J-freshmen find peers 'bad-mannered'

[Taro Toporific]

And in other news, the pot calls the kettle black...
Over 80% of Japan freshmen flunk peers on manners TOKYO June 7 Kyodo- More than 80% of Japanese college freshmen feel people their age are bad-mannered, rapping them for letting mobile phones ring in class and taking up too much seat space in trains, according to a poll by Toyo University in Tokyo released Saturday.

[GomiGirl]

Yes I have heard that many companies put their freshman into extensive training for business manners. bowing 101, meishi exchange 201, not pushing in front of clients when going through doors, aisatsu, basic deportment, hygiene and appropriate work place attire.

[Taro Toporific]

Yes I have heard that many companies put their freshman into extensive training for business manners. bowing 101, meishi exchange 201, not pushing in front of clients when going through doors, aisatsu, basic deportment, hygiene and appropriate work place attire.

Aisatsu dog-training has been standard at Maybe-the-Largest for the 18 years I've been here. The word I hear is that classes have to handle more "remedial" hard-cases as of late. HOWEVER, a lot of the "complaints" about ill-mannered "freshman" are often just sexist BS about females who won't serve tea, grovel, etc.

[GomiGirl]

HOWEVER, a lot of the "complaints" about ill-mannered "freshman" are often just sexist BS about females who won't serve tea, grovel, etc.

I don't serve the tea in my office - but I have been to meetings where people have asked me to. I then call one of the guys in the office to do it. But if no-one else is around I will bring in the coffee, usually because I want a cup too.

I have also been taken to a hostess bar by a client - it was a group of about 7 guys (and me) - it was an interesting experience.

[Taro Toporific]

I have also been taken to a hostess bar by a client - ...- it was an interesting experience.

I've been taken to a host bar by a lady shacho...it was a group of about 7 guys (and me) and four lady customers. Needless to say, the OTHER ladies were real confused as to my role as a skinhead gimp in a host bar

[American Oyaji]

I worked part time at a host bar after work sometimes.

The manager was a friend of mine, and the boss liked me ( i had tried to get work their when I was out of work, but they had too many people, and then they had room and asked me, but I had a job by then).

I just had to be nice to lady patrons. I didn't get paid, but got all the grog I wanted.

[Big Booger]

I think the quality of manners are becoming dismal the world over...

sad isn't it?

Are there any countries where manners are improving?

[Neo-Rio]

Being in a Japanese company, part of my training included meishi exchanging, how to enter an office properly, etc.

I think in the training I had to do a deep bow well over 10 times.... I have the transcript somewhere...
I had to open the door, bow before coming in, shut the door QUIETLY, then bow again, come closer to the desk, bow again. Speak like a robot in keigo, bow again, say who the hell I was and what I had come for, bow again, ask if I could sit down, bow again, move the chair very gently with slow movements as if it was my girlfriend, bow again, ask for meishi, bow again, and finally get to sit down.

Anyway, we had to practice it, and all the shin-nyuu-shain had to rehearse for the test.

To cut a long story short and to brag a bit... I got the bowing timing and keigo right the first time, while at least half the class scewed it up at least twice before getting it right.
The fat Japanese guy sha-in soon-to-become-oyaji with bad manners screwed it up at least 4 times before he got it.

The people even gave me a book with all the correct ways to write letters and so on. Pretty useful stuff.

Damn I must have looked funny to the trainer when I did the keigo, the company pays these trainers a lot of money for this kind of "shin-shakai-jin" training. They even gave us a personality test, and I scored really rotten on it (cause I couldn't understand half the kanji on it, so I just guessed)

[Taro Toporific]

...the company pays these trainers a lot of money for this kind of "shin-shakai-jin" training. They even gave us a personality test, and I scored really rotten on it (cause I couldn't understand half the kanji on it, so I just guessed)

I'm impressed. Yikes, you play by the pencil-neck rules.

Maybe-the-Largest Inc would never dare to send me to their Keigo 101. Vagueness, keigo, and other forms of deceit.
They send me in to "ask the obvious" and cause havoc. It nice role that's sort like the being the 'bad guy' in the story arcs in the WWF, hey?

[Neo-Rio]

I just did it for sport.... kinda funny. I mean, nobody in Japan takes foreigners seriously unless were speaking English anyway. In fact, they probably think worse of us when we speak Japanese because then they view us as not being ourselves and being sneaky. Plus then we steal away their fantasy of the rouge fucked gaijin.

I get along with people better when I just screw the keigo and shite, and just use English. Having been here long enough, studied Japanese to fluency, and having escaped English teaching, I came to a conclusion of the matter:

I will argue that the reason why English is feverently studied by so many Japanese who will never hope to meet a foreigner is because knowing English in Japan is a STATUS symbol and NOTHING else! It is almost like how knowing Dutch in the Dutch East Indies 400 years ago got an Indonesian a higher rank and a well paying career! (Except that present day Japan isn't even a colony!)

Once I realised that women just looked down on me when I tried to pick them up in Japanese, I just switched to English and haven't looked back.

So keigo can SCREW itself as far as I'm concerned.
(fortunately I just sit at a PC all day and never have to deal with customers)

As for that personality test, the guy said it was weird that I was a visibly genki outgoing person - while the persoanlity test said that I was a candidate for becoming a bored, robotic, mindless company slave who hates his job and wants to end it all.
(Maybe it's because I wasn't honest with myself and put down what I thought they wanted to hear.)