French Rescue Japanese Ambassador

I might have some details wrong here, but recently French soldiers in the Ivory Coast rescued the Japanese Ambassador from his embassy during the fighting that's been going on there.

I think the Japanese gov't should have refused the offer of military aid out of principle. The French are bad for sporting a military, especially one that can interfere in other places.

Golden Week: must be a better way...

The Golden Week holidays could be very long this year. Could be an actual week, which in Japan is like having a month off in most places or in the case of France, a year.

(First an aside: got asked what Golden Week is called in America. Replied, I guess Golden Week but it's a Japanese holiday. There is no GW in the USA but a US newspaper reporting would say "In Japan, many Japanese are enjoying Golden Week holidays now..." and then the usual shock that America, the land of holidays, doesn't have a Golden Week holiday because we all know that Americans take more holidays than anyone else on the planet.)

So this is the Golden Week holidays this year (O = holiday X = usual workday.)

O O O X O O O

So in my case, that X in the middle means I have to work for one hour, starting at 4pm. Actually more like 3 hours since it takes me an hour to drive to the school, an hour for the lesson, then an hour to drive back home. Plus, probably half my students won't come so that means the lesson is pretty useless and I'll have to do it again four days later anyway.It means I have to stick around and wait until that x is finished and I have a day to get somewhere, a day to enjoy it and a day to get back. Kind of like the x day's schedule times 24.

Why not give people 14 days off but only 12 hours at a time? It makes that much sense.

So I suggest to people, not as a criticism, just as a kind of stand up comic sort of way, wouldn't it be nice if, instead of this sort of thing happening year after year, the gov't decided to shift those three O's one day to the left. So people could take a full week off, or chose which three or 4 days to use for camping and so on. Instead, the whole nations futzes about some days and tries to cram a year's worth of relaxation into one high pressure, over priced, traffic jammed three days.

So in other words, same number of holidays, just more usable.

- Quite a few people say "Hmm, that makes sense. But it'll never happen, keep dreamin'"

- A few get uppity and say the usual uppity response "It's the Japanese way!" like it's an ancient tradition that their great grandparents died for. (It's not. They're recent holidays that have already been fiddled with a few times during the years I've lived here.)

- A lot, I'd say half, respond with this vague feeling that they can't really explain why, but it would just be bad. Somehow bad. People having a useful day off would be bad. They already have a day off (Those 6 "O"s above. They're not going to the office those days.) But somehow making those holidays practical and useful, would be bad, almost decadent.

Again, I emphasize. I'm not saying people should have more holidays and work less. I'm saying the holiday time alloted could be easily scheduled better.

I mean would you rather sleep for 8 hours straight or for 2 hours four times in a day with several hours of grocery shopping in between?

I used to get the same reactions about other holiday that would show up on Tuesdays or even sundays. Why not move it to Monday or Friday so people get three day weekend. 1. It'll never happen 2. It's Japanese way 3. It's bad

But about 5 or so years ago the gov't did exactly that, moved a lot of holidays to Monday and the sky didn't fall and everyone seems to have forgotten it used to be different.

Kirk, no! Japanese aren't late!

Happened again.

I had a meeting with a superior at a new job. The guy showed up about 10 minutes late.

I didn't say anything because well, he's kind of my boss, and two, he seemed pretty harried himself. He gave a perfunctory apology and I assumed he had a good reason and we went about our meeting.

His being late caused me to be about 3 minutes late for my next appointment.
I got there and the people I were to meet were very angry. They explained, as if it were of deep cultural significance: "This is bad. Japanese people aren't late!"

I just wish people would, ok fine, go ahead and get miffed I'm late and leave it at that but there's no need to drag the "Japanese" thing into it. All it does is take a small, ordinary problem and exacerbate it by making it seem a cultural line has been crossed. The fact that a Japanese guy (my superior) was the cause of it only adds to the injury.