有哪些日本文化让你感到不能认同。 [美国媒体]

论坛地址：Sarah Federic

I have been teaching here in Japan for four years. I’ve also taught Japanese students both offline and online for more than 10 years so I will be sharing a lot of things I see happening in schools.

我在日本教书已经四年了。我也在线下和线上教授日本学生超过10年的时间，所以我将分享我在学校看到的许多事情

1.I’ve seen parents with extreme attitudes. Some would complain about the teacher because their children misbehave, as if it’s the teachers’ responsibility to raise their kids and the parents only need to support them. It seems to me like they have it backwards.

我见过一些态度极端的父母。有些人会因为他们孩子的行为不端而抱怨老师。就好像老师有责任在家长帮助下抚养他们的孩子一样。在我看来，他们好像把事情搞反了。

Meanwhile, other parents would go to school and castigate the teacher for trying to discipline their kids or for not treating them like the prince/princess they are. They’re famously called ‘monster parents.’ With this kind of environment, teachers have become wary of parents.

与此同时，另一些家长也会去学校，严厉批评那些试图管教孩子的老师，他们认为老师没有像对待王子/公主那样对待他们的孩子。这些家长被称为“怪兽父母”。
在这种环境下，老师们在与家长的交流中变得越来越谨小慎微。

I notice that this is present in every industry. The Japanese manage to make simple things difficult and complicated. It is both a weakness and a strength. On one hand, they’ve mastered the art of tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and wrapping gifts. On the other hand, there are managers who obsess about the font size and formatting of documents so much that their employees don’t even have much time to sleep.

我注意到这种现象几乎在每个行业都存在。日本人总是设法使简单的事情变得困难和复杂。这既是优点也是缺点。
一方面，日本人掌握着茶道、插花和包装礼物的艺术。
另一方面，有些日本经理过于关注文档的字体大小和格式之类的问题，他们手下的员工（总是忙于此类琐碎的问题）以至于没有太多的时间睡觉。

2. How kids spend most of their waking time going to school or doing things related to school. I get it that it’s important for young people to learn as much as they could. But there’s more to life than school.

日本的孩子们在大部分醒着的时间里，不是去上学就是做着与上学相关的事情。我明白年轻人尽可能多地学习知识是很重要的一件事。
但是学校不是生活的全部。

3.How expensive the school backpacks (randosel) can be! They sell for around $300 and more, if you prefer the more colorful or unusual ones.
Education is supposed to be free but with how much parents have to spend on school supplies and trips and other sports equipment, it certainly is a burden. No wonder some couples choose not to have kids here.

日本学校的书包非常贵!如果你喜欢色彩鲜艳或与众不同的书包，它们的售价通常在300美元左右，甚至更高。
教育本应是免费的，但由于父母不得不在孩子的学校用品、旅行和其他体育器材上花费太多的钱，这无疑造成了一种负担。
难怪日本有些夫妇选择不生孩子。

Orvin Demsy
They can’t communicate if they don’t drink.
For those who have been living in Japan either as student or as worker must be familiar with the word ‘nomikai’ which means ‘drinking party’.

对于日本人来说，不喝酒就没办法交流。
对于那些在日本生活过的学生或工人来说，熟悉“nomikai”（“酒会”）这个词是十分必要的

One day I had a drinking party with my colleagues from the company, this party was held as a welcome party for new employees (so it means there isn’t any rank/status difference or one-should-pay-respect-to-others attitude, we were all in the same level).

有一天，我和公司的同事们开了一个酒会，这个酒会是为新员工举办的欢迎派对(这意味着在酒会上，没有任何等级/地位的差别，也不需要摆出一副相互尊重的姿态，每个人都在同一个级别)。

There was this one guy whose face looked red, I approached him, he initiated the conversation first, then later on we took selfie together, we became a good friend that day until the next day I ran across him, I was surprised as he didn’t even look at me. “What was wrong? did I do something that disgust him?” Later I found out, it was a part of Japanese culture.

在酒会上我遇到了一个人，他的脸看起来很红，我走近他，他开始与我谈话，然后我们一起自拍，并成为了好朋友。
但第二天，当我再次遇到他时，他甚至连看都没有看我一眼，这让我感到很惊讶，。
“出什么问题了?他不理我是因为我做了什么让他讨厌的事吗?”
后来我才发现，这种现象其实是日本文化的一部分。

I feel like there is tendency where ones should drink in order to express their own feelings. This isn’t happened on casual friendly party, this is also used a means of sealing a deal between parties.

我认为日本人有一种癖好，即只有在喝酒的时候，才会表达自己的情感，而喝酒也通常是双方达成协议的一种方式。

I feel like there is tendency where ones should drink in order to express their own feelings. This isn’t happened on casual friendly party, this is also used a means of sealing a deal between parties.

我个人十分不喜欢“酒会”，我看不出来与喝醉的的人交谈有什么意义，如果我想交一些朋友，我宁愿在头脑清醒的情况下与他们进行理智地交谈，而不是在酒精的作用下。

Wife will be happy to see the husband coming late from work.

日本另一种奇特的现象是，如果丈夫下班后回家越晚，妻子就越高兴

This one applies to a guy who already has a family. It is said that coming home early from work (no overtime work) implied as not working hard enough enough for the family.

这个现象适用于所有成家的男人。
据说在日本，早点儿下班回家(不加班)意味着男人没有付出足够的努力来养家糊口。

Plus, I also heard once the husband gets his pay, he will give his wife all of it, then the wife gets to decide how much is the husband’s portion.

另外，我还听说一旦丈夫得到了他的工资，他会把所有的钱都给他的妻子，然后妻子可以决定丈夫的份额是多少。

The Japanese youngsters tend to slack off in their bachelor’s year. The trend I found out is they are desperately struggling to make it through the top-notched university, but once they made it, they begin to slack off again.
This is the golden rule : “Once I have the best university, my future is assured”

日本的年轻人在他们的大学生活中非常容易懈怠。
他们总是拼命地想考上顶尖大学，但一旦成功进入大学，他们又开始自我懈怠。
这基本成了一条金科玉律:“一旦我考上了最好的大学，我的未来就有了保障。”

Now I think, this is caused by the Japanese way of employing freshly graduate student. They recruit people based on which university the went to, instead of what skills they have. They tend to hire generalists than specialist. That’s why it`s common to find someone whose job is completely unrelated with their major. Consequently, the company needs long long time to mold their workers according to their needs. Real life example: my friend whose major was chemical engineering, currently work as control engineering, which was ironic because her main job demands her to be proficient at MATLAB, a software she had never known before.

现在我想，这应该是由于日本人雇佣毕业生的方式造成的。
日本人招聘员工的依据看是员工曾经上过哪所大学，而不是员工拥有什么技能。
日本企业倾向于雇佣多面手而不是专业人士。
这就是为什么在日本，一个人干着与专业完全无关的工作很常见。日本公司会根据自己的需要，对他们的员工进行长时间的塑造。
现实生活中的例子:我的一个朋友，她的专业是化学工程，现在的工作是控制工程。
这是不是很讽刺，因为目前她主要的工作是精通MATLAB，一个她以前从来没有听说过的软件。

Eiji Takano（高野 英二）
I don't like some customs lapsed into the formality in Japan.

日本的一些风俗习惯越来越拘泥于形式，这让我感到很不喜欢。

Let's begin with marriage ceremony. Only devout Christians in Japan have their ceremony seriously at their churches. For most of Japanese couples, Shinto priests solemnizes at their shrines or wedding halls. Japanese people in general are not serious Shintoist. They are temporary Shintoist when they marry, New Year's Day or some kinds of celebrations. They need Shinto priests like they need knives and forks when they eat steaks.

让我们先从婚礼开始。
在日本，只有虔诚的基督徒才会在教堂举行仪式。而对大多数日本夫妇来说，他们会邀请神道教教职人员在神社或婚礼大厅为他们举行仪式。
日本人一般都不是神道教徒。但当他们结婚、过新年或有其他庆祝活动时，他们都是临时的神道教信徒。
他们需要神道教教职人员，就像他们吃牛排时需要刀叉一样

Also, Japanese people use a lot of money for wedding receptions. It's vanity. Newly wed's family invites many people (friends, families and co-workers of the couple) and prepare gifts to the guests. So the guests have to prepare congratulatory money to be equal to the meals and gifts. .

而且，日本人通常会在婚宴上花很多钱。这完全是虚荣心的表现。
日本的新婚家庭会邀请许多人(朋友、家人和同事)，并为客人准备礼物。而客人们必须同样准备庆祝的钱财作为回礼。
这些用于回礼的钱财汇聚起来，基本上可以抵消新婚家庭支付的餐费和礼物费

Funeral ceremony has the same aspect. Japanese people ask Buddhist priest's help for the funeral. Japanese people become temporary Buddhists for this occasion. Again vanity dominates the ceremony. The survivors have to decide the size of altar. How big, how many stories of altar and how many flowers (pictured). The appearance of the funeral would be thought as how survivors respect the deceased. So the family has to spend a lot of money.

葬礼也是如此。日本人在葬礼上会请佛教僧侣帮忙。日本人在这一天又暂时皈依了佛教。
虚荣心再一次主导了仪式。用于祭奠死者的祭坛成了生者必须考虑的事情，祭坛有多大，有多少朵花等等，包括葬礼举办的规模，都被认为是代表着着生者对死者的尊重程度。
因此，对于葬礼，人们同样不得不花很多钱。

I think it's a "Vanity Fair" in Japan.

所以，我把这些现象称为日本的“名利场”。

Xun Long
A Mexican who works in Tokyo for years told my friend that he wanted to commit suicide because he couldn't handle the stress from his work. When you are a new employee, everyone is very nice, even super nice. However, if you still can't do your work well after years, company will be the last place you want to go. Same to foreigner and Japanese.

一个在东京工作多年的墨西哥人告诉我的朋友，他想自杀，因为他无法承受工作的压力。
当你作为一个新员工初入公司时，每个人对你都很好，甚至超级好。
然而，如果多年后你仍然不能把工作做好，公司将是你最不想去的地方。无论外国人和日本人都是如此。

I saw a non-Japanese waiter in an Udon&Soba-Ya restaurant got scolded badly by the owner for misunderstanding what the owner said. The girl was nearly crying in front of me.

我在一家餐厅看到一位非日本籍的服务员，因为误解了店主的话，被店主狠狠地骂了一顿。那个女孩几乎在我面前哭了。

In my company, A Japanese man took a leave of absence for 1 year before I enter my team. After he came back, he quit after 5 months. I never saw anyone chatting with him. I never know the reason why he took absence and finally quit, but I think this is not difficult to guess.

在我的公司，一个日本人在我加入现在的团队之前缺席了一年。他回来后5个月就辞职了。我从没见过有人和他聊过天。我不知道他为什么缺席，最后辞职，但我想这其中的原因并不难猜。

A cute Japanese girl in another team in my department. She was in charge of a small case connected directly to the customer, and failed on it. The leader kept scolding her until she took a leave of absence(1 year). It was the third year after she entered our company after her graduation. She came back, but I don't know when she can hold on.

在我部门的另一个团队里，有一个可爱的日本女孩。因为她负责的一个与客户有关的小案子失败了。领导一直骂她，直到她不得不暂时离开公司(一年)。这是她毕业后进入我们公司的第三年。
最终她还是回来了，但我不知道她能坚持到什么时候。

My KOUHAI(who entered company one year later than me) who smiled a lot became behaving like a rabbit after working for years, scared of everything, especially when named by the leader.

我的一个同事(比我晚一年到公司上班)，刚来的时候总是欢声笑语。
在工作了几年之后，他变得像兔子一样，什么都害怕，尤其是被领导点名的时候。

I can give you more examples like this.
I am not saying it's right or wrong.
Japan(not only Japanese) cost too much to keep the quality of Japanese products.

我可以给你更多这样的例子。
我不是说这样做一定是对的或错的。
我只想说，为了保持日本产品的质量，日本人真的太严苛了。

illa Levington Roth
I loved Japan， Having said that the one thing that was very hard for me to come to terms with was the way I was treated at the work place. OL as we were called, office ladies, had no rights and my shachou often screamed at me until I ran into the bathroom in tears of humiliation. We weren’t allowed to ever leave before the shachou, even if it was 10: pm.

我喜欢日本，但有一件事我难以接受，那就是我工作的地方。
我们被称为OL，即“办公室女士”，我们没有权利，我的shachou（上司）经常对我大吼大叫，直到我跑进卫生间，抹掉屈辱的眼泪。
在上司走之前，我们不被允许离开，即使是晚上10点。

Women have no way to climb the ladder in regards to salary nor position. You are always expected to make tea, smile and fawn over your boss and never ever say he might have made a mistake or might be wrong.

在薪水和职位方面，女人是没有办法爬上去的。你只能去泡茶，微笑着讨好你的老板，永远不要说他犯了哪些错误或干了哪些蠢事。

As a feminist from SF, CA I had to bite my tongue many times . The upside was, being a gaijin I was well paid because they knew I could never collect a pension.

作为旧金山的女权主义者，我有很多次不得不忍气吞声。
我在日本工作的唯一好处是，作为一个外国人，我的收入很丰厚，但也可能是因为他们知道我在日本永远呆不到拿养老金的那一天。

Srinivas Kattimani, lives in Bangkok
One of the lowest Number of holidays/year in the world

1.日本是世界上休假最少的国家。

Racism from some old folks : It happened many a times as soon as I enter the train to commute I see some old men/women immediately moving away to the different corner . Sometimes they would rather stand up and give up their seat instead of sitting next to a gaijin ( foreigner) . Again I am not generalizing , but there are still size-able number of people who do that.

2.日本老一辈的种族歧视很严重，很多次，当我坐上电车去上班的时候，我看到一些老人/女人马上搬到另一个角落。有时他们宁愿站起来让座，也不愿坐在外国人旁边。我不是说所有日本人，但仍然有相当数量的人这样做。

Overly polite attitude : Not saying it’s wrong but it’s just something I disagree with. Most of the restaurants or shops I visit , they tend to welcome with over the top fake smile and modulated voice which immediately switches to a different expression and voice when they talk to their colleagues. Just feels like I am entering some disgruntled relative of mine who just needs money out of me.

3.过分礼貌的态度:我不是说它错，我只是不认同。
我参观过的大多数餐馆或商店，接待人员往往会带着虚假的微笑和调整后的声音来欢迎我，当他们与同事交谈时，这些声音会立即转换成不同的表情和声音。就好像我走进了一个心怀不满的亲戚家里，他面带假笑只是想从我这里要钱。

By stander effect : Although it’s not restricted to only Japan but from personal experience , it’s quite worse here. Even when a guy is aggressively pursuing on a girl at a bar or on streets no one would bat an eye on it.

4.旁观者效应:虽然它不仅限于日本，而且从个人经验来看，日本的情况更糟。即使一个男人在酒吧或大街上对一个女孩展开有攻击性的追求，其他人连看都不会看一眼。

Salary-man effect : Again quite general but if you have lived in Tokyo for long you can easily find pattern among the black-suited people. Work->drink till late in the night -> wake up early -> sleep in the train -> work -> repeat. You almost feel like they are following this manual and they are robots!

4.工薪族效应:同样是相当普遍的，但如果你在东京生活了很长时间，你很容易就能在穿黑西装的人群中找到规律。
工作->喝酒喝到深夜->早起->在火车上睡觉->工作->日复一日。
你几乎会觉得他们在遵循这个程序设定，像是一群机器人!

Women : You could see a drastic change in lifestyle of a woman once she gets married . Worse would be when they are forced to quit, no longer able to party out as they used to, while their husbands are out flirting all over the place.

5.女人:日本女人一旦结婚，生活方式就会发生巨大的变化。
更糟糕的是，当她们被迫辞职时，她们再也不能像以前那样外出聚会了，而她们的丈夫却可以在外面到处调情。

Jamie Wang
The unique understanding of apology is the first thing in my mind.
I remember a script line from a old teenage drama, the general meaning of it is “If apology solves everything, then why do we need police?”
But in Japan, apology is supposed to be the termination. “I am apologized, what else do you want from me?” is at least my understanding of the common sense of Japan.

对于日本，我首先想到的是日本人对道歉的独特理解。
我记得一部十几年历史的老剧里有一句台词，“如果道歉能解决一切，那我们为什么还需要警察?”
但在日本，道歉就是一种终结。
“我道歉了，你还想从我这里得到什么?”
这是我对日本常识的理解。

For example:
1, Morinaga milk industry caused a serious poison milk power incident in 1955. Eventually, 12344 people got poisoned, 130 died due to having arsenide. Morinaga was found guilty and 2 workers went to jail for 3 years. As for the management team, they apologized so they didn’t get any jail time.

举个例子：
1、日本森永乳业1955年造成严重毒奶粉事件。最终，12344人中毒，130人死于砷中毒。森永被判有罪，2名工人入狱3年。至于管理团队，他们道歉了，所以没有被判入狱。

2, The nuclear disaster of Fukushima power plant was caused by the earth quake, but was already a risk before that, due to its out-of-date first generation fail safe design. Tokyo Electric Power Company knew the high risk of Fukushima first/Daiich power station, and deliberately ignored it. The meltdown of 1 to 4 generator caused the worst nuclear disaster in human history. Compare to Fukushima, Chernobyl is quite OK now. Because the chain reaction is stopped.

2、福岛核电站的核灾难是由地震引起的，但在此之前，因为其过时的第一代安全设计，福岛核电站本就存在风险。
东京电力公司知道福岛第一核电站存在高风险，但还是故意忽视了它。
于是，福岛核电站四台发电机的熔毁造成了人类历史上最严重的核灾难。
与福岛相比，苏联的切尔诺贝利核事故都得往后站。因为至少切尔诺贝利的核反应进程被完全停止了。

Did any high rank went to jail for this? No, they apologized. They even knelt down before the public and victims, what more do you want?

那么，福岛核事故发生后，有什么高级别的人为此进过监狱吗?
不,没有。
他们表示道歉。他们甚至跪在公众和受害者面前了，你还想要什么?

Vladimir Prostran
Women are definitely not seen as equal to men in Japan and, what’s even worse, I have a feeling that the progress of Japanese women’s rights has stalled. When a woman ends up being stalked or raped, police doesn’t protect her.. There have been many cases when murdered women asked for police protection and were brushed off. The police dismissal of harassment against women happens often and I don’t think women in Japan are shown the social respect they deserve.

在日本，女性与男性并不平等，更糟糕的是，我感觉日本的女性权利已经停滞不前。当一个日本女人被跟踪或强奸时，警察不会保护她。
有很多被谋杀的女性此前曾请求警察保护却被拒绝的案例。
日本警察对骚扰女性的行为不予理会的情况经常发生，我认为日本女性没有得到应有的社会尊重。

Disrespect and lack of protection of employees. There have been many cases of deaths due to overwork (karoshi) in Japan and it is still incredible that staying overtime “voluntarily” (this is a lie - it’s not voluntary!) is considered something to be admired. Pretending to work hard is more appreciated than actually being productive. Many junior employees are treated very disrespectfully by their senior colleagues and they have no one to turn to when they’re being bullied - just as in the previous case, it’s always implied that the victim somehow caused the behavior of the aggressor and it’s their fault.

不尊重和缺乏对员工的保护。在日本，由于过度工作(过劳死)而导致的死亡案例很多，但令人难以置信的是，在日本，“自愿”加班被认为是值得钦佩的事情。假装努力工作比实际工作更受赞赏。
许多初级员工被他们的高级同事非常无礼地对待，当他们被欺负的时候没有人可以求助——就像在前一个案例中，人们总是暗示受害者是因为自身的某种原因导致了施暴者的行为，这是受害者的错。