Fuck You Harry Truman, Fuck You - Long

The BBQ Pit
21

People, People, People,

I really expected to be flamed over this, but please read the OP before responding.

Nowhere in the OP did I say that I hated the Japanese, Japan or their culture. I made specific references to my co-workers, and contrary to the OP you made assumptions that I felt this way about all Japanese. You are wrong.

I would like the opportunity to respond to several of you.

goboy
Komban-wa, goboyu-san, o-genki desuka.
And thank for being first to respond to my OP. I did learn some of the language. My point is that I would have taken formal lessons, if they would have been honest with me. I can get anywhere I want on the train, I can order in restaurants, I really have no problems outside of work communicating with the locals. Your second point. I do read the Japan Times every day. I understand the Japanese economy. Some companies are changing. My client still has a “job for life” program. And a window job? I have been looking for one of those or 15 years. It would be a dream. But I am still waiting for the Rush Limbaugh job to come through (thanks for the tip Jack Batty). Your third point. How the Shogun ruled the Shogunate, How he fucked the Shoguness, and where he took a Shogunshit, are irrelevant in regards to moving their company to 20th century western business practices. I never said I hated the culture. I enjoy everything you mentioned plus pachinko, Ueno Park, The Valley of the Thousand Buddhas, and the Choshi-Dentetsu Railway. I am probably a Philistine though. Read the OP.

JeffB
Jack Batty
Alphagene
Sua Sponte
Biggirl
It’s called farce. Here is another clue. Dr. Strangelove was not a documentary. Read the OP

Jack Batty
JeffB
Riffin’ on someone’s handle? I think I stopped that when I was 4. It must really bug you that you can’t flame in Crayon. Read the OP

c_goat
I don’t care if they speak Urdu or use sign language. The issue is that the ability to speak English comes and goes at their whim. Read the OP

mattk
Everyone.
Sorry I did not see the old thread.

Jack Batty
Wrong. Love my Job. Like this country. Hate this client. Read the OP.

Ignatzmouse
Zarathrustra
Sue Duhnym
THANK YOU for reading the entire OP

Gr8Kat
Awesome. As always.

Slithy Tove
My Apologies if I have carelessly painted all Lewis Carroll inspired handles with the bigot brush. I’m your bitch for your next hundred posts.

Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor
Do not take the brown acid, Man. Read the OP.

Sue Duhnym
Damn perceptive. You did not nail even one point, but you were off only slightly on most of them.

22

I did read the OP, and you seem to be mixing up some legitimate complaints about your employer with anti-Japanese bigtry. For example, you mention your dislike of sushi and sumo wrestling. You’d actually get some sympathy if you actually kept away from stupid and bigotted generalizations, rather than just declaring that they don’t exist.

Your employer sent you to a far away and very foreign country for four months, it’s been 18 months and your still there. That sucks. Even if you really and thoroughly enjoyed Japanese culture, which not everyone can be expected to, that’s a shitty way for a company to treat its employees.

There are bound to be aspects of Japanese society that will get on your nerves. Yeah, it sucks for you, but that’s life, and you really can’t do much to change it. People where you work also get on your nerves. Some of this is just cultural differences, and some seems to be them being assholes. You’d get a better response for your legitimate complaints if you separated the two.

For example, you have a point when you complain about how people you work with aren’t being useful when they bring up Japanese history when confronted with present day problems. But when you phrase that complaint to include “I don’t care how old your piece of shit culture is”, you aren’t going to rally people to your cause. Also, the crap about tea ceremonies is simply irrelevant.

Trim it down, remove the bigotry, etc. and you can have a reasonable rant. As it is, people aren’t going to believe it when you say that you aren’t a bigot. Well, OK, I do, but I’m just giving you the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming that you’re just frustrated.

23

Frumious Whatever - picking on your handle may have been juvenile, but it was “just a rant” so take your own advice, which incidentally doesn’t really apply to your OP.

Racist attacks do not equal farce.

If you had complained about the same stuff in a humorous fashion, I wouldn’t even be in this thread. You can rationalize your statements any way you like, but you’ve already dug your own hole. You can’t denigrate a whole society, wishing they were dead, putting on airs of superiority, and then say, “hey I’m just blowing off steam”.

And I did not percieve your attacks to be against your specific company. You’re OP is filled with “you people” sentiments. If you want to be a dick-head, that’s your choice, but don’t tell me that I ought to find it funny.

I rest on my statements. If you don’t like Japan, stop bitchin’ and move home.

24

Save that clue for your yourself. It would appear that you are the one in need of a comedic writing lesson.

Let’s look at your very first sentence:

In your later posts, you imply that this sentence does not refer to the entire Japanese population. But if you intended “these cave dwelling assholes” to mean only your coworkers, you did a shitty job of indicating the subject of your rage. You haven’t even mentioned your coworkers yet. Seeing as how that sentence is your very first, the antecedent to “cave dwelling assholes” appears to be “Japan”.

So you’ll excuse me if I don’t take comedy lessons from a guy who doesn’t even realize that any rant, not matter how amusing, will get a exceedingly poor reception from an educated audience if the opening line makes light of a profoundly disturbing and relatively recent historical event. Comedy 101.

25

Well, this certainly wasn’t what I expected to find. Here I was just wondering what the wacky misadventures of Harry S Truman had led to now…
…hmm, this has the makings of a good comic. Truman, that is–not the absurd bigotry.

In next month’s issue: Harry Truman deploys tactical nukes to Uranus!

26

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Furmious Bandersnatch, I read your post and thought to myself “hey, this person is a little over the top with the entire nation of Japan, but I see some things I can appreciate.” I also do some work overseas, and there are times when I was just so vile and rotten by the end of the day that I think some pretty mean things that were not very rational. It can feel like having a really bad at work, and then not being allowed to go home after.

So when I read Sue Duhnym’s post, I was happy that I wasn’t the only one who thought that most of your post was for the most part humorous and inspired my sypmathy. But then, I read your second post. Here’s a tip – if you are upset that some people took your comments to be racist and unfair, do not accuse people of not reading the OP. Clearly, they did read the OP, and they are responding to it. You can tell because they specifically mentioned points that you raised in the OP. If they didn’t understand it in the spirit in which it was intended, and you would like them to better understand you, implying that they do not understand farce is not helping your case.

Starting your rant with the bomb reference didn’t sit well with me, but it didn’t sour me on other parts of your OP. Reading your second post did.

27

Gotta go with Sue Duhnym here - this is a rant from a guy with a bad, bad case of the expatriate blues. I’m firmly convinced that even Alfred Schweitzer suffered from those from time to time - and they are no fun at all. Cut the man some slack, willya ?

That being said: Frumious Bandersnatch, as delphica pointed out, if people don’t “get” your posts, you have to consider the possibility that you’re the one not communicating clearly, OK ?

S. Norman

28

Frumious Bandersnatch, allow me to put it into perspective for you:

Imagine I started a thread titled “Fuck you Hitler, Fuck you!” and in the very first paragraph I said that I worked in Israel but I’m an American and I am sick of the country. I wished that Hitler had finished the job and killed all the Jews before they could establish Israel 3 years after the war. Ask yourself if this would seem at all racist to you. Just a bit? An inkling? Well, that’s what you said.

Telling people in paragraph 3 that the rant is specifically about your coworkers doesn’t change the fact that paragraph 1 had nothing to do with your coworkers. But since you claim it didn’t, and since you claim that no one’s read your OP, allow me to critique it for you.

This refers to all of Japan and not just your coworkers.

This refers to all of Japan and not just your coworkers.

This refers to all of Japan and not just your coworkers!

This refers to all of Japan and not just your coworkers!!

It’s not that I didn’t understand your rant. At points, I did laugh, and, at points, I did sympathize. And if you indeed want to make fun of all of Japan, hey, go right ahead. But to make the statements above, and then claim that no one read your OP when they argue with you is the most assinine thing I’ve heard all day. Did you actually read your own OP?

29

when I first started reading the OP I was sure this was going to be another racist/trollish post from an idiot. I kept reading though and started laughing at his comments. Truly, when you read this you can hear his angst and stress level. I feel bad for the guy and I think he should grow some balls and demand to be sent home. Understandably this is the BBQ Pit and he is going to have people picking apart his OP and declaring him a racist. I think he really was just blowing off steam and need to get the hell out of there. He is going to start mass murdering people that offer him fish eyeballs and shuffle their feet the wrong way if he doesn’t get away.
Frumious Bandersnatch jump ship as quickly as you can. And drop the deadly chopsticks, you really don’t want to hurt anyone, ok?

30

I didn’t take his comments seriously…I thought the OP was funny, and obviously he was just blowing off steam.

Why does everyone have to be so fucking PC?

31

I confess. Yeah, I overreacted. I admit I didn’t read OP completely - I went postal :wink: after reading the first sentence.
But, FTR, nuclear war isn’t a PC or un-PC issue.

Sua

32

The radiator in my old apartment used to blow off steam too. It wasn’t all that hilarious either.

It not exactly like the hilarity of Hiroshima was the only non-funny thing about the post. IMO, I also thought it was a bit long (What’s the saying about brevity and wit?) and it had occasional cliched elements of comedy hackery (“What kind of weirdo thought this up?”). I’ve seen enough comedy to notice the difference between a inspired rant and just some angry dude ramblin’ on.

Hey, it’s not like mediocre comedy is an arrestable offence. And it’s not like everything I post is a gem (pretty much, though). But it is conceivable that PC thuggery isn’t the only reason people didn’t find the post funny.

33

…is there some subjective comedy standard in place now? Somehow, it wouldn’t surprise me.

34

Do I have standards regarding what I consider funny? Yes.

Is there a comedy standard regarding what one is allowed to post on the SDMB? Don’t be daft.

35

So Frum, are you saying that you don’t hate Harry Truman for not killing all the Japanese and that you don’t consider their costumes stupid and a piece of shit? This is what I objected to in your OP.

Now that I think about it, I probably would have given you more leeway if I had thought the OP was funny. This is my personal opinion: you need to sharpen your humor skills.

36

[John Travolta]
But squid kidneys taste goooood…
[/John Travolta]

Screw you!:smiley: You think I want this weepy jackass blubbering in my beer? These are the guys we get rid of by telling them to meet us at the end of the Yamanote line.

Sorry to bring a GQ into the Pit, but is an expat only someone who was sent overseas by his company? Am I an expat if I went to Japan on my own and then found a job after I arrived?

–sublight.

37

No, he doesn’t. He sounds like someone who cannot deal with cultural differences yet will not remedy the situation by simply moving to Podunk, Iowa to get away from it. Where’s the intelligence in that? He expects Japanese people, in Japan, to speak English to him? Not too swift.

The Japanese culture is extremely different from American culture in many ways, and it’s frustrating until you get used to it. I felt like I was on Mars when I was working over there, and some days I wanted to express the very thoughts FB is expressing. But on hindsight, Japan is a highly moral and efficient society. It’s almost totally irreligious, but still very highly developed ethically. It’s economically much fairer than the U.S. You put down lifetime employment as an excuse for carrying dead wood, but do you prefer that to the fact that you can be fired at any time, for any reason, with no notice, as in the U.S.?

I could go on defending the Japanese, but hey, they don’t need any help from me. I would encourage FB to try hard to “fit in” to the fascinating culture he finds himself in. It’s an opportunity most people never have, to try on a different set of clothes so to speak. He’ll regret it someday if he doesn’t make the best of it.

38

Hey, I thought the OP was funny.

Once again, I’m in the minority.
[sub]Damn.[/sub]

39

I agree that the bomb comment was way out of line and over the top but as for the rest of it, I just see a guy who is having a hell of a culture shock. I feel bad for him.

Come on, guys–this is a Pit rant! If this were his application to become the next Ambassador of Japanese Relations, then I think we might have a bit of a problem. I think we can cut him a little slack here.

40

I’ve worked with several Japanese companies, some very large ones and some small ones. I experienced many of the frustrations with them that FB rants about in the OP. Most of the Japanese (all men) who worked with me were untrustworthy, unreliable, incompetent, and would use language as an obstacle whenever convenient despite, as FB found, that they could speak English very well when they wanted to convey an idea. I have spent hours with Japanese reps preparing for a meeting, agreeing on a course of action, and then having them reverse their position in front of the client. I’ve seen prejudice on the part of Japanese companies against their own employees when they didn’t “fit the mold”, as when one of their (IMO) more-talented people was denied advancement simply by dint of the fact that he had married a Korean woman.

And yet I love the culture, the history, the food, Sumo, samurais, karate, the whole nine yards. You’ve got to be able to see the difference between the job and the individuals, in Japan or anywhere.