MUSINGS OF WORK AND A NEW PART-TIME JOB

So hello, I’m back again. Today I will write about working in Japan.

So last week was Golden Week in Japan.

For those who do not know what Golden Week is, it is a golden rare week in Japan where people can finally rest and enjoy a holiday or just time off with family and friends.

Although that being said this week of vacation usually only extends to those white-collared positions, such as Japan’s notorious salary men. Supermarkets still run as normal and cafes are more full than ever. It isn’t New Year.

Yet despite this, Golden Week has this almost surreal vibe.

Walking through the streets I can see fathers at parks, pushing their sons on swing sets or chasing their spring dressed daughters along the side walk, the pair laughing. Meanwhile the mother is walking behind with a mild smile as she eats her ice cream.

You may be thinking that isn’t this a normal image? And I guess to an extent it is. Yet somehow, even on weekends this image can’t be seen as much as it can be seen during Golden Week.

Here in Sapporo we are also blessed with the blooming Sakura blossoms, pink petals scattering across the streets and falling in the sake cups of drunken adults indulging in hanami.

Golden Week is like the celebration of spring. The nation temporarily stops, catches its breath, before suits go back to their 50 hour plus working weeks.

Last week my class reading was about working in Japan. Did you know that Japan’s salary men can find themselves in positions where 40 hours is what they should work a week before their 10 plus hours of overtime is included?

So I guess it isn’t much wonder why the image of fathers and children is few even on the weekends. You need the weekend to finally sleep before you have to repeat it all again.

Yet they stay loyal, put up with the hierarchical propaganda, take the forced workplace transfers thrown at them and most do not openly complain about the excessive hours expected of them.

If this kind of workplace was thrown on an Australian they would have their hands up in the air after a day and bellow out,

“I ain’t takin’ this bloody bullshit mate!” and quit.

Company loyalty is really something here in Japan. So is work place inequality and women still seen as second class citizens inside many companies. The corporate is somehow left behind in time when it comes to prejudice. But I will leave the dirt of the Japanese white-collar world with that.

So back to Golden Week, that moment of reprieve: 3 consecutive national holidays plus the weekend. Japan has a lot of national holidays. Probably because many of its citizens don’t know how to take actual holidays off.

On Thursday (Midori no hi ‘Green Day’) I started my own new job. I’m now a real part-timer here in Japan – no more just getting paid to speak English at a table for two hours.

Somehow it is an amazing feeling. I went into the staff locker room and put on my new uniform and stared at my reflection in the mirror of the basin with a smile.

“Ah! Jessica-san?” The two girls at the basin beside me stopped talking among themselves and looked up at me.

“We work with you!” One girl smiled, introducing herself.

“We have been waiting for you to start!”

“You speak very well!”

Then I walked through the busy underground shopping mall to my cafe, the feeling of eyes across my back.

It’s hard being a minority.

But it doesn’t stop me from trying to be a part of my new home.