The Bowing Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Despite our ramblings to the contrary elsewhere on this blog, daily life in Japan really isn't all that different from anywhere else in the developed world. People go to the supermarket, drive around to look for parking, work overtime, hang out at home on the weekends, work oh god so much overtime, and have huge parties to look at flowers or the moon (we do that in America, right?). We don't have to adjust to anything that different from our familiar routines: no landmines to dodge, no martial law, no national dress code, no tiger attacks, no taun-tauns. All said, nothing that weird about living in Japan.

With some exceptions.

There are times, though, where we might as well be living on Mars. In particular, Mars on a planet-wide festival celebrating 100 years of Martian traditions and hierarchical ritual (it shall be called Mars Days). One of the more contentious aspects of Japanese culture is the company-centered group ethos (in Jenn's words, "they start singing the corporate anthem when they're zygotes"; we used to laugh at that joke, once, if there ever was a time when we didn't live in Japan). Recently, I had a few opportunities to witness the bizarre cultish practices of the corporate world.

Since beginning this blog post, I have been notified that some of my coworkers may or may not read this blog (whee! I'm famous!), so I will expurgate any company secrets, incriminating gossip, or overtly hateful slander. Consider yourself warned.

Last Saturday, I was instructed to be at work at 8:30 for the annual meeting -- not to be confused with the daily morning meeting, the daily afternoon meeting, the monthly department meeting, the weekly morning assembly, or the semi-weekly biennial overnight motivational seminar and luau. After arriving in my best (read: only) suit and standing around obviously in the auditorium for a while, I was told that I would have to go through some preliminary practice for bowing and greetings before the meeting began. As usually happens in such cases, my gaijin dander got up. "Hey, what makes you think I don't know how to bow or say "OHAYO GOZAIMASU"? Am I stupid or something, huh?" I thought. My resentment quickly faded to anger when I saw that every employee had to practice these activities before the meeting was allowed to start.

As a group, all 100 or so employees, teachers and administrators and bus drivers, practiced yelling good morning, hello, and thank you on command. Each time we finished yelling, we bowed simultaneously, first towards the principal, then to his mother, who was sitting in for some reason. The first four or five times we tried this, the principal expressed his disapproval if not outright contempt at our collective bow. He had one of the teachers, the Specially Designated Faculty Toady, count us off; you see, for a proper bow to the kindergarten principal, you are supposed to bow at the waist, arms at your sides, feet together, stay down for "Ich! Ni!", start to straighten on "San!", and stand upright only when "Shi!" has been yelled. Confusing, I know, but bear in mind that 9/10 of the people who were being harshly rebuked have been doing this for their whole lives. On the command "rei!" (which my Japanese dictionary translates as "expression of gratitude," "command; order," or "departed soul; ghost"), we were to applaud at roughly the same tempo; on a second command, we were instructed to clap thrice in unison, thus: *clapclapclapclapclap (rei!) CLAP - CLAP - CLAP*. I have seen presidents sworn in with less fanfare than this. Nations have been founded with nowhere near this level of organization.

It was around the third rehearsal run-through when I realized: wait a minute, I've seen this before. Teachers correcting a crowd of people, teaching them to bow correctly and yell "hai!" when their name is called? Sweet jumpin' Buddha, this is exactly how they treat the kindergartners!

Still, we had to put on a good show. Everyone was there, after all, in their best suits, ready to impress. Never mind that the only people who would be at the meeting were already there for the rehearsal, including the principal and his mother. Eventually, after more effort than was put into my grad school graduation (hell, more effort than my thesis, for that matter), the meeting began. I had hoped that, with my limited Japanese, I would be allowed to sit quietly, not follow along, and get in some good, productive thinking about food, but the principal singled me out to have a fluent coworker translate everything for me. It opened with the teachers reciting in unison (but of course) the Five Principles of our school/parent company. No, I can't tell you what they are. Use your imagination.

Next was the simultaneous reading aloud of some kind of story. By virtue of my status as an illiterate, unwashed barbarian, I was exempt from following along, which was fine by me, as the only thing I understood was the title: "Tomodachi ga iranai" (translation: "You Don't Need Friends." Seriously. Unemployment was looking better and better). This was followed, in no particular order, by the Mission Statement, the Future Plan, the Five-Year Plan, and the Principal's Dream, the last of which included such tidbits as paying every teacher 100,000,000 yen annually and taking all the teachers to Disneyworld. One time I had a dream where I fought crime with Rowdy Roddy Piper. True story. My translator whispered to me that the Principal's Dream has been pretty much the same for at least 14 years; with a recurring dream this chronic, I would recommend that our Principal consult a qualified psychotherapist.

Despite all the rehearsal, things went disastrously during the bowing and receipt of certificates. One teacher, a young woman who has probably studied for years for this privilege, had her posture forcefully corrected by the Vice Principal while she was standing on stage in front of all her coworkers. Another had to repeat her bow three times. I was agape; in the States, making an employee do this kind of shit would end up in a fist fight or a lawsuit, surely. Still, I guess this must be how they make such good cars, right?

In short, this meeting was important enough to practice seven or eight times and to publicly deride employees' posture, but not important enough not to interrupt to publicly deride employees' posture or mock their names (incidentally, the Principal looked down at my certificate and saw fit to give me a new Japanese name, "muzukashii..." ("difficult...")). All that was left to do was to let our hair down and party! The welcome party, held at a nearby hotel, was a blast, though considering the posturing, debasement, drink-pouring, and general buttsniffery that went on, I'd say the only thing missing from Japanese office parties is actually using employees as furniture. The school's founder did make friends with one of the bus drivers, though...they both got drunk and yelled a lot, occasionally sharing a Bogart/Raines BFF glance.