how was your weekend?

[karekora]

[Charles]

Is it some kind of taboo in Japanese workplaces, or just mine??

I vaguely recall a Japanese lesson about how it is rude to inquire into the specifics of what other people are doing or have done, as small talk. There are plenty of hollow pleasantries to use instead, so you don't have to be too specific. I would research this for you further, but I just moved and all my linguistics books are still in storage.

[IkemenTommy]

They seem to keep their puraibe-to (private) lives seperate from their work lives, I have noticed.. or do they? When I see them go to work on weekends and try to rack up overtime kiss-ass brownie points, I really don't see the difference between the private and their work-a-holic lives. Maybe they ended up spending their weekend at the office and were too ashamed to answer that question. Anyway, I think the girls could take such question as sexual harrassment in some cases so be aware.

[vir-jin]

[IkemenTommy]

[Ptyx]

It's the exact contrary at my workplace. Colleagues always asks about what i did, what i ate the previous day if i'm seeing anyone, what kind of girl i like what kind of music i listen to these days, why i was late at work, how many times i masturbate in a day, what dvd did i rent lately etc...
Ok, they didn't ask about the masturbation thing but it's pretty close to that.
And they will answer the same questions, like in any normal small talk situation.
It gets almost too private oriented sometimes, but i dont really mind. My office is the family/company type i guess, they're very close to each other, always bring omyage from vacation etc..
We have birthday parties and nomikai all the time.

[karekora]

ptyx- thats the thing, they are always asking me about my privte life, what do i drink at home, what do I eat for breakfast and/or lunch, what do i do after work, who are my friends, how did i meet them, why do i like them, what do they look like...etc. there are some things they ask me which is a taboo in england - "how much do you get paid?" etc, but I answer even though Im inwardly shocked they can ask it, and Im a little awkward about answering, sometimes avoiding the answer, but Id never be-little them and laugh at them, like they did me.

then again, maybe its a good thing they did - im never gonna ask them again.

but, why is it they can ask me but i cant ask them? is it a gaijin thing?

[Ptyx]

I don't know, i ask them plenty of questions and they answer without problems.
What piss me off sometimes is that they keep asking the same questions over and over again, the same guy asking the exact same questions as last week. I guess that's because they can't deal with ankward silences, there must be a conversation whatever it is.
When they can't find new stuff to talk about they'll come back to previous questions.
Now, the thing is they ask a lot of questions, much more than i do because they're very curious about how a foreigner do live in their country, they love to know my input about Japan.
But it's part of the island thing and the whole ninhonjinron stuff that they learned in school about how Japan was a special country.
And every gaijin has to put up with that each time they meet a japanese.
It's weird that you can't ask them stuff, most of my colleagues are really eager to explain things tied to japanese culture and traditions or sayings or terms that i don't understand and so on. I won't even have to ask, most of the time, they'll spontaneously tell me about their holidays, hobbies and such. Basically it's just regular small talk
I don't think that answers your question, i've only worked in a single company since i'm here so i don't know how it is elsewhere.
My office is small, and it's a design office, so yeah it's pretty laidback.
I guess that working at say, Nissan or Mitsubishi would prove very different in terms of mood.

[Taro Toporific]

I guess that working at say, Nissan or Mitsubishi would prove very different in terms of mood.

Many times Japanese job interviewees would tell me that their first visit to my office at Maybe-the-Largest Inc. was similar to, "entering a crypt". Another observation interviewees would describe was: "zombie like." Most employees within my 40-person workgroup might not say 20 words all day to anyone.
My subcontracted work at NEC and Fujitsu was very similar.

[omae mona]

karekora, your description of what you said makes perfect sense, and I can't imagne why it would elicit such a response. But the description of the response you got sounds like exactly the response I would expect if you mispronounced something, or if you misspoke in a way that turned the question into something really embarrassing.

No offense intended to your Japanese skills, which I suspect are pretty good. But is there any chance you said something different than what you think you said?

[karekora]

omae mona - ive thought about that too. the second i got the responses i did, i was shocked and panicked that Id said something wrong, asked an embarrasing question to them by accident or said something bad or rude. But, I said it exactly the same way as in my 1st post above. Ive used it on other people outside of work and they answer fine, so my pronounciation must be OK. I guess I just cant make this kind of small talk at work. but then, how do you get to know the people you work with if you cant talk about your private life - what you did at the weekend, what you enjoy, what your hobbies are etc...??

sounds a little dull to me...

[mr. sparkle]

Hell yeah. Virjin is back! Where you been? We missed you...

[kamome]

I think it's just a gaijin thing. It's not necessarily wrong to ask about someone's weekend. It depends on how friendly you are with your colleagues. I think they might be reacting that way because a gaijin tried to ask questions in Japanese and/or interact with them on an equal level. No matter how fluent you are, if your colleagues are uncomfortable with (or not accustomed to) speaking Japanese with a gaijin, then their reaction will be pretty typical.

My advice (from experience) is not to take it personally. If your colleagues can't accept you for who you are, find friends from your own country who do accept you as you are. You should be cordial with your Japanese colleagues. And if one of them eventually warms to you, that's a good thing. But don't expect all of them to be available for friendship or for meaningful conversations in the workplace, because your feelings might be hurt later on.

[maraboutslim]

This is Japan. There are many things that are appropriate to be asked by people to those lower than them, but not asked of people above them. That may be one issue you are dealing with.

I also would consider that asking a female how her night (or even weekend) was comes off sounding like you are enquiring about her sex life. Especially in Japanese where asking "so, how was last night," is the way one would ask about one's date or whatever (since they won't come out and ask directly about those things but speak in generalities where the listener will get the implied meaning).

Anyway, you have two choices. Continue to do whatever you want and make them realize that you don't intend to be like them since they would never let you reach that status anyway, or you can play the game and try to be "Japanese" as much as possible even though you are still doomed to not being accepted as a true member of the group.

[karekora]

ive decided to be like them. im shaky enough about my japanese skills without them looking at me like I just called them a c*nt. So, Ill be asking sweet non-intrusive questions from now on.

dull.

[Adhesive]

If it was asked in future tense, like "what are your plans this evening?", and it was directed at someone of the opposite sex, than I'm sure it came off sounding like a request for a date...remember, the Japanese mind is always stuck in the gutter..

If you asked how their weekend was, that's just not something Japanese ask each other, so it sounds weird to them and a bit personal.

[kamome]

Yeah, personal questions are usually a no-no in the work setting, although I have had friendly relationships with J-colleagues where it was ok to ask such questions. Maybe if you asked that question to an individual while eating lunch with that person outside the office, it would be more appropriate. But asking a group of Japanese colleagues within the office is difficult because their instinct is to hide their personal lives from each other.

As an aside, I find that Japanese people will open up more to a gaijin on a one-to-one basis than they will to each other, either out of fear of the J-office rumor mill or out of some sense that a gaijin will be less judgemental about their activities than a fellow Japanese would.

What you should take from this is, protect yourself. Just as your colleagues will generally not reveal what they do on personal time, you should also not reveal your personal activities to them (unless you have a good relationship with the person you are talking to). Believe me, as the gaijin in the office, whatever you admit in public will be gossiped about to no end. And then your colleagues will leap to conclusions about you based on the shred of information you've revealed (i.e., "I went to a bar last weekend"--"Oh, karekora is such a lush and goes partying all the time"), etc. This has happened to me and to other fellow FG's I know in J-offices.