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  • fuckedgaijin ‹ General ‹ Gaijin Ghetto

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Groovin' in the Gaijin Gulag
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Postby Andocrates » Mon Aug 04, 2003 3:06 am

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Say WA?!

Postby Marked Trail » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:45 am

Andocrates wrote: Because we are Americans and Westerners we can easily recover from confrontation, but maybe we get the wrong ideas about Japanese peoples reactions...

So I would like to hear your thoughts on this....




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"IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE...
FG 'EM."



(Aliens cannot ever have/be/join the WA. Period.)
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I have no wa

Postby AssKissinger » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:50 am

I have lived in Japan for around six years and have developed very little wa. Sometimes I think if your skin is thick enough to handle it it's better to be hostile. The Japanese have a tendency to exploit each other in a kind of low level warfare that they know they can get away with because they know noone is going to explode and destroy the wa. After a certain point when you've been here long enough to get a small idea what's going on you can decide to roll with it and have wa or you can shock the crap out of people by getting in their faces about it. I had a job where my manager wouldn't even reply to my greeting in the morning. English or Japanese, it didn't matter. Well, one morning after a her silent I'm your sempai so I can be rude to you b.s. I smashed a little metal garbage can into the front of her desk with a swift kick. It made a really loud sound and scared the hell out of her! Ha! There was no wa but I felt very culturally intact after the incident.
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Re: I have no wa

Postby Taro Toporific » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:09 am

AssKissinger wrote:..The Japanese have a tendency to exploit each other in a kind of low level warfare that they know they can get away with because they know noone is going to explode and destroy the wa.


Ahhhh, so true "AssKissinger"-san. My policy for the past 20 years is Japan is the same as anywhere: "Let the small stuff slide."
Make your stand whenever necessary and don't let the WA drag ya down.
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Re: I have no wa

Postby Taro Toporific » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:10 am

Best book on the topic of WA is You gotta have WAby Robert Whiting. The book has been on the standard Harvard MBA reading list for years.
Read the first 10 pageshere.Image
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Postby Andocrates » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:35 am

The Japanese have a tendency to exploit each other in a kind of low level warfare that they know they can get away with because they know noone is going to explode and destroy the wa.


Wow, I got it all in that one sentence. I can see that aspect of it after your explanation. Interesting

(Aliens cannot ever have/be/join the WA. Period.)


Yes, I have no delusions about that. I am just tired of the stress and want to leave a small footprint. I really don't need Japanese peoples' love and affection, (which I have found to be so incredible fickle it hurts more then it helps) I just want to get along.
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Postby Naniwan Kid » Mon Aug 04, 2003 5:59 pm

Let me just say "GREAT FUCKING QUESTION". I have a feeling we all have different ways of dealing with this. Let me give a few sentances on this....

1) I am often bothered by F'ed Gaijin in kimonos and yukatas. This is a real TOURIST move. Japanese might think it's KAWAII, but I think it makes you look like an idiot. I have only worn a yukata when I participated in a rather drunken and violent danjiri fight festival. I was asked to participate because I was friends with the son of the head of the festival, and I was welcomed with open arms, as long as I could drink for 48 hours straight, and pull my weight in the fights.

2) Work is work, and it's easier to play ball. Though you may be able to change policy (or at least open eyes) you are not going to change opinions on your own. Work sucks no matter where you are in the world, so suck it up and do the best you can to enjoy it.

3) Making Japanese friends is so key. I was suprised at how many JETS (when I was a JET) never hung out with Japanese. They didn't want to hang with co-workers (which I never did either) but also (many) never made an effort to meet local Japanese, gog to local izakayas or shot bars. Many F'ed Gaijin I knew had to travel for an hour or more to got to Osaka or Kobe to party, when there could have been many of cool places right near their homes.

4) Wa is wa. Be yourself. Don't do anything uncomfortable. Don't eat shit you don't want to, BUT at the same time realize you are IN JAPAN. Your co-workers and boss and neighbors didn't FORCE you to come here. YOU came here for a reason. Roll with it. If your boss is a dick DON'T kick the garbage can. It may feel good, but now you look like a prick. I had been in a similar situation, and avoided talking shit about my boss until at lunch one day someone mentioned some crappy thing he did, and then I realized that EVERYONE thought he was a prick. It made it easier.

5) Japanese do it the Japanese way for a reason. We may not agree. We may not like it, but that is how it is done. I have seen so many people FIGHT IT and then move home after 9 months or a year. I had an advantage that I had at least STUDIED about Japan before I moved here, but every day still holds new lessons. You have to remember that you are a minority. You will learn more than you teach, but you will teach more than you expect. I KNOW I have changed some Japanese folks' ideas about GAIJINS in my years here. Not many, but enough that I can hang out with them and I can ask them confusing things about Japan, and they can ask me confusing things about Americans.

6) Many Japanese think Japan is screwed up. It is easy to jump on the Japan crap-talk wagon, but really most Japanese don't want to hear how F'ed Gaijin think Japan is f'ed up. I would reserve those conversations for only my closest friends. I made it farther with my co-workers even disagreeing with thier complaints about Japan (as often is was more international, and not exclusive to Japan)....

'nuff for now
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Postby AssKissinger » Mon Aug 04, 2003 8:31 pm

If your boss is a dick DON'T kick the garbage can. It may feel good, but now you look like a prick.


As long as I feel good what do I care if I look like a prick? Only the two of us were in the office and at that point I wasn't too concerned with what she thought of me.

By the way, very good post. I agree, usually you should suck it up and roll with it. And I definitely agree with the not eating shit part!

Living overseas can be hard. We all have to evaluate how much we need to adapt against how much we need to preserve.

Everyone says that being hotheaded will get you nowhere in Japan. That they only see displays of anger as weakness anyway. But if that means letting people peck at you day after day in ugly little subtle ways forget it. I work in a different place now (I may have kicked the can but eventually I got the can) and the work atmosphere is very friendly. Every job has good points and bad. But for me, rejecting a situation where the wa wasn't working in my favor at all turned out for the best.
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Postby cstaylor » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:53 pm

AssKissinger wrote:Everyone says that being hotheaded will get you nowhere in Japan.
Absolute bullshit. This is how Japanese enforce their Confucian straight-jacket thinking. You can't tell me you've never seen a Japanese kacho or bucho go off on an underling? It's like standard procedure... :?
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Postby GomiGirl » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:19 pm

cstaylor wrote:
AssKissinger wrote:Everyone says that being hotheaded will get you nowhere in Japan.
Absolute bullshit. This is how Japanese enforce their Confucian straight-jacket thinking. You can't tell me you've never seen a Japanese kacho or bucho go off on an underling? It's like standard procedure... :?


You've never seen my secretary go off at the engineers!! She lets them have it!! Scary!!
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Postby cstaylor » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:23 pm

Your secretary is above the engineers... I know, because I've met her.

A lovely lady like that could scream at me any time. :love2:
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Postby GomiGirl » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:43 pm

cstaylor wrote:Your secretary is above the engineers... I know, because I've met her.


She screams at the boss too!! It is pretty funny. She always laments that she is "urasai" but I keep telling her that the boys need it.
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Postby cstaylor » Mon Aug 04, 2003 11:23 pm

You mean she screams at Shachoo? :lol:
Does he come out of his code coma when she does that? ;)
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Postby GomiGirl » Mon Aug 04, 2003 11:44 pm

[quote="cstaylor"]You mean she screams at Shachoo? :lol:
Does he come out of his code coma when she does that? ]

Yes at him.. but he doesn't come out of the coma... what is it about you engineers when you are in the "zone"?
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Postby cstaylor » Tue Aug 05, 2003 10:15 am

It's less of a zone and more like a drunken stupor of logical expressions and conditional statements... punch drunk like a boxer. ;)
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Postby Gestalt » Tue Aug 05, 2003 10:15 am

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You must feel The Wa around you. Here, between you...me...the tree...the vending machine.. that drunken salaryman..those office workers who keep their opinions to themselves and just blindly do whatever their boss tells them. Everywhere!
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Postby Andocrates » Tue Aug 05, 2003 11:33 am

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