FG's, you've wasted your life in Japan

[Samurai_Jerk]

Time to burst your bubble and face reality

I want to open by saying: Look, I get it. I get why many people (particularly the native speakers of English, who are probably the majority of readers here) come to Japan and stay on.

After all, the incentives are so clear at the beginning. Right away, you were bedazzled by all the novelty, the differences, the services, the cleanliness, the safety and relative calm of a society so predicated on order. You might even have believed that people are governed by quaint and long-lamented things like “honor” and “duty.”

Not that the duties and sacrifices necessary to maintain this order necessarily applied to you as a non-Japanese (NJ). As an honored guest, you were excepted. If you went through the motions at work like everyone else, and clowned around for bonus points (after all, injecting genki into stuffy surroundings often seemed to be expected of you), you got paid enough to make rent plus party hearty (not to mention find many curious groupies to bed — if you happened to be male, that is).

Admit it: The majority of you stayed on because you were anesthetized by sex, booze, easy money and the freedom to live outside both the boxes you were brought up in and the boxes Japanese people slot themselves in.

But these incentives are front-loaded. For as a young, genki, even geeky person finding more fun here than anywhere ever, you basked in the flattery. For example, you only needed to say a few words in Japanese to be bathed in praise for your astounding language abilities! People treated you like some kind of celebrity, and you got away with so much.

Mind you, this does not last forever ...

Although there's truth in what Debito has written I think this applies to people pretty much everywhere and not just us long-term FG's. This is classic midlife crisis.

[yanpa]

Everything he writes is 100% applicable, at least if your name is Debito Arudou.

[Yokohammer]

What a sad, bitter, stick-in-the-mud this guy has become (maybe he always was, but is just expressing it more).


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[IparryU]

I wonder how much tail he got.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I especially like this part.

Finally, as is true for everyone in Japan, the older you get, the less wriggle room you have in your career. Good luck comfortably changing jobs in your 40s or 50s.

Please point me towards that magical kingdom where this is not the case.

[yanpa]

Funnily enough I've changed jobs twice (in Japan) since turning 40.

[Takechanpoo]

i can be majority as long as i live in this country. its most priceless than any other things.
and its the only reason i remain to be in japan.
otherwise i would NOT live in here absolutely.
if you are a decent gaijin having decent judgement, you will leave this no-life country after spend 1 or 2 years here.
only real hopeless loser gaijins remein to live here.
its a sad truth. but face it manly

[Yokohammer]

I think you probably have at least a fighting chance if your job skills involve anything other than bitching and whining.


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[kurogane]

Booya!!!!!!!!!! Well put all. If I remember he had a briefly lucid spell when one of his daughters but not the other 'Japanese Looking One' was refused entry to an Onsen in Otaru, which is both shocking and disgusting. Since then I have only ever seen him as the macro-aggressive emospazz he works so hard at being. Some will argue that he is Speaking Truth to Power and all that other deluded pseudo-civil rights Oprahbabble, but that only works if you do a good job and aren't an overprivileged white boy having an extended temper tantrum.

What a sad, twisted sack of shit he seems.

OTOH, I have it on good authority that he's a nice guy to have a beer with.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

god, and people say that 40 something women are bitchy, bitter, hopeless losers...

[matsuki]

Although there's truth in what Debito has written I think this applies to people pretty much everywhere and not just us long-term FG's. This is classic midlife crisis.

You pretty much called it...though I'd say with the way things are going, even most Japanese that have lived abroad are going to regret not staying abroad or working gaishikei. The other issue..which even in his article he admits, you can avoid this "wasted life bubble" if you do something outside the box. (or marry into wealth) At the moment, I'm more worried about the now and future measurement of YEN vs. USD than measuring my life success by corporate status. If they think I'm the loveable goofy gaijin, I'll use it and make it work for me...not work for them. Though...if the yen really goes to total shit, I wonder what life here is going to be like when the insane amount of imported shit her becomes extreme luxury. WIll anyone be able to afford to drive anymore?

(not to mention find many curious groupies to bed — if you happened to be male, that is

What is he talking about? A decent looking FG female is going to have waaaay more groupies (and stalkers) than a male...even more if she's blonde.

[GargoyleTS]

For example, have you ever noticed how difficult it is for NJ to become established in Japan’s essential, respected and licensed jobs — e.g., as doctors (and nurses), lawyers, engineers, administrative-level bureaucrats, etc.?

Uhm, hate to burst YOUR bubble there Debito, but this is the truth pretty much anywhere. Your education rarely transfers, even among countries that speak the same language such as US, GB, NZ, and AU. Its such a different set of rules to play by at those levels you have to pretty much start all over. Those careers are governed by bodies with massively different sets of rules from country to country and it takes years of education to learn them, yes even Engineering (perhaps especially...you don't often see international crews helping to rebuild cause they just do not have the knowledge of local codes and requirements to allow them to give meaningful help, and when you are building towers, there are a lot more codes than building a house.)

He's living in his own little box, the entire article pretty much proves it, he doesn't support anything in it with facts, references, or anything at all other than his own experiences and those are from a somewhat myopic viewpoint regarding the treatment of others in Japan. I do not mean that as an insult, simply that his worldview tends to be filtered through his own personal crusade, he attracts the disenfranchised and they share their stories of woe with him cause he is sympathetic to their plight, regardless of how self-inflicted said plight might or might not have been.

[Salty]

I read his essay, and thought it was very poor – just one cliché after another. Surely there may be a hint of truth in each, but certainly most are not applicable to anyone who has successfully lived here long term. And without success, a foreigner would wash out and leave – so long term presence is indeed proof of success. I am surprised that he is still offered print space.

[kurogane]

I am surprised that he is still offered print space.

I have always had the impression that Japan Times, or any media FTM, that offers space to foreigners tends to operate on the OB network; once you're in you're in for life. Look at David Spector; he'S BEEN PAST HIS PRIME SINCE 1991. I don't like Amy Chavez much, but at least she puts some work into it. Debu just seems to be regurgitating the same tired bile he coughed up whilst still in his impenetrable messianic bubble, as Gargoyle noted. Rather amusing that one of the most bubble bound bubblers talks so much about and so disparagingly about other more successful people's bubbles. That whole article read like a confessional, or as SJ noted, a raving mid-life crisis projected onto the supposed faults of everyone but the patient himself.

BTW, isn't that fat fuck in Alberta these days?????? If so, it's a rather telling slip that he spoke of people "coming to Japan"

[wangta]

Time to burst your bubble and face reality

I want to open by saying: Look, I get it. I get why many people (particularly the native speakers of English, who are probably the majority of readers here) come to Japan and stay on.

After all, the incentives are so clear at the beginning. Right away, you were bedazzled by all the novelty, the differences, the services, the cleanliness, the safety and relative calm of a society so predicated on order. You might even have believed that people are governed by quaint and long-lamented things like “honor” and “duty.”

Not that the duties and sacrifices necessary to maintain this order necessarily applied to you as a non-Japanese (NJ). As an honored guest, you were excepted. If you went through the motions at work like everyone else, and clowned around for bonus points (after all, injecting genki into stuffy surroundings often seemed to be expected of you), you got paid enough to make rent plus party hearty (not to mention find many curious groupies to bed — if you happened to be male, that is).

Admit it: The majority of you stayed on because you were anesthetized by sex, booze, easy money and the freedom to live outside both the boxes you were brought up in and the boxes Japanese people slot themselves in.

But these incentives are front-loaded. For as a young, genki, even geeky person finding more fun here than anywhere ever, you basked in the flattery. For example, you only needed to say a few words in Japanese to be bathed in praise for your astounding language abilities! People treated you like some kind of celebrity, and you got away with so much.

Mind you, this does not last forever ...

Although there's truth in what Debito has written I think this applies to people pretty much everywhere and not just us long-term FG's. This is classic midlife crisis.

Debito's also become a bitchy perpetrator of stereotypes, something he's always slagging off Japanese people for doing. I honestly think he has developed some form of mental disorder from his years in Japan - it either existed in the first place and came out after those years or he has had one or a few breakdowns from stress which was exacerbated by his marriage breakdown and inability to see that you can't impose your gaijin worldview on Japanese society much as we're all free to criticise it where we think relevant.

That's not saying Japanese society should not change but Debito is a typical crusader. Crusaders always confuse their emotional and mental lacks/disorders with what is best for large numbers of other people and when the crusade ends in failure they can't hack it. And how the fuck does he know that long-term gaiijin fit into his categories?

The way he expresses this is similar to the shorter term gaijin or the gap year gaijin and stiff shit if they think like that. Does a middle aged man who has gainful employment like Debito and left Japan with his tail between his legs really have nothing better to do than continually regurgitate stereotypes of stereotypes that gaijin supposedly exemplify?

I see his article as serving as a warning of how people like him probably should never live in Japan in the first place. Non Japanese people's lives in Japan are what they are. Some of us enjoy the country when we are there, we work there because we prefer it to our home country or other countries, for whatever reasons we know our home countries can suck badly in any number of ways and we just don't want to deal with that. No bitter gaijin with issues or Japanese with passive-aggressive 'why are you still in Japan?' attitudes will prevent us from getting work visas and living in Japan when we can.

If anything the thousands of job applications from Americans over 45 yrs of age to Wallmart for much fewer jobs and not very skilled jobs at that say a lot about attitudes to middle aged and older people in the American job market.

Australia sucks full stop for many job seekers of any age - there are very real statistics from one of the best demographics study centres in Australia that have proved what people like myself have said for years to complacent Aussies when I've gone back between jobs - around 80 percent of jobs created in Australia over the last few years have gone to non citizens and citizens under 30 have been especially hit and locked out of the market.

However, the Australian job market is an equal opportunity discriminator - middle aged people are also hit very hard and unwelcome, even those who went into debt to get a degree or go back to uni to get another one. At least the Japanese don't pretend to not discriminate. Australia always has been difficult in certain cities for employment as connections have played a much bigger role in getting jobs than Australians care to admit.

When I was young the running joke that was serious was our city was the home of the unadvertised job. Those of us who work in Japan prefer to take our chances there than put up with the ridiculous prices for everything, the knowledge that we will not be able to own a home, a shithouse job market, an economy that has nothing but mining and international students to prop it up, an unstoppable trend of more people in a country with drought and other significant problems because employers love lower and stagnant wages, and a welfare state that rewards the irresponsible by taking around 35% of your tax to give to somebody to have yet another child by yet another boyfriend who won't be around to raise that kid or will stay and abuse the kids by other fathers.

[kurogane]

Nice. My impression from Insider Information was that he was always a bit of an empty shell as a person, took all the Sugoi! Sugoi! too much to heart, and still hasn't found it in his messianic fervour driven heart to forgive them for not being what he decided they should be. He is comically ethnocentric in his analyses, his Japanese is not overwhelmingly impressive and he burns bridges better than anybody I have heard of so once that rolling snowball gained perpetual momentum this was probably all inevitable. Add the obvious grief and distress of losing access to his daughters to an already fragile grasp of reality and you have what we behold.

If anything, it proves that even complete blathering buffoons can be loving parents, so that's sort of nice.

[wuchan]

so, I have only had sex with one Japanese girl that I met in the USA. My first experience in Japan was as culture shocked teen. The second was a few months before I was sent else ware and didn't leave the bubble.

Now I own a farm and live off government subsides.



Apparently I don't fit into the model.

[wuchan]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.


I own a farm, I'm a member of the JA. I know I will never be part of the collective.

[Coligny]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.


I own a farm, I'm a member of the JA. I know I will never be part of the collective.

And if you're a city you'll never really be part of the countryside guys, same with north and south of most countries, same with city/suburbs, same with dog people and cat people...

I think those that have it the worse are the -nothing per se-
For example, the Alsacians. By French standards they are not really French, by german standards they are not Germans... They are their own, which amount to being nothing in fact...

Some shit are genuine jap retardation (housing standards, that are doomed to evolve)... But sometimes... the problem is not the situation itself, but the observer narrow viewpoint...

[Samurai_Jerk]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.


I own a farm, I'm a member of the JA. I know I will never be part of the collective.

And you probably don't want to be either.

How many of us would enjoy Japan if we were fully accepted as Japanese and expected to behave accordingly?

I think those that have it the worse are the -nothing per se-
For example, the Alsacians. By French standards they are not really French, by german standards they are not Germans... They are their own, which amount to being nothing in fact...

Kind of like Canadians, eh?

[kurogane]

Oh, sure, eh! Blame Canada willya, eh!!!!!!

We're gonna embargo doughnut exports, eh!?






















PS Why is it, the obvious reasons aside, that Brits, Aussies and US'ers find it so hard to accept that Canada is just that, the Americas' only first world country? If I have to hear one more fucking foreigner given an impassioned Culturalist explanation of how our accent is part-British, part-American, or our political system or social system is the same I might actually have a hissy fit. I don't mean you idiots, I mean the government issued card carrying type of idiots.

[wuchan]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.


I own a farm, I'm a member of the JA. I know I will never be part of the collective.

And if you're a city you'll never really be part of the countryside guys, same with north and south of most countries, same with city/suburbs, same with dog people and cat people...

I think those that have it the worse are the -nothing per se-
For example, the Alsacians. By French standards they are not really French, by german standards they are not Germans... They are their own, which amount to being nothing in fact...

Some shit are genuine jap retardation (housing standards, that are doomed to evolve)... But sometimes... the problem is not the situation itself, but the observer narrow viewpoint...

lol wat?

[Coligny]

Klaatu barada nikto...

Just sayin' that...

Is 00niversal...

Only these guys do differently...

image.jpg

And it sucks...

[Yokohammer]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.


I own a farm, I'm a member of the JA. I know I will never be part of the collective.

I think Wuchan has hit on a key point here. If you can't accept that fact, even if it's just most of the time, you cannot be happy here and should really go home to be with your kind ASAP. On the other hand, if you can deal with it, like you have to deal with a variety of issues wherever you happen to be on this fine planet of ours, you can do very well.

Trying too hard to be accepted is a huge mistake. Just do what you do and let people who want to share your orbit come to you. But I think that applies anywhere.

[Salty]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.


I own a farm, I'm a member of the JA. I know I will never be part of the collective.

I think Wuchan has hit on a key point here. If you can't accept that fact, even if it's just most of the time, you cannot be happy here and should really go home to be with your kind ASAP. On the other hand, if you can deal with it, like you have to deal with a variety of issues wherever you happen to be on this fine planet of ours, you can do very well.

Trying too hard to be accepted is a huge mistake. Just do what you do and let people who want to share your orbit come to you. But I think that applies anywhere.

Spot on...

[kurogane]

david aldwinckle forgot the #1 rule: No matter how hard you try, no matter your political connections, you can't ever become Japanese.

That was the gist of what our mutual friend in Sapporo diagnosed as his main stumbling block; he said that DA never quite recovered from the shock that his Becoming Japanese still didn't make him Japanese, and he never managed to forgive them for it. I enjoy the irony of a More Japanese Than The Japanese type getting hoodwinked by his own North American cultural mindset, but I have a certain sympathy for the disappointment. We New Worlders are really rather sweetly naive in our assimilationist assumptions. As a reworking of that nice summation by Yokohammer, you can integrate but you cannot assimilate.

Tourist I might be but I am feeling downright One with the Island People right about now: I gots friends and fun and when things get hinkier than want I just pull my Get Out of Jail Free Card; I even managed to avoid being forcefed Hotaru-Ika the other night using that. The fact that it's still 20 degrees cannot hurt either.

Just as a point of musing, does anybody from an Immigrant Society actually think that adult immigrants can become fully enculturated members of the group? I sincerely mean it socially and it's simply more polite to just nod and utter platitudes but I don't think very many adults can ever fully assimilate in the deep cultural sense that makes one truly a full member of the group. I don't mean anything exclusionary there, but anthropologically it is pretty much impossible. IOW, I pose the question descriptively but definitely not prescriptively.

[wagyl]

Just as a point of musing, does anybody from an Immigrant Society actually think that adult immigrants can become fully enculturated members of the group? I sincerely mean it socially and it's simply more polite to just nod and utter platitudes but I don't think very many adults can ever fully assimilate in the deep cultural sense that makes one truly a full member of the group. I don't mean anything exclusionary there, but anthropologically it is pretty much impossible. IOW, I pose the question descriptively but definitely not prescriptively.

If you haven't shared the same kids TV shows, it is not going to happen.
... only slightly tongue-in-cheek

[legion]

The bamboo ceiling is pretty impenetrable.

I find this sad attempt to coin a phrase particularly distasteful, the phrase is glass ceiling, why do we need to change it, because the little yellow monkeys use bamboo, not glass like the clever white people?

He's a fucking racist cunt.

[kurogane]

　
If you haven't shared the same kids TV shows, it is not going to happen.
... only slightly tongue-in-cheek

That's actually a hellishly good measure. I know I am fully Au-to when they start in on any anime or manga. We used to say that if you don't remember JP Patches you aren't from Vancouver or Seattle, but that's getting a bit dated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Patches

Legion,
The bamboo ceiling actually is a North American phrase, though once again he has turned it on its head to self-victimise. It originally referred to the structural obstacles faced by Asian Americans in the business and corporate world. But yes, he is what you called him. It has always been his weakest link. 　

[wagyl]

The bamboo ceiling is pretty impenetrable.

I find this sad attempt to coin a phrase particularly distasteful, the phrase is glass ceiling, why do we need to change it, because the little yellow monkeys use bamboo, not glass like the clever white people?

He's a fucking racist cunt.

Well, I suppose the proper equivalent might be shoji ceiling, and I don't think I would have too much difficulty poking my head through that.

What I experienced was the ceiling everyone who is just a contract employee faces. You could say that being a perpetual contract employee (9 years: I was a slow learner and spent longer than I should have done formulating an escape plan but a lot of that time delay was because I was determined not to let them win at their game) was possibly a function of nationality, but on balance I don't think that rising up the ranks in an organisation ever was an ambition of mine, and having a yearly reset button to push made it easier to say "No, I won't be renewing this time thank you very much." I know a lot of seishain who didn't manage to escape in time, and a large proportion of them haven't really risen up the ranks either. It sucks not to be born or marry into the right family. It is a blood ceiling.