Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

kotaku.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–179 of 179 posts

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#171

Post by gommm »

kazuya wrote: post #132

The article is a bit amusing even for a native Japanese, but too lengthy for me to read it through. I happened to work at a big-business cubicle farm (or kind of) in Tokyo, but there is no such obligatory parties. I have heard of that kind of stories but they are almost caricaturized and exaggerated. If any, he was just unlucky about it. However I agree about smoking. That's so pervasive and annoying. But I found our…

From my friends working in the game industry in Kyoto, it doesn't surprise me that he had this kind of experience...

But, yes, on my end, working in a small company in Kyoto, it was not as extreme. There were of course a few parties, but not much more than in Europe or the US...

One thing though, when I first started work there, the thing that chocked me is that nobody left work at 7pm (our official work time was 10am to 7pm). They just kept on working as if being the first one out was a bad thing (and indeed I've had comments from my coworkers to that effect later on when I started to make an habit of leaving on time).

For the rest of his rant, I understand where he's coming from and I've sometimes had the same criticisms as him. But now that I don't live in Japan anymore, I miss it and want to eventually move there again... Go figure :-)

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#172

Post by elblanco »

pw0ncakes wrote: post #148
Vivtek wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get over the shallow culture shock. The real culture shock is knowing you're never going to fit in where you live -but because you've been there so long, you're never going to fit in anywhere else, either. You've become an ethnic group of one. Puerto Rico did this to me over the course of about five years. I can't stay on-island for more than about a year or I flip out. Up here in the States proper has done this…

They get over the shallow culture shock. The real culture shock is knowing you're never going to fit in where you live -but because you've been there so long, you're never going to fit in anywhere else, either. You've become an ethnic group of one. This has been my story ever since I was born. One nice thing about not fitting in is that you become friends with others who don't fit in, who tend to be the most interest…

You have no idea how perfectly that describes my life.

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#173

Post by elblanco »

andrewcooke wrote: post #88
bh23ha wrote: post #41

This poor person is suffering from culture shock. I'm an immigrant let me explain. Culture shock is not OMG they eat X here. Culture shock develops slowly from the stress of being away from home and living in a strange land. You are long over people eating X or what ever, and then one day you're just sick of it all. Not exactly ALL of it, but you tend to fixate on the defects of the strange place you're in and you're…

i've lived in a different culture for about 10 years, and i understand what you're saying. i'm not sure the right term is culture shock , though - see other replies, that associate that with something much more immediate. for some people, living long-term in another culture is hard. i certainly find it so at times. and this is despite being completely aware of the issue, the validity of other belief / social systems,…

A lot of the things you do in a host culture are things you have to memorize and "just do" rather than coming naturally from your growing up years. It's mentally exhausting to keep referring to your catalog of do's and don'ts all day, every day. It doesn't get put onto the back shelf for a great many years.

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#174

Post by gommm »

dkarl wrote: post #105
jmillikin wrote: post #10

Long ago, manga aspired to be like Dragon Ball Z: graphically iconic, with a story more coherent than it probably needed to be. Now there's the ADHD-addled Dragon-Ball-Z-inspired One Piece, a manga for the Twitter age if there ever was one. Pop culture was best when you, the reader of this sentence, were 12: http://i46.tinypic.com/1625ims.gif I remember watching DBZ after school, and while it is certainly "graphicall…

I would like to check out some manga to see what it's like. I almost posted a request for manga recommendations on a LibraryThing manga forum, but I decided against it. I tried writing up a description of what I was looking for, but it devolved into rejection of a bunch of anime stereotypes: - No ordinary schmoes who turn out to have amazing supernatural powers. - Nothing that revolves around a series of contests wit…

I would heartily recommend you Distant Neighborhood (Haruka na Machi e) by Jiro Taniguchi

Actually most of the books by Jiro Taniguchi are really good, they are mostly simple touching story that give a good glimpse of japanese culture and the relationship between people.

http://www.amazon.com/DISTANT-NEIGHBORHOOD-Jiro-Taniguchi/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Distant-Neighborhood-2-Jiro-Taniguchi/...

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#175

Post by elblanco »

GFischer wrote: post #157
sailormoon wrote: post #42

Man, this guy's list of reasons for hating Japan is pretty much identical to my list of reasons for loving Japan. Non-smoking, tee-totalling vegetarian? Sounds like a real fun guy. Got to hand it to him on the comedy shows, though, they're awful .

So, you can't enjoy Japan or be a fun guy if you're a non-smoker and teetotaler? (I'm both as well)

Correct on both counts.

Until you can fight a live octopus down your throat between puffs on a cig, and wash it all down with a gallon of beer, you can't be fun.

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#176

Post by jcl »

clusterfu_k wrote: post #144
patio11 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All appearances to the contrary, I do actually work for a living, and early morning on release Monday is a bad time to drop a thesis on my desk and ask me for comments.

just curious, what part of japan do you, or have you, live in?

FWIW: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406545

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#177

Post by jacquesm »

Vivtek wrote: post #153
pw0ncakes wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get over the shallow culture shock. The real culture shock is knowing you're never going to fit in where you live -but because you've been there so long, you're never going to fit in anywhere else, either. You've become an ethnic group of one. This has been my story ever since I was born. One nice thing about not fitting in is that you become friends with others who don't fit in, who tend to be the most interest…

Point. I've read about this, too - especially people who've grown up multicultural tend to glom together as a "international ethnicity". One of the real attractions of living somewhere other than "your country" is being one of the expat crowd and love/hate dissing the local culture.

You're in for a double helping of culture shock as long as you still consider yourself a 'national' of some country.

I try - with partial success - to live as though being born in some place was pure chance and to try to lose the myopic view of life that you get when you keep seeing things through the lens of home. It's a mixed success, and I haven't even lived in places that were very different from the one that I was born in.

For me the 'security blanket' seems to be cheese. As long as I can find a good chunk of cheese somewhere I can deal with the rest. Selling cheese at exorbitant prices to immigrants must be a great way to make money.

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#178

Post by rjurney »

GFischer wrote: post #93
rjurney wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the way it works is - at first everything in the foreign culture is great. Its all novel, the language and culture, and every idiosyncrasy is fascinating and every difference is a new challenge. In time you adapt, and then things seem normal again and you enjoy participating according to the rules of the new society. Once you're 'over it' though, you come to realize just how much work you're putting…

And what if you're tired and irritated... of your home country? I'm in my own mini-crisis myself, and I don't know what to do (emigrating is a bit drastic, but I'm considering it).

Then you will have more energy to adapt to your new country. But if you fail to adapt, the cycle may still apply ;)

Re: Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

#179

Post by hkuo »

The title should really be renamed "Tokyo: It's Not Funny Anymore". For anyone that hasn't bothered to think about it, Japan is much richer and has more breadth than this single city. It's unfair to critique an entire country based on the experience of one place.
Post reply on HN