It's been a busy week for me, mostly consumed by work. I can't get mad about it because that is the reason I am here!
The Japanese have a reputation for their hard work ethic, and I agree with that statement... for the most part. In Japan they say company comes first and family comes second. Yes, this is very true! Do businessmen work late into the night? Yes, at Mitsui I often see emails sent at 8pm or 9pm, and occasionally even as late as 11pm or midnight. (No one is allowed to work from home or take their computers out of the office.)
I'm almost always the first person to pack up and go home each evening in my department of 8 people. I try to wrap things up by 6:30 or 7pm. (I wonder if they secretly refer to me as "the lazy American"!) But the determining factor for me is always hunger. Lunch ends at 1pm and there's usually no afternoon snack, so I let my growling stomach tell me when it's time to leave.
Technically, the "bell" rings at 5:30pm, and we free to go home, but the weird part to me is that we don't start work until 9:15am. So ultimately I don't work much more than my usual 9-hour day in the U.S. However, I am a morning person, and my productivity plummets after 5pm!!
The Japanese prefer to stay up late every night, sleep in each morning, and sneak into work at 9:14, right before the "bell" rings. I would say that 90% of people come in to work during those last two minutes. I laugh thinking about my days in Indiana when I woke up at 4am so I could make it to work by 6am. That would be utter nonsense here.
Even the construction workers hold that same late morning & late night schedule. They are constructing a new building next to my apartment, and each night when I come home they have giant grids of flood lights to illuminate their work areas. When I leave for work at 9am, the place is a ghost town. All I can think is "burning daylight"!! The sun rises at 6:30am here, so in energy-conscience Japan I believe they should be working by the light of the sun, rather than wasting energy on artificial lighting in the evenings!
I suppose this is partially why they don't do daylight savings time here. They really don't care when the sun is out.
In addition, it's rare to find a female worker at Mitsui who is married. The tradition for women is to join the workforce, find a husband, and promptly "retire" to become a good housewife and maybe mother. (And never see your hard-working husband again!)
I've also been told that the age of 30 is an "old maid" here. When people found out I was 29, they were worried. They said it's my last chance to find a husband, or I'll be single forever!! I guess the big push is on... I need to find my soul mate in the next 4 months!
