Why to Japanese Execs. bow and cry when something goes wrong?

Richard Dower

watching a YT vid of a Japanese exec. in floods of tears begging for forgiveness after some scandal involving his company.....OTT much?

What it all about?

Dr_Brian_Cocks

RACIST

endacl

It's a cultural thing. Same as Irish people going to the pub to celebrate any damn thing.

Professey Chin

Unlike execs and leaders here, when they fcuk up they feel shame

NuckingFacker

Chinpool wrote: »

Unlike execs and leaders here, when they fcuk up they feel shame

Can we get a "thank twice" button for stuff like this? Over here, it's a brass necked shrug and a bonus.

Tombi!

They take personal responsibility and their honour very seriously.
A lot of Japanese executives will often resign over things like that.

Nodin

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

They take personal responsibility and their honour very seriously.
A lot of Japanese executives will often resign over things like that.

Truly alien stuff.

IM0

Richard Dower wrote: »

watching a YT vid of a Japanese exec. in floods of tears begging for forgiveness after some scandal involving his company.....OTT much?

What it all about?

he will probably be murdered over it by his birth family

keith16

Chinpool wrote: »

Unlike execs and leaders here, when they fcuk up they feel shame

And it's not just execs. People in all walks of Japanese life react like this when things go wrong. A train driver caused this accident when under extreme pressure for over-shooting the platform on the previous stop.

He was speeding in an effort to make up for lost time - which was only a matter of a minute or two. Incredible stuff really, trains run to the second over there.

KingOfFairview

From what I can gather, its an extremely odd society, and that's putting it mildly.

TheUsual

Maggie Thatcher was bawling crying when they booted her out of 10 Downing Street.

Maybe she has some Japanese Samurai in her blood ?

Nodin

TheUsual wrote: »

Maggie Thatcher was bawling crying when they booted her out of 10 Downing Street.

Maybe she has some Japanese Samurai in her blood ?

...that wasn't shame.

IM0

keith16 wrote: »

And it's not just execs. People in all walks of Japanese life react like this when things go wrong. A train driver caused this accident when under extreme pressure for over-shooting the platform on the previous stop.

He was speeding in an effort to make up for lost time - which was only a matter of a minute or two. Incredible stuff really, trains run to the second over there.

in fairness he did kill 54 people by going too fast!

IM0

KingOfFairview wrote: »

From what I can gather, its an extremely odd society, and that's putting it mildly.

whys that?

Guy:Incognito

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

They take personal responsibility and their honour very seriously.
A lot of Japanese executives will often resign over things like that.

Except when theyre raping and pillaging their way across china eh?

So much of this bull**** of every other countries politicians/businessmen etc being great and ours being useless thieves.

keith16

IM0 wrote: »

in fairness he did kill 54 people by going too fast!

Ah, but it was the shame of being 12 seconds late that caused him to speed. So yes, the guilt of killing all those people must live with him every waking second

mikemac1

A fair chance that executive is going to kill himself.

Big issue in Japan

Nodin

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Except when theyre raping and pillaging their way across china eh?

So much of this bull**** of every other countries politicians/businessmen etc being great and ours being useless thieves.

O I'd say a lot of the rest of the worlds are useless thieves too. There is, however, a far greater likelihood of them suffering for it elsewhere than there is here.

thebman

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Except when theyre raping and pillaging their way across china eh?

So much of this bull**** of every other countries politicians/businessmen etc being great and ours being useless thieves.

Yeah because the Japanese are constantly in the news for raping and pillaging China. Was on the news, just the other day :rolleyes:

You might be talking about a completely different time in the world, not just Japan...

Guy:Incognito

thebman wrote: »

Yeah because the Japanese are constantly in the news for raping and pillaging China. Was on the news, just the other day :rolleyes:

You might be talking about a completely different time in the world, not just Japan...

So this honour thing is a recent developement eh?

No Crime In japan either id say......

suicide_circus

Richard Dower wrote: »

watching a YT vid of a Japanese exec. in floods of tears begging for forgiveness after some scandal involving his company.....OTT much?

What it all about?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljvhprGkcI1qinxxyo1_500.png

Paramite Pie

Japan is a honour/shame based country. If you do something bad, you bring shame on your entire family, parents, wife, kids ect...

Stress and suicide rates are extremely high in Japan because of this. It's hard to understand but their society is build on respect. Respect is everything, and if your not respected your nothing. Or at least that's how many Japanese people feel, they're very hard on themselves.

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

So this honour thing is a recent developement eh?

No Crime In japan either id say......

I don't see how crime or WWII have to do with modern day Japan. The honourific system is not driven by war but certainly impacted on Japanese rules of war. (loosing samurai's would often commit suicide ect..).

People were just making an observation about how our execs make excuses or blame other people. It's rarer in our culture for someone to take the fall voluntarily.

XsApollo

As someone said before there culture is built around respect and honour even in this modern world.
You only have to look at the recent world disasters ,
Hurricane katrina in the United States
And the tsunami in Japan to see how the cultures are so different.
After hurricane katrina there were people being raped ,robbed, armed gangs going around taking stuff from others and beatin the **** out of each other.
In Japan they were all queuing respectfully bein helpfull to each other and so on.

Kylo Ren

It's a culture thing.

Watch this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqFxK3GMEkA

Radiosonde

It seems to go right to the lowest most basic levels over there. Tokyo's streets are supposed to be clean enough to eat off of, while there's a distinct type of person all over the West who'd think nothing of littering. After the tsunami, even the Yakuza pitched in with relief efforts...if we had a similar disaster over here, imagine the criminal elements would be see it as an opportunity not a tragedy.

pragmatic1

Nodin wrote: »

...that wasn't shame.

It should have been though.

onlyrocknroll

I was talking an accountant recently who used to audit large corporations. She said.that if there were even small problems with a Japanese company's figures it would be a huge diplomatic issue that would have to handled very sensitively.

TheUsual wrote: »

Maggie Thatcher was bawling crying when they booted her out of 10 Downing Street.

Maybe she has some Japanese Samurai in her blood ?

No that was just self pity.

Riesen_Meal

Possibly NSFW -

Here is a mini documentary about a forest where lot's of japanese people go to kill themselves for the shame they feel - be warned it's a wee bit graphic to the more squeamish but a very interesting one nonetheless :

partyatmygaff

Pride in what they do and personal responsibility. This is a country where missing a day of work would be almost considered treason.

KingOfFairview

IM0 wrote: »

whys that?

Foe example, while she was there (studying), two professors in her college killed themselves because an unacceptably (to them) high amount of their pupils had failed exams. There was no hint that they had done anything wrong; they just felt so ashamed that they killed themselves. This is two separate incidents, BTW.

An incredibly misogynistic culture as well by all accounts. That's not to say that anywhere is perfect, but pretty much everyone I know who has been there says Japan is uniquely bizarre.

Corkfeen

This is from a nation that brought us hara kiri. Honour is taken very seriously by the Japanese. They have one of the world's highest suicide rates which is no doubt influenced by the honour code. Fecking up a company to any degree would be viewed as shameful for the individual and for his family in the long term.

mf240

We should send out bertie to give them a talk on self forgiveness. And moving on.

Saadyst

Was there for a couple of weeks recently. People say this about everywhere they go - "the people were lovely". But in all the places I've traveled, the Japanese are the most sincerely nice, helpful and polite people I've had the fortune to meet. You haven't experienced excellent service until you'e been to Japan.

losthorizon

Keno 92 wrote: »

It's a culture thing.

Watch this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqFxK3GMEkA

Watch this

He got a €1million payout which he said he would pay pack. He never has. The guy should be in jail not off in Spain.

This gut prospered under FF and despite ruining the Irish Nationwide they gave him €1million

Unreal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19sYOKdEnsQ

af_thefragile

I find the Japanese culture quite hard to get my head around.
On one side they put great significance on high morals, honor and respect. On the other side they have tentacle porn and vending machines that sell used women's underwer...

CruelCoin

Radiosonde wrote: »

It seems to go right to the lowest most basic levels over there. Tokyo's streets are supposed to be clean enough to eat off of, while there's a distinct type of person all over the West who'd think nothing of littering. After the tsunami, even the Yakuza pitched in with relief efforts...if we had a similar disaster over here, imagine the criminal elements would be see it as an opportunity not a tragedy.

I can picture it now.....The RA/dundons helping fill in sandbags......

Not going to happen.

fryup

they're devoted to their work

and thats why they make such damn good cars

Radiosonde

af_thefragile wrote: »

On the other side they have tentacle porn and vending machines that sell used women's underwer...

Correction. Used schoolgirls' underwear. :pac: But really there's only supposed to be a handful of those in the whole country, in the back of some creepy sex shops, and I imagine the underwear hasn't really been used - one of those weird little tidbits that is probably a lot more famous than it deserves to be. Tentacle porn is only popular amongst a subset of Otaku types that mainstream society looks down on. It's a quite conservative country really.

jimgoose

Bushidō. In Japan, the businessman's bible is the Hagakure. In Ireland, it is the Racing Post.

wobzilla1

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m618qcTbO91rz856xo1_500.jpg

Lovetochill

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pMoGij7gKPI

Reminds me of this case. A pop star shaved her head in shame for having a boyfriend. This is very extreme.

It was difficult to fathom why a 20-year-old would go to the lengths of shaving her head in order to communicate the depth of her shame for having spent the night with a boyfriend. The offence was barely newsworthy. Although a traditional form of repentance in Japan, the self-inflicted punishment hardly seemed to fit the crime.

They dress those girls in sexy outfits and they sing songs about sex on television and the company has made so much money from their sex appeal yet they are not allowed to have sex.

osarusan

I've lived here for about 8 years in total.

Never seen any schoolgirl's underwear in vending machines though. Not quite sure why it's viewed as such an odd society though. Under the surface things are pretty normal.

the Yakuza weren't exactly helping the tsunami relief work from the goodness of their hearts though - they were siphoning off tens of millions of dollars allotted for rescue and reconstruction efforts, and sending subcontractors into the nuclear plant in horrifyingly susbstandard equipment.

The bowing and crying is done because it's expected of them. Thereare occasions when an executive is genuinely sorry for what an underling has done, but generally they're just sorry they got caught, same as most other places. Have a read of what happened to Michael Woodford when he exposed corruption at Olympus. Not much honour there.

Regarding the girl-band member shaving her head, it was because it's in the contract that she not have a boyfriend, to maintain the image of 'availability' that all the band members have. She shaved her head in apology so she wouldn't be thrown out of the band.

Franticfrank

Loads of countries have weird business ethics - the Japanese are very much devoted to their jobs. Some may view the hire/fire policy as a bit strange in the US. Many German companies are extremely conservative - two colleagues could still use the formal greeting of 'sie' instead of the informal 'du' for years on end, basically addressing each other as Ms/Mr so and so. In the Netherlands for example, the culture is far more relaxed and open, and German business people have been ridiculed in Dutch offices.