I would never meet Yamada again unless I sell my condo. Seller and buyer. That’s all. I am not good at building a relationship with a person. I took out my iPhone and opened the contact list―banks, credit companies, several embassies, a few hospitals, a real estate agent and my parents. I am happy I do not have any friend. No loneliness. I never pretend to be strong. I was a maverick who acted alone, eating, shopping, reading books, riding motorcycle, running in nature and traveling all over the world. From time to time I interact with people where I am for the time being. And good-bye. Maybe forever.
The tactic has works very well, since there was the worst month when I felt like I was going to die. I was at twenty two, once upon a time, when l first worked for the company. I had worked in three shifts―work until midnight, sleep, work during a day, sleep, work early in a morning, collapse onto the bed, then drinking party and karaoke, which new employees like me was forced to join. I could not keep up with everything; it felt like there was something inside me that destroyed me.
My superior coworkers yelled at me at every moment. Always, Every single day. I did not hate them, but I hated myself―I was really useless and came to loathe even being there, therefore being alone made me ease my distress.
When I first moved to Nagasaki, I had refused to live in the company dormitory, where the fellows might go in and out of my room. However, I later found myself more unsettling despite living in a condo―they drove up for a visit without calling. I disliked drop-ins, and once I had turned off my cellphone when I heard the voice of my fellows coming up the hallway so that I can make up the excuse I was not at home.
Anyway I had been feeling a physical and mental discomfort. One night, I worked with my superior I got along with most. “K. Give me a ride home,” he said. “I want to ride your motorcycle.” That confused me because it took him one hour to get to his home and the following day I was going to be at work at three in the morning. I must get sleep, but my motorcycle, Dragstar, beautiful like Harley-Davidson, had drawn his attention. Eventually he gave up on, but he ordered otherwise, and finally I brought him to my condo. He just let himself into my room, sat down on the floor to watch TV and talked on and on, and in the following days, I was out sick.
That was why I deliberately avoided Japanese people overseas: Japanese mix up private and public. If I would bump into Japanese, he would say as if we shared the same values: “Are you Japanese?” “What do you do?” “How old are you?”“Are you married?”“Where are you staying tonight?” Then he would conclude: “Let’s walk around together.” No, no. You are too close!
But, it is easy for me to distinguish between Japanese and other Asians, such as Chinese, without listening to the language. Basically, Japanese prefer act as a group. You would see people, in clean cloths, in a huddle. In airports, they look around restlessly, assuming that they are superior to any other people in the world, however, and they walk with a hunchback, casting their eyes downward out of uneasiness or shyness.
The reason I left the company after a month was to preserve my dignity. It had been commonplace for my superior coworkers to call me “Slowcoach” or “Twit” or “Snail,” and although I fully realized the words was anything but affectionate, I felt raw pain that stemmed from my inability; my fellows got their job done quickly and enjoyed hanging out together after work. Because of that I blamed myself for not be able to do the same as most Japanese do.
Japanese new employees often rant and rave: “I am in the ‘black kigyou.’ Overwork everyday. My boss abuses at me.” “Black” is not race. It means a kind of illegal. “Kigyo” is company. The three conditions that you are in what Japanese call the “black kigyou” are overwork, unpaid, and harassment. Perhaps you just think nobody is helping you.
Please calm down and look slowly around. You would find yourself surrounded by the competent persons making a lot of money. You could not have accepted the reality it was not kind of like what you think. It is just that your work is not up to much, on account of your being the new employee. As for the company, that is to say, you are a burden and a nuisance who just says bad things about it. In my case, my first company did not necessarily overwork me. Rather I had been working overtime voluntarily, feeling a little extra responsibility.
If you run to other responsibility and leave the company, you will also be in the “black.” Because you are new wherever you are. You should know better than to confuse “black“ with ability, and that small and medium-sized Japanese enterprises, as well as American ones, do not teach you from A to Z the way large Japanese ones do. What I mean, of course “black kigyou” actually existing, is that it is all up to you.
For me leaving the first company was not completely dumb. I preferred it that I could be myself. After five years I changed career and started to work for a small company. At the time I was feeling hopeful and in the one-man department, where I took the lead and did all the work alone. I did like it that I could have a free will and take charge of my job and not have to worry about Japanese-style relationship.
And then one day, I attended a study meeting at a large company after work. It was really dull and dozens of young people were dozing off. After that, they were walking back to their department and chatting and joking around and being silly. They seemed to so much more interested in things outside of work. Isolated among them was my fellow, such a square, and I reached for his shoulder. “Tanakasan. Long time no see.” He turned to me. “I know,” he said, trying to keep his distance from me. “Aren’t you going home?”I asked. “It’s only nine,” he said, as if to look down on me. Only? Why not already? Then he went on: “If I left now, my boss, glaring accusingly at me, would tell me that my seniors are still working.”
I had heard about this department, where everyone worked from eight in the morning to midnight. They made this kind of insane rule and set the tone: the longer they work, the more excellent they are. Some young people, who was neither competent nor promising, enjoyed being with each other for longer, and others like Tanaka, who was loyal to Japanese standard, had a zany sense of obligation.
As far as I ever thought about it: They themselves were unaware that they were in a “black kigyou,” despite a take-home pay of 150,000 yen a month. You have probably heard Japanese work long hours and was not so productive; they do really like to go along with people to reassure themselves that they have felt secure. Unlike the great majority of Japanese, I was content to feel that I could be anyone doing anything. Maybe in a kind of “white kigyou.”
