For the past year I have been attending lessons that are designed to turn an alien species like me into something suitable for the host environment, better known by its popular name, the Japanese Business Corporation.
After weekly lessons in business japanese and ettiquette, i am just about ready to be released into the wild. can i hold a proper telephone conversation in fluent business japanese? maybe. do i know how to do a polite (read: self-deprecatingly humble) self-introduction in japanese upon request? yes. can i bow like a true japanese salaryman? hell YES.
does this mean the alien shall soon be allowed into the native population with little fear that its natural instinct to speak its mind and ignorance for the honne/tatemae divide might very well upset the balance so painstakingly preserved within the japanese office?
on sunday this alien found herself in an environment that defied almost all of her expectations. 470 undergraduates disguised as competent job seekers complete with dark suits and stiff white shirts thronged the ballrooms of a downtown hotel in what was a recruitment examination for a popular homegrown tour agency.
i thought getting shortlisted was an honour, or least an affirmation that the people at HR liked what they saw in my resume, but the mere sight of the black mass climbing the stairs to the exam venue put an end to my wishful thinking.
whoever thought that job searching in japan would turn into such a carnival? the test paper was full of questions about names of rivers and forests in japan, in addition to specific settings of japanese literature classics.
im not particularly proud to admit this, but my GK is probably close to zero and despite having studied for the test i was at a painful loss. i ended up trying my luck in the multiple choice section and filling up the empty brackets with random kanji, and getting shortlisted for the interview round would probably be a miracle since my 469 other competitors would have known the name of that darn forest up north in the tohoku area.
results shall be out on june 20th so i shall posting updates.
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