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The Japanese art of not sleeping
- Artlav 10y agoSo, what part of this seems surprising, bad, unusual, etc from a western/USA perspective? Sleeping in public, sleeping on a train, napping whenever? The fact of time management that puts you into position that require such naps? Or something else? The article implies, but it's not clear for me on what.
- franciscop 10y agoI love the Japanese culture and I've lived there for a while. Personally, what most shocked me is how accepted and common this is. To the point that when I friend came to study to Spain she asked me: "Why is no one sleeping in the library?" On the other side, I believe it's also dangerous. I visited Malaysia with my gf, and she would fall asleep in every train and taxi because it's just what they do.
- GreaterFool 10y agoI live in Tokyo and I think it's great. You can often see people at McDonalds early in the morning after a night out catching a nap before the trains start running. Just buy a coffee or something, grab a table, take an hour nap -- great. And this is Japan so you don't have to worry about your stuff getting stolen! Even if you sleep at the train station! I also commonly see people taking naps during lunchtime in Starbucks. Someone will come in, grab a coffee, take a nap for 30 min, drink the coffee and go back to work. There's nothing wrong with that! (other than I want the table :P) Unfortunately the corporate culture is not where it should be. There are some companies that want to be like western startups where taking a nap on the office sofa wouldn't raise an eyebrow but those are very rare. In most Japanese companies it would be totally unacceptable to sleep in the office.
- eddz 10y agoI have worked in several office environments in Japan where coworkers have frequently napped at their desks.
- msbarnett 10y agoRight, but as the article points out, that's socially different. Working at your desk and succumbing to sleep is tolerated whereas stretching out on the couch with the intent to sleep is not.
- eddz 10y agoI have also observed this behaviour, especially from higher ranking employees.
- sevensor 10y agoSaw this often at the chaebol I worked for -- I think Korean work / nap culture is similar.
- coldtea 10y agoHaving a broken work/life balance is "great"? They're cultures that you can see "see people at McDonalds early in the morning after a night out" all the time, without having to go there directly from working late...
- GreaterFool 10y agoNo, you are taking "great" out of context. It is great that you can safely take a nap in a public space without fear of being robbed or worse (as one would have to fear outside Japan), without having police called on you, and with general public acceptance of such action. Nobody will think you're a bum or a mad or look at you funny. Try that somewhere else and let's see what happens! Japanese corporate culture is terrible and that is sad. I don't have an answer to that.
- jlg23 10y ago
- chippy 10y agoThe article frequently makes it clear, I thought, that it was napping in social situations. In the workplace, in a meeting, at a conference, during a school lesson, out with your friends in a restaurant. That is surprising, unusual and often seen as being bad.
- Artlav 10y agoSo the key phrase is "explicitly socially acceptable"? I often see people napping in all of the above, both here in Russia, around Eastern Europe and in South America. And it's no big deal most of the times. And things like sleeping on the bus/train or sitting on a bench seem to be normal all over the world. The catch is, i never been to either Japan or USA, so i can't set the zero properly.
- allannienhuis 10y agoIn my experience in most parts of the USA and Canada at least (and I'd guess in many places in Northern Europe), napping in public places is frowned on except in pretty specific cases - parks, beaches, etc where the purpose of being there is to relax. Of course you do see it on public transit in the early and late hours at times, and it's not a big deal, but its definitely not 'normal'. Napping at work is especially frowned upon, with perhaps the exception of someone going out to the park during lunch time. The general feeling/culture (not necessarily my personal opinion) is that you should have had enough sleep the night before so that you can be productive for the day's work. If you've stayed up so late (partying or whatever) the night before such that you need rest during the day, you're short-changing your employer and teammates. A nap might be the right thing to do to restore your energy, but you should not have put yourself in that position to start with. Of course these days I don't need to stay up half the night to feel like I need a nap in the afternoon... :) [edit] After reading the article, I see that the Japanese culture connects the tiredness with working hard/late, which changes the perception. I think in the US and Canadian culture this can happen in some extreme cases - we've all heard (or lived) stories of people working like crazy to meet project deadlines, and sleeping in the office, etc. And road-warriors fighting jet lag are often given some credit for that tired/haggard look. Blue collar workers are more prone to given respect for being particularly tired at the end of the day, but napping or dozing off is still not really rewarded/honored like it seems to be in Japan, because of the quite different work-time expectations.
- kelnos 10y agoMy first reaction would be: that must be very (physically) unhealthy. But then you see that Japan's life expectancy is pretty high, around 83 years, and you wonder if it really has a negative impact. I suppose there are other measures of physical health than life expectancy, but still... In Western terms, I would say it's "bad" from a happiness/relaxation perspective. Not really from the lack of sleep; while I wouldn't say I go as far as the Japanese, I do tend to sleep less than most people... just that all the social machinations around it: e.g. "succumbing" to sleep as a measure of looking virtuous/like a hard worker in front of your peers, for example. I find things like that exhausting and the need to do that would significantly decrease my level of happiness. But that's just it: happiness is subjective. What makes me happy or unhappy need not be even remotely related to what makes someone else the same. As much as I may think it's weird or undesirable, all that really matters is that the people who live like that are happy with their lives. It's only a problem if they're not.
- Ezhik 10y agoPhysical is one thing, but I just can't see this as being anything but devastating for people's mental health.
- Godel_unicode 10y agoThat type of "work hard play hard" is a pretty common pattern at universities in the US. Not necessarily all the time, but a couple times a week it can be awesome. The big caveat obviously is you have to be the usually extroverted type of person who likes to go out and get rowdy with your friends.
- sotojuan 10y agoSome areas of finance in the US adhere to this as well.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago>That type of "work hard play hard" is a pretty common pattern at universities in the US. Yes, but usually we assume that you stop doing that for your health's sake after you finish school.
- wlievens 10y agoNot having time left for your family? My work day is from 7:40 to 16:20 so that I can spend time with my kids.
- duckingtest 10y agoAre the pavements really that clean or is that photo with the stairs just unrealistic? I guess it's possible, although that would require near constant vacuuming.
- GreaterFool 10y agoSome are, some aren't. Busy exists in Shibuya (or other busy junctions) for instance will be clean-enough but not that clean. There's an insane amount of people passing through after all. Small stations even in central Tokyo -- yes, they will be this clean.
- greggman 10y agoThe stairs are not clean or rather there are plenty of unclean stairs in Japan. Relative to other cities I'm not sure. None of the stations smell like piss like SF and Paris at least
- _kyran 10y agoJapan is renowned for being clean, they're still stairs though.
- Zakiazigazi 10y agoGenerally they are kept very clean and the photo is not at all unrealistic. The cultural norm is to never litter, instead if necessary trash is taken home with you to dispose of for example. That said, what might contribute to the cleanliness in the photo though is that it was possibly taken after the last train (all trains stop after around midnight), so it's not unlikely the stairs are exceptionally clean because they had just been cleaned before. On a slightly unrelated note regarding having to be vacuumed constantly, the stairs being clean and the extremely low rate of unemployment in japan might not be unrelated, and on topic it might also not be unrelated to the prevalence of sleeping in situations that would be utterly unacceptable in other countries, such as meetings :)
- coredog64 10y agoYou pretty much have to take your litter home. There's no such thing as a public trash can.
- kristianc 10y agoMy impression of working in Japan around five years ago was that it felt like an economy medicated on caffeine. Work goes on from 8am - 9pm, after which many are expected to go out and socialize with their colleagues (karaoke etc) and get drunk until 3am. Rinse and repeat, most days of the week. It wasn't at all unusual to see rows of salarymen asleep on the subway every morning. Japan's most popular drink is a brand of canned coffee which is on sale everywhere and in the vending machines that line the streets. Coca Cola's brand of this coffee accounts for an outsize proportion of their global profits (something like 12%, only sold in Japan). All of this seems to be totally okay and accepted despite the obvious impact on productivity of regularly going for long periods without sleep. This is the offices of Dentsu, Japan's largest media agency, at night: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EWX6--sQtsA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EWX6--sQtsA
- somethingsimple 10y ago> after which many are expected to go out and socialize with their colleagues (karaoke etc) and get drunk until 3am. Is it socially acceptable not to do so? Or is there high pressure from peers or superiors to do it? When do people spend time with their families there? If they even have families...
- kristianc 10y agoThere's an expectation that you'd participate at least to some extent. There will be smaller karaoke / drinking type parties after work, and a larger 'nomikai' meal at a large restaurant which is used to celebrate a major milestone say every month or quarter. You would probably be expected to participate in the larger one, whereas particpating in less of the smaller ones would become adverse career wise over time. Drinking is theoretically optional. Typically family time seemed to be at weekends, and heavily focused on getting out and about into the countryside etc. The apartments are so small that it wouldn't really be feasible or desirable to hang out at home much.
- coldtea 10y agoSo, seems like Japan is a totally unproductive country? I mean, they work all this time, which seems like twice what an average country would do, and they're still doing ho-hum in most markets, are non-existent in most areas of modern tech, and have a huge deficit. If it weren't for their cars and some consumer electronics stuff (that has seen its peak in the late 80s - early 90s) they'd be done.
- deadtofu 10y agoI remember the first time I visited Tokyo. The subway to Shinjuku station was packed. People seemed annoyed by my bags. We were really crammed in. Someone remarked to me that it was "rush hour" for people going home from their offices. It was 10pm on a weeknight.
- hkmurakami 10y ago10pm on a weeknight is around when the post-drinking going home rush hour starts. The last and second to last trains are miserable experiences for me since they reek of alcohol and I'm terrified of someone projectile vomiting on me.
- bronz 10y agothis is why the culture we have in the us, uk and other countries like it is so important. in countries like japan and korea nobody feels as though they can say or do anything on their own. they have to do what is expected of them. is it any surprise that they all end up throwing their health into the toilet under that kind of system?
- sotojuan 10y agoJapan has a high life expectancy though, unless you mean mental health.
- xiaoma 10y agoThe Japanese are healthier than anyone else on the planet.
- bronz 10y agothen why do they kill themselves more than anyone else on the planet?
- qazwse_ 10y agoThey don't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
- bronz 10y agothe only countries that are higher than it are developing countries and south korea, which has the same cultural problem. you cant just throw a wikipedia page at me with no context and expect me to revise my views. especially when you punctuate a declaration with a question mark like a twelve year old. japan has a high suicide rate. deal with it.
- koide 10y agoYour original phrase is factually incorrect. Had you said what's actually true instead of exaggerating for effect, you might have gotten a different answer. And about context, question marks and twelve year olds, that's rather out of place and it's exactly what you did with your original phrase.
- danthejam 10y agoHere's a photography series on Japanese people sleeping: http://www.kirainet.com/japoneses-durmiendo-15/ http://www.kirainet.com/japoneses-durmiendo-15/
- jmadsen 10y agoJust a note (and this is only my opinion): The photos you see of people sleeping on the stairs, etc are probably late-night drunks, not inemuri The phenomenon described is real, but people do it more slumped over on the train, meetings, etc. not sprawled out on the sidewalk. Furthermore, it extends beyond salarymen on trains; my wife & teenage daughter both do it simply as a way of life almost. They could go to bed at a decent hour but usually stay up late & catnap instead.
- kalleboo 10y ago> They could go to bed at a decent hour but usually stay up late & catnap instead. My wife (as a Japanese salarywoman) is perpetually tired, but still stays up late watching TV/SNS. Why? "If I went to bed early, my whole life would just be work and sleep"
- artur_makly 10y agoonly their metro can be this clean after a flood : https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/chinese-citizens-amazed-by-cleanliness-of-japans-floodwater/57205 https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/chinese-citi...
- ilaksh 10y agoThis seems like a simplification. Surely some Japanese prefer to try to get a good night's sleep, or would rather their colleagues didn't need to nap during a meeting. Anyway, napping is something most cultures appreciate. Just seems we don't accommodate it as well as the Japanese.
- known 10y agoHappens in Tokyo, not in other parts of Japan;
- Steidl 10y agoThe people in the photographs accompanying the article are drunk, not sleeping.