JAPAN - FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND INSIGHTS



Well, it's been a total of just under 72 hours since I got off the plane at Narita, and here are a few things I've learned/seen/experienced so far as insights into the Japanese culture.

Cleanliness

Things are spick-and-span pretty much everywhere you look. Even the busiest train station in the country is quite devoid of litter and garbage. I'm not sure how they do it, especially with so many people in this city, but it get's done.

One weird thing though, is that trash cans are a rarity. It took me a train ride and 45 minutes to throw away my trash from my on-the-go breakfast on Monday. Apparently parents teach their kids to clean up after themselves, so when people make a mess, they take care of it. What a concept!!! Actually, the truth of the matter is, overall, people are taught to take care of their own garbage, even if that means carrying it around until they find the next rarity they call a trash can.

Spick and Span in Japan

As an interesting example of this, here's what we did after Frisbee on Tuesday. We played on a dirt field, something I've never done before. But then after the game, we had to sweep the field. Just like what's done at baseball games in between innings, we pulled out brooms and swept the field after we were done playing on it. Quite interesting and studious.

White Shirt, Black Slacks

My apartment is located near the heart of one of the many Skyscraper/Urban hubs in Tokyo, Shinjuku, and so every morning there's a ton of business people moving to and fro heading to work. No joke, 90% of which are wearing a white dress shirt with black slacks. EVERYONE. It's kinda crazy. In a way, it looks like a bunch of lemmings but in complete disarray, or that every business here in Tokyo has the same dress code, or that that's the only thing they have in their wardrobe.

Black and White Dress Code

Then, when you get on the train, it's just white everywhere. Maybe a couple oddballs with the light blue, but damn near everyone's wearing the same motif.

Glued to a Screen

I was riding home a couple of days ago, seated on the train just looking around. Now I've noticed this throughout my time here so far, but everyone was glued to a screen. Be it a phone or a tablet or computer or whatever, everyone has some kind of device right in front of them. I should've taken a picture, but the entire bench right across from me was seated, in their white shirts and black slacks, staring at their phones. I looked down either side of the train, and about 90% of everyone else also had a phone right in front of them.

Granted, I don't know how different this would be in the US if people rode the train to go places, but I imagine it would be somewhat similar, though not nearly as high of a percentage of people. I'm really dumbfounded by how prevalent it is for people to go right to using their phones once they're finished walking somewhere and standing around. But yeah, as I said, it's not like this is unique, I think I'm just surprised by the sheer quantity of people doing it.

Humidity

Fuck I hate humidity. This is nothing cultural, I just hate it and never want to live in it.

Hierarchy is Quite Important

The area that I sit in our office is broken down into 'boxes', where each specific work group or team sit somewhat together. At the head of those boxes sit the managers, giving the manager a direct line of sight to each of their subordinates so they can keep an eye on them and keep them in sight while they work. There's probably some better examples, but right now I don't have them. They'll probably come with time though.

LastName-san

As I witnessed quickly, but took a while to set in, people don't use their first names (at least not in the work environment). The guy that came and got me at the gate introduced himself as Park. I thought ok, cool name. Little did I know that that's actually his last name. Everyone that introduced themselves, I found out that they only used their last name.

On top of that, you add a '-san' to people's names as a sign of respect. So if someone was talking about me, instead of saying "Nial", they'd say "Tilson-san". My boss is "Schroeter-san", and a colleague of mine is "Nagai-san". In a way, this, with a number of other language and cultural nuances, reminds me a little bit of the German culture, with their formalities and addresses, but taken a couple steps further.

It all comes down to not embarrassing oneself...

Talking with Zena, a fellow trainee in my program, I found an insight into a lot of these cultural nuances I've explained. People don't want to embarrass themselves. But in this case, embarrass has a couple definitions here:

Here's how it fits into a few of those things. Wearing a white shirt and black slacks helps you blend into the crowd, not drawing a lot of attention onto oneself from others that are blending in. Constantly looking at a device diverts your attention from other people in the train/at the station, because aimlessly looking around is impolite and frowned upon.

Little puzzle pieces like this are such great eye-openers. Seeing and observing things gives you the raw face of something, but only the surface level. You see an action, it happens, that's that, you see WHAT it is. But actually getting a background on that something gives you the picture of the inner workings at play. THAT'S what I love about this world, figuring out WHY it is.

The WHY gives us such a better insight into what is going on around us. Being someone who puts a lot of value into understanding what's going on around me, this WHY is a huge benefit.



Original Publish Date: August 26th, 2015