The Japanese sleep.

February 3, 2005 4:12 PM

Japanese people in suits who are asleep in non-bed places.
posted by Kleptophoria! (26 comments total)

Masamania is probably my favorite blog.
posted by borkingchikapa at 4:37 PM on February 3, 2005

we are sexually aroused
posted by mrgrimm at 4:40 PM on February 3, 2005

I find these photos amusing, and there's the added bonus that they make me very glad that I neither drink heavily nor work over 40 hours a week...

I could have sworn this was a DP, but if I can't find it, why should you have?
posted by Specklet at 4:41 PM on February 3, 2005

I think we broke it.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 4:48 PM on February 3, 2005

^^^
first post ever. :)
posted by Baby_Balrog at 4:49 PM on February 3, 2005

I'm still waiting for the double post lynching followed by metatalk group hug, but I did truly search for quite a while, and found this posted nowhere on Metafilter.

The pictures are just so surreal. Like, they border on the ridiculous. It's almost unbelievable at times.

(Welcome, Baby_Balrog.)
posted by Kleptophoria! at 4:52 PM on February 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

Japanese culture report by MasaManiA with fucking photo & poor English you never seen at boring CNN, Time or major sophisticated jurnalism.

I never say that all foreign people is lazy. But I never hesitate to say that Jap is fucking hard worker.
posted by jimmythefish at 5:40 PM on February 3, 2005

Sorry to have kept you waiting.
Masamania is a double. The sleeping salarymen were discussed in the previous post.
More sleeping salarymen at やぎの目
posted by mexican at 5:44 PM on February 3, 2005

reminds me of the 'street photography' of vice magazine. ive searched but have only found these 2 websites that take such photos. what, is talent required to do this?
posted by GleepGlop at 5:50 PM on February 3, 2005

mexican, I actually posted masamania to MeFi here (so even plep's was a repost.)
posted by gen at 5:59 PM on February 3, 2005

NoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOoooOOOOoOOoooooooooOOOOOOOOoOOOOoooooOOOooo~!

I searched for all that stuff, I swear to God. I think my internets is broken. TRIPLE POST.

:( :( :( :( :(:(:( :(:(:(:(

We all fail at Metafilter!
posted by Kleptophoria! at 6:05 PM on February 3, 2005

As a current resident of Tokyo, I can confirm you'll see sleeping people on the train, any train, any time of day. Ask a Japanese person what they like to do in their free time, and you'll likely get one of two answers: go to the onsen (hot spring), and sleep. Lots of folks take a day off just to catch up on sleep.

It basically boils down to this: say you're a salaryman or an office lady and it's 6pm--time to go home. But your shacho (boss) is still around, and all your co-workers are still around, so you can't. Meanwhile, your shacho's schacho is still around as well, so s/he can't leave, either. So he stays, too. Everyone stays, because to leave earlier than anyone else, especially the boss, is generally seen as very rude and selfish. Good luck getting outta there by 9. Actually, you'll likely all leave together and get drunk at a restaurant/bar called an izakaya. You'll catch the last train home at midnightish, get a few hours sleep, then repeat the process the next day.

Japan is a wonderful country in so many ways, but their office culture isn't one of them. Though this is changing, it's changing as only things can change in Japan--rather slowly.

/really not trying to sound negative about Japan....really not trying to sound negative about Japan.....really not trying....
posted by zardoz at 6:18 PM on February 3, 2005

Oh, and thanks for the link. Masamania is a popular site over here, too.
posted by zardoz at 6:19 PM on February 3, 2005

Is this about booze or 80 hour work weeks?

Oh, some of both.
posted by NortonDC at 6:19 PM on February 3, 2005

zardoz, do you actually work in a Japanese company?
posted by sour cream at 6:42 PM on February 3, 2005

I work for a company that sells international film rights. I've had calls from some of our Japanese clients, from their offices, at 1am Tokyo time. I'll ask them, "What in the f*** are you still doing there?" and they'll just sort of laugh and sigh.

Ugh. I want to report their bosses to the Japanese better business bureau or something.
posted by Kloryne at 7:27 PM on February 3, 2005

sour cream

Yes and no. I do work for a Japanese company, but one that's been "Westernized", so I come in at 9o'clock and leave at 5ish, overtime is a rarity. What I posted earlier was based on the schedules of Japanese friends and auaintances as well as fellow gaijin who work in Japanese companies.
posted by zardoz at 7:42 PM on February 3, 2005

Extreme drunker damage report (probably NSFW)
posted by euphorb at 9:34 PM on February 3, 2005

I swear, someone could make a website with pictures of crap in Japanese toilets and everyone would be ooh-ing and ahh-ing over it because it's from Japan.
posted by nightchrome at 9:50 PM on February 3, 2005

well, maybe if it was square.
posted by Iax at 10:11 PM on February 3, 2005

no, especially if it was square.
posted by joedan at 1:05 AM on February 4, 2005

I believe that the stereotype of the Japanese salaryman working his ass off every day until 11pm only applies to a subset of the overall population, perhaps 10 to 20%. It's basically the same subset that still has a shot at lifelong employment etc. and that got there in the first place by going to the right universities, which they got into because they went to the right high schools etc.

Those companies are mostly the famous ones (say, Toshiba, Hitachi, Toyota or the big banks), which are considered to be good to work for and thus are willing to put up with more. Naturally, those companies have their headquarters in Tokyo, so you see more of them on the commuter trains there. Go to the countryside or the smaller cities, and things look very differently. Also, blue collar workers don't do as much overtime (and don't enjoy lifelong employment either).

Do the people actually work all those hours? No, they come in the morning, read the newspaper, chat, drink coffee, and the real work starts at 4pm or so. Very ineffective (from what I've heard).
I don't think it's a good culture and I hope it will die out one day. But as I said, this is only a fraction of the Japanese population.
posted by sour cream at 2:10 AM on February 4, 2005

zardoz, "boss" would have been just as explanatory

Just to nitpick a little, "shacho" does not really mean boss. Literally it means "company president." So there is no such thing as a "shacho's shacho," which would be the "president's president."
But in smaller companies, you can actually call the head honcho "shacho", as in "hey boss, have a look at this."
posted by sour cream at 7:41 AM on February 4, 2005

In the large companies, IIRC, it generally goes something like this, in order of lowest position to highest:

kakaricho ("group" boss of about 3-6 people) --> bucho (section boss) --> kacho (department boss) --> shacho (president)

Of course, there are other ranks, but these are the usual, broadest ones.


posted by armage at 12:12 PM on February 4, 2005

</uselesscorporatejapanesetrivia>
posted by armage at 12:12 PM on February 4, 2005

They kind of look like murders, especially the first one.
posted by breath at 5:14 PM on February 4, 2005