One Thing I Want to Go Away With Heisei Era 過ぎたるは猶及ばざるが如し

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

"He's an overachiever." One colleague of mine, who's American, said so while talking about a Japanese who is too detail-oriented to submit a report by the deadline. He's right. The Japanese guy is an overachiever and most Japanese are. And that's why many Japanese die from working too much (karoshi).

If you're interested in what Japanese overachievers are like, you should watch Shitamachi Rocket, a TV program aired last year. (DVDs are available.) The main characters and heroes of the story, employees of Tsukuda Manufacturing Co., are very diligent, working from early morning to midnight almost everyday together, and accuse someone leaving the office at 6pm like a criminal.

They are a family, i.e., a virtual family where the supervisor is their parent, staff their kids and coworkers their brothers and sisters. In Japan, being alone means being lonely, potentially ruining the whole relationships, personal and work. They have to do overtime and drink together to be included in the family. Japan comprises families of employees of companies.

So, if you want to be independent and want to have privacy, you need to be prepared to be isolated or marginalized. Japanese only accept someone who are "inside." They may even ask you to do tsure shon, i.e., take a leak together (half joking, but half serious). You have to choose to be "in" or "out."

The Heisei era will end on April 30 and I hope that this "peer/family pressure," which may cause another kamikaze attack or sontaku incident, will go away with it.

こだわりすぎで期限に遅れてレポートを提出した日本人を、アメリカ人の同僚が「overachiever」と言っていました。「頑張りすぎ」という感じでしょうか。

頑張りすぎてる人って周りにも強制しませんか。残業も断れない｡｡。でもね、特攻隊も過労死も、この「100％敵か味方か」の関係しか認めない、大人の距離感を認めない体質のせいだと思うのですがいかがでしょう。

まあ、日本企業で働いていると家族が二つ持てるというメリットもあるのでしょうか。「本当の家族」と「疑似会社家族」と。ただ個人的には、4月30日の平成終了と同時に「疑似会社家族」も終わってほしいです｡｡｡