The Shaming Room

[EggSucker]

Hi All. This is my first post, so apologies if I'm bringing up something that's already been covered.

A while ago, (hell, some years now, I guess) I heard a rumour that Japanese corporations have in their office buildings a place called the Shaming Room. This is generally an office with nothing more than a desk and chair in it, otherwise quite empty, where employees are forced to sit when they have done something wrong. They have no work to complete, and no one is allowed to communicate with them in any way.

I think the gist of the tale was that the corporation would not admit to being dishonoured by the employees actions, so would put them in this room until they were so ashamed of what they had done they would resign!

Can anybody shed any light on this one? In retrospect, while I found it quite funny at the time, it now appears to be one of those vaguely racist comments you hear about different cultures and their work ethics, you know, like Germans being ultra-efficient, or the Spanish putting everything off until manana, that kind of thing.

I know that Japan is generally held up as the world centre for weird, (used womens pants from a vending machine? Is that one for real too?)
but can this still be true?

Over to you......

 

[WhistlingJack]

I don't know about 'shame rooms', but it wouldn't surprise me...

November 30, 2004

Whistle-blower's '30-year penalty'

From Leo Lewis in Tokyo

A Japanese executive allegedly forced to weed the company car park for 30 years is at the centre of a major shake-up in corporate whistle-blowing law.

Tomorrow a district court in Toyama will hand down a verdict that could shape Japanese business practice for years to come. If Hiroaki Kushioka is successful in his suit against his employer, Tonami Transportation, the way could be open for startling revelations from within corporate Japan. If he fails, the culture of bullying and cover-ups will be given a tacit vote of support.

The Kushioka case comes as Japan is preparing a massive overhaul of its legal treatment of whistle-blowers. A series of huge corporate scandals, including secret vehicle recalls at Mitsubishi and meat-labelling cover-ups have prompted Japan to introduce, from next spring, a whistle-blowing law.

Based on the UK’s Public Interest Disclosure Act, the law will supposedly offer protection to those who speak out against their employers. Legal experts have told The Times that, on closer reading, the Japanese version of the law may make it easier for companies to dish out the sort of treatment that Mr Kushioka has allegedly suffered.

Mr Kushioka, 57, says he does not look back on a happy career at Tonami Transportation. In 1974, three years after joining the haulage firm as a salesman, he blew the whistle on his company’s alleged involvement in a price-fixing cartel. He was then sent to the company’s training centre and given a small office away from his colleagues.

For 30 years he was neither promoted nor given any pay rise. His only duties since 1974 have been to weed the concrete parking lot of the training centre and to be available for a regular meeting with a company executive, he claims. Every day he is harangued by his boss to quit.

Mr Kushioka’s suit demands an official apology from Tonami Transportation and 48 million yen (£250,000) in compensation.

Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/...

 

[EggSucker]

That's the kind of thing I was on about, yeah. Cheers for that.

Unfortunately, I remember hearing this rumour about 5 (?) years ago, so I doubt it could be the same case.

I have a half a recollection of it being mentioned on a tv programme, maybe a Michael Palin type thing, but I wasn't paying attention so I can't be sure.

 

[Heckler]

I know that Japan is generally held up as the world centre for weird, (used womens pants from a vending machine? Is that one for real too?)
but can this still be true?

Over to you......

The used Kogal (schoolgirl) panties vending machine is absolutely true, my mate did a tour of S.East Asia and visited his brother in Tokyo who pointed one out on a tube station platform.

 

[EggSucker]

hehehehehehe...... oh, cheers Heckler, me and my mate have been arguing over that one for ages!

One question though, did your "friend" buy any?

You can tell us, we're open minded.....

 

[CuriousIdent]

And let us make this quite clear. These are not "Womens" pants.

They're Schoolgirls'.

See. Doesn't that make it better?

Oh. No, hold an a minute... :shock:

 

[EggSucker]

I had a curious feeling that this aside would get more responses than the main thread of my post

Seriously though, it's not right is it? I mean, ok they exist, but not right in any way shape or form. Could you imagine the outcry if they tried to promote them in this country? Blimey charlie!

Different strokes for different folks......if you'll pardon the horrible mental picture that conjures :shock:

 

[Heckler]

Seriously though, it's not right is it? I mean, ok they exist, but not right in any way shape or form. Could you imagine the outcry if they tried to promote them in this country? Blimey charlie!
:

Their attitutude to such matters is a little odd. There is a word (that I can't recall and am not about to Google) that refers to underage girls selling favours to older salarymen that is sufficently mainstream that a movie was made about it (my faulty memory suggests that it was called Kogals or something similar).

In answer to your previous question he didn't make use of the vending machine as he couldn't eat another thing :shock:

 

[CuriousIdent]

It's the business equivalent of being sent to sit in the naughty corner - only with an awful lot more at stake...

 

[EggSucker]

Yeah, I guess it is kinda.

But would you just put up with it and keep drawing your salary while looking for another job? Take a book in or summat? Maybe that's why we don't do it in the west - no sense of shame and a cultural history of malingering!

Heckler - I seem to remember one of the plot lines of a film called Visitor Q dealt with that very subject. Is that the one you're thinking of? It suggested that this was a "normal" practice in Japan. Mind you it was a Takashi Miike film, so it and reality could have been on very loose terms. Quite disturbing really.

 

[shellac7]

There is a word (that I can't recall and am not about to Google) that refers to underage girls selling favours to older salarymen that is sufficently mainstream that a movie was made about it (my faulty memory suggests that it was called Kogals or something similar).

Dont know the specific word, but i know it translates as "compensation dating", and its really not seen as that odd in Japan apparently.I was watching some manga yesterday where the subject came up,personally i find it a bit disturbing.

 

[Heckler]

Dont know the specific word, but i know it translates as "compensation dating", and its really not seen as that odd in Japan apparently.I was watching some manga yesterday where the subject came up,personally i find it a bit disturbing.

It is tantamount to noncing but it being socially acceptable which is not to my mind acceptable. Most things whilst odd or extreme to your own culture can be excused as being a cultural difference, this however can't really be justified.

Talking about Manga, I was quite surprised having starting reading mainstream stuff like Lone Wolf and Cub that there is some really left-field material that surfs awfully close to arty child porn with it's obsession with drawings of young girls in school uniform flashing their pants. Maybe culturerly this is seen as innocent and it's my interpretation and view point that is skewed I don't know, but somehow I doubt it.

 

[Heckler]

Dont know the specific word, but i know it translates as "compensation dating", .

Well done, just found it on google it's "Enjo Kosai". And I've found the movie it's Bounce Ko Gals:

http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=35208

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Talking about Manga, I was quite surprised having starting reading mainstream stuff like Lone Wolf and Cub that there is some really left-field material that surfs awfully close to arty child porn with it's obsession with drawings of young girls in school uniform flashing their pants. Maybe culturerly this is seen as innocent and it's my interpretation and view point that is skewed I don't know, but somehow I doubt it.

It gets far, far worse than that.

I'm sure the innocence element is one factor but it is also partly due to the Japanese obscenity rules which outlaw pubic hair and penises which only seems to have led to people working around the rules resulting in such things as schoolgirl tentacle porn (one title memorably translates as "Obscene Beast Teacher". If thats the alternative a bitter of trouser topiary and the occasional todger doesn't seem quite so bad.

 

[AsamiYamazaki]

The Japanese obscenity rules are bonkers. When I was going through my phase of trying to watch all the movies that had been banned in England, I got hold of a Japanese uncut copy of Cat in the Brain (awful gratuitous Fulci movie) which included every single no-no the BBFC ever specified.

It was horrendously gory and extremely sadistic, but had a fuzzy patch to ensure no one was corrupted by the sight of the young lady in the shower's pubic hair.

 

[James_H]

This sounds like an equivalent of sitting in the corner wearing a dunce's cap.

 

[Graylien]

And getting paid for it!

 

[Mythopoeika]

I saw a film some years ago that featured a man who'd disgraced his employer. As a punishment, they gave him a 'window seat' for the next 30 years (i.e. he would be seated next to a window in the huge high-rise office building).
Most of us wouldn't see that as a punishment, but in Japanese culture it is.
I think the idea is that the best-loved employees are seated towards the centre of the building, and the least liked are on the outer reaches of the building.

 

[elffriend]

So you get put in a room alone with no work to do and still get paid. Hmmm...where can I sign up

 

[Mythopoeika]

Yeah, me, I'd take along a good book to read or paint pictures all day.

 

[elffriend]

I could get my book written and when it was published and I made a fortune I would resign

 

[Heckler]

I could get my book written and when it was published and I made a fortune I would resign

Even better keep writing and getting paid twice!

 

[OneWingedBird]

To say that the Japanese share a lot of our cultural taboos, some of them seem to be not as taboo or at least not completely no-no.

The mango anime Angel Sanctuary features consensual brother-sister incest, and this theme comes up again in the live action Korean film Old Boy, which is based on a Japanese manga.

I guess there's a tipped hat to the Jap extreme genre in Kill Bill vol 1 too, the animated sequence certain features things that Tarantino could never have done with live child actors ie paedophilia and highly sexualised violence.

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

Don't know about the truth of the Office thing but I vaguely remember a comment once made by someone on a Tv doc - I think in connection with the second world war and the treatment of prisoners - it's a generalisation but struck me.

Western honour (doing the right thing) was motivated in order to avoid Guilt while Eastern (specifically Japan) was based around the avoidance of Shame.

 

[Anonymous]

such things as schoolgirl tentacle porn

OK, so I didn't know what this was, so I googled it. Jesus. :cry:

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

such things as schoolgirl tentacle porn

OK, so I didn't know what this was, so I googled it. Jesus. :cry:

That was unwise. You should have asked and I'd have tried to find something that wouldn't make you want to nuke the human race (actually I might have still struggled).

[edit: Although not too enlightening on the actual specifics this thread is always worth checking out:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10843 ]

 

[fluffle9]

The used Kogal (schoolgirl) panties vending machine is absolutely true, my mate did a tour of S.East Asia and visited his brother in Tokyo who pointed one out on a tube station platform.

can anyone tell me, are they really the pants of schoolgirls, and not just pants of a size and style that could conceivably be worn by a schoolgirl?

 

[Anonymous]

from snopes:

For a price, girls supplying buru-sera items for resale will don a new pair of panties at a porn shop in the morning on their way to school, then change back into their own underwear at the end of the day at the same shop, leaving its proprietor with a saleable item. Girls can also turn a profit on their own used undies by offloading them to the same people. Generally, the more worn the item, the higher the price it will fetch. Porn shops featuring buru-sera items also vend girls' used school uniforms.

There is no guarantee that all the panties marketed as having been worn by schoolgirls actually have been. Such details are not scrupulously vetted; no regulatory body checks to ensure the veracity of claims made about these items. However, it is clear that at least some of the used undies do come from teen girls, thus this "underwear of a Japanese schoolgirl" story is no myth.

 

[Heckler]

can anyone tell me, are they really the pants of schoolgirls, and not just pants of a size and style that could conceivably be worn by a schoolgirl?

Surely the distinction is academic, it's just plain wrong whether they genuinely are or merely purport to be the underwear of schoolgirls?

 

[lemonpie3]

I had heard that pants with a photo of them being worn by the schoolgirl were of the highest value. Enjo Kousai is pretty much the same as prostitution; the difference being that Bai Shun (prostitution) is more of a profession, Enjo Kousai is more of a hobby. Your high-school student's saturday job, one might say. It might not go as far as sex. But it will go as far as to pay for your new Vuitton bag.

I'm intrigued by this window seat thing. Having just got back from Tokyo head office, I can confirm that in my company the managers and visitors have got the window seats. I quite like implication that the managers are all dunces.

However, I've just checked and apparently this Mado Giwa Zoku thing was when you had a generation of employees all coming up to retirement and they'd stick these old fellas all together out of the way by the window.

The phrase itself is old-fashioned apparently, and I believe the practise is also more and more outmoded as in this day and age Japanese firms are no longer so slow to sack people they don't want any more.