Bitching About Japan

Today we take a break from our regularly scheduled photos to bitch about life in Japan. It can be awesome of course, it can be average, but a lot of the time it fucking sucks. I don't think that life in America would really be objectively better, but the constant barrage of things that I am not accustomed to and hate makes it 10x worse here in Japan. For example, the "leaving party" for my acquaintance yesterday. Okay so a lot of cultural baggage went into this shitshow and I'm going to spell it all out.  

1. Don't communicate.
 If you can possibly avoid telling someone a specific, do so. If you can't avoid telling them, at least delay until the last minute and hope they don't get the message. Even if you planned out all the details of a party weeks in advance, definitely try not to inform anyone of anything until a few days before.

This can apply to job transfers, parties, schedules, classes, events, literally anything. I have not been able to figure out the "why" of it, but enough people who I otherwise like have done this to me that I have to pull the culture card and say it's just #japanese.

Putting foreigners into the mix fucks up this whole non-communication thing, because they start GUESSING. They take your vague dismissals and non-commitment as a HINT and try to figure out what the fuck is going on. A good Japanese citizen would be content in their ignorance and not ask questions, but no. We foreigners can't handle that.

And so it happened that I went to the wrong restaurant for this part. The "wrong" restaurant being the one that the GUEST OF HONOR told me it was at.

2. Be super impersonal but also unprofessional
 Okay, maybe this is just ethnocentric. In fact, I'm 100% sure I'm just being ethnocentric now, but it has to be said. WHY when there are 100's of actual restaurants all around the area, any of which could handle a 10 person party, do we pay equivalent $40 per person to have it in a STRANGER'S LIVING ROOM? This living room bullshit permeates to every aspect of life. And it's always fucking expensive. Fucking hell, you can use my living room for $10 a head and I'll provide better service than half these assholes.

This basically boils down to a single issue: Japan doesn't have zoning laws AFAIK.

 So any bitch who accepts money for a cup of coffee one day can get a business license and call her kitchen a "cafe" or her living room a "ceremony hall." But this doesn't explain why we actually fucking encourage it by going to these places.

I'm used to paying for a professional service.  I fucking hate paying MORE for less than that.  And I am forced to do so constantly in Japan.  Who started this myth of great Japanese service?  It's not fucking true.  Or, more fairly, it's only true in legit places and only with a limited idea of what constitutes service.  Yes they are more doll-like and polite but they are NOT more helpful, faster, or efficient.  And the home-businesses are not more professional.

The icing yesterday was that the air conditioning wasn't strong enough to actually cool the room with 10 people in it, and if you turned on the AC and the lights and fans all at once, the breaker shorted out.  So we suffered muggy heat the entire time.  I wonder why, hmmm.... maybe because it was someone's house and not fucking built to handle having an office "party" at.

Also the family's personal shit was just pushed to the side of the room.  They didn't even move it to a different room or something for us.  And the bitch wore jeans and the dude was stupid and they forgot our orders and didn't write anything down and just brought out random dishes.


If it were free or just a token amount to cover costs, and in the living room of a co-worker, that'd be totally cool.  I'd be fine and even enjoy seeing my coworkers in a natural environment.   But that isn't what happened.  We went to a stranger's house and had to be super polite the whole time and sit seiza like assholes and have speeches and be ~~~~wa~~~~~ with everyone and I just came away hating the host and everyone there except the guest of honor who is a good guy and I'll actually miss.  But he's not Japanese, so I know he had nothing to do with this shitshow.

In fact, out of about 10 people there, I only recognized 5.  And out of those, I only actually knew 3.  And when I discreetly asked the guest of honor whether he knew all these people, he said he didn't know them either.  It's just a set list of who has to go to these things, regardless of your actual wishes.  The top BOE boss, your supervisor, the person who you actually interact with since your supervisor is afraid of foreigners, principal of your school, curriculum coordinator, and some young people who have to hobnob with the rest of the department.  Plus maybe the 2nd top boss?  I still have no idea who some of these people were.  I just know that I hate them. 
 
The fact that I was already pissed off because no one would communicate with me and it made me late didn't help.  I basically walked into the oven and said "oh fuck no, I am not playing this game" and refused to put on the happy face.  If even one Japanese person realized what a farce and shitshow that "party" was my mission was successful.

GAH.  I'm still angry.