家に帰らない男たち - Guys Who Don't Go Home

Owing perhaps to what seems like a strong strain of introspectiveness, there are a lot of books in Japanese about what it means to be Japanese. They don't get translated and seldom get any attention outside Japan though. Since I'm interested in both Japanese society and the language this suits me well. Anyway, I thought I'd do my part and write something about one of these books.


It's called 家に帰らない男たち (Guys Who Don't Go Home, roughly) by 松井 計 (Kei Matsui). The book is about men who don't return home after work, many of them having a family that they only see on weekends.

The book has six chapters, each chapter focusing on one particular man and his situation. Following is an outline of the chapters:

1. A Guy Who Don't Go Home? A Guy Who Can't Go Home?
   44 y.o. advertising agency worker
   Started not going home just after getting married and changed jobs, because he had to work late and the commute too long. Got divorced but still maintains the mostly unused house in the suburbs, two-and-a-half hours from his workplace. Sleeps in capsule hotels and likes to go out drinking on weekdays after work. Sees his kids on the weekends but always brings them to his parents home instead of the house they grew up in. The reason why he retains the house is something of a mystery.
   
   
2. A Dreamless Person Chasing Dreams
   22 y.o. guy who does day jobs for dispatch companies
   Came to Tokyo to get "big", but can't really define what that means. Won't return home until he's "made it" in Tokyo. Says it's important to be independent and take care of himself but still lets his parents pay the mobile phone bill. Sleeps at net/manga cafes. Seems generally quite stupid to me but the author stresses that he is at least polite.
   
   
3. Going Home Is Scary
   43 y.o. salaryman
   Came from the countryside and made it as a sales guy in Tokyo. Has a home in the suburbs and a family. Gets on the train home every day, but when nearing his station, feels scared and gets on to the backwards-bound train into the city again. Says he doesn't want to ruin the perfect balance of his home, which he thinks is what would happen if he was there on weekdays, but enjoys spending perfect weekends with his wife and kids. Sleeps at capsule hotels or saunas or, to save money, at the office.
   
   
4. Weekend Marriage
   38 y.o. high-earning IT industry salaryman
   Spends only the weekends in the house with wife and daughter. Used to rent an apartment between the office and the house, but left it after realizing it was more fun to spend the night at saunas where he could chat with others. The weekend marriage is by mutual consent with the wife, whom the author also met and interviewed. Both enjoy this lifestyle, but are prepared to change it once the kid grows up and maybe starts thinking it's odd.
   
   
5. Has Everything, No Problems
   50 y.o. salaryman-turned-self-employed
   Formerly a salaryman who was stationed all around the country by his company, and even in the Middle East for a few years, but grew tired of that and started his own company with a friend. Lives quite close to the office, but still started to think it's unnecessary to go home in the evening. Enjoys the communal aspect of staying at saunas. Kid has moved out. Returns home occasionally. Wife doesn't seem bothered.
   
   
6. A Double Life
   46 y.o. designer
   Grew up in the sticks where everyone was expected to become a factory worker/engineer, but went to Tokyo to go into design instead. Has wife and kids, but shares an apartment with his 21 y.o. hostess girlfriend during the weeks. Wife thinks he is working hard, or at least that's what he thinks. Loves his family and realizes this can't go on forever. The girlfriend is also interviewed and she seems to enjoy the situation. The girlfriend is otherwise the female equivalent of the guy from chapter 2.
   

Matsui frequently makes a point of having interviewed many people as material for this book. I think the men that this book centers around are all quite stereotypical and easily imaginable - but all with some disturbed psychological twist in their heads. I'm not sure if that's because he incorporates material from other interviewees into these men, thus making them somewhat generic, or because he hasn't actually interviewed many people at all, but just invented most of it. In any case, it's an interesting read, not an academic paper.

From my own experience, I have heard Japanese coworkers say things like "the office/train is where I can relax", claiming their houses (with wive, kids, and parents) are stressful. It's not uncommon for Japanese office workers to spend all night at the office - it seems to give them credibility and respect among their peers too (despite being completely unproductive the following day). This book sheds some light on why. Saunas' communal aspect, with people napping in reclining chairs in a common area, is one thing.

The language is quite simple: Not much specialized vocabulary outside of society-related concepts such as 脱サラ (quit working as a salaryman) and プータロー (loser). Grammar is about between JLPT level 2 and level 1. The author uses quite a lot of non-general use kanji, though, as well as kanji for words usually written in hiragana, and there is almost no furigana. Not because the vocabulary requires it, but because he just likes to, I suppose. That's good for learning a little extra that probably won't show up on a JLPT exam.

Anyway, this is the first of Matsui's books that I read but it is unlikely to be the last. If you don't know who he is, he's famous for having been homeless, but he then wrote a book about being homeless and now he's a successful author, writing mostly about typical Japanese social phenomena.

How to get a Japanese driver's license

... if you're from, and have a driver's license from, a country that is on the list of countries that are allowed to just "switch" to a Japanese license. That means if you're from the US or China, for example, which are not on this list, then you should read elsewhere. I've found there's already lots of US-centric information about getting a Japanese driver's license on the web. You'll have to take driving tests etc. Sorry.

Anyway, for those of us who are from a civilized part of the world, it's actually a very simple task! You will need to prepare five things: Your valid driver's license from your home country, a certified translation of your driver's license, a photo, money, and a passport that shows (through the universally accepted cryptographically secure method of embarkation/disembarkation stamps) that you've lived in your home country for at least three months since acquiring your driver's license. Let's go through these in detail.


1. Valid driver's license
From your home country. I don't know what happens if your driver's license is from a country other than that of which you are a citizen. It'll probably be trouble.

2. Certified translation of your driver's license
You can get this at your country's embassy in Japan. For Swedes, this translation service is available on Monday mornings, and costs 2,400 yen. They translate your driver's license and give you a paper certifying the authenticity of the translation.

3. Driver's license-sized photo 30x24 mm. Photo booths in Japan have an option for this size called "driver's license", or something. Interestingly, this photo is used for your application only, i.e. not on the driver's license itself, so it doesn't matter if you look like a dork in it (you don't look like a dork anyway, do you?). They'll take the photo for the actual driver's license for you at the driver's license office.

4. Money
It costs 4,500 yen. No so bad... You trade the money in for the equivalent in stamps at a place in the license office that sells stamps, as is common in Japanese bureaucracy.

5. Passport
You need a passport that shows you've been living (or at least being) in your home country (which we're assuming is also the country that issued your driver's license) for at least three months since the date when you acquired your driver's license. If you haven't been living there for three months, you can't switch to a Japanese driver's license. This is presumably to ensure that people don't just run off to some other country where it's cheaper and easier to get a driver's license.

If you can show you've been living in your home country for at least one year since acquiring your driver's license, you'll be exempt from the one-year newbie period (which means mostly that you have to have silly stickers at the front and back of the car while you're driving).

The procedure
Go to one of the driver's license offices. There are three Driving License Testing and Issuing Centers in Tokyo, in Shinagawa-ku, Koto-ku, and Fuchu-shi. You can find the addresses, as well as some sparse information, on this page. For other prefectures, you'll have to google it yourself. I went to the one in Fuchu, which can be reached by bus 91 from Chofu (Keio line), or by bus from Tama-reien station (also Keio) or Koganei station (on the Chuo line). The bus stop is called, revealingly, Shikenjo Seimon (試験場正門). They have lunch breaks so get there early.

Find the counter for changing a foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's license. Look for the word 切り替え/切替 kirikae. It's probably close, or the same as, the counter for international driver's licenses. But you don't want one of those. In the Fuchu office, it counter number 31 on the 3rd floor. Once there, present all your prepared materials at the counter. They will then take some time to examine your papers and make sure you've lived in your home country for the required amount of time since acquiring your driver's license, etc.

Actually, from there they were very helpful and provided quite clear instructions on what to do (in Japanese). You'll have to go buy a stamp, as mentioned above, and take an eye-test, which takes about 30 seconds and you'll invariably pass it, take a photo for the actual driver's license, and then input two 4-digit pin codes into a machine (smeg knows what they're for). That whole procedure took about 5 minutes.

All of this took about one hour to complete. One of the few non-unpleasant encounters I've had with Japanese bureaucracy. Then you're done, but I had to wait one and a half hour for the actual driver's license card, which you can pick up at an adjacent office. So two and a half hours in total, from arriving at the office until having the license in my hand. Sweet.

Self-fertilization, or: web 3.0, or: Mixi, or: One of those engrish.com moments

Today I visited the brand new, hip and fancy offices of Mixi (in Harajuku, overlooking Yoyogi Park with a spectacular view of Shinjuku and Shibuya...). Now, my work, both as under-stimulated code monkey (by day) and as a web 3.0 consultant (by night), is of course highly classified shit. But I'd like to write a bit about Mixi, because I find the phenomenon interesting, and I really like Mixi (the site) and visit it daily.

If you haven't heard of Mixi that means you aren't Japanese or Japanophile. To put it generalized and bluntly: Mixi is the only social networking site in Japan. Japan is the second largest economy in the world (★pause for reflection★). The reason it's so popular is basically the same as why Microsoft products are: they were there first, and everyone else uses them, and the basic functionality is actually good.

Mixi, technically, is stone age. Although recently they've introduced video upload etc that we have become accustomed with on the modern web, the basic technology is just server-side perl scripts outputting broken html with a table-based design. In other words: it's web 1.0, although they have a pastel color, but it's the wrong hue, and pastel color alone doesn't make web 2.0 - you need rounded corners and rss too.

But as a consumer-oriented product, Mixi is really state of the art. It's actually statier than the statiest art. I started using the predecessors to nowadays' social networking sites in junior high school, back in Sweden. That was like 10 years ago now I guess. (Heh, when I think back, that was about the time I got my first mobile phone. Was that only ten years ago?!) . Even though they used about the same technology then as Mixi does now, the culture and usage patterns are completely different. They were about kids doing their best to make their pages look as hideous as possible (like today's Myspace) and presenting themselves as generally emo and cool. And guys (both young and very old) trying to pick up young girls, of course. But Mixi is not like that.

Oh well, there's that too. But Mixi is much more woven into the fabric of Japanese society. It's like an ad-sponsored public service page (fortunately, and strangely, the mobile version doesn't have ads). And fortunately, you can't design your own page, and there are no widgets etc, so it's actually possible to browse around people's profiles and community pages. Really nice, although I bet it's more because the Mixi people haven't figured out how to implement it technically than a conscious decision.

I joined Mixi when I realized my Japanese language skillz had gotten good enough for me to actually understand pretty much all of the communication taking place there. And the reason I keep using it is still mostly to practice reading Japanese; every day on the train I read some new, interesting tidbits from the parts of Japanese society that concern me. Like what's happening in my town, what's happening along the train lines I use, what events are going on at my favorite bars and clubs, or if there's a Swedish-speaking off-kai soon (off-kai: オフ会, people who talk online meet up in real life), etc. I give it three thumbs up!

Anyway, now for the real anecdote here, and the reason I figured I'd write this blog post at all: In their reception they had this wall with all kinds of catchy words and phrases written on it in the style of a tag cloud. Very, very web 2.0 hip I must say... If anything proves that you're falling behind current developments in the world of the web, it's that you're trying to mimic a Google office, I'd say. (I'd like my office to look classical and sophisticated, and there's always music in the air.)


Now, you can notice that, just beside "web 3.0", they've included the word "self-fertilization". I don't suppose I'm the only one who kinda gets a bit suspicious because of that. And I find the graphical proximity to "web 3.0" especially intriguing. I don't suppose it's a statement of theirs? Nah, it's probably one of those engrish.com kinda moments, you know, when Japanese people confuse R and L, or use Google Translate to translate business emails. Anyways, it's funny.