TIL Japan has a sociological phenomena known as Hikikomori, in which there's an estimated 1 million Japanese who choose to completely isolate themselves from society.

I do think the job would definitely have an impact. Even in Japan, I do think that teaching is definitely one of the more liberal professions. I also imagine that things like engineering actually require updating methods. Whereas jobs like teaching are based more on abstract schools of thought, so an update isn't necessary. It's a lot easier to fall into the "Eh, it's always been done this way" when the negative impacts aren't as tangible as insufficient production, etc. would be. Also, with needing to take time off because of illness or whatever, someone else has to take over your classes for the day/week. And there are some people who take that extra work as a personal attack on them, which leads to bitterness.

Do you find that there is actually a "We do this for the group!" banding together kind of situation at your workplace, though? Or is it just the... "This is the way it's done so this is the way it's done" kind of thing?

And yeah, I don't pass as Japanese but can speak Japanese fluently. I definitely get people that I barely even speak to telling me a lot of things that they really shouldn't.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - nationalgeographic.com