Friday, September 26, 2008

The rough stuff

For such a civilized nation, some things I:ve noticed behind the scenes are a bit surprising:
1. Women are not treated like equals, in the workplace nor in public. I:m not saying that women have to sit on the back of bus or are denied voting rights, but if you look at the way they dress and the types of jobs that they do for money, it:s quite a surprise for a society that is considered "civilized". I never knew that being more civilized also had the effect of oversexualization.
2. There are men in business suits every single night flooding the neighborhood Pachinko bars (these are like gambling slot machines but you can:t get money back from it. You can sometimes buy prizes though. The rules are weird. I have yet to quite understand the whole concept) These Pachinko machines are funky too. The sound is *really* loud in there and there are video screens playing the same animations over and over. If you didn:t know any better you would think it was some kind of brainwashing system.
3. Before I came to Japan, I thought that being more civilized did not result in less personal professional relationships. I thought that being civilized masters it would be more like they are the best at providing service because they know exactly how to treat each person to perfection, not the world as a whole together.
4. The men really smoke a lot. And they still allow smoking indoors in public places.

2 Comments:

Blogger momo said...

because gambling is illegal in japan, you get the prizes at the pachinko parlors, and then go sell them down the street. a lot of people make a living doing this. it's easier to make money with pachinko than card/table gambling because there are tricks you can figure out depending on the machine and chain. my boyfriend paid for his mac notebook and digital camera entirely from pachinko winnings. it's hard to figure out though, that's why there are so many of them, and it's a good business to make money.

September 27, 2008 at 2:05 PM  
Blogger Jimmy said...

oh my god that:s awesome. I want to learn to play some pachinko now.

September 27, 2008 at 6:43 PM  

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