日本人は固まる民族だ。

Two weeks have passed since I’ve boarded the island of Japan. A very short time indeed, but it feels more like a light year: quick yet significant.

This is my lesson for the month – it took me one afternoon doing problem-solving (graduate training) and 20-odd years to learn this, but here I am. It proves me that, although I thought I knew Japan, there are still so many things left to learn about its people.

「日本人は固まる民族だ。」 “Japanese are a people that huddle together”.

There is no question that even in a state of war, the Japanese would still be the opposite of the Hobbesian solitary man. Thus, what I’ve learnt during that problem-solving class is that Japanese people excel at “teamworking” and that it is as vital to society as olive oil and tomatoes are to Italians.

Here’s the scenario (distinctive Japanese-HR flavour to it) we were given during our problem-solving class and how things unfold from there:

“A newly assumed employee (us?) works in an impeccable manner but does not take any initiatives – once done with his task, he idles until he is assigned a new task by his superior. What should his superior do?”

We are given a few hours to resolve this problem.

As we are split in groups of 6, we somehow chose a leader and time-keeper within the next minute. As I tell them I have problems reading the scenario (maudits Kanji!), they all agree to read it out loud for me. I think that in Europe I would have been trashed somewhere. Then comes the brainstorm; people think out loud, ask questions which are answered, give advices which are well received, take turns to pencil what’s being said. When A corrects B’s mistake, B does not take it personally – he even apologises for his error!

As I sit quietly in my corner, they try to involve me in the task. But I don’t see any big issue in the scenario.  When the time comes to do a presentation of our solutions, the group assigns each one of us a part through rock-paper-scissors. We all rehearse once before giving our talk.

I’m sooo impressed, as I’ve never seen people work so well together.

According to my new colleagues, Japanese people love being in a group. Teamwork is the glue that sticks this whole society together. I assume that this is so because Japanese society is so fundamentally risk-averse (earthquake drills are done since kindergarten!).

Its beautiful seeing things going so smoothly thanks to teamwork (trains, bureaucracy, work), but this has its drawbacks. For instance, it is notoriously difficult to rely on their sense of individuality to change public opinion. Or make them say what they really think. People go with the tide – whether it’s their love for Krespe Kreme Doughnuts (boom in '09) or their blind support for the death penalty (85%, 2012), there is little place for overt individualism to shine through. There is an old phrase that says that “the nail that sticks out gets hammered in, the best policy is to keep your head down”.

“Make Duty your Command”

Toyota's ceremony in Aichi prefecture - (c) 愛知テレビ

These are the warm words that welcome us to the company. Today (02/04), we officially join the company. A day of celebration!

There are over 200 of us sitting here in a vast hall, jittery. Everyone is strictly wearing a two-dollar suit with a white shirt and black tie. We all left our nylon and synthetic leather briefcases behind, locked in a room. Towering above us are the Japanese and company flags, large and proud.

I am sitting at the back and loosely listening to the HR boss telling us how to keep in check our posture – your spine is healthy and strong when you practice healthy posture. He then orchestrates us to make us rise, bow and sit in unison as the President makes his entrance into the room.

My first day in the company unfolds in a similar fashion; an other thousand bowings, smiling your heart out, and uttering artificial phrases of the type “Please treat me well” or “I will cause trouble, but please take good care of me”.

Luckily I feel spaced out by the end of the morning and can go through the day unharmed. Tired, by 5.30pm we all long to go home but first need to make our way to the cafeteria, where we are met by sushi, Asahi super-dry and our departments’ managers. They call this gathering a ‘friendly reunion’ (懇親会) and optional, but no one dares to decline, so small talk and tipsy Japanese salarymen quickly ensue. Whether its in a karaoke bar after work, or after a Golf session on a Saturday, these nomikai (drinking parties) with your colleagues are one of the most practiced national sports here.

Carpe Diem.

***

More on the unique Jap recruiting system in the Asahi Shinbun: “Companies currently "blanket hire" students while they are still in their penultimate year of university. Those who fail to secure a job offer (40.1%) in the fixed recruitment period--shortened this year from five months to three by Japan's biggest business lobby, the Keidanren--may go through the same process again in their final year.

[…] Under this system, companies do not assign regular workers to specific jobs, but rather confer "membership" on them in exchange for absolute loyalty and diligence.

[…] Candidates who are not selected to be regular employees after the recruitment system mostly end up as "irregular" employees, who encompass part-time, temporary contract and dispatch workers, and overlaps with the so-called "freeters," or people between 18 and 34 who are not employed full time.”

A Golden Cage

I have just finished moving into the company’s housing – a strictly girl-only hall of residence scrupulously guarded by its supervisor-in-chief. It feels a little like a miniature Orwellian state.

Here are the strangest (and frankly privacy-breaking) rules that all residents must follow:

1. You must not bring boys in, and that includes your own father. The residence’s supervisor told me that “You [girls] should be grateful; this is how much your safety and wellbeing means to the Company.”

2. You are kicked out of the residency if you are still single at the age of 35.
3. You must mark your absences from work on a big white board with a day of notice.
4. You must write down where you are going if you are sleeping outside the residence (this includes holidays).
5. You have to signal that you are in your flat by turning on a designated green light in the foyer. This is done so as to ensure that you will not be oversleeping when you should be at work. Should your light still be on at 7.20 am (when you should be out and about on your way to work), the supervisor will ring your phone. Should you not pick up, he will go knock at your door. And should that fail too, he will force his way into your flat and wake you up.

None of this is enforced in men-only company housings. Japan still lives in a very paternalistic state with companies taking over your parents’ job. But I’m not 5 years old.

However, the bottom line is that, when you are short on money and the company subsidises 90% of the rent, all you can do is kow-tow.

A very short introduction...

For some strange turn of fate, I am about to embark on the most surreal journey of my short-lived life. As of April 2, 2012, I will become office employee no. 05XXXX in one of the biggest Japanese manufacturing MNC. This is a big deal for me, as I am (a) a foreigner* and (b) a tree-hugger and idealist (yes… I’m that kind of person). So given my background (all the way human rights!), no one is too sure as to what made them hire me in their ‘Simultaneous Recruiting of New Graduates’ programme. Probably nothing more than raising their total gaijin employees’ figures shown on their website (a handful, so far).

For my part - as a friend of mine put it - I’ll be a mole keeping track of the wondrously bizarre things that make up the world of a salaryman and try to post them here.

Occasionally, this blog will also become my portable soapbox where I’ll write about human rights in Nippon-land (its pretty bad over here).

* Well, to tell you the truth I am head-to-belly Japanese. But except for the non-existent eyelashes, everything in my appearance cries ‘Gaijin’. And translated into Japanology, I am and will always remain a foreigner to Japan.