November 20th, 2005
Update
- Motoki
Hello Work
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Loook into my eyes |
Hello all, Motoki here. Some of you may know me as Andrew,
that's my porn name.
I'm here to talk to you about a really important subject,
Employment. Or as we in Japan call it, "that thing that gives us the objects
with which we buy Hello Kitty products." Everyone in Japan likes Hello Kitty. OR
ELSE.
Since the collapse of the lifetime employment system around
the time of the bubble burst and the fall of the real estate market- just minor
glitches in an otherwise perfect system- young (or young-minded) people like
myself have had a bit of a rough time finding "employment."
As a result, we tend to be transients, moving from one
part-time job to the next. The only stable part of our lives is our home
address, which hasn't changed in the 25+ years of our lives. Thanks mom and pop!
I owe you one, and by that I mean
I'll use
less painful poison when I kill you for my inheritance money.
So people in their early-to-late 20s tend to have myriad
jobs on our resume. I myself have been a video game center manager, a karaoke
manager, keeper of a turtle brothel, client of a turtle brothel, sandwich maker,
sandwich designer, CEO of a sandwich company, philosopher, and dentist. This is
all due to my bachelor's degree from KO University in literature. Remember kids,
reading is fundamental, as is passing the test to get into a big-name college,
the only thing that matters.
Things are much easier if you're a young woman, because
then you can get married and never have to worry about anything ever again as
your wealthy Tokyoite husband will provide you with regular riches and beatings
and sometimes both at the same time. I know that's how I'd treat my wife/S&M
partner.
But things aren't so easy if you're a young woman over the
age of 23 because by then you're over the hill and destined to be alone your
entire life. That is, unless you learn enough English to post an
insane
personal ad in an English-language Classifieds, in which case you'll be
treated like a queen by some creepy 35 year old American anime fan who is
searching for a Japanese wife, just like his t-shirt says.
Back to the subject at hand, employment is very difficult
to come by here, but not if you happen to be good at harassing school-girls to
come into Karaoke parlors, in which case there are many places in Shibuya and
Shinjuku looking to hire you, or at least there seems to be by the sheer number
of assholes who follow girls around and try to drag them to their
establishments. If you happen to be a foreigner in Japan in need of employment,
and you also "happen" to be black, then there's one clear course of action for
you: Roppongi sex club shill. For a reason that makes sense to us Japanese,
we only hire black men with Jamaican accents to stand in front of gaijin sex
clubs and holler at every foreign male who walks by. Japanese men can also be
sex club shills, but they work for Japanese-only sex clubs, and we're not
allowed to talk with foreigners about these lands of wonder that are completely
forbidden to you, you filthy gaijin. In fact, don't even try to talk to the men
who stand outside these shops, or Masters as we call them, because they will
completely ignore you as you do not exist.
But what about employment outside the sex, pornography, and
idol industries, or the slice of the job market pie we call "Other"?
Well, you
can have an exciting career as a book store employee. Here you'll be able to
organize books to your liking and have the shelves reflect your own personality,
like one bookstore in Ginza whose kids cartoon DVDs are right next to the skimpy
idol bikini DVD selection. This way you can teach children that youth and
eroticism go hand-in-hand and ensure that no one will mistake a 13 year old in a
bikini for the pedophilia it really is.
Totoro 'n Titties
Let's not forget the electronics industry, one of the many
jewels in Japan's GNP crown. The Japanese electronics industry is vast and
thriving, something that is obvious to anyone who walks through Tokyo’s
Akihabara district, where the laws of physics, economics, and international
whaling accords do not apply. And why shouldn’t this industry be riding high; as
a worker of a major Japanese electronics manufacturer you can take pride in the
fact that your salary is coming from charging your fellow Japanese twice what
your company charges for that same model in other countries. A Canon camera for
$179.99? Let’s make that
25,900 yen over here! ($250) Ignorance is profit, as I always say.
If you’re looking for work with a more social component to
it, try train groper. Work hard enough and you may even get to
join the union. If making world headlines is more your cup of tea, how about
radish
slasher? It’s just another example of the Japanese dream: do
something
incredibly stupid and gain instant, fleeting fame. If you want to try your
hand at staring at the ground the entire day and not moving, while being
completely invisible to everyone around you, applications are now being accepted
for the position of
homeless, but keep in mind that Shinjuku and Ueno are full. And if you are
looking for a job with the same amount of work but better pay, the Self-Defense
Forces want YOU.
But no matter what your employment status is remember,
even if you get fired, there's always a job waiting for you in Japan. Those
millions of vending machines don't refill themselves-- yet.
Stay tuned for next time when I, Furuhata Motoki, take
a look at another important aspect of life in Japan, housing, entitled, "So
you want to live in a closet."
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