Lost in transit

Unseen in Japan

I was talking with a friend the other day and found out that at his job it's his responsibility to pay off the yakuza. Yakuza are Japanese organized crime syndicates. He meets regularly with one of the yakuza gang leaders to hand over the payment for the company's "protection."

Actually, it works out well for him in a way. He's developed a "good" relationship with the man, who likes our friend and takes him to lunch and dinner at nice places. He gets to hear yakuza stories along with his sushi and unagi or whatever. I don't know if I should share the one story he shared, because I can imagine it coming full circle back to haunt me -- the yakuza was left in an embarassing situation at the end.

Getting back to my friend's job, I asked if he's able to save money, since he's working six or seven days a week, putting in 12 hours or more a day, and seems to have an important position. But he said, "no." Why, I asked. It turns out that my friend's job involves finding new contracts for his company in the industry that he's in. The problem is...

...that in order to get these contracts, he has to make under the table payments, or kickbacks, to the people that he meets with. Although this is considered normal in his situation, there can't be any money trail of pay offs leading back to the company. The company simply 'doesn't pay kickbacks.' So it's up to my friend to come up with the payments himself, out of pocket. So far, his record payment has been about $10,000 (US equivalent).

All this is to say that there is much about Japanese society, the way business is carried out here, about economics and politics that is generally known but unseen. My friend's life is one example. You might wonder why he keeps the job. Why spend most of his waking hours working at a job that succeeds because he gives his own money away for the sake of the company? I don't know. He's loyal. He's needed. He's a worker there (it's in his identity). He's just a good guy (doing some bad things).

One way that I make peace with living in Japan is to stop trying to figure everything out, though I believe most things would make sense with more information. Most mysteries have answers, but not all people are in position to see them. As for my friend, he doesn't "like" his job and has decided to quit--in two years. He figures he owes the company that much... I'll be rooting for him to find something better when the time comes. He really is a great guy and could do better, I think.
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Originally posted at Japan Window

Posted by Andy at May 31, 2005 01:50 PM