sakaguchi was pulling a rickshaw in which Shinohara was seated, and production staff were scurrying about telling passers-by to keep walking.

Strangely enough, it was I who recognized the pair immediately and pointed them out to Judy, rather than the other way around as I would have expected. At that moment, it suddenly dawned on me just how much of Japanese popular culture I have absorbed during my time here.

I remember one time a few months after we first arrived in Japan, Judy and I were walking around Osaka when suddenly a young, hip-looking guy rushed past us followed by a gaggle of screaming teenage girls. Neither of us had any idea who he was. Since then, however, without any conscious effort on my part, I’ve somehow become familiar with most of the talento and their particular schticks, and on the occasions when I have seen celebrities in public (Tokyo isn’t that big a place), I’ve recognized them instantly.

What I find even more interesting, perhaps, is that American pop culture is becoming almost alien to me. Whenever I go back to the States, I find that I just can’t relate to much of what’s going on around me. I find popular music to be over-commercialized and uninspiring, I think reality shows like American Idol and Survivor are incredibly lame, and I seriously couldn’t give two shits about the Olsen twins.

Of course, I feel the same way about things in Japan, too.

Has popular culture always been such a vapid wasteland? Maybe I’m just getting older. . . .

Last night I was wasting time on online (what else do you really do on the internet?), when I stumbled across this picture and nearly had an aneurysm as my brain struggled to comprehend what I was seeing:

Menstrual Dreamer by Magical Designer Mari-Chan

“WTF?” indeed.

Now, before you start thinking me to be some kind of sick degenerate who spends his evenings scouring the internet for pictures of menstruating cartoon characters, I assure you that the discovery was completely unintentional. A click here, a link followed there, and the next thing I know, the image of a nude wide-eyed nymph with multiple body piercings violently spewing forth a torrent of menstrual demons from her hairless gash is being burned into my retinas.

Only a Japanese person could come up with something as utterly-disturbing-yet-undeniably-cute as this. Gloomy Bear is another fine example of this phenomenon. If you aren’t familiar with that particular character, check out the animations here, here and here. A tad disconcerting, no? (I actually have a keychain of this one [pic here], although a numbing fear of loss of street cred’ has prevented me from using it thus far).

Say what you will about the unusual aspects of Japanese culture, it certainly can be fun!

Last Friday, some of my coworkers from my former office in Ibaraki had a nomikai (drinking party) and so I took the two-hour journey up there to join them. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and saw that nearly all of the people there were high-ranking managers (i.e., OLD MEN). However, nothing blurs class lines better than alcohol, and sure enough, as soon as the initial kampai! had sounded, we were all headed down the primrose path to drunkenness together. Insults were hurled, drinks were spilled, sensitive topics were tactlessly breached and a good time was had by all.

Sadly, being the only person who had to head back to Tokyo that night and not wanting to be stranded halfway like the last time, I was forced to depart early and miss the obligatory visit to the hostess bar. What a shame. I was, however, pleasantly reminded that a two-hour train ride goes by far more quickly when one is inebriated. I’ll have to remember that.

In order to pass the time, I took some photos of my fellow late-night commuters. They’re nothing compared to anything on Mike Clark’s site, of course, but here’s a sampling:

Proving once again that I have the maturity level of an 8-year-old . . .

hee hee

Within the past few years, “global” has become a major buzzword in Japan and popular opinion seems to be that any Japanese firm that doesn’t declare itself to be a “global company” is behind the times and destined for failure. The company I work for, despite already having over 30 production facilities around the world, has recently joined in the globalization frenzy and has been doing all it can to “think globally,” as the cliche goes.

In typical Japanese form-over-substance fashion, the first step my company took was to add the word “Global” in front of every department name. Hence, the Marketing Department became the Global Marketing Department; the General Affairs Department, the Global General Affairs Department; and so on. This was considered a major step and was lauded within all echelons of the company. Apparently no one realized the utter pointlessness of it all.

The company’s latest endeavor in this globalization pissing contest has been the creation of a “bijinesu manaa” (”business manner”) database containing guidelines for proper business etiquette for interactions with non-Japanese companies. A few weeks ago, I was approached about helping to create a detailed guide to Western dining etiquette. You see, as the only non-Japanese person in my company, I am thought be an expert on all things foreign, and thus, despite being an ill-manner clod, I was consulted on every aspect of Western table manners.

After the guidelines were created, a few of the people in my office were assembled in the conference room to pose for photos demonstrating proper and improper table manners. The guide was posted on my company’s intranet site today and the photos are so laughably bad that I just had to share them. Here are some examples for your viewing pleasure:

[Note: In Japan, X (batsu) means incorrect and O (maru) means correct (like a checkmark in the West).]