The Exposure of Japanese society and people

• I still believe that people living in a foreign country should behave as the natives would and yet they would represent themselves as the 'diplomats' who would act wisely as 'peacemakers' from the country of origin. This is a part of benefits you would get by living in a foreign country - getting to know some interesting cultures,customs, languages,and cuisines in exchange for theirs. There isn't anything wrong in adopting some of the cultures they have acquired during their stay over there, however some people have misconception about them in a sense that acquiring a new culture/custom means abandoning their own.Some people think everything British is hip but I think not.Things like food sometimes bores me to tears,besides I'd rather stick to my oriental(Japanese) diet,which suits me fine.In another case,being married to a British national doesn't necessarily mean that you can forget about yourself as a Japanese.You cannot alter your being Japanese unless you naturalise into another nationality.I noticed some Japanese women are more or less 'brainwashed' to adopt a British custom by virtue of inter-marriage. If you spouse cannot share and appreciate the difference in cultures and languages,what kind of marriage do you call it?! This applies to all people who are inter-married.People should have more cultural tolerance with each other,not bragging their national identity.
• At Japanese Shop in London: I know I have more amusing stories about Japanese shops than about any other stuff in the UK. This is one of the story when I was down in London. I went to a small Japanese grocery shop near Great Portland Street (not far from Oxford Street) tube station,of which name I won't reveal here. But I'm quite sure you'd possibly know it as there's only one Japanese shop around there. Anyway,I went inside and had a look at some sweets section (I was craving for Japanese sweets then even though I willingly ate almost anything regardless of nationalities.But more than 6 years my life was spent in the UK including my late teens,it's quite natural that one would suddenly develope an urge to have one's home country dish after all those years without any Japanese food)-one of my favourites were dumplings with sweet bean pastes which came in a pack of three or four with ridiculous price (5 quid or more for teeny portions). They were stored in a fridge with other food and I couldn't decide whether or not I should purchase one instantly.I was standing like an idiot there and wondering - whether it was worth it or not, should I or should I not indulge myself with this petty food, isn't it bit ridiculously pricey for a pack of that petty quantity, my mother would make better dumplings than this stuff etc,etc.............. Finally I've made up my mind to get one and was just about to open the fridge when a middle-aged Japanese staff who was stocking up other food on the nearby shelf and having a occasional glance at me as if I was some sort of suspicious shoplifter,approached me and asked me,"are you or are you not going to buy one from the fridge?".How rude! I was stunned and thought Japanese sales people couldn't be as rude as this woman.At this point,the penny dropped.I closed the fridge and made my way out, and never went back to that shop ever since.
• My Japanese acquaintances at school: This goes back to many moons ago when I was still a student who was studying hard to get into British universities in London.I won't reveal the name of the school,but let me just tell you this was one of the university of London. There were only about thirty Japanese students there,half of which consisted of those who either were at Japanese university or had just graduated there,and another half consisted of fresh high school leavers like myself. I never seriously made friends with any of them, simply because they were utter bunch of spoilt rich gits with rich and name-dropping parents and they were just there to have a good time in the UK. But I know to many British people Japanese living here in the UK look or are quite wealthy in comparison with the British standard. To me, the British society still cling to 'class' hierachy system and that's something which I detest.And this is one of the reason why people in the north whinge on rich families, and according to which I'd be classified as one of the rich people. My parents were hard workers and they were the people who served the government and people for more than thirty years and I put an emphasis that they were not the kind of capitalist rats who usurped the profit by industry tycoons though I know this cannot be helped.Anyway you can say that many Japanese people,esp. people coming to the UK with their self finance are quite wealthy. However the students and people I met at the school were incredibly irritating.One of the guys I loathed was a real swine with apparently mega-rich parents who monthly provided him with enormous amount of living allowance.I don't think this guy cared very much about his spending,and he with his girlfriend used to go to Japanese restaurants almost everyday.(If you know the price you get in most Japanese retaurants in London,you wouldn't go there everyday,would you?!) The intimidating part was that his girlfriend who was the same age with me used to tell me and other girls how much they spent on shopping spree in Bond street, how many times they had grilled eels(one of the most expensive dishes here), and all kinds of things. I was quite amused rather than annoyed,I burst out laughing when I imagined themselves carrying shopping bags with fashion logos as Chanel ,Gucci and Christian Dior ,and their daily lavishing expense. And always he was the one who used to play truant so often that all tutors gave him up in the end. Amazing thing about this guy was that he told his tutor that he still wanted to go to LSE despite his poor exam result which no one could do anything about. God knows where he disappeared to.
• My close friend told me that he could not understand why so many Japanese women, in particular,buy all top designers labels like Gucci, Burberrys,or Chanel.The answer is quite simple:it's because (a)they are fashion label freaks,(b) they want to get some unique clothes or stuff so that they can show them off proudly to their neighbours, (c) everybody else buys those stuff,or (d) they believe buying lots of foreign designers labels indicates a sign of their wealth and of travelling abroad on numerous occasions. It is ridiculous in a way as we can get lots of good quality clothes in Japan yet many Japanese women are stocking up their wardrobe full of famous brands.When they go abroad for shopping spree,most of them probably shop at Chanel(I reckon).I saw a tv programme about these shoppoholics and saw one young woman spent about 900 pounds worth on just one tiny Chanel hand bag! Incredible... I often find that Japanese( usually a mother and a daughter, a group/pair of youong women,or middle aged men and women) are spotted around in Fortnum & Mason or some quintessentially famous British stores. I must admit I do sometimes indulge myself in buying stuff from these stores,but the trouble is there are always so many Japanese(tourists) there and I can't enjoy staying there for long as it's jam-packed. But I guess some people are just happy to get anything which has become a trend,I wouldn't. I admit to some extent that I can be a chameleon at times but I'd rather buy something exclusive and rare quality. With cosmetics,you can experiment with varieties of cosmetics and skin care products,and they are just affordable(ignore the sales gimmicks). With clothes, I wouldn't buy a famous labelled dress and show it off in front of other people saying "look at me,this is by Chanel", in case I get mugged or harrassed for being such a snob. However one thing I might do is buying various perfumes. That way you don't have to appeal anything to people,unless they know which brand I'm wearing! (but personally I'd never buy or wear Chanel stuff,it's not my cup of tea).
• By writing these exposure of the Japanese people and society,I realised that I would be cursed and possibly 'excommunicated' by those who respect and are proud of Japanese tradition for raising my obnoxious thoughts. That's fair enough,I'm aware that I am obnoxious at times(and HAVE been obnoxious ever since I was a nipper),although I don't mean to cause a stir among people,but just like to show people of other nationalities one perspective of Japanese people in reality. Many people possibly think the Japanese still wear kimonos which were essential clothes hundreds of years ago,but are only worn by some people for special occasions nowadays; some people might think the Japanese are always polite and bow each other whenever they meet (Oh,yeah I nearly got my marks reduced by my teacher for not bowing to her,because I was such a rebel,and my problem being classified as 'attitude and personality problem'.Even one of the teacher at primary school kept telling me that I was a wet blanket,which I fiercely deny up till now), the fact is that the Japanese people don't queue up in order to be served and some sneaky people would jump the queue,which probably irates some British people here. Another time we get all kinds of deranged men in Japan- my father in the train once saw a guy who was picking his nose and sticking his nauseating bogey up the door glass every time he took it out of his nose,and counting each of them by doing so. My father,being a man of a clear conscience,thought of telling this guy to stop acting silly but decided not to because he suspected this guy could be a member of gang or just a scum who might do the worst thing he could imagine hence silence is golden..... ; and some people tend to underestimate Japanese people that esp. Japanese women are submissive,shy and always slaves to men. (well,look at me I'm outrageous,anarchic,obnoxious,and verbally and physically abusive if I need to.But I think I'm quite sensible in a sense that I don't go on a drinking binge and take an abuse at people I come across like some scums in my neighbourhood,O.K. I might be a weirdo who like watching creepy classic films like 'Psycho'or 'Dracula' in my cosy room at night.But I don't get particularly influenced by those horror scenes.The only thing which attracts me is those grotesque vamp looks,and I like dark colours,if I'm in a mood I'd possibly end up dressing in black for my friend's wedding! Elegant and quiet taste.. that's me..so there we have it.) One simple reason why I never got on well with my fellow Japanese is that I never had any easy time with them, I'd rather like spending my time with the Japanese elderly people many of who are more pleasant and decent than the rest,although it also depends on where you go to as well.(it incidentally reminds me of a rude English elderly woman I encountered at the bus stop in front of Selfridges..... ,for this trivial article,have a look at the Exposure of British society and People.)
• Addendum: Recently I discovered by reading some of the articles on Japanese stuff that one Japanese guy always crops up at all kinds of newsgroups.Basically he lives on them.What he talks in those places is most of the time irrelevant to the core of discussion.I guess he just wants to have a finger in every pie,and takes the piss out of some Japanese users.Once I posted one message to one newsgroup,this twat posted his after me,uttering some kinds of gibberish. Basically a megalomaniac twat. I just feel like saying "so what?" ,"what's got to do with you?,and "naff off".How exasperating!
• addendum II: I have deleted one controversial paragraph,as you might have noticed by now. There won't be any more of calumny on some specific topics for the time being.
• I want to whinge about a Japanese Travel Agent near Oxford Circus for which I had worked for 3 months. Why did they bother to hold interviews and give me a menial job as inbound operation clerk,I wish I had known... From the start,I was supposed to be in charge of administration,but soon discovered that I was put under the Operation(management) section far away from reservation or administration sections.As I went on,I also noticed that basically I was more like an administrative assistant under this Operation section than an AA in the sole administration section.It was the bad management which got me and other people into confusion.All the managers were all Japanese men who weren't particularly competent in their job,and some of them were absent going away for business trip every now and again. All I did in that wreched work place was checking mails for managers in my section from time to time ,creating city codes for JAL(3 digit letter codes you would see in airline luggage/ destination tags),typing letters,creating charts/forms for tour codes, and sending messages via telex. The first month was o.k.,but since the arrival of two new managers from Tokyo brought another chaos.One of them was a very chauvinist pig as well as an autocrat who thought he knew better than anybody else. The other guy was quite a young manager who was somewhat 'softie' and was always obliged to carry out piles of work till very late at night.The autocrat changed all the system and that was a turning point for me.I began to realise by the end of second months that something was not quite right. Some of my senior colleagues started behaving in an estranged manner towards me as if they were avoiding me like a plague. I could feel tension within the section,and noone but my subordinate colleagues came around to me for a chat nor was I given much of the workload.Basically I tried hard to keep myself busy by even creating a futile chart or fiddling with some of the softwares in my machine. Anyway I still had a hope that I would be made a staff at the end of this 3 month probationary period despite the fact there wasn't much work I could find to do.But I was wrong.Just a week before my probationary period ended, I was summoned for a "private" talk and there 3 managers(including the autocrat) broke a bad news to me that I was not needed any more.I almost fainted inside me, but tried to pull myself together by behaving cool as if nothing had changed. Bastard!!! You'll learn your lesson one day and I will curse all of you to death!! All the effort I had put to this job went down the drain without being appreciated by them obviously.How dare they?! " we are sorry to tell you that we cannot accept you as a member of staffs due to the fact that you have made lots of mistakes in data inputting.To be honest, we think you would be better suited in different professions other than tour operators..." The statement they made still lingers on in my mind.But wait a minute! I have never done any of the data inputting,all I did was very menial adminstrative work far way from data inputting and I never made any mistake in typing as I always checked all the content. Then I tried to extract some source of reasons why I was no longer needed from various people concerned: (1) I tend to use difficult English words which many staffs in Japanese offices cannot really comprehend when corresponding by telex/fax. (2) They hoped that I should have made teas and entertained the guests. ( but this was NOT something I had to do,there was a secretary who always made teas and she said this was a part of her job!) (3) I needed 'close supervision'. (what did they mean by this sense? so vague) So how would I figure it out? One thing I learnt by working for this company is that Japanese managers are a bunch of slimy and inhumane c**ts who never do their job properly and always leave them to their colleagues one rank below to complete.Another thing about them is that they would sack you any minute if they don't like you in any aspect (such as talking English more than Japanese,failing to understand their pathetic jokes, and refusing to stay cool when they sing or hum out of tunes). Finally,one amusing question: What do all the Japanese managers have in common? The answer: They all carry Fortnum & Mason pastel green bag with them!
• To those of you who might get offended by the tale written above, you would rather not waste your precious time reading this and losing your temper.I will not accept any threatening mails from these people, they will either be deleted or ignored.It is a true story out of my life,which I will never ever forget without vengeance.

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Last  01/01/03