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The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#91

Post by novia »

krapp wrote: post #74
wrinkl3 wrote: post #69

In Japanese business culture, there is a situation where you have to visit a company and say I’m deeply sorry for what I did and just bow and bow. Usually, I accompany a salaryman who made a mistake. I take the identity of the salaryman myself, then I apologize profusely for his mistake. Have you seen the way we say sorry? You go have to down on your hands and knees on the floor. Your hands have to tremble. So, my cl…

I understand within that culture an apology must be made, and there's a ritual to apology that has to be observed, but I don't understand why an employer would be willing to put up with the ruse. Is there really no social or cultural stigma involved with paying to have someone else to do it on your behalf?

The implication I believe is that the company is large enough that the boss would not personally know all the employees. The actor is pretending to be an employee that is responsible for the mistake that the hiring party made, but is not pretending to actually BE the person who hired them.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#92

Post by watwut »

wrinkl3 wrote: post #69

In Japanese business culture, there is a situation where you have to visit a company and say I’m deeply sorry for what I did and just bow and bow. Usually, I accompany a salaryman who made a mistake. I take the identity of the salaryman myself, then I apologize profusely for his mistake. Have you seen the way we say sorry? You go have to down on your hands and knees on the floor. Your hands have to tremble. So, my cl…

The better word would be submissiveness-related scenario. Politeness should not require you to accept abuse.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#93

Post by dgritsko »

thisisit wrote: post #7

Wow, feels straight out of a Black mirror episode. What really disturbs me is this: > With a burgeoning staff of 800 or so actors, ranging from infants to the elderly, the organization prides itself on being able to provide a surrogate for almost any conceivable situation. Infants!! Reminds me of a Jim Carrey movie - The Truman Show.

> Yuichi: We have a huge variation of employees and the dedication to create an experience that surpasses reality. That’s why our motto is “more than real.” We had a case recently where a dying man wanted to see his grandchild, but it would not have been born in time. His daughter was able to rent an infant for the day.

This whole interview was way more gripping than I expected it to be.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#94

Post by rljy »

icebraining wrote: post #79
timthelion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find American friendship to be super complex and difficult to navigate. Since inviting certain people to certain places is almost mandatory in America, it is often hard to tell if an invitation or an expression of interest is sincere. In the Czech republic, I get far fewer invitations, but if they are in person (not through facebook) then they have always been sincere.

Non American here: what do you mean by "inviting certain people to certain places"? Like to a wedding?

Well, for example, if 11 members of the 20 person track team are going somewhere after practice, you have to invite everyone you meet even if you don't want them there. Even if its totally impractical to invite them there. If you're at a park throwing a Frisbee with some people you know, and you happen to be going somewhere with one friend afterwards, it's almost mandatory to invite the others who are there, even if you don't want to. I don't understand the rules, honestly. I was from a family who hardly ever invited anyone. But I've been frequently exposed to conversations about "who we've invited and hope doesn't come". As well as found myself in circumstances where I later realized that I was invited somewhere out of politeness rather than any desire that I be there. Both situations are really weird to me and it's just an extra complication that I don't need in my already tenuous understanding of social interaction.

In the Czech republic people don't talk as much and generally these situations occur rarely. And the example that I gave of the people in the park just doesn't happen in the Czech republic. There is no requirement to invite someone someplace just because you are going there yourself.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#96

Post by megous »

microcolonel wrote: post #81
thatcat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You undergo memory treatment, and now your mother who you see once a week is real as far as you know, but really she's an actor Sounds like a sort of reverse Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; things could get really awkward and confusing when you end up having partial memories. But also, possibly a brilliant way to fund nursing homes/increase visitation.

> things could get really awkward and confusing when you end up having partial memories. All memories are partial.

Memories are modified on retrieval and colored by current emotional state and ideas (and vice versa :)). So they're not even partial. They're messy re-imaginations of past re-imaginations.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#97

Post by fnwx17 »

top notch journalism, I couldn't stop until I read the entire article, not skipping any paragraph.

the whole thing is just an interview/dialogue, but it's incredibly captivating

also, you could make three separate movies on existentialism just with ideas from the article.

lastly - the interviewee, he must have such strong philosophical dilemmas

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#98

Post by eighthnate »

stickfigure wrote: post #14

Can someone confirm that this is real? It reads like (dismal) satire.

Almost everything the media writes about japan is exaggerated clickbait. This is true of all "exotic" cultures ( china, india, middle east, africa, mexico, etc ) but for some reason, it's especially true of japan. It's a form of cultural/racial fetishism.

Other countries do that with us too. Foreigners think that all americans carry guns, wave flags and settle disputes with a duel.

The media latches on to a fringe subculture in japan and then paints it as the norm. It would be like japanese media finding some fringe culture like furries and then making it seem like all americans are furries.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#99

Post by bjourne »

sho wrote: post #47
moonka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I can't help but wonder about the ethical implications of lying to a child about something so fundamental for her entire lifetime.

The article specifically mentions the positive outcome of the arrangement - the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped, and she has the father figure she obviously needs at this critical part of her development. And from all appearances he is genuinely doing his best to be that. It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfu…

> It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfulness is important, yes, but so is outcome. And if this woman after ten or twenty years, when she is well-adjusted with a career and family of her own, finds out the truth, would she be angry with her mother - or thank her?

Given the amount of adopted kids that have been lied to, and later found out, she'll be absolutely furious. Her mother is a lazy, dishonest bitch who bought a fake father rather than finding a real one for her daughter. Japan is full of single men so it's not like that option wasn't available to her.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#100

Post by cableshaft »

sdrothrock wrote: post #6
oh_sigh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping an otherwise normal late middle aged man from making friends?

It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries. For example, if you have a golfing group, you guys may go out for drinks but that would be that. You'd almost (key word) never go over to someone else's house, or go see movies together, or any of that -- they're your "golf people." But that's assuming that you do have a golf g…

This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average.

But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where I went to a ton of Meetup.com events, writers groups, board game groups, and the like. Generally speaking I just had to keep showing up, make a little small talk, and then eventually people knew me and trusted me enough to start inviting me to things outside of it.

And I'm an introvert at heart. I still struggle to talk to people outside of these events and I still get exhausted by social activities.

Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle (also there's some personalities that are either very abrasive, self-defeatist, or otherwise off-putting, and those people struggle as well). I find it's harder to keep up with myself now that I have a long term girlfriend and a puppy, but I still make an effort.

I wonder if that's possible in Japan as well, or if that's not even really a valid avenue over there.

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