Earlier this month (July 4), Roger Pulvers wrote in The Japan Times a brief article called “Japanese betray some blinkered views of their foreign coworkers“. While some of his observations may not be surprising or new, I thought it was nevertheless a good little read. To quote from the article, “Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper ran a feature on Japanese people’s attitudes to non-Japanese colleagues at their places of work. The article included the results of a survey that explored those attitudes”.

Now, the word “betray” is what caught my eye, but readers shouldn’t hold an initial negative feeling when reading the article. Pulvers’ story seems to cover a fairly balanced side of things.

Some facts:

• from whomever they surveyed, it seems that one-third (34%) of companies have foreign co-workers
• The main thrust of the article and survey centered around the question, “Do you consider the presence of non-Japanese employees a positive or a negative element for yourself?”
• For those who voted “negative” (roughly 10-12%), the main reason seemed to be that we non-Japanese lack the subtle power of ishindenshin communication (the unspoken quasi-telepathic mental link)

Pulvers then goes on to describe ways in which both parties (Japanese and non-Japanese) can compromise in order to coexist better.  I like that part best about the article.  See what you think.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 10:46 am and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.