GaijinAss

Rest In Peace indeed

In Japan, Eric lived in three different apartments. He moved three times. Through misfortune, incompetence, and disaster he wasn’t able to move his belongings. Each time he had to depend on his friends and family to do it for him. I wrote about the first move here, when we salvaged what we could and abandoned the rest. This is Round Two: Moving Eric For The Second Time. Ever since the “incident”,…

Eric’s Three Moves

In Japan Eric lived in three different apartments, moving three times. However, through misfortune, incompetence, and disaster he wasn’t able to move his belongings himself, instead each time depending on his friends and family to do it for him. The First Move Eric loved his first apartment. It was in a central location, a few minutes from the station and an easy walk home from the major…

Guest post by @SteberMichael If I had to mention one thing Gaijinass taught me, it would be that you can be savage and educated at the same time. For so long, I had been pretty sure that you had to choose sides: either being erudite, reading books and philosophy and being theoretically interested in fundamental realities of life or living wildly and dangerously in the midst of chaos and…

Eric and I first met at an English Teacher Temp company that has since died an honourable death. Its bankruptcy was slow and inevitable, as is the case with most companies in the Tokyo English Teaching Industrial Complex. Even though we worked for the same company we would be stationed throughout the Tokyo Metropolitan Area at different schools, often hours apart, so I would never really see him…

Death of The Captain

  The Captain has fallen. On May 18, 2017, Eric or Gaijinass passed away. The CEO, Founder, and man behind Gaijinass.com has died. He has been on this site pushing out his amazing writing for years. Just when things get traction, just when things start to move for Gaijinass, he was taken from us, his family and his unborn child. If you knew Gaijinass personally and reading this post is how you’re…

3 Must Read Books to Understand Japan

You don’t get Japan. Just, take a breath. Okay, now let me repeat that: YOU. DON’T. GET. JAPAN. You don’t get it and I don’t get it.  They don’t get it either. You don’t get the country and your don’t get the people. You don’t really understand jack-shit about anything despite the essays you’ve written in the comments someplace about tatemae and honne. Reading 3,000 kanji hasn’t helped, and…

The Emperor of Japan, Akihito (83) is an old guy,  who wants to abdicate his throne, but supreme leader Shinzo Abe won’t let him. There, a perfect microcosm for so many lives in Japan: I want to quit/leave/change, but it/they/he/she won’t let me. In short, slavery is alive and well in modern-day Japan. Why can’t Akihito Abdicate? Abdication just means giving up a position of power.  For a King or…

How to Learn Japanese

I speak Japanese. I don’t speak it perfectly and I make grammatical mistakes but I honestly don’t care; I get it done.  9 out of 10 times I can say what I want to say, understand what they are saying to me and I can laugh at Japanese comedy on the rare occasions it’s funny. I never went to a language school and I never took a course.  Despite that I’ve negotiated contractual terms in Japanese and…

United vs Japan Airlines

I’m not a big flyer. At 6’2″ and 250-260 pounds, depending on how much Lasagna I’ve eaten and how recently I’ve Deadlifted, I’m built sort of like a Viking slave trader. This means various things, including that I don’t really feel comfortable flying. However, unless I’m ready to commit to a life on the high seas, never seeing my family again, or impossibly commit to living in the land of Walmart…

Japan’s Prostitute Hierarchy

Sex in Japan is big business and for many women, it’s the only way they have found to get truly ahead in the rat race.  Although the types of services available in a city like Tokyo are endless, this is a hierarchy, going from the least desirable positions to the elite fringes of the sex trade. 7. Street Walker What do they do and where? Found the world over, the street-walker is not unheard of…

Falling: Post-Bubble: 1995 – 2003

Guest Post: T.S. Muffin Man 1995 was a watershed year in Japan. Before this, bureaucratic, political and business leaders continued to believe that the methods that had worked so well for decades would pull the country through a downturn which, though severe, would be temporary. Up to this point there was a notable lack of any sense of crisis. In the wake of the sarin gas attacks though, national…

Brutal Realities of Prison in Japan

We have discussed at length some of the brutal realities of being arrested in Japan, and going through the initial legal process.  This is a look at what happens once someone is convicted and transported to prison. Specifically, we are looking at Fuchu Prison located in a suburb of Tokyo. Fuchu prison, is the location where the majority of foreign offenders find themselves doing time in Japan.…

Japanese Company Culture Realities

Guest Post by Swish I walk into the office, but this time something is different. I take a seat, login, and greet the colleagues. Most around me return the gesture, but one does not. No worries, I think, she looks focused on something, it’s probably important. Benefit of the doubt. The atmosphere though is palpable. I go about my duties, plan out my day, and catch up on emails. But there’s…

Aum Shinrikyô and the Tōkyō Sarin gas attacks

Guest Post by T.S. Muffin man. One cold but sunny February morning in 1990 I walked from my English school down the steep hill to Ebisu Station and happened upon a bizarre sight. White robed religious cultists wearing huge papier-mâché heads resembling their guru stood bowing to passing commuters. Others wore large blue Shiva elephant masks and handed out comic books explaining their guru’s…

The Fall of Japan

Guest Post: T.S. Muffin Man The 1980s and 90s were decades of extreme contrast. The asset price bubble, and its attendant greed, excess and hubris, lasted from 1987 until spring 1991. The following years represent a long period of relative economic decline, inept handling by government, a steady evaporation of confidence by business and voter alike, and increasing cases of bankruptcy and…