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One quirk of Japanese culture and especially work culture is that while it's highly efficient and safety-oriented most of the time, when they do drop the ball,
by suction 4y ago
One quirk of Japanese culture and especially work culture is that while it's highly efficient and safety-oriented most of the time, when they do drop the ball, they really DROP THE BALL.
Like the time two workers at a nuclear reactor almost created a critical mass in a bucket: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/tokaimura-criticality-accident.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...
- 1-6 4y agoI’m not sure if it’s a quirk of the culture in general. I think it’s more pleasing that there’s great transparency which allows the world to learn from mistakes.
- suction 4y agoThere's not though, quite to the contrary. Did you witness the handling of the Fukushima accident? The Japanese proverb for it is: "Kusai ni futa wo shire" - if there's a stink, put a lid over it.
- soraminazuki 4y agoSadly, there's nothing noteworthy about corporations trying to evade responsibility for screwups no matter where we are on the globe.
- suction 4y agoAh, Whataboutism - the most Japanese fallacy.
- soraminazuki 4y agoYour racist remark aside, huge for-profit entities act unethically because of economic incentives. It's ridiculous to assert that it's something ingrained into a country's culture.
- suction 4y agoI beg to differ. It's not ridiculous at all. The go-to retort to any kind of mild criticism for Japanese is people is to say "but country x or person y did the same, too!" I have never heard this in nearly the same frequency or predictability from members of any other culture. It's almost cute in how revealing it is when you hit their weak spot.
- soraminazuki 4y agoYou could praise or criticize Japan all you want, but either way your reasoning remains flawed. Corporate greed and accountability evasion is an artifact of human nature, but you attribute it to race and culture instead. Your only justification of that is the equivalent of "because everyone disagrees with me in the same way." > It's almost cute in how revealing it is when you hit their weak spot. What's actually revealing is how you were quick to assume my nationality and spit out racist insults.
- suction 4y agoYour nickname says you're either weeaboo or Japanese (I guess the first). And it's 100% Japanese culture that creates these types of dangerous accidents. South Korea has them too, because they culturally so close (confucianism and remnants of feudalism being at the core of the problem).
- elldoubleyew 4y agoI believe the proverb is 「臭い物に蓋をする」"kusai mono ni futawo suru"
- bamboozled 4y agoIt’s definitively not at all transparent place.
- Mo3 4y ago> it's highly efficient Most definitely not. Japanese working culture is notorious for rigidity, lack of transparency, and slow decision-making. Workers are exploited, despite few possibilities for promotion, wildly unreasonable expectations are common. Many employees work for 80 or more hours each week, with many of those hours considered unpaid overtime. Even after the workday is over, workers are expected to spend their free time socializing with colleagues outside of work. Workers who take measures to improve their mental health are met with a level of stigma, and many are told to simply get some rest, while at the same time suffering constant pressure to always be working with no time to relax. It's like end-stage America, if anything.
- suction 4y agoI agree with you - I'm very aware of the dark side and would not recommend to anyone working in Japan. But even when the people suffer like you described, they do their work efficiently (exceptions apply) because there's some kind of nationalistic mindset of "we can't embarrass Japan" that keeps them going against their nature.
- somedude895 4y agoThey surely do their work diligently. Efficiently? I don't think so.
- soraminazuki 4y ago> there's some kind of nationalistic mindset of "we can't embarrass Japan" that keeps them going against their nature That kind of mindset is stereotypical of the 1940s maybe, but would be regarded as crazy today for someone just going about their work.
- bamboozled 4y agoI actually think this idea that Japan is highly efficient and advanced is harmful and unhelpful stereotype. Japanese people, like many other are proud. Rightly so, it’s an amazing culture. But it’s not efficient one. At least not now. If the whole world just keeps mindlessly repeating this trope, they’re never going to try improve and get with the times. It’s a highly inefficient and backwards society of late and really could do with modernising.