Nothing to do with ESL

Well, I have been here for six months - the contract is half way over. Do I have any money? No. But my piggy bank (aka brain) has been filling up with other things such as... cultural knowledge! All of the things that I, at one point, found confusing about Japanese people/culture can be traced back to one thing.

Japanese men hate their wives.

Of course I don't mean to stereotype, but I believe this best explains some of the cultural oddities that I have encountered.

One of the things that baffled me early on was how people would just line up at the crosswalk and wait for the little green man to flash. I of course would just walk around them, look both ways and cross the street. Not only would I do this while the man was red, I would cross at a diagonal. I can't remember the last time I felt like such a rebel - probably while chewing gum in my 10th grade confirmation class. Anyway, my early theories on why they were not crossing the street:
a. respect for the law
b. a fear of being the first one to do it and having everyone else look on in shame
c. not wanting to look both ways but well aware of the consequences of not doing so

But after many conversations with different husbands and wives I am now convinced that Japanese men hate their wives. The sooner they cross the street, the sooner they get home. This, coupled with a few other cultural aspects creates J culture. While to many outsiders, J culture consists of geisha girls, temples and statues all competing for attention with robot dogs and bullet trains, J culture is completely different.

J culture consists mainly of work and shopping.

Men seem to work 70 hours a week - and they don't really like their jobs. Women seem to shop for 70 hours a week - spending the man's hard earned cash. Do the men care? No. Do they complain? As far as I know...no. Why do they do this? Well, because...Japanese men hate their wives.

The more they are at work - the more they are out of the house - making money to keep their wives out of the house. Where I am from, this would never work. The working man would not give his wife any money. Thus he wouldn't be forced to work 80 hours a week. The woman would have to get a job. Then for whatever reason they would get divorced. But in Japan they don't seem to split up quite so often. It's not as cool I guess. The stress then builds until the man can no longer take it and is forced to seek refuge the only acceptable way - avoidance. This also explains things such as karaoke and pachinko - numbers 3 and 4 on the J culture list. I will save those for another blog. So, what this all boils down to is - next time you see someone waiting for the "walk" sign to signal them across an empty street - go up and say "hi." Help them out, they hate their life. Unless of course they are 5, then it's because they have poor depth perception, short legs, and cars can't see them.