Worklife

Ramblings about workplace culture, life in Japan, and then some.

Finally, another entry at the beginning of school / business year

Apr 06, 2006 23:50 pm / Add a comment

shinjientercollege.JPG

Maybe it’s because I helped my son pre­pare for the start of his col­lege entrance cer­e­mony and pur­chased the entire suits out­fit. So many young peo­ple in dark suits!! No, it isn’t because of my son’s sit­u­a­tion that I am notic­ing them. It’s because there ARE lots of young peo­ple in dark suits run­ning around Tokyo now.

The econ­omy in Japan is pick­ing up, and along with the feel­ing of dis­trust in arro­gant ven­ture com­pa­nies by the Live­door scan­dal, tra­di­tional Japan­ese val­ues like one for all, all for one, and con­ser­vatism are def­i­nitely in.

April is the begin­ning of business/school year in Japan, and this April, because of bet­ter econ­omy here, com­pa­nies are hir­ing great num­ber of fresh col­lege grad­u­ates com­pared to the past decade. And lik­ing for­mal cer­e­monies, entrance cer­e­monies are con­ducted all over the place, includ­ing uni­ver­si­ties and com­pa­nies, and the young peo­ple are dressed up in dark suites with ties for these occasions.

For com­pany employ­ees, major­ity of them will stay in their dark suites. It’s all about belong­ing, all about under­state­ment, even in uni­ver­si­ties. So con­trary to the pop­u­lar top­ics found on mag­a­zines and books which are inno­va­tion, cre­ativ­ity, and uniqueness.

As my British busi­ness part­ner liv­ing in Lon­don said to me in response to me buy­ing suites for my son for the school entrance cer­e­mony, as some peo­ple say, Japans Uni­ver­si­ties are about train­ing for indus­try or salary man life. In the UK its about drink, drugs and sex + maybe some free think­ing etc.…

 

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