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Originally Posted by speakingtohe
If you are both happy then whatever way you became happy can't be all bad.
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That really IS the long and short of it!
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I am pretty confused by the quoted post though. Do you think it is a better thing for a man to put his job before family?
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It's not a 'better or worse' situation. It's a cultural norm in a Confucian culture. For me personally, having been brought up in the US under Judeo-Christian values, to put job before family is contrary to what we were taught. But if I had been brought up in a country that based its morality and social structure on Confucian values, it would be what I'd expect to see being done by anyone with high moral values. To a Confucian society, putting family ahead of 'the leader' (be that an employer, a government head, or religious leader,) would be seen as immoral. We can only use terms such as 'better' or 'worse,' 'right' or 'wrong'
within the context of our own culture. We can't evaluate other cultures based on our expected norms. That's what the Catholic Church did hundreds of years ago, and wiped countless indigenous cultures right off the face of the earth!
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Might be a necessity in Japanese culture as with few people changing jobs it is possibly hard to find a new/better/different one.
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No, there are always jobs available, and every Spring new hires are recruited by the companies, with massive hires by the larger companies. As of this February, the unemployment rate was 3.6 in Japan. A company such as Matsushita Denki or Sumitomo might hire as many as 300-400 new people at one time every Spring. Japanese people don't change jobs for a very special reason...
As most people show extreme loyalty to their company, 'usually' the only ones who leave are either people who don't fit in with the group, or someone who has been fired for some sort of anti-social behavior such as stealing or fighting. As such, a Japanese person who has held more than 2-3 jobs is looked at as undesirable by other companies. (Obviously this is not the case with occupations that require frequent job changes such as Chefs or contract workers.) People who do a bad job, or just can't get along, are given
'window seats.' They get a desk and no work. They come in, sit at their desk, and do absolutely nothing all day. They are never fired. But everyone knows that they have been given a window seat. Quite often these people will commit suicide rather than leave the company. Confucian values are very different from Western ones...
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And Japanese employers have traditionally looked after their employees as if they were family, but I have heard that is changing.
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The concept of 'cradle to grave' care by companies is virtually extinct now. However, medical benefits, educational benefits, housing, transportation subsidy, etc, etc., etc., for the whole family still is offered by the larger companies.
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And I have worked with 100's in my 11.7 jobs and I like them and they like me AFAIK. But I don't pretend to understand them in many ways.
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I lived there most of my adult life, married into the culture, and I really can just barely scratch the surface of understanding the culture. And this despite having studied it in university post-graduate level courses.
Just being around some Japanese people, especially when they are outside of their country and trying to co-exist within a different culture doesn't really give much opportunity for in-depth understanding. It's a very different culture...
Stitchawl