Pierrot le Fou
08-16-2005, 04:44 AM
This is a post made originally by me to another forum. I figure that I can post them here and give you all parts of a different perspective from Az's on this job/Japan, as well as giving me a chance to re-read some of my prior experiences, and potentially make someone smile.
Originally Posted: June 28th, 2004
I was always told by my parents that if I had nothing nice to say, I shouldn't say it at all. And I guess that's one of the primary reasons I've been quiet here so long. I haven't had much to say about Japan as a whole, and I've started to find that the title of my website, 'i pity le fou' is a little more accurate than ironic nowadays...
Japan has its great points. It has some incredible people, incredible scenery, an incredible location, and some otherwise pretty fun stuff. But those tend to fade away in the face of the bad things that I have to deal with every day. Japanese bureaucracy is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. It is intolerable. Nobody likes it, not even the Japanese, but they all think there is nothing that can be done. In Japanese, the response to these complaints is, "shoganai" which means 'there is nothing that can be done.'
That's the response one gets from many of one's friends, but worse things happen if one makes the mistake of bringing it up to one's coworkers.
Japan is a country where you are never wished good luck, you're told to 'gambare!' or do your best. If you have a problem, or something is hard for you, you're advised to 'gaman' or endure quietly. As an individual your job is to do your part and not complain, something I was never good at.
The JET program is advertised as an opportunity for internationalization. But who is really supposed to be internationalized? You start out with fresh ideas and think of this as an opportunity to make a difference, but you are not there to offer them or to change anything but yourself. As they say in Japan, "deru kui wa utareru" which means 'the stake that sticks up will be pounded down.' You are that stake.
I wish I could say that this is something you can adjust to with time, effort, or some magic potion (many believe that potion is alcohol over here, but that doesn't seem to solve anything so much as drown it out). While maybe some people can get used to it, or never get bothered by it in the first place, I'm not one of those people.
When I first came to Japan, I was overwhelmed. All those good things about Japan -- the sights, the people, the different language, the culture, the architecture -- are right in your face and make you feel really lucky. You struggle hard to adjust to the new country, and see it as this challenge, where you think that there will be this magical translation once you nail it.
You throw yourself wholesale into everything you do, trying every day, hard. Life here is still great, and full of new things to do and learn and discover.
Slowly you start to learn. The language starts to click, you have friends here who speak little or no English, you have places you usually go to, you know the area around you, and you're starting to settle in and have this place feel a lot more like home. You settle into a comfortable groove and feel like you could get used to this, and it really isn't just that different.
I think what started to collapse that self-delusion was seeing one of my good friends who had come the year before me on the same program. She is one of the brightest, most motivated people I've met. And somehow, she just didn't have fire left in her soul. She was burning on some sort of spiritual empty, and had lost her motivation for trying in this new country, and I just couldn't figure out why -- after all, I was settled into this nice groove where I thought it was pretty-much like working in the US.
But it unsettled me nonetheless.
I kept working and learning and working and learning through the decision to re-contract in February. I accepted it because, well, I didn't see any reason not to. Sometime in March I hit the limit of what someone should learn about Japan -- I started to figure out the truth. Maybe it wasn't learning that did it, but the lack of it. I had stopped speaking Japanese as much, as I had many Japanese friends who spoke English. I had stopped really talking to my teachers at school so much, as I found it more important to read news in English.
And then it just hit me.
As hard as I tried, as hard as I worked, I would never fit in here. Ever. There were double-standards left and right. I was not treated the same. I would never be treated the same. Hard work means nothing, the appearance of hard work means everything. The JET program isn't really about teaching English, it's about letting the government show that they are interested in teaching English without actually having to do it. It's the world's biggest cop-out, and we're just the foreign faces behind it.
You hear about a lot of Asian native English speakers coming on this program and being greeted by their towns with exclamations of, "You're not a real foreigner!" Well, that seems odd to some of us at the start, but makes a lot of sense to me now. We're not here for our native tongues or our knowledge of English, we're here to put an "English" face on learning English, and if we don't look like the conception of what an "English speaker" looks like, then we're doing them a disservice by some strange twist of Japan logic.
You then look at the news, and in the news you hear about how foreigners cause all this crime in Japan. You hear about how foreigners are overstaying their visas and abusing the goodwill of the Japanese people. You hear about how foreigners are a bane on Japanese society. You hear black vans running around town preaching about Japanese nationalism.
Japanese news is very quick to point out when a Japanese perpetrates a crime. They are sure to mention that they are a foreigner.
When a Japanese commits a similar crime, it's a different story. A 6th grade girl in elementary school, a 12 year-old, slashed the throat of a classmate, a 13 year-old, with a box cutter. The country was reluctant to give her a psychiatric examination. They questioned what may have made her do it. They wanted to do anything they could to justify it without blaming it on the individual, without making it seem like it was her fault, or somehow a fault of Japan.
If a foreigner commits a crime it's because they're a foreigner, if a Japanese commits a more horrific crime, it's inexplicable.
And when you talk to most Japanese people about these things, the reaction tends to be "shoganai." I talked to my girlfriend (who is Japanese) about these things -- the racism, the double-standards, "shoganai" -- and she got at the same time upset and sad. Upset because she doesn't want to believe that "shoganai" is the appropriate response, and sad because of the things that "shoganai" is in response to. She thinks that Japan can change. She wants to believe that these things can be helped. And it hurts her to see people like me saying these things about Japan. She's an individual, but inevitably part of the group here. When I say something about the Japanese as a group, she feels like she's included as an individual. That couldn't be further from the truth.
The individuals in this country are great. The individuals are the reasons that I stay here. They are the reasons this country is tolerable. Individuals can treat me like any other person they know, make the same jokes, do the same things, and have fun in the process. The group, however, can't include me. I am outside of the group by the merit of my skin. Sometimes I think that I have a glimpse into how pre-civil rights movement black folk may have felt.
Most people, before coming to Japan, know the words gaikokujin and gaijin. They are taught that both mean foreigner, but that gaijin is a rude form of foreigner. That is a lie, a very damaging one I think, once you actually figure it out. gaikokujin is the composite of three chinese characters: gai (soto/outside) koku (kuni/country) jin (hito/person), outside country person, or foreigner. gaijin is the composite of only two -- outside person. gaijin does not mean foreigner, it means someone outside of the group. A Japanese person can be considered an outside person too, it has little to do with nationality.
Japan has such a huge emphasis on the group that being excluded from it is a big deal. It's not like being excluded from the cool table in high school, it's like being forced to eat in a different cafeteria from the other students.
We are segregated into a different group by skin colour, and it hurts.
My girlfriend hates that this happens. She believes it can be changed. She told me that there's an expression in Japan -- 4 steps forward, three steps back. And maybe she's right, I know that individuals can change, but the group seems to be immobile, and especially as a public servant, the group can be oppressive at times.
The clincher for me, the time when I just felt the absolute pits about what I was doing here was when I was at the city office in my town. I had been told around new year's that after march I would be unable to use the internet because they were changing the network around and I would be unable to use it. I shrugged my shoulders and went on with my life. In May I was stuck in the city office doing nothing, and I decided that I may as well try to see if there was some way to use the internet, because I was bored and had no responsibilities at the moment.
Upon trying to plug in the internet cable, a coworker who I am usually on good terms with, started yelling at me. He kept telling me that I can't do that. I told he I just wanted to look and see. He kept telling me that I couldn't.
Apparently this was partially due to a miscommunication of language. The word he used for 'can't' was 'dekimasen.' Now 'dekimasen' means that you cannot do it, but does not specify between not being able to, and not being allowed to. I was perfectly able to, but entirely not allowed to. When I finally understood this miscommunication, I was told that it was a new city office rule.
Apparently the new city office rule is that everyone but me can use the internet.
I am a city office employee. I am given speeches by my supervisor about how I am a public servant, and I need to hold myself up to different standards. Ain't that a treat? But apparently I am denied the one privilege that is granted to the public servants in my city. There is no discussing this, it is just a rule. I am forced to sit in the city office, twiddle my thumbs, rather than using the internet to find resources on teaching, on Japanese learning, or anything else.
And the worst part is that the people who denied it to me as a group are perfectly decent to me as individuals. The individuals don't make decisions, the group does, and the group decided that I couldn't do something no matter how the individuals feel about it.
It's hard to vocalize my list of complaints about society here. Society doesn't work like it does in the US. It's not like there's a big rule that states no foreigners, but a bunch of slight little things that indicate the same thing without explicitly having to state it. And those little things are even more present in the public sector.
I don't hate Japan, and I know this little rant may give that impression. I just am frustrated at the potential of some great individuals, and seeing it stifled because of the way society is structured. I feel horrible for the great individuals I've met here who want to change society, and believe they can, but are fighting a losing battle against the great unwashed. Seeing Japanese people who return from America after a year or three is disheartening... I'll relate a recent experience...
I went into my local bar when a group of salarymen walked in. One of them was talking to the bartender about how it'd been a long time and whether or not he remembered who the guy was and whatnot. Soon afterwards, the guy came up to me and started talking in near-fluent English, complete with American mannerisms of speech and everything.
Apparently the guy had been sent by his company, expense free, to get an MBA in the US. His English was excellent, he had a great time, and now he was back. He got no pay increase, no promotion, no nothing. There was no contract that said he had to stay, but with the most tortured look in his eyes he expressed how he had an obligation to stay with the country for 5 years.
Here's a guy who could make a killing in the US with his skills, but is pretty-much pressured by the group into doing something he doesn't want to.
These are the individuals who suffer. It's the bright ones, the motivated ones, and the people who should be forging a new future for Japan. Maybe it's my individualist capitalist bias here, but these are the people who made the difference between Soviet Russia and the free Western countries... These are the people I like talking to, who make my time here pleasant, and the people who want to change Japan.
The difference, I tell them, is that when they want, they can slink away into an eating establishment and be part of the group any time they want. I don't have that luxury.
The only way for me to believe that this job works, that it's possible to make it through, is to take it for what it is, and to do it the only way one can -- the Japanese way. You are not a teacher, you are a foreign face. You are not there to share ideas, but to play games with the kids. You are not required to do work, only to look like you are when you aren't. Appearances matter, not content. If you're going to break a rule, do it quietly. If you're not sure if you can do something, do it and then apologize if you get scolded. And overall, don't try to raise a stink about anything.
That is what internationalization has taught me.
All said and done, I'm glad I'm here. I've learned more about myself and Japan than I sometimes wish I had. But hardships, at times, are necessary. If there is one regret I have, it's that this program doesn't actually inform you as to what you're getting into. They make it sound entirely different than it is, and are unapologetic for that deception. I understand why that is though, because for Japan and the JET program, it's the appearance that matters more than the substance...
-----
Follow-up: It turned out that I just had to apply for a laptop to be doled out to me to use internet at the city office (and I am coincidentally using said laptop now). Most of the problems, however, still stick. The Japanese guy who earned his MBA in the US was moved out of the main office here, and given a 'promotion' while being moved out to the middle of nowhere to work. I haven't seen him in months. I am still frustrated with Japan, which I think should be obvious from my posts here, but I think I'm becoming more Japanese in that I will just shrug instead of fight, and say 'shoganai' myself quite often...
Originally Posted: June 28th, 2004
I was always told by my parents that if I had nothing nice to say, I shouldn't say it at all. And I guess that's one of the primary reasons I've been quiet here so long. I haven't had much to say about Japan as a whole, and I've started to find that the title of my website, 'i pity le fou' is a little more accurate than ironic nowadays...
Japan has its great points. It has some incredible people, incredible scenery, an incredible location, and some otherwise pretty fun stuff. But those tend to fade away in the face of the bad things that I have to deal with every day. Japanese bureaucracy is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. It is intolerable. Nobody likes it, not even the Japanese, but they all think there is nothing that can be done. In Japanese, the response to these complaints is, "shoganai" which means 'there is nothing that can be done.'
That's the response one gets from many of one's friends, but worse things happen if one makes the mistake of bringing it up to one's coworkers.
Japan is a country where you are never wished good luck, you're told to 'gambare!' or do your best. If you have a problem, or something is hard for you, you're advised to 'gaman' or endure quietly. As an individual your job is to do your part and not complain, something I was never good at.
The JET program is advertised as an opportunity for internationalization. But who is really supposed to be internationalized? You start out with fresh ideas and think of this as an opportunity to make a difference, but you are not there to offer them or to change anything but yourself. As they say in Japan, "deru kui wa utareru" which means 'the stake that sticks up will be pounded down.' You are that stake.
I wish I could say that this is something you can adjust to with time, effort, or some magic potion (many believe that potion is alcohol over here, but that doesn't seem to solve anything so much as drown it out). While maybe some people can get used to it, or never get bothered by it in the first place, I'm not one of those people.
When I first came to Japan, I was overwhelmed. All those good things about Japan -- the sights, the people, the different language, the culture, the architecture -- are right in your face and make you feel really lucky. You struggle hard to adjust to the new country, and see it as this challenge, where you think that there will be this magical translation once you nail it.
You throw yourself wholesale into everything you do, trying every day, hard. Life here is still great, and full of new things to do and learn and discover.
Slowly you start to learn. The language starts to click, you have friends here who speak little or no English, you have places you usually go to, you know the area around you, and you're starting to settle in and have this place feel a lot more like home. You settle into a comfortable groove and feel like you could get used to this, and it really isn't just that different.
I think what started to collapse that self-delusion was seeing one of my good friends who had come the year before me on the same program. She is one of the brightest, most motivated people I've met. And somehow, she just didn't have fire left in her soul. She was burning on some sort of spiritual empty, and had lost her motivation for trying in this new country, and I just couldn't figure out why -- after all, I was settled into this nice groove where I thought it was pretty-much like working in the US.
But it unsettled me nonetheless.
I kept working and learning and working and learning through the decision to re-contract in February. I accepted it because, well, I didn't see any reason not to. Sometime in March I hit the limit of what someone should learn about Japan -- I started to figure out the truth. Maybe it wasn't learning that did it, but the lack of it. I had stopped speaking Japanese as much, as I had many Japanese friends who spoke English. I had stopped really talking to my teachers at school so much, as I found it more important to read news in English.
And then it just hit me.
As hard as I tried, as hard as I worked, I would never fit in here. Ever. There were double-standards left and right. I was not treated the same. I would never be treated the same. Hard work means nothing, the appearance of hard work means everything. The JET program isn't really about teaching English, it's about letting the government show that they are interested in teaching English without actually having to do it. It's the world's biggest cop-out, and we're just the foreign faces behind it.
You hear about a lot of Asian native English speakers coming on this program and being greeted by their towns with exclamations of, "You're not a real foreigner!" Well, that seems odd to some of us at the start, but makes a lot of sense to me now. We're not here for our native tongues or our knowledge of English, we're here to put an "English" face on learning English, and if we don't look like the conception of what an "English speaker" looks like, then we're doing them a disservice by some strange twist of Japan logic.
You then look at the news, and in the news you hear about how foreigners cause all this crime in Japan. You hear about how foreigners are overstaying their visas and abusing the goodwill of the Japanese people. You hear about how foreigners are a bane on Japanese society. You hear black vans running around town preaching about Japanese nationalism.
Japanese news is very quick to point out when a Japanese perpetrates a crime. They are sure to mention that they are a foreigner.
When a Japanese commits a similar crime, it's a different story. A 6th grade girl in elementary school, a 12 year-old, slashed the throat of a classmate, a 13 year-old, with a box cutter. The country was reluctant to give her a psychiatric examination. They questioned what may have made her do it. They wanted to do anything they could to justify it without blaming it on the individual, without making it seem like it was her fault, or somehow a fault of Japan.
If a foreigner commits a crime it's because they're a foreigner, if a Japanese commits a more horrific crime, it's inexplicable.
And when you talk to most Japanese people about these things, the reaction tends to be "shoganai." I talked to my girlfriend (who is Japanese) about these things -- the racism, the double-standards, "shoganai" -- and she got at the same time upset and sad. Upset because she doesn't want to believe that "shoganai" is the appropriate response, and sad because of the things that "shoganai" is in response to. She thinks that Japan can change. She wants to believe that these things can be helped. And it hurts her to see people like me saying these things about Japan. She's an individual, but inevitably part of the group here. When I say something about the Japanese as a group, she feels like she's included as an individual. That couldn't be further from the truth.
The individuals in this country are great. The individuals are the reasons that I stay here. They are the reasons this country is tolerable. Individuals can treat me like any other person they know, make the same jokes, do the same things, and have fun in the process. The group, however, can't include me. I am outside of the group by the merit of my skin. Sometimes I think that I have a glimpse into how pre-civil rights movement black folk may have felt.
Most people, before coming to Japan, know the words gaikokujin and gaijin. They are taught that both mean foreigner, but that gaijin is a rude form of foreigner. That is a lie, a very damaging one I think, once you actually figure it out. gaikokujin is the composite of three chinese characters: gai (soto/outside) koku (kuni/country) jin (hito/person), outside country person, or foreigner. gaijin is the composite of only two -- outside person. gaijin does not mean foreigner, it means someone outside of the group. A Japanese person can be considered an outside person too, it has little to do with nationality.
Japan has such a huge emphasis on the group that being excluded from it is a big deal. It's not like being excluded from the cool table in high school, it's like being forced to eat in a different cafeteria from the other students.
We are segregated into a different group by skin colour, and it hurts.
My girlfriend hates that this happens. She believes it can be changed. She told me that there's an expression in Japan -- 4 steps forward, three steps back. And maybe she's right, I know that individuals can change, but the group seems to be immobile, and especially as a public servant, the group can be oppressive at times.
The clincher for me, the time when I just felt the absolute pits about what I was doing here was when I was at the city office in my town. I had been told around new year's that after march I would be unable to use the internet because they were changing the network around and I would be unable to use it. I shrugged my shoulders and went on with my life. In May I was stuck in the city office doing nothing, and I decided that I may as well try to see if there was some way to use the internet, because I was bored and had no responsibilities at the moment.
Upon trying to plug in the internet cable, a coworker who I am usually on good terms with, started yelling at me. He kept telling me that I can't do that. I told he I just wanted to look and see. He kept telling me that I couldn't.
Apparently this was partially due to a miscommunication of language. The word he used for 'can't' was 'dekimasen.' Now 'dekimasen' means that you cannot do it, but does not specify between not being able to, and not being allowed to. I was perfectly able to, but entirely not allowed to. When I finally understood this miscommunication, I was told that it was a new city office rule.
Apparently the new city office rule is that everyone but me can use the internet.
I am a city office employee. I am given speeches by my supervisor about how I am a public servant, and I need to hold myself up to different standards. Ain't that a treat? But apparently I am denied the one privilege that is granted to the public servants in my city. There is no discussing this, it is just a rule. I am forced to sit in the city office, twiddle my thumbs, rather than using the internet to find resources on teaching, on Japanese learning, or anything else.
And the worst part is that the people who denied it to me as a group are perfectly decent to me as individuals. The individuals don't make decisions, the group does, and the group decided that I couldn't do something no matter how the individuals feel about it.
It's hard to vocalize my list of complaints about society here. Society doesn't work like it does in the US. It's not like there's a big rule that states no foreigners, but a bunch of slight little things that indicate the same thing without explicitly having to state it. And those little things are even more present in the public sector.
I don't hate Japan, and I know this little rant may give that impression. I just am frustrated at the potential of some great individuals, and seeing it stifled because of the way society is structured. I feel horrible for the great individuals I've met here who want to change society, and believe they can, but are fighting a losing battle against the great unwashed. Seeing Japanese people who return from America after a year or three is disheartening... I'll relate a recent experience...
I went into my local bar when a group of salarymen walked in. One of them was talking to the bartender about how it'd been a long time and whether or not he remembered who the guy was and whatnot. Soon afterwards, the guy came up to me and started talking in near-fluent English, complete with American mannerisms of speech and everything.
Apparently the guy had been sent by his company, expense free, to get an MBA in the US. His English was excellent, he had a great time, and now he was back. He got no pay increase, no promotion, no nothing. There was no contract that said he had to stay, but with the most tortured look in his eyes he expressed how he had an obligation to stay with the country for 5 years.
Here's a guy who could make a killing in the US with his skills, but is pretty-much pressured by the group into doing something he doesn't want to.
These are the individuals who suffer. It's the bright ones, the motivated ones, and the people who should be forging a new future for Japan. Maybe it's my individualist capitalist bias here, but these are the people who made the difference between Soviet Russia and the free Western countries... These are the people I like talking to, who make my time here pleasant, and the people who want to change Japan.
The difference, I tell them, is that when they want, they can slink away into an eating establishment and be part of the group any time they want. I don't have that luxury.
The only way for me to believe that this job works, that it's possible to make it through, is to take it for what it is, and to do it the only way one can -- the Japanese way. You are not a teacher, you are a foreign face. You are not there to share ideas, but to play games with the kids. You are not required to do work, only to look like you are when you aren't. Appearances matter, not content. If you're going to break a rule, do it quietly. If you're not sure if you can do something, do it and then apologize if you get scolded. And overall, don't try to raise a stink about anything.
That is what internationalization has taught me.
All said and done, I'm glad I'm here. I've learned more about myself and Japan than I sometimes wish I had. But hardships, at times, are necessary. If there is one regret I have, it's that this program doesn't actually inform you as to what you're getting into. They make it sound entirely different than it is, and are unapologetic for that deception. I understand why that is though, because for Japan and the JET program, it's the appearance that matters more than the substance...
-----
Follow-up: It turned out that I just had to apply for a laptop to be doled out to me to use internet at the city office (and I am coincidentally using said laptop now). Most of the problems, however, still stick. The Japanese guy who earned his MBA in the US was moved out of the main office here, and given a 'promotion' while being moved out to the middle of nowhere to work. I haven't seen him in months. I am still frustrated with Japan, which I think should be obvious from my posts here, but I think I'm becoming more Japanese in that I will just shrug instead of fight, and say 'shoganai' myself quite often...