Professional Happy Person

12 min readNov 28, 2019

***DISCLAIMERS:

THIS IS NOT A SHITPOST ABOUT JAPAN. It truly is lovely. Living here made me realize that there are always certain freedoms you give up to enjoy other things.
I’m merely pointing out how I feel living here and what I have noticed!!! Also, please note that I have an “Asian face” (as my cutiepie lil elementary students have told me) and that means my experience can be entirely different than those with an easily accessible gaijin card.
If you’re a JET reading this, please enjoy the few things that only we would notice.
Please forgive me if my writing is horrible (so many run ons and many information). I’ve been living in Japan, speaking broken English/Japanese, and barely have anyone to talk to.
This post started as a short blog to tell you what it’s like to be sick here but now it’s going to end with why I won’t be staying longer than a year.

Hello from Japan! A loooot of you have asked me how I’ve been doing in Japan. I’m learning so much about Japan that I would have never known before moving here. There’s so much I want to tell you (besides, “oh yeah! it’s great! i’m doing great!) but we’ll have to start off slow.

Today, I’m here to teach you about some aspects of living in Japan while you are all safely in the creature comforts of your American bed.

As a recent graduate of the best time of my life thus far (college), I’m very accustomed to having a certain amount of freedom- most importantly, the freedom to take sick days or mental health days off and the freedom to just be yourself.

But obviously, living abroad and being at my first big girl job, the same freedoms are not afforded to me. Some I expected to lose at any big girl job and some I lost by the simple fact of moving to a different country with different culture. While I love my job and my life here, at times I feel like I am learning how to be a slave to my work and be mentally suppressed.

Before we can continue, I need to teach you some important Japanese words and how they fit into my life in Japan:

There is a phrase you will undoubtedly hear everyday in Japan: Ganbaru (頑張る) pronounced gahn+bah+roo and comes in many forms- ganbare, ganbatte, ganbaro. It means to do your best, don’t give up, hang in there, endure all adversity without giving in to it, and so on.

There is a word: Gaman (我慢). It means to suffer in silence. This is what is expected of people most of the time, no matter how hard their situation may be. It is seen a very praiseworthy trait. *Learn more about gaman at the end of this post*

Well, from my short time living here, I’ve learned a lot about enduring things and the effect these two things have over my life here. At first, I couldn’t see this as toxic. Perhaps it was my inner virgo calling out of me or my Asian upbringing, but everything in my body screamed, “OH HELL YEAH! Work till you drop! Now THAT is something I can get behind. TSK lazy Americans.”

summer in japan was the hottest time of my entire fucking life and im from california

But then, it was the heat of summer, and I learned about self induced suffering. Schools here have air conditioning but choose to rarely use it. That means the school gym in summer is like a sweltering heat box. And THAT means the gym is the perfect place to suffer in silence (gaman). We had a school festival in the gym for about four hours. It was 85 f+ inside the gym with teachers and students suffering inside. However, we couldn’t use fans to cool ourselves down. Why? Stfu and ganbare mf’er. I couldn’t help but jealously eye all the parents who had the privilege of fanning themselves.

As I was still fresh and new in Japan, I asked why we couldn’t fan ourselves and most importantly why the students couldn’t. Haha I was told, “We are young! You can do it.” That’s not exactly a reasonable answer to why we all gotta sweat in the gym in suits, but sure okay. I started to get the gist of how they do things here. It was interesting for me.

This self induced suffering seemed stupid and comical to me. It’s like having a box of pens on your desk but insisting you write using only your own blood so people can see how hard you’re working. Just use the pen.

On top of the self induced suffering, Japanese people work really hard or make their work even harder for themselves. Everyone here works till their bones are dry.

And this is where I tie in the most relevant part of this story —

Being sick in Japan

What happens if you catch a cold in Japan? Do you take a sick day? No sir. Not on my watch. Slap on a mask mf’er and endure all adversity without giving in to it (ganbarre). If you’re really really sick, like you have the flu and can prove it, then you can take a ‘sick day’ from work. Maybe. We get 30 sick days and 12 vacation days a year. But Japanese people typically use their vacation days when they’re sick. (why? You can guess.) So most of the time they really just ganbare till they drop. If you think I’m joking, listen. [I don’t want to get in trouble so let’s all agree that this event happened in America in an office I worked at in Little Tokyo]

A coworker of mine stumbles into the office drenched in sweat. His work shirt was so completely soaked in sweat, it began to drip on the floor. You could hear him try to control his strained gasps for breath. Most turn a blind eye and some ask if he’s doing okay. He insists he’s fine through mumbled words. I know we’re not supposed to make a scene so I stare blankly into my computer screen, pretending I don’t notice what’s going on- homeboy is having a heart attack. About ten minutes pass by and he moves from his desk to the office kitchen. Then presumably some coworkers suggest he go see the doctor. He then stumbles his way across the office, stands before the head honcho, and asks for permission to go to the hospital. They call him a taxi and off he goes. We all don’t say anything when he gets back the week after, nor do we ask if he’s okay. I presume it’s because he’s supposed to suffer in silence and it’d be awkward and pride injuring to ask if he’s alright.

Anyway, when that happened, I was literally like, oh shit… guess I’ll never take a sick day. Why? Because there is a lot of pressure to conform in Japan. A lot. Conformity and obedience/adherence to social rules are two really honoured traits here (And it’s not just Japan. Korea often has this problem as well. Just look at the unfortunate passing of Korean idol, Sulli. She was bullied to death for speaking out on women’s issues and mental health). And even though I’m not Japanese, working and living here has made me feel really strange when I don’t follow along. The sentiment of “monkey see, monkey do” works really well here. If someone else is doing it, you do it too. So since everyone takes vacation days instead of sick days without batting an eye, you can physically feel yourself going against the grain for asking to take a sick day (it sucks arguing that you want to take a sick day while they guilt you).

As I’m writing this, I am sick. Yes, of course I’m at school. Yes, of course I will slap on a mask. But if this cold turns into strep, which it probably will since my tonsils are prone to infection and I should’ve taken them out years ago, I literally don’t know what to do. I know I am legally allowed to take my sick day but I socially don’t want to make my office see me as the lazy American who’s not even dying, trying to get the easy way out of work. [I wrote this a few weeks back and have since taken one sick day that I had to insist on and it was uncomfortable but I did it].

Ellis in Japan vs. Ellis in America

So being sick made me think a lot more about an Ellis living in Japan. It made me realize that I just don’t think I’m compatible with living here. For the longest time, I had a hard time putting my finger on it. But after talking with my friend (a fellow JET), I realized what it was. It was the fundamental difference in my westernized mentality vs. Japan’s. At the end of the day, my beliefs and strong desire to express myself meant that I wasn’t ever going to fit in here (that was made abundantly clear as I strolled around Japan as a tattooed Korean American gangster lol). But I needed to find words to put to how I was feeling.

So, I did some actual research.

(paraphrased from “How to become Japanese: A Guide for North Americans”)

The Individual and Control

In the states, we follow the assertiveness model which expresses our “deep belief in the value of the individual creative self; in the paramount desirability of direct action to control the environment; and in the need for emotional honesty and expressiveness.” One of the results of this model is increased self esteem. However, Japan is the opposite on literally every single part of the assertiveness model. This is the main reason researchers say that North American visitors or residents in Japan sometimes deal with an exhausting struggle to maintain their own cultural ideal of courageous self-expression and action, without at the same time having to deal with the fact that, in-the Japanese environment, this has no place to exist. (I feel this on a spiritual level)

American visitors or residents in Japan sometimes deal with an exhausting struggle to maintain their own cultural ideal of courageous self-expression and action, without at the same time having to deal with the fact that, in-the Japanese environment, this has no place to exist.

me remembering who i am in the school bathroom: “i am not a professional happy person. i’m ellis”

Americans strive to gain control in order to express and enhance their sense of individuality and personal autonomy. Some examples of such assertive behavior include positive acts, such as introducing oneself to an attractive stranger or negative acts, such as saying “no” to unreasonable demands of one’s energy, time or money.

But in contrast, the Japanese follow a different kind of control called “vicarious secondary control”. This control is gained by aligning and identifying oneself with powerful others (people, groups or institutions). This form of control is why Japanese culture learns towards collectivism or “belongingness”. (an interesting example: Japanese children can be punished by being locked outside the house to deny their contact with the family; alignment with the group is highly valued, and the potential for individuation that exists with separation from the group viewed negatively. In contrast, in North America, children may be punished by “grounding” them inside the house: alignment with the group means punishment and a loss of control, while separation means autonomy and gaining control.)

Emotions and Feelings

“There is a powerful sanction against the open expression of feelings (and opinions) in Japan, since they are manifestations of the individual and as such are likely to disrupt the social harmony. Resignation (akirame) and perseverance, endurance (gaman suru) and suffering are offered as alternative values that will encourage the sufferer to swallow personal emotions, gracefully give way to group consensus, and avoid being a nail that sticks up.”

Why I won’t be recontracting

This is not all to say that Japan is bad and their mentality is bad. It’s just… different. Like I said we give up some freedoms for others. “Japanese people value social harmony over the more American value of independence. And that means somewhat subjugating personal desires. That may be why there are few reports of looting, violence, scams or people trying to take advantage of each other.”

But anyway, living here has made me realize just how independent, straight forward, and unwilling to be passive I am. I feel to live here comfortably, I’ve had to create a very diluted version of myself (10% Ellis, 90% the perfect Asian daughter). I sort of resent how self conscious it has made me to be myself. Bold Ellis is not really the submissive type but I’ve grown used to faking it till I make it (a lot of going to the bathroom and replaying how the situation would go down as American Ellis). As one of my friends put it — being here has forced us to play the role of “professional happy person”. We feign ignorance in the face of passive aggression and happily swallow our pride when slapped with ignorant backhanded compliments.

You also really feel the big brother effect here (as a foreigner working and living in Japan as a civil servant) so even when you’re not at school the pressure is on and all eyes are on you. I find myself missing the days where I didn’t even care to think what people in public would think about my outfit/hair and if the government was going to hear a complaint about it. (The other day I went to the grocery store in full drag and was met with stares and strange looks). And I know it’s not just me that feels this. A Japanese woman moving away from the typical gaman culture said it best when she told BBC, “In Japanese culture, the expectation for gaman puts pressure on everyone to do the same and leaves little room for difference.”

That’s what made me decide I would rather be with my honey in the depths of yeehaw. Because even though it’s yeehaw and not Japan, at least I can be 100% myself there. (bonus: I can be with Diego. I miss Diego.) I just want to be freeeeee again. Living here has DEFINITELY made me appreciate the freedom we have to be ourselves, especially in California. I guess I could have summed up this entire post simply by saying “my feelings about Japan are complicated.” There’s so much I do love about Japan, the people, the language and intricate culture. But I also have many negative emotions about being here and as another JET wrote, “after teaching Japanese students I worry that many Japanese (at least in conservative areas) are too weighed down by the pressures of maintaining social harmony to have a real chance at finding happiness.”

This is my first time writing about Japan lol and wow it sounds like I’m not doing splendidly. But I really am! Diego and I have both remarked at how impressed we are at how I’m doing here. I plan on having the best time of my life here! Squeezing alllllll of the experiences out of Japan until I move to nEBRasKA. I still love Japan because of its many natures and culture, I just realized that living here is not for me.

More about ‘Gaman’ taken from BBC

‘Gaman’ can refer to the resilience in the face of crises, like the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami — but it can also refer to smaller, everyday concerns.

Simply put, it’s the idea that individuals should show patience and perseverance when facing unexpected or difficult situations, and by doing so maintain harmonious social ties. The concept implies a degree of self-restraint: you put the brakes on your feelings to avoid confrontation. It’s an expected duty and seen as a sign of maturity.

Training begins early; children learn by parental example. Patience and perseverance are also part of education, starting in primary school. “Especially for women, we are educated to gaman as much as possible,” says Odagiri, a professor of clinical psychology at Tokyo International University.

Gaman can manifest over the long-term, like staying in an unpleasant job or tolerating an annoying colleague, or short-term, like ignoring a noisy passenger or an elderly queue-jumper.

Some see gaman-style perseverance as Japan’s defining feature. “It’s the representative characteristic of Japanese people, but it has good and bad points,” says Nobuo Komiya, a criminologist at Rissho University in Tokyo.

Komiya believes the mutual surveillance, self-monitoring and public expectations associated with gaman are a contributory factor in Japan’s low crime rate. Where people watch out for each other and avoid conflict, everyone is more careful about their actions.