| Ironically both articles come from a very typically western patronizing perspective A lot of expats come to asia and get frustrated with many small cultural details. It's especially prominent when the person doesn't speak the local language (as this BBC corespondent... shocking). The general reaction is "why can't you just be more like the us/europe/etc." It's really miopic. There is always a larger broader cultural context for why things are the way they are. Things that have developed organically over generations and aren't exactly planned Just a couple of examples: "Hiring 6 people to do the job of 2 is sadly common in Japan, and it’s a big reason why Japanese people earn such low and stagnant wages.“ Yes, this is very common in Asia. They also will work extremely long hours. However the productivity (as also pointed out in the article) is much lower. People are a lot less stressed at work. This ties into other aspect of work culture.. where East Asian cultures have a lot less of a fixation on professionalism and it's more of "friends hanging out" at work. You go out to drink with the boss, and you sit playing on your phone at work sometimes. Okay, you might not like that yourself and you'd like to just do an intense 8 hours and clock out - but that's how things operate and a lot of people enjoy it. If your KFC has twice as many workers as it technically needs - do you work less and get paid less? Yes. That's the tradeoff "I think an equally or even more important problem is corporate gerontocracy .." This ties into some very fundamental cultural priorities about caring and respecting elders. Yeah you get a bunch of morons promoted b/c they're older and "more experienced" - but the flip side of the coin is that people generally really take care of the elderly. I took my grandmother to visit China once and she was blown away at how respectful and kind everyone was to her. Could you somehow have people care and respect elders and yet have CEOs that was 22yrs old? Maybe - but the two things are a bit at odds. Living in Taiwan now, I can see the effect of westernization and it's a mixed bag (You have waves of US-educated Taiwanese reshaping the cultural landscape). It's very interesting to contrast with how things develop in China - which has gone for a more Japanese-style modernization and has been more selective about importing western ideas. I don't necessarily think the changes the writers want are bad (and I haven't really lived in Japan, so I wouldn't dare to have an opinion), but the way they're presented shows a very shallow understanding of what's really going on. At the end of the day you can't tweak one cultural irritant without affecting the whole cultural edifice. |
Are we talking about the same Japan here? Karoshi (death from overwork), black companies etc is not just a Western news trope, and all the Japanese salarymen I know hate the work culture.