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Straitjacket Society: An Insider's Irreverent View of Bureaucratic Japan
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A book that could have easily been called Games Japanese Play, Straitjacket Society delves beneath the surface of ready smiles and gentle manners to look at the underlying code of Japanese life, which is nowhere more apparent than in the halls of power. Almost overnight Masao Miyamoto attracted worldwide attention by pointing out the arcane - and often archaic - code of li
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Hardcover, 197 pages
Published
January 1st 1995
by Kodansha
(first published 1993)
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Start your review of Straitjacket Society: An Insider's Irreverent View of Bureaucratic Japan

Masao Miyamoto’s fascinating expose, Straightjacket Society, was listed as a source in Michael Zielenziger’s equally fascinating analysis of contemporary Japanese society, Shutting Out The Sun. Unfortunately this book, published in English by Kodansha, in 1994, is out of print. However, I think a lot of what he describes about Japanese bureaucracy is still true today. Miyamoto was a very atypical bureaucrat-he is an American trained psychoanalyst who lived and worked in America for 10 years. He
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This book is a case of something simple morphing into the profound. After a distinguished career in the United States, Dr. Miyamoto took an exalted post back in Japan in the health and welfare ministry. He rose steadily through the ranks, but slowly began to feel the pressure of the stifling bureaucratic life, which he summed up in capsule form as, "Don't take vacations, don't be late, and don't initiate anything new."
When first published in Japanese, Miyamoto's book created a sensation. He was ...more
When first published in Japanese, Miyamoto's book created a sensation. He was ...more

One of the funniest and most insightful books ever written by an insider about Japan's mind-boggling bureaucracy. His time in the US has clearly corrupted his mind with foreign ideas, making him no longer suited for the hive-mind found in government and corporate organizations. I see this everyday in the Japanese corporate world (Dilbert World). Like receiving compliance training on the handling of client information when our department has no contact with clients~ The episode he describes about
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Straitjacket Society was first published in 1993 in Japanese, then translated into English and first published in 1994. This was less than a decade after I moved to Japan in 1987 and shortly after the collapse of the economic bubble period in which Japan Inc. dominated the global economic stratosphere. But while the seemingly bulletproof armor of Japan's elite corporations had lost their luster, most of Japan and much of the world had yet to recognize the meaning and impact of the collapse, nor
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Miyamoto accounts his time spent in bureaucratic Japan and all of its problems: Confucian principles of seniority that stifle efficiency and employee development; karoshii (death by being overworked); amakudari (bureaucrats being shadily given public jobs once old age hits); and the overall work ethic of bureaucrats (late-night drinking sessions, an odd, inefficient system of groupism, public school hazing, etc)

Miyamoto is one of the few Japanese critics of Japan, at least those who are daring enough to say anything other than behind closed doors. He gave me a whole new perspective on the way Japanese people think and how their society works (or doesn't, as the case may be), which was very helpful while I was living there. A must-read for anyone who wants to know more about Japan and its people, or is part of the JET program.
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Gives a wonderfull insight in the way Japan's inner workings, both in the way politics is run, and how Japan views those who have ventured outside the bounds of Japan and returned, as experienced by Miyamoto himself.
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Aug 11, 2011
Ketan Shah
added it
A little dry and the writer sems to have too much of an axe to grind with Japanese bureaucracy,but still an interesting look at what makes Japanese politics (and society) tick.
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