{"id":37988,"date":"2015-06-22T18:59:54","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T22:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=37988"},"modified":"2015-06-22T21:34:54","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T01:34:54","slug":"wit-life-288-%e3%81%8a%e3%82%8f%e3%83%8f%e3%83%a9-and-other-japanese-harassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2015\/06\/22\/wit-life-288-%e3%81%8a%e3%82%8f%e3%83%8f%e3%83%a9-and-other-japanese-harassment\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #288: \u304a\u308f\u30cf\u30e9 and other Japanese harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life <\/strong><\/em><\/a>is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/a> (Kumamo<\/a>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with h<\/strong><\/em>er own observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I had the chance to go back to Japan on business this month and will be going again next month to interpret for the same project, so I’m excited to be able to visit on such a regular basis.\u00a0 Being back in a Japanese workplace reminds me of the different styles our two cultures have when it comes to this environment, whether it is the uniforms worn by OLs or the wide open floor plan consisting of endless islands where people sit.\u00a0 Another striking aspect is the specific categorization of various types of potential harassment in the workplace.\u00a0 I’m sure most people have heard of \u30bb\u30af\u30cf\u30e9 (sekuhara<\/em> which is short for “sexual harassment”) and maybe \u30d1\u30ef\u30cf\u30e9 (pawahara<\/em> which is short for “power harassment,” when a superior uses his\/her power to influence a subordinate), but lately there are some new versions of harassment in Japan to\"\" take note of.<\/p>\n

For example, \u30de\u30bf\u30cf\u30e9 (matahara<\/em> or “maternity harassment”) describes when a pregnant woman is bullied because of her physical state, and usually the perpetrator’s motivation is trying to get her to quit.\u00a0 A newer term which was just coined this past March is \u304a\u308f\u30cf\u30e9 (owahara<\/em>, coming from \u5c31\u6d3b\u7d42\u308f\u308c\u30cf\u30e9\u30b9\u30e1\u30f3\u30c8 or “job search termination harassment”).\u00a0 It refers to when potential employers pressure their university student recruits to stop considering offers from other companies by offering them a guaranteed position in their own.<\/p>\n

This article<\/a>, though a bit dated, offers a humorous take on the “hara” phenomenon.\u00a0 I like his suggestion of adding “hara hara” at the end!<\/p>\n

One other Japanese suffix that might rival “hara” in usage is “\u6d3b”, or “katsu<\/em>” which is used to refer to some sort of activity.\u00a0 In the example for owahara<\/em> above, \u5c31\u6d3b or shuukatsu<\/em> is short for\u00a0\u5c31\u8077\u6d3b\u52d5 (shuushoku katsudou<\/em> or “job searching”).\u00a0 One of my previous posts<\/a> actually covered the range of \u6d3b, but a new one I heard recently is being advocated by the PM’s office.\u00a0 It is \u3086\u3046\u6d3b or yuukatsu<\/em>, which refers to evening activities outside of work.\u00a0 It takes the \u3086\u3046 from \u5915\u65b9 (yuugata <\/em>or evening), but also plays on the “yuu<\/em>” of \u53cb\u4eba (friend), \u512a\u3057\u3044 (kind) and \u904a\u3073 (enjoy oneself).\u00a0 In order to be able to spend this quality time with one’s family (or I guess for singles to go out and have fun?), the government is encouraging employees to come in an hour or two early so that they can leave at a decent time.<\/p>\n

This ne\"img_554708dd6f9c8\"<\/a>w evolution of katsu<\/em> is promoting work life balance and likely comes at least partially in response to Japan’s unfortunate phenomenon of \u904e\u52b4\u6b7b or karoushi (“<\/em>to work oneself to death”).\u00a0 For those of you who read Japanese, check out this missive from the Cabinet office<\/a> which urges employees to enjoy the “sparkling evening” awaiting them.\u00a0 There is even an official logo mark and yuukatsu<\/em> fans, stickers and posters that you can download as guides for how to spend your time off or just remind you to take it.\u00a0 I particularly like this image of a smiling woman in a suit with the tagline, “Sorry overtime, it’s yuukatsu<\/em>.”\u00a0 Only in Japan…<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations. I had the chance to go back to Japan on business this month and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-9SI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37988"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46222,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37988\/revisions\/46222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}