日本の仕事（終わり）

After a month, our group study program is over, and I have experienced a lot from this Japan trip. Although a month is not a long time for us to get well with all the Japanese students and becoming a part of the real Japanese culture, it still a really nice experience, especially for me, a person who has never been to Japan before. Before we start our trip, my discussion problem for my project is “how Japanese jobs influence Japanese people lifestyle and Japanese culture?” and after a month of observation and research, I think I am good to answer this question.

The Japanese working environment is totally different from the environment in Canada and in China, because the workers in Japan have their own traditional workplace culture and lifestyle which influence their daily life. However, the traditional Japanese culture are strongly impacted by modern culture especially in these few years and the influence is much obvious on single workers lifestyle. Japan is a fast-paced country and individuals’ lifestyle are being fast as well, so the traditional Japanese lifestyle is impacted by the fast-paced culture. During the program, when I went out and go to Tokyo, there were a lot of times that I saw a huge amount of people were sitting or standing in the train with suite even the weather in Tokyo is almost 30 degrees. Japanese people are being serious to everything in every daily life and their rules in the society have forced them to be same as other people. Therefore, most single young workers have similar lifestyle and that kind of lifestyle is completely different from the older Japanese people lifestyle.

After a month of observation, most Japanese workers work pretty late and it is normal to see a lot of people take midnight train and get back home. From my roommate, I heard that recently Japanese workers are able to earn extra payment if they are working overtime but it not a high payment compare to Canada. Canadian workers can earn two to three times of their salary if they work overtime, but Japanese workers are only able to earn 1.3 to 1.5 times of the payment. Although the overtime salary in Japan is low, Japanese workers still have to work overtime almost everyday to make sure they can finish their target for week or for month on time. Another thing that I learned from my host family is that although sixty is the retired age for Japan civilization, but the company can “rehire” them if they are looking forward to continuing their work. That makes many Japanese family have wired schedule every day because each family member works overtime, and they have different schedule every day which makes them feel hard to make a comfortable schedule for the whole family.

There are still a lot of impacts from the jobs in Japan which I do not have plenty of time to find out because I only stay in Japan for a month. I hope I can go to Japan for a longer time study, and I will find out more at that time. By the way, this trip is an awesome experience.

The End Of Our Trip As We Know It Joshua Schultz

Alright folks, it’s been a hell of trip and let me tell you, I am exhausted. It’s been maybe four days back in Canada after our psychotic expedition into the Japanese universe and between jet lag and not being able to hit a convenience store for anything but food poisoning, bankruptcy and crippling sadness, I’d say the majority of us are already planning how best to sneak back over to Japan, shred and burn our passports and live as homeless NEET (peoples not in employment, education or training) in the glorious land we’ve come to love. This idea, instead of being recognized as an incipient psychotic breakdown like it should be, is instead growing in popularity among the group with each passing minute and I fear for us all should someone actually attempt it. I digress however, as such things are unlikely at best and at worst unavoidable.  

So, beyond wanted to go back with every fiber of my being, what can I say for the country and everything that happened and all that I learned? First of all, Japan is not some flawless, glorious land of milk and honey. It has its warts and issues just like anything else on this beautiful cruel planet. For example, there was a mass killing which occurred just ten minutes away from where I lived at a busy train station. I had gone grocery shopping nearby just a little while before and frankly returning to a bloodbath and the sounds of screaming, dying children will probably never leave me despite a probable investment into intensive therapy. Furthermore, an acquaintance of mine made the mistake of thinking Japan was safe and harmless and was assaulted by an older man while she was touring Akihabara in the evening, and she will likely never recover from the violation that occurred to her. So it is safe to say that despite all the low crime rates and reports of the harmlessness of Japan, it is far from perfect and caution should be taken when there, just like anywhere else in our world. 

That is not to say there weren’t things to love about Japan. After all, there are so many of us that experienced such things and are still infatuated with the country like a horrible high school crush that there would have to be some sort of compensation for all the ill there was. Many of us found romance, excitement, and friendship. We met new people, tried new things, and learned to experience life in a different way from what we had for all our lives up until that moment. There were tears, certainly, but there were also smiles, hugs, kisses, laughter and countless indescribably beautiful moments shared between us that we could never in a thousand lifetimes forget. The time we spent there was not without its darkness: some of us nearly didn’t make it back to Canada, and there were other dangers lurking in bar room and alleyway like anywhere else in the world. But perhaps through this darkness, the bright and beautiful light that Japan shines was able to resonate even more brightly to us. 

Final thoughts Madi

My trip to Japan is now over and I have returned back to Calgary. Calgary is the city I grew up in and I have been here my entire life. Having this be the first experience in another country and city was one of the most special things I can imagine. A month in Kawasaki City, close to Tokyo, was long but not long enough. I’ve discovered and decided that in the future it is my dream and goal to move to Japan and live there. Personally I love living in the city so having the experience of living in the Japanese city was extremely lucky for me. I felt like I was able to learn so many things about the lifestyle there and how to fit into the flow and live there comfortably. Of course I month is not long enough to learn all the norms that exist somewhere so I will definitely be coming back either to live there or on more trips to experience more and learn more.

I feel like Japan is a very unique place to live. Out of all the places in the world I’ve heard about Japan is the most interesting to me. Now actually having the experience I confirmed that it was extremely different but also, in my opinion, a really good place to live. Everything is planned out well and organized in ways that Calgary can’t even think of accomplishing right now. They have sophisticated train and bus systems, and despite less room their buildings, roads, and crosswalks all function in efficient ways. It is all planned out since it is a place with such a high population. The scramble crosswalks were still hard to get used to but it makes sense to cross as many pedestrians as you can at once so the crowd doesn’t grow since the space is always needed for more people. Being able to think back about these things it’s interesting to think about and understand why things are so different there from here.

All in all, I was able to learn so much about the lifestyle in Japan through this trip. Plus focusing on this topic helped me to open my mind to more ideas and observations about this and see it more. It felt really beneficial to be able to focus on understanding different norms and lifestyles as I was to live there one day. You need to at least understand the Japanese life and culture when you visit or I can be hard to adapt to. Which can lead to issues for the tourist or foreigner but also issues for the natives and it can come off as very rude. I think anyone who comes here for any amount of time should keep an open mind and notice things like this, and learn about different lifestyles in the world. Having such a large and connected global world it’s important to have knowledge on other people’s way of life.

This will be my last post, thank you so much for reading our blog!!

Madi

٩(•̤̀ᵕ•̤́๑)ᵒᵏᵎᵎᵎᵎ

多文化主義 (最終)

The Senshu program has been over for almost a week now but I am still in Japan. I’ve experienced many hardships during the program but ultimately, it was a very enjoyable experience. I was able to make a lot of Japanese friends and enjoy what this amazing country has to offer. I am currently staying up near Sendai for a week and will return to Tokyo to explore some more with my friends. I intend on travelling to Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Nara before I fly to Hong Kong in July. Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Nara have amazing historical sites and I would love to see them against as it has been 10 years since I’ve been there. I am excited to see all the castles, shrines, bamboo forests and be able to pet deer in Nara. I hope I don’t get bitten or chased down by one.

My research has been a little on the stagnant side. I realize there are a lot of foreigners in Japan but from what I can hear as I walk past them on the street, they are fluent in Japanese unless they are tourists. I also noticed that it is pretty 50/50 when it comes to restaurants having English on their menu. Even in places like Shinjuku, there are some restaurants that don’t have English on their menu. Often times, you can also see the dissatisfaction on the servers face when they realize you aren’t Japanese. Whether that is because they are uncomfortable communicating in English with us or just a general dislike over foreigners, I do not know. I do have to say that behaviour is not shared at every restaurant I’ve walked in.

I have also noticed during my stay in Tokyo is that even American food chains cater to the Japanese taste rather than maintaining an American view. Like McDonalds for instance, sells Japanese styled burgers rather than your traditional American burgers like the Quarter Pounder. It is a smart marketing choice but also shows how Japanese are only interested in experiencing small part of different cultures rather than the whole thing. Even at Italian pasta place in Shinjuku, they mostly sold Italian-Japanese fusion udon dishes rather than just a regular pasta. Although I have yet to go to Yokohama to experience the Chinatown there, many of my Chinese friends have told me the food there aren’t Chinese food. The food is very Japanese styled and only applies a small amount of Chinese technique.

My overall experience here as a foreigner in Japan was good. I did find myself struggle a bit in Japan than I did in Korea even though I know more Japanese than I do Korean. Japanese people are more interested in experiencing a different culture in a different country than in Japan itself. Although they are to learn English since young, it still seems to be a big struggle when it comes to speaking and listening. They would much rather learn Chinese than English.

- サミー

外国の旅人 Joshua Schultz

There's only a week or so left on this trip and boy, has it ever been a ride. I'm personally torn between wanting to continue my studies and life here and wanting desperately to come home to Canada and experience the things I've been missing there. There is a lot I've learned about being a foreigner here in Japan, both as a permanent and temporary citizen of the area, but I'll touch down on that more later. Continuing on with the personal aspect of things, though it does tie directly into my topic since I'm a tourist here as well, I've realized that conflict is at the heart of Japanese life: there's a need to maintain the old and usher in new change simultaneously and these two aspects are often directly in opposition to each other. The government wants to bring more foreigners into the country and usher in change and growth, but also fears the dillution and loss of culture and the unique way of life of the japanese. The people themselves fear this as well and despite many people being friendly towards me for speaking their language and abiding their customs there were also those who would shun and avoid me or even attempt to argue and fight with me for reasons I yet cannot comprehend beyond blatant xenophobia. It feels as though the country means to keep all foreigners outside, looking within, rather than people within wanting without. 

In my actual research I have found a few important pieces of information: perception and adaptation, specifically regarding both Japanese and Foreigners towards each other. Foreigners are, and I now have crime statistics which support this, a liability at best and a danger at worst in Japan right now. Perceptions are that the country is not as safe as it was before the large influx of foreigners, particularly tourists. Foreigners on the other hand, seem to view the people of the country as unfriendly. Even I have been guilty of this, but I digress. The best example I can think of is people complaining about being charged for trespass when they broke into private property to take photos, like at Shimonada Station where the railyard has a set of submerged tracks like in the movie Spirited Away. I know I’ve said this before, but any problem so great that a nearly retired manager has to plead to the public to stop tourists from interrupting the work he has to do for human safety’s sake is too great indeed for us to simply ignore. 

The thing I’m finding most is that foreigners tend to use their own inexperience as an excuse to misbehave. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just wanted a picture of your outfit.” or “I’m sorry, I wandered into this high security area because I got lost looking for the convenience store.” are not valid excuses back home and they aren’t here either. People need to, for the love of god, learn how to behave themselves in foreign countries or we need to assert consequences toward them. Easier said than done, I know, but this problem is only worsening with the passing days, months and years. I hope that these things improve and deescalate, but with recent news and reports on the behavior of the US president during his visit to Japan (He required the rules of Sumo Wrestling to be changed to suit him, and refused to honor ancient customs while in the company of the emperor because he likely felt they were emasculating to him.) I’m beginning to doubt that they will. I fear it’s dark times ahead, but we won’t know until we get there. 

仕事と社会

Blog#3

 It already the third week since I have arrived Japan and there is only one week left until I get back to Canada. The time goes really fast and I want to write about what I have experienced since I finished the previous blog.

Last week, I went to a home visit from Friday to Sunday and I learned a lot from my host family. First of all, I had a really closed observation for the traditional Japanese family and how their daily are. From my experience of the home stay, I learned that Japanese family might be unable to have dinner as the whole family if there is someone working overtime sometimes. In my case, the host family and sister works until eleven o’clock so the host mother didn’t choose to wait them for the dinner. The Japanese situation that someone in this family cannot get home untimed. Last time I only done the research about how Japanese jobs impact single people life, and this time I find out how jobs influence the Japanese family. And according to the conversation with my host father, I also discover something about the current Japanese workplace. The retired age in Japan is normally 60 years old, however, because of the hard work in workplace and lake of young workers in whole Japanese society, the Japanese companies decide to hire the workers who are retired from that company which is called ‘rehired’. Another thing I learned is that now if people work overtime in Japan, they will get extra payment. In Canada, if people are working overtime such as work in holiday, they will get two times of their salary per hour but in Japan, people only get 1.3 times of the payment, and if they keep working though all night, they are still only able to earn 1.5 times of their salary per hour. Since the salary in Japan is even lower than Canada, working in Japan is not easy.

After the home stay, which was a very amazing experience for me, I got back to school and continue my class in the new week. This week, I worked on my final prestation and I use a questionnaire survey to do a research about procrastination. In the modern society, the procrastination exists in anywhere all-around human society. It not only influences the students but also has a huge impact to the workers. However, the procrastination has more impact to the students comparing to its impact to the workers, and that maybe depends on the workplace culture in Japan. For student, they will sometimes do their homework later even the deadline is the next day since the assignment has not become the most important thing they have to deal with it yet. But for workers, if they cannot finish their work today, the work will become more and more in the second and third day because they will have same amount of work every day. If they push them back, it will become a vicious cycle for their jobs.

There is only a week left for my Japanese program, so I am going to discover more during the next weekend and I hope I can find out more about the Japanese society.

多文化主義

I have been in Japan for three weeks now and there is only one week left of this program. I am sad to say I can’t wait for this program to end. Along with all the work that comes with being in an exchange program, the dorm life just isn’t for me. I prefer my peace and quiet while I do assignments and there is no where I can go in the dorm to find silence. To make matters worse, the students on the two week programs are extremely loud, so sleeping is only possible after midnight.

I participated in the homestay program from May 24th until the 26th as it was mandatory for us. My host family lived in Mizonokuchi, an area that is not well known to tourists. Against my expectations, there were actually a lot of foreigners living and walking back in Mizonokuchi. In the area near my host family’s house, I saw many foreign workers doing a variety of jobs like construction, restaurant workers and tutors. When I was talking to my host mother, she mentioned that she accepts a lot of foreigners for homestay and the guests who come are from a huge variety of countries. She mentioned a Danish Youtuber did a home visit at her house and filmed how a regular Japanese life is like. She also mentioned that a lot of foreign students do home visits at her house. She’s had students from the Philippines, United States of America, Brazil, Germany and France. She mentioned how a lot of the foreign students had a hard time adjusting to Japanese life. They often found school way too difficult and completely different than the school life they are used to. Also, they mentioned that Japanese students often shunned the foreign students due to cultural differences. She had a student from France who refused to go back to school due to bullying. Although my host mother is very open to having a variety of people staying at her house and travelling abroad to experience different cultures, she still showed signs of prejudice against foreigners. She mentioned to me once how she had a male who was Muslim stay at her house for a couple weeks and found their praying schedule annoying and hard to work around. She said that cooking for him was a bother too as they have dietary restrictions due to religious reasons.

 Aside from listening to stories told by my host mother, I also saw many children of different ethnicities walking to and from school during my stay. I also observed many interracial couples walking around the supermarket. I wonder if it’s just Mizonokuchi that has this many foreigners living in the area. I have yet to see that many foreigners and interracial couples who live in Japan and are not just here for vacation. I wonder what Mizonokuchi has to offer to foreigners to attract so many of them. Being a foreigner myself, I felt Mizonokuchi was not foreigner friendly. Majority of the menus given at restaurants only had Japanese and a lot of the workers in restaurants and supermarkets did not speak English.

I hope in the future I’ll find another community that filled with foreigners and find out why they ended up all living in that general area.

- サミー