Todd Jay Leonard, Blog
After more than 25 years of living and being associated with Japan, I still occasionally have a strong dose of culture shock that leaves me scratching my head.
Most recently, this occurred at our annual “sobetsukai” (farewell party) for staff and faculty who left their positions at the end of March.
In Japan, April 1 marks the beginning of the fiscal year, so it is a time of new beginnings. The Japanese school year is on an April-July schedule for the first term (and October-February for the second term). Companies also follow this system, which means new employees begin working on April 1, and staff that either transfer, change positions, or retire leave at the end of March.
Every year a number of faculty members from Hirosaki Gakuin University, where I am employed, retire or accept positions at a new institution, so they leave to pursue their new careers. Also, several administrative staff people are transferred to different offices under the umbrella of the university, including the attached junior and senior high schools.
This year’s farewell party was especially teary-eyed and emotional for several of the administrative staff when they went onstage to give their short farewell speeches. Several couldn’t finish, apologizing profusely as they scurried away from the microphone.
What made it so culturally interesting for me is that these people really aren’t leaving, but are only moving offices. Our university is compact and small, unlike mega-university campuses like Indiana or Purdue, so the probability of seeing these people frequently is a statistical certainty.
So, why was everyone boo-hooing as if they were being exiled to a remote part of the country with no opportunity to see their colleagues ever again? After all, they are basically just changing offices, sometimes only a matter of feet away from where they were before.
I have been pondering this cultural conundrum and have come to the conclusion that they are not necessarily mourning leaving the actual position as much as they are sad to be losing a familiar “group identity” and “history” that was associated with their prior position.
Of course, they will gradually identify with their new group of peers and colleagues, and after working in the new position for a while will eventually develop a history with these people as well.
However, when the “history” associated with working, sharing and bonding with those in the prior position ends, a new history has to be made with new people, new surroundings, with new duties and responsibilities. This can be quite daunting, especially if the person was quite happy in the position and not at all thrilled about being moved.
Partly, it also may be related to the fact that often transfers are told to the people a day or so before the farewell party, so there is an element of shock connected with the forced transfer.
Change is hard for anyone, but it is especially so in a system where people are transferred at the behest of the institution or company and not because they necessarily want to move or change positions.
When I first came to Japan, this system of forced-transfer was hard for me to understand. At the junior high school where I taught, there was a certain tension in the air in mid-March as teachers fretted over whether they would be allowed to stay another year, or be transferred to another school — sometimes to the opposite end of the prefecture, which meant they would have to relocate.
I was also assigned to a local board of education office where the same system was used. No one knew for sure if they would be staying or leaving. Once they were informed, it was often a matter of days before they had to get their desks packed up, find new places to live, and to participate in the obligatory “farewell party.”
In these instances, it is understandable why people may be sad to leave, because they most likely will not see their old colleagues regularly and everything that was familiar to them will be different with new surroundings, workmates and locations.
This system of “transfer” is called “tenkin” in Japanese and is practiced by nearly all businesses, educational institutions, and organizations that have multiple departments or locations within the same structure. The idea is to give the employee a chance to experience a variety of duties within a company or institution, exposing them to as many facets of the organization as possible.
Sometimes the transfers seem illogical. A friend of mine who has a degree in library science was moved from his university library position to a clerk position in the testing center. His departure left a huge, gaping hole in the library as he was the most skilled person to handle the new technology associated with modern libraries. He resigned, because he was so distraught at being moved from a position he loved and was skilled at doing to one he hated (and had no experience at doing).
In the United States, of course, when people are promoted it may mean a change in environment, but usually an employee chooses whether to apply for another position within a company, hence is in control of where s/he works, to a certain degree.
In Japan, school teachers rarely have a choice and feel obligated to transfer when the edict to do so comes from above. In the case of U.S. school teachers, the majority work their entire careers in the same school without changing. The custom in Japan, especially with younger teachers, is to move them every few years.
A related system is “tanshin funin” which literally means “to proceed to a new post alone.” Companies often will relocate workers (usually men) to other locations, domestically or internationally, for a period of a couple of years or longer.
Some of the reasons why families do not relocate with the “father” have to do with the cost that would be incurred by the company to do so; the hassle of having the children change schools, which could be very disruptive with regard to their educational goals; the possibility of extended family members living with the nuclear family; and/or the hesitance to sell what is considered an ancestral home.
But, back to the original topic at hand, “farewell parties” are certainly not unique to Japan. When I worked for the state of Indiana as a summer intern during college, we often had farewell parties for people retiring or leaving. One big difference, however, was how happy the people retiring were compared to their Japanese counterparts. The majority of Americans relish the idea of retiring, even opting for early retirement, if possible.
In Japan, retirees have a much different attitude toward this concept and often choose to continue working well into their 70s. A number of professors at my university have officially retired, but continue teaching and working. Again, they are hesitant to give up their “history” or “group identity” to embark upon something new and unfamiliar.
As I fast-forward 20 years to my retirement party, I doubt very much if I will be shedding any tears at leaving, unless of course they are tears of joy at finally being able to retire. No matter how much I acculturate to Japan, deep-down I am still very American because the thought of retiring is so exquisitely tantalizing.
By TODD JAY LEONARD
Columnist
Goodbye parties signal new beginnings
Monday, April 24, 2006
