Won't Miss #369 - facial hair prejudice

Okay, this guy definitely isn't helping the image of facial hair, but give him a break. This picture was taken at a summer festival, not at the office. You'd all look less than ready for Wall Street in 93 degree heat and high humidity at a crowded public gathering.

When my husband came to Japan in 1989 seeking a job, his brother, who also lives in Japan, recommended that he shave off his

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Won't Miss #351 - paltry (or no) raises

The economic situation in Japan has been going downhill for quite some time. That doesn't mean companies don't make money, but rather that Japan hasn't been growing economically on the whole. However, even before the downturn became so dire, raises were very pathetic at most companies. It's not unusual for people to get raises of as little as a few thousand yen (about $24) or no raise at all,

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Won't Miss #347 - monthly pay

This is a MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group) building, which is very tentatively linked to this post. I'm using this picture because of the man and poster person staring in awe at the silver scrotum sculpture in front of the building, which is more interesting than a generic bank picture. 

In the U.S., I was paid every two weeks and some people are paid every week. I think the system is

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Will Miss #346 - teaching English (the good)

I've already written that I love my students, but that is because I currently mostly work freelance in a situation which allows me to work with people who are rather different from the general population of language learners in "eikaiwa" (English conversation schools). Because of my specialized circumstances, I have fewer of the passive people I mentioned in the previous post, and more active

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Won't Miss #328 - English practice moochers

One evening, my husband and I met up around 9:00 p in Nakano after long tiring days at our respective jobs. Our plan was to have a nice dinner and unwind after talking to people all day. As we were walking along, a stranger in a business suit rushes up alongside my husband and asks if we'll speak English with him at a bar. This was neither our first or last experience with random strangers just

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Won't Miss #290 -ignoring the inevitable

When I was working in a Japanese office, my (Australian) boss and I often cautioned the president or our coworkers about certain problems that were inevitably going to come up if we pursued a certain path. We weren't being unnecessarily pessimistic. We were pointing out what would definitely happen. Our concerns were always brushed aside or shrugged off. More often than not, we were told that

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Won't Miss #269 - nomikai

"Nomikai" means "drinking party" in Japanese. If you work, you will often be invited to such parties, and declining those invitations can have negative consequences on your relationship with your coworkers as well as your future promotion potential. The thinking behind nomikai is that Japanese people have to keep their true feelings under such tight wraps that they can only let some of them out

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Will Miss #258 - language schools (the good)

A Geos poster, implying that you'll be in one big happy family with foreigners and Japanese alike if you attend their school. Of course, it's too late now since Geos folded.
While there are problems with working at language schools (related mainly to cultural differences and working expectations), the experience carries some unique benefits. The main one is that it is often an ideal environment

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Won't Miss #258 - language schools (the bad)

An ad for "Geos" language school (eikaiwa) using Disney's "Shrek". Even though the school went out of business, these posters are still up all over Tokyo. Given the cash they must have invested to use these images, it's no wonder the company went down the drain.

One of the things that foreigners learn rather quickly after being engaged at a language school is that the experience is not what

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Won't Miss #224 - (s)Mothers and kyoiku mamas

Disclaimer (aka, please do not sue me): I'm not saying this lovely woman with her daughter is a kyoiku mama or overprotective because she's holding her little girl close. This is just a picture taken at a shrine on New Year's of a parent and seemed to fit the very general theme and is not meant to imply anything about this fine woman's character.
Though I have never been held hostage as part of

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Will Miss #219 - stockholders last

 There are a plethora of ways in which the Japanese do business differently than the rest of the world. This often causes problems for foreign partners, and for the Japanese branches of Western businesses in Japan, but certain choices are better for Japanese people. One of these differences is the order of priority when making decisions. The Japanese place customers first, employees second, and

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Won't Miss #203 - working weekends

 I know a lot of people feel that English teachers are the career bottom feeders of Japan, but the truth is that I'm much more satisfied teaching English than I ever was in my 12 years as an office-dwelling wage slave pushing around papers and staring at a computer screen. There is, however, one drawback to being a teacher and that is the necessity of working on weekends. Most people who study

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Won't Miss #179 - Low Glass Ceiling

A rare female conductor on the JR line points to signal that all is ready for departure. People like to say that the situation in Japan has improved a lot for women over the past several decades, but the glass ceiling is still set quite low relative to Western countries. Women are still barred from doing jobs that men have deemed too dangerous, dirty or physically taxing for them. Whether or not

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