Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
Send in these anons that live in Japan into here then. I want everyone's opinion.
Right off the top of my head, Steve. He has lived in Japan quite a long time. Hopefully he sees this, I can't tag users on this browser.
/u/stevethefish76 paged
thanks fren
/u/335k u/The_Knight_of_sunset u/PepeSee u/bubble_bursts
StevetheFish76 has entered the chat!
Let Sora the Troll explain Japanese work culture. He's fluent in Englsh and subtitles his videos. Plus he's fun to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk6NqIPedm0
I've been in Japan since January 2012, but it's not the first time living here. I got married in 2001, moved to Arizona with my wife in 2002, and for nearly 10 years I tried to make a life for us in the Bush/Obama economy. I grew up listening to my parents' idealistic words about The American Dream. They grew up believing that as long as you have a college degree that everything would be alright. I could not get a "permanent" job anywhere due to outsourcing, hiring freezes, etc. They admonished me for working contract jobs, but that was the only way I could find employment. But then companies would see my resume and assume that I preferred contract work and would pass me up. I was stuck in a rut. After our house was broken into by illegal immigrants (we saw them walking up and down the street, scoping out the neighborhood), that was it. We sold our house in a short sale and made plans to move back to Japan. Sure, I'm not making as much, but it is stable work and I am not stuck with frequent unemployment.
Anyhow, I'm a teacher, but for a while I worked at a Japanese company. I have experience with pretending to look busy until 6pm even though the job hours ended at 5pm just to make the bosshole happy. I'm no slouch and I would put in plenty of overtime when I worked in America, but even though there wasn't anything that couldn't wait until the next day, the traditional Japanese work culture was strong there, despite the young company president the same age as myself. If Monday was a holiday, we'd have to work Saturday to make up for it, regardless of whether it was necessary or not. In the end, I was a diversity hire so that the damned company president could brag about how international his company was, despite his refusal to open his company's work culture to foreign ideas. I think he was getting some bonus from the city for hiring foreigners. I quit mainly because his business manager was a complete bosshole and I was one of several who quit because of that guy.
The younger generation prefers to work contract work to avoid all of that crap. My sister-in-law who works in the Tokyo area can work a steady stream of contract jobs juggling Excel spreadsheets as I once did in America and she has no problem staying employed. She avoids all the hassle that way and when the day of work hours ends, she's out the door unless they pay her overtime.
As a foreigner living here, the factors that make people's lives miserable are so obvious and all they have to do is make adjustments to make people's lives happier. But Japanese culture doesn't ask for help. Why expect employees to stay after work hours when it isn't necessary? Why should a high school uniform for your teenager cost nearly a thousand dollars? There is just so much bullcrap and the weebs think that Japan must be some utopia because "that's where all the neat stuff comes from."
I generally stay away from other foreigners here as they tend to be negative about Japan. Funny thing is how shitlibs are so quick to bitch about Japan. All their virtues of moral relativism goes out the door when they get together and complain about stuff. My big complaint is how people here don't think for themselves. Everyone just wears masks and took the doom shots without questioning. The TV became a 24 hour nonstop Pfizer commercial. Since people don't know English (Japan is far behind other Asian countries), they aren't exposed to other opinions on stuff like the mRNA doom shots, the Ukrainian situation, etc. At the same time though, Japanese are pretty mellow and somewhat based. You see trannies like Matsuko Deluxe and Ikko constantly on TV but your average citizen doesn't care about that crap. When I worked at that company, Obama visited Japan to boo-hoo-hoo about the atomic bombs. My coworkers there were like, "We don't want Obama to apologize for our country being bombed. That was a long time ago and he had nothing to do with it." Good for them!
There are plenty of advantages in Japan. School stresses my kid out, but then again there isn't the rampant promiscuity here. She actually is taught history and algebra and no woke BS. (But they do incorporate "global warming" and "sustainable development goals" bullcrap in to the curriculum though!) Japan still doesn't allow gay marriage, despite pressure from the G7. Neighbors are pretty respectful to each other. People don't get in your face about stuff. I can park my bike at city hall, put my helmet in my basket and leave it unlocked and it'll be there when I come back (although maybe I wouldn't recommend this for large cities). The food is great, and stuff like tomatoes are like candy compared to American tomatoes. Strawberries are sweet and not sour. Plus it's so beautiful here. This country is about as large as America's West Coast and there is no way I'd ever get to see and do everything I'd like to do here.
As for One Piece though... I can't stand it. I've heard that the story is pretty based, but I'm sorry, but I just can't get into a show when the main character looks like a retard. Luffy is such an obnoxious-looking character.