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	I’m back from 2-week travel in Europe. I was travelling from Amsterdam, Brussels, Venice and finally to Florence where my friend currently lives for study. It was the first time for me to visit all these places. People would think it weird to hear that I travelled alone, although I have my husband. If I try to travel with him, that’ll be only 4 or 5 days of holiday because it’s very difficult for Japanese employees to take long holidays, unless we try to do that during “Golden Week” in May or New Year holiday from end Dec. to early Jan. where air tariff will be extremely expensive. I’ll explain that later. So which city I liked most? As for the atmosphere and scenery of the city, Amsterdam was the best of all! But when it comes to foods, I’d say Brussels. If I can live in any of the city, I’d love Florence because things were a lot cheaper and the climate was milder and warmer than Netherlands or Belgium. How about Venice? Venice was one of the cities I wanted to visit for a long time, but as it turned out, I was so much bored of the place. The city was romantic, which was good. But everything was very expensive. Sometimes the foods tasted poor but costed much. Land is too narrow without green or nature but with too many tourists like me. Every store looked the same, selling the same things everywhere. Canals stank, which was unlike Amsterdam. So…the ideal was living in Amsterdam with climate of Florence, eating Belgium and Italian foods. :p No way…nothing’s that perfect. It’s not just happy things always. I was so sad to think of the big difference between Japan. How much people in Europe enjoy their life while we are regarded as a matter of course to sacrifice our life for corporate life in Japan. It’s exactly like a slave, and my husband is for sure one of them! Travelling is my life. But I cannot put up with maximum of 5-day holiday or so, nor spending twice as much money as off-peak season. That was a good reason I chose to be an unstable self-employeed worker from home. I feel sorry for my husband, but he is not that much into travelling like me.

You will never imagine how Japanese working environment is hard and supressed. Too much superiority is allowed for boss to have against junior partners. Customers are always too superior to employees. Too much workload is bared by one employee and overtime work on weekdays and extra work on weekends are as a matter of course to cover his or her job.

Worksharing? No! Companies have to spend extra commuting fee and support insurance for every employee. If they can save numbers of employees, they can also save such basic personnel expenses. Japanese government has been so sweet to business owners and too strict to employees. That has created stressful working environment, and especially Tokyo, things are very severe. There are always 2 options: stable and OK compensation but very hard working, or unstable easy work and can be easily replaced. Which would you like? We miss option in-between.

Do you know why we don’t have long holidays as European or American people? Taking a long holiday makes colleagues work even harder, which results in only 4 or 5 days holiday will be average, 1 week holiday is the lucky thing. If one says she wants 2-week holiday, she would have to feel very nervous against her boss, who of course may not say OK for her taking such a long holiday, and she has to feel so sorry against her colleagues who would think “I have to work extra 2 hours everyday overtime, because of her!”. By the time she leaves, she would try not to leave her work too much to her colleagues, and so she will stay longer hours to try to finish her work as much as possible. On the previous day of her holidays, she would say “I’m sorry to bother you and make you busy with my extra work.” to her colleagues. Even while she is off for holidays, she is busy thinking of souvenir for obligation which will make up for the inconvenience she made her boss and colleagues bare while she was off. When she finally returns to the office, she says “Thank you for helping my work” to each colleague of her department and then gives souvenir one by one. In this way she feels “not guilty” any more. But she would also think, “Going thru all these things, do I still want to take a 2-week holiday? No, I’d rather not!”

That’s why Japanese people always join quick, convenient, efficient, and easy group tour of only 1 or 2 days at each city. Some people would point out that there are many national holidays in Japan. Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything special. That’s the only time we can have holiday without worrying about boss or colleagues of the company and that’s why everyone tries to have holidays at the same time. This only allows travel agants to make more money. I personally don’t like this at all, but many people would feel safer when they act the same way as others. I’d work when others rest, and go on holidays when others work, to save money, but that’s because I work for myself, not for a company I belong to.

While we are working, conversations must be something related with the work. Personal chatting among colleagues is basically considered inappropriate. For shops, sales persons should not take a seat. They’ll always stand and ready to bow when customers enter the store. Sales person sitting on a chair gives customers goofing impressions? I don’t know, but I have never seen any cashier sitting at a check out counter at supermarket in Japan.

In this summer, I’ve traveled Sydney (Australia), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Brussels (Belgium), Venice and Florence (Italy) but I have seen shop workers always chatting with colleagues even if there are customers in the store. I’ve seen many people from all these cities working much more relaxed than Japanese people.

I really wonder why we have put ourselves into such a stressful and severe environment for years, and that’s even getting worse. Such things may not be popular when you are foreign worker who belong to foreign company. I know this because I am Japanese and I have experiences of working for Japanese companies in the past. I had to quit every company I worked for because I felt myself cramp there. Only a way to get out of there was to have a business of my own. I chose the way not to belong to any company but to work for myself.

Traveling to other countries, I saw how people are, and I became so sad to look back how we are in Japan. It’s not too much to say that we work like a slave. A country with no natural resources, no big land, not much agricultural productshas had to rely on human resources to become No.2 economically successful country in the world. But behind that, how many employees have sacrificed thier human life for their company? Now what? Our population is decreasing rapidly, while there are too many people over 60 years old.

Well, sorry it’s getting too long, but I’m sure I can tell you the true story from Japan. Many of my blog readers have very good impressions on Japan, but there are some bad news, too, as always. :p