Some people hate Japan

So this is actually an e-mail I sent to Peter in response to this article. It is exceptionally long (it crashed my computer at school twice, though it is fairly old and you probably don't have to read it. I thought other people might find it interesting and, rather than writing something original, decided to post it here:

It' basically impossible to be a vegan in Japan and difficult to be a vegetarian. Despite this, it seems like Japanese people eat a lot more vegetables than Americans. They even eat things that I wouldn't call food but they call vegetables (see Konyaku, which my dictionary awesomely translates as Devil's Tongue). I was talking to one of the teachers here about WWII the other day and she said that some American and British prisoners in one camp thought they being mistreated because they were fed roots and fish they considered inedible. In actuallity they were being about as well as the prison guards. Nevertheless, the head guards of the camp were punished after the war for mistreating prisoners by feeding them what was then a typical Japanese diet.

I can't speak much about corporate culture in Japan (or in America for that matter), but I have seen/heard some of the things mentioned in that article. Schools in general, at least where I am, seem to be a little more relaxed. Teachers typically stay in the office when they aren't teaching classes, at least for middle and high school. Every morning, when someone comes in they usually say "Ohayo Gozaimasu" and everyone else responds in kind. This makes it hard to be late because everyone is alerted to arrival.

The layout of the office is interesting. At one end are the head people, at a school the vice-principal, a scheduler (I think, I am not really sure what this person does), and the principal, who also has a private office. It visually demonstrates who is in charge. Everyone else sits at large, heavy desks arranged into groups by class year or subject area. At one school I sit in the front where the principal would typically sit next to a board with announcements and a tally of which classrooms have sick/absent students. This means other teachers are constantly looking at me, though really they are looking at the board. It is intimidating.

(Also, I should mention that Japanese keyboards are slightly different so typing this is a little awkward, especially apostraphes and quotation marks. Therefore I am avoiding contractions. It is nice that I have now have a computer with internet to use at my main school, though a lot of websites are blocked)

I could comment more, but I don't feel the need to match the length of that essay. I will say that I want to go to a pachinko parlor or hostess bar out of morbid curiousity. I probably never will, at least not long enough or as many times as I would need to get a better idea of them. I mostly don't want to go because they cost to much and have a fairly negative stigma. I think sometime in the near to medium future I will be dragged to a maid cafe, which is like a hostest bar light "for nerds" I am told.