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Showing posts from March, 2020

Japanese humanity and Australian heartlessness in the COVID19 crisis

As the world falls into economic depression, strangled by the terrifying grip of the coronavirus, I am reminded once again of a huge cultural difference between Australia and Japan. It is predicted that almost 2 million Australians will lose their job in the coming weeks, bringing the unemployment rate to an unprecedented 15%. As I drive past the long lines outside of Centrelink, the social welfare office, and read post after post on social media about friends and acquaintances losing their jobs, I just can’t help but wonder if the scale of this issue can be attributed to culture. How quick bosses are to fire employees who have worked for them for years and years when the going gets tough. Do we really value profit so much that we don’t consider the profound effect that firing an employee will have on their livelihood? Is there really no other way? When I was living and working in Japan, there were numerous aspects of Japanese work culture that annoyed me. One of these was the va