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Money.

Labor.

Daily life.

Endurance.

Sad.

Slave.

Father.

Someone who should be loved and pitied.

If I were to describe a Salaryman in five words...

Suit.

Laptop.

Rush hour train.

Bar.

Drunk.

You're giving a bad image.

Yes, "slave" is pretty bad.

No matter how hard we work

it doesn't pay to be a Salaryman.

It takes me about an hour to get from my home to my office.

Salarymen are bound by time.

Being a Salaryman means finding something that you want to do

from the slim pickings in the work world.

A Salaryman is someone who makes certain sacrifices

in order to protect something.

Amidst limitations,

and despite constraints,

they still have dreams.

Growing up in Costa Rica, I always

felt New York was the place to make it

as an artist.

Competition there is brutal.

I went to New York to be a photographer,

but I ended up making a living in post-production for fashion.

Retouching.

Working in an office was the exact opposite of what

I set out to do.

After a couple of years,

my work visa got denied and I was forced to leave New York.

So on a whim I gathered all my savings

and flew to Tokyo.

With all this free time, I could just explore.

From day one, Tokyo felt like a city with a purpose.

In the morning you see an army of men in suits

flowing into the trains like a river,

a blur of black and white.

At around midday, they all stream out of the office

and go to the convenience store to grab a quick lunch.

Or you see them lined up eating noodles.

Around 6pm,

again, there's this frantic movement towards trains

with taxis.

As you go down the hill from the Shinjuku station,

you see all these alleyways lit by neon,

little restaurants back to back.

So many smells, beer, cigarettes, ramen.

It's a sensory overload.

So you see this

group of people dressed the same doing the same things.

I started asking about these,

and I always got the same answer.

They're salarymen.

It's a term that's used in Japan

for an office worker.

"Corporate cattle"-- I think that's the perfect word.

My image of salarymen is that they are corporate cattle.

I think the Salaryman culture is unique to Japan

and probably can't be found anywhere else.

Salaryman in Japan.

But we want to say

we are businessmen. - Businessmen...

Best of businessmen!

Construction.

Little bit...

We love businessman.

Love...

Love, love Salaryman.

But maybe you say Salaryman.

Salaryman is not businessman.

It's a very different

species.

Businessman is not replaceable.

Salaryman is replaceable

and disposable.

Their life is based on

work

and company.

Not individually based

but always group based.

My name is Taro Karibe.

Twenty-seven years old.

After I graduated

my university, I started working for a commercial bank

and I worked there for three and a half years.

I was a Salaryman.

And... I used to live in the company's dormitory

so they have announces every morning,

from 6am.

"Please wake up, people!"

"Let's go to work!"

I lived with one hundred salarymen.

They were my co-workers.

We ate together

and we took a bath together.

After I woke up

I took a train to get my office.

Normally after I finished my work

I got back around 10

or 12

or 1am.

Because after work

we had to go to drink with my boss

and co-workers.

That's part of our work.

The work invaded my private life.

I worked at a trading company for 43 years.

I'm part of the old generation.

When I was young,

every day I was ordered around and yelled at for messing up.

Then the boss would take us out to dinner

and provide feedback.

That's the traditional way to train your employees.

That's how I came up.

Actually, I still do the same now.

I make sure to provide guidance after hours.

That's why I took my subordinates

out for dinner twice this week.

They see time spent drinking with

the boss as part of their education.

I've always taken care of my own family on Saturdays and Sundays.

But weekdays were for drinks with co-workers.

I think people still understand that now.

I think people who are serious about work understand this.

The word for "employee" is interesting in Japanese.

When you write the word in Chinese characters

it means "someone who obeys work."

Now people are starting to use a

different word to imply autonomy.

They created the word "jigyo-in."

The characters read, "someone who does his own work."

Fundamentally, the Japanese way of life

prioritizes others over the self.

The self always comes second.

To Japanese, it's a given that you

are considerate of other people.

It’s said that the Western concept

of the clearly defined individual,

a modern concept,

was introduced into Japan during or after the Meiji era.

Up until then, there hadn’t

really been much of a delineation

between the self and the other.

The culture placed emphasis

not on who did what,

but what was done as a whole.

Consider a village.

It's hard to say where the family begins

in relation to the individual.

In the Japanese language, subjects are often omitted.

Usually we don't explicitly state who did what.

Instead of stating things explicitly,

we read between the lines to determine the subject,

omitting the subject entirely.

We never developed the skill or even have the notion

of delineating things so clearly.

So I think that we've never really made a clear division

between private life and work,

between one's home life and the office life.

We are more collectivist

and emphasize teamwork.

This means we need to complete tasks as a team.

Salaryman is a modern samurai

in capitalism society.

I think there are both aspects of the slave and the warrior.

They might be akin to mercenaries, to hired hands.

I'll be your bodyguard.

I'll show you what I'm worth.

The warrior is a warrior in the company.

Inside the company.

If they go outside, they are not warriors,

only men.

Just before midnight, the salarymen

start pouring out of the izakaya.

The last train leaves at midnight

so the people that want to go home

have to run to catch the last train.

And the ones that stay stranded in

Tokyo are stuck here for the night.

There's this generalization that in

Japan people are very polite.

They're very mindful of their space.

They're very respectful.

At least that's what I experienced

when I started hanging out

with salarymen on my own.

But, compared to this very structured world

I saw during the day, at night,

everything changes.

I've been a Salaryman for the past 22 years.

For 22 years at the same company.

I'm a computer engineer.

If you include all of the offices across Japan,

my company has about 8,000 employees.

I work in a really big,

a huge company.

In the office, well, I'm one of the older ones,

and I'm a manager.

I have a lot of subordinates,

so I'm the tyrant boss.

But once work is over,

I transform back into the dumb,

the crazy Salaryman you see before you!

It's difficult to maintain balance,

because salarymen spend most of their day at the office.

We don't have much private time.

An hour or two, tops.

Separating the two lives is vital.

Sometimes we can't flip the switch and separate the two.

Before reverting back to your normal self the sun rises

and we're back in the office the next morning.

Sometimes we forget which one is the true self.

Is the guy in the office the real me?

Or is the guy with a personal life the real me?

In order to survive in Japan as a Salaryman,

you have to be able to switch back and forth between the two.

Or you'll probably end up getting sick.

On one of my first nights out, it got late.

I was making my way back home and I saw one guy in a suit

just sleeping on the sidewalk.

And then soon after that, I saw another one.

I must have seen about four the first night.

I was with a friend and I just asked,

"Why are they sleeping in the street?"

And he just said, "Yeah, that's typical Salaryman behavior.

You know, they get drunk and they

have to wait until the next train.

So they just sleep on the sidewalk."

I'm from Latin America.

If you sleep on the sidewalk, you're absolutely

going to get your things stolen or worse.

I thought it was really interesting that it was common

and that it was so common that nobody found it interesting.

When was the present image or stereotype

of the Salaryman first created?

I think it emerged after the period of high economic growth.

Everyone was able to rally behind the banner

of rebuilding the country after the war.

The Salaryman was a warrior who would rebuild the economy

by working for the country and other ideals.

It was the baby boomer generation

who then grew accustomed to that zeitgeist.

They were the ones who worked hard,

they worked hard individually,

but it wasn't only for themselves,

but for the company, for the country

and for everyone else as well.

I think Japan's model is probably based more on a unity

between company and worker.

But since they're warriors,

they have to have time to relax and kick back

and balance that with the needs of the company.

They go to the bar and drink a lot.

It seems like they're releasing their stress,

but in fact, drinking too much is one of the big reasons

why they're so stressed.

I got depression because of the stress in my company.

My company didn't allow me to take leave.

Unfortunately, last month

I got fired.

This photo, it's a photo of my medicine.

I started taking this medicine

because I got depression in my job.

So I'm taking three pills,

one for my anxiety.

The other one is for making me positive.

The third one is for sleeping.

I've never woken up on the street like other salarymen.

But I think if I kept working in my company

someday I'm going to be

one of them.

When I first saw

these men in suits just lying in the street

for a second, it looked like a murder scene,

like a corporate murder.

I saw something of myself in these men that reminded me

of my work in New York.

But I couldn't really place it

because we were also so different.

I'm not naive. I'm an outsider.

I'm a woman.

Creating chalk outlines around these men

who were at their most vulnerable.

In a way, who am I to make

meaning of their situation?

But it all felt so normalized.

I had to call attention to what I was seeing.

I couldn't just look away.

My name is Rei.

I got married last year and...

I have a son, eight months old.

My son goes to nursery

so we wake up around 6:30,

and then I feed him breakfast.

And then leave home, take him to the nursery.

And then go to office.

I start work at 8:45 in the morning,

until 4:30.

And then I pick my son up at nursery.

He comes home,

takes some bath,

I feed him,

and make him sleep.

Then cook my dinner

and prepare for the next day.

That's my typical day.

My husband works really long hours.

It's seldom that he comes home and have dinner together.

Sometimes I don't really see him at all.

He comes home after I go to bed.

Then he leaves earlier than I do.

How often do you see your husband during the week?

How often?

Hmmm...

Twice or three times a week, maybe?

I'm used to it now.

I've learned how to manage

a child and work by myself.

So I do almost...

99% of raising a child.

If you expect him to do something for yourself,

you get really irritated

when he can't do that.

So the best thing is not to expect him anything.

And to do everything by myself.

Have you ever asked your husband not to work so hard?

Yeah...

Indirectly.

But he's really devoted himself to the work.

So he can't really...

take that kind of idea.

And I... try to understand it.

The salarymen are responsible for various burdens.

Regarding their family,

the Salaryman has to take care of everything by himself.

When my wife is sick,

I want to take care of her,

but I have to prioritize the team over my family.

That's tough.

At 6.30 in the morning, Hiroshi Ishikawa

has time for a quick breakfast

with his wife and three children

before setting out for the office.

In this middle class home,

they watch one of Japan's nine channels

of breakfast television and catch

up with the news in the morning.

It was a popular saying in the 70s and 80s

that Japan was a country of 100 million middle class citizens.

Conventionally, Japanese companies

offered lifetime employment.

Employees would work hard

in gratitude for the protection and stability.

They would learn more about their industry

and continue to give their best as salarymen.

In our generation, things were good

and we were going to be even better in the following year,

as it was a very rosy era for Japan economically.

Their hard work was rewarded.

So for those people, this mentality represents the truth.

However...

what happened to working for the team and the whole?

The bubble collapsed,

the economy slowed.

The market reached a new low today across the board.

At one point, the average price of major stocks

dipped below 20,000 yen.

It's like being caught in a deluge.

After the so-called economic bubble burst

companies started hiring fewer and fewer new employees.

It became less about learning or book smarts.

Companies wanted someone who could hit the ground running.

New hires were asked to

immediately start boosting sales.

Even first year employees began working late into the night.

That's the accepted state of the Japanese workplace now.

Six-thirty-- get up.

Seven-thirty-- leave for commute.

Eight-fifty-- at desk. Noon-- lunch.

One pm, meeting.

Four pm...

another meeting.

Eight pm-- clock out.

Nine pm...

drink with colleagues.

Ten pm-- drink with colleagues

Eleven pm.

Eleven-thirty-- rush to get the last train.

Or for those that missed the train, sleep on sidewalk.

Five am...

first train begins.

Five-fifteen-- replace shirt and tie at the "convenience."

Six am...

repeat.

I felt a strong connection to the salarymen I photographed,

But there is always this divide when you're looking through

a viewfinder.

I wanted to get to know them better,

so I shifted my focus to interviews

and not just in their work, but in their homes

and in their lives.

Just breaking the ice could be a challenge.

- Up, up, up, up. - Japanese is OK.

Tell me in Japanese.

Where are we? What are we doing here?

What happens on Friday night?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He and me is colleagues.

Sometimes people just didn't understand why I cared.

Can I do an interview?

- Interview? - Oh, interview!

- Manager... manager... - No... no...

No! Never!

I was obviously an outsider, but I was

interested in what we had in common,

especially how work had shaped our lives.

In other ways,

being an outsider helped because I could ask questions

that were obvious.

- Do you come here a lot? - Sometimes.

I'm from Costa Rica.

Costa Rica, speak Spanish?

Mucho gusto.

I'm making a documentary about salarymen.

Are you a Salaryman?

Me!

Me? No!

Often when I least expected it,

someone would just bare their soul.

I have no idea,

or rather,

my life so far...

more than four or five years,

always depressed,

because a lot of obstacles on my way.

I want to go far away.

Sunday.

Ah, OK, Sunday. Thank you.

Can I see?

Can I check?

OK. Perfect.

Let's see, for almost 39 years

I was a Salaryman.

I pretty much would never make it home until after 10pm.

I spent all of my weekdays at work.

I was an office lady when we married.

It was customary for women to quit

their work in Japan once married.

When I was working

I was pretty much only coming home to sleep.

I was almost always at work.

Sometimes there'd be three meetings in one day.

When there were afternoon meetings,

my other work would pile up.

I often had to stay late into

the night to get everything done.

He was always so busy.

He was at work even on the day the children were born.

Even after receiving word that I had given birth,

he only came to see me after he had finished at the office.

To be honest,

I would've been happy if he had been right there with me.

He was around for events like our child

starting or graduating from grade school,

but he wasn't really around for much other than that.

I guess he wasn't that involved in our lives.

I always felt bad for my wife and kids,

but if I didn't do my job, the company would fall apart.

If you're tied up at your company for such long hours,

it will become difficult to maintain

communication with your family,

and will create a chilly family environment.

As a result, there is no home to go back to.

Compared to other countries,

when we look at the happiness quotient of Japan,

the category of individual safety

is much higher in Japan than anywhere else.

When it comes to work, lifestyle, health,

measures of subjective happiness,

you can see people aren't happy.

This is directly connected to people sleeping on the streets.

I think you would go home after drinking

if your home life were happy.

But the fact that people don't go home after drinking

and releasing some steam...

Well, there's a feeling of dread,

of having to go back home.

I think this is a very negative cycle.

These men work very hard, you know.

Japanese people, they work nonstop

and they're stressed out.

They just want some place to just relax and just talk

and just forget about business,

You know? They look for comfort.

Well, men pay us

just to talk to them.

The Japanese culture...

men are very shy, so they are willing to pay money

to talk to women and enjoy...

their alcohol

with a pretty woman and also for business,

business meetings.

Like here, I got you a Dom Perignon bottle.

Does this make you happy?

Will you come into my business?

Will you work with me?

We make the conversation more entertaining

or we don't even say anything if they don't want.

If we feel like they don't want us to speak, we just look

at the person who's speaking and we laugh

whenever a customer laughs.

We're dolls, we're dolls.

It's business.

As a professional,

I give them what they want.

They just want to feel like the king.

They just want to feel like they matter.

Our job is for them to dream.

It's a fantasy world for them.

- That's the dress for today. - It's gorgeous.

- Thank you. - Where did you get that?

Fashion Nova, baby!

Do you guys like my house?

What do you think about that?

About a woman having to play a role as an entertainer of men?

Hmmm...

I don't like it.

I feel that a lot of Japanese men, they look at us

women; we're not equal to them.

We have to step back,

walk behind him.

My company has offices

in all 47 prefectures in Japan.

My job is to support the sales team.

At my office, most of the time,

we do work assigned by our bosses.

I think the relationship is very passive.

As in we are just given work to do.

In that sense, I think the superiority-based culture

is still alive and well.

After work I'm usually tired, so I just head home.

But when a boss invites me out for a drink,

I often go without refusing.

Can you describe an office lady in five words?

If I were to describe office lady in five words

the first is high heels.

Parties to meet boyfriends.

Doing what they're told.

Fixing their makeup.

Getting married and leaving the company.

My impression of office ladies is pretty bad.

Office lady?

I've never thought of myself as an office lady.

As I spent more time in the Salaryman world,

I started to question how women fit in.

At first I thought that office lady

was the equivalent of a Salaryman,

but actually very few women refer

to themselves as office ladies

because it's a very specific kind of an office worker.

As a woman, at my previous company

I would get yelled at loudly.

At parties men would order me to pour drinks.

Since there were a lot of men, I was always being ordered around.

It was pretty stifling and negative.

Dentsu is considered

an extremely prestigious company in Japan.

I joined Dentsu because I was impressed

that they're the world's top advertising agency

and invented a business model unique to Japan.

I worked at Dentsu for six years.

I would wake up at 6am.

I'd buy breakfast and arrive at the office at 7am.

I'd draft proposals from 7am to 9am.

From 9am to noon I had a string of meetings every 30 minutes.

I'd buy lunch at a convenience store,

return to my desk

and continue more meetings.

This went on until 3pm,

when I'd leave the office

and meet with about three different clients.

Then from 7pm until 9pm I'd draft more proposals.

I'd then hold more meetings

and come home on the last train around midnight.

That was an average day.

I think that salarymen are slaves

that represent how the Japanese enjoy life.

I think young people should cut their teeth working like a slave

for a leading company as salarymen.

I think it's good training.

I'd tell my own son...

to study hard

and attend a top college,

work at a top corporation,

then he's free to do whatever he wants.

I'm studying business

with a focus on management strategy.

My dream is to work in an airport

and assist travelers.

My dream is to work for an airline in the future.

We start applying for jobs when we're seniors in college.

You figure out where you want to apply,

and research those first-choice companies.

You have to fill out the entry sheets for each company.

If you pass the initial screening,

you sit for an interview.

What's stressful is that you have to apply

to like 100 or 200 companies.

Then you have to attend explanatory

sessions for tens of companies.

There's really no time to sleep.

You have to pull all-nighters almost every day.

That's how the job hunt works.

Actually, yesterday as I was riding the train

there was a suicide in Shinjuku station.

I heard the victim was a girl in her 20s.

Rumor has it that she was a student

in the midst of job applications.

Now that I'm applying for jobs...

sometimes I feel like I'm not really a human being.

Endurance is something...

a pretty cultural thing.

Ganbaru, you mean?

Ganbaru, yes.

What does Ganbaru mean?

Just do it.

Or keep on trying.

Keep on trying.

Just do it and deliver results.

No excuse, no matter what.

Putting effort.

It's so classic,

like... overwork is beautiful.

Working too hard is beautiful.

Management staying at the office long time is beautiful.

In Japanese workplaces.

I'd wake up at like five in the morning

and start working right away.

My email and phone were literally ringing all the time.

By the time I took care of everything,

it would already be midnight.

I'd go to sleep,

wake up, answer emails and calls.

Go to sleep,

wake up, answer emails and calls.

Over and over.

Then at the end of December

our company went on vacation.

But even during the holidays

I was getting constantly contacted by clients.

Even though it was a vacation, I didn't get a chance to rest.

So I collapsed.

I spent the whole vacation in the hospital.

From there I went straight to work.

I don't think there's anything great about working that much.

However when it comes to working until my physical limit,

I'm proud of the effort, and dedication I put in.

The social structure prevents people from raising their voice.

Of all the Japanese workforce, roughly 40%

has no choice but to work in an unstable environment.

These are precedent cases from workers

in a so-called "black company."

I'll show you some videos.

He's hitting his butt with a metal bat.

Now he's being forced to kowtow

and a ball is placed on his head.

Before I became a manager I was paid overtime.

But once you're a manager

there's no such thing as overtime compensation.

So I wasn't paid for the extra hours worked.

Once I didn't go home for three days straight.

No! I didn't go home for a full week!

I worked around 72 hours per week.

Some weeks...

I'd work up to 100 hours.

If a company makes an employee work over eight hours,

as a penalty they are supposed to pay overtime wages.

However, in reality it's common practice for companies

to not only get away with forcing their employees

to work more than eight hours,

but also not to pay overtime penalties.

If companies were to follow the law it would be expensive.

Since this is the case,

the companies will behave in a

manner that's most cost effective.

You could say that a majority of Japanese corporations

operate in an environment

where it is OK to work employees hard enough

to literally kill them.

Yeah!

Ever since she was a little girl,

Matsuri was always a hard worker.

She made a business card saying she had turned eight.

She worked hard to achieve her goals.

After graduating from college,

she began working

at the largest ad agency in Japan.

Nine months after she joined the company...

she took...

She took her own life.

Early on the morning of December 25th,

she sent me a message.

It said, "Mom, thanks for everything...

Goodbye."

I received a call from the police

on my work phone line at 4:00 pm.

After my daughter's death,

I saw her messages to co-workers.

When Matsuri committed suicide,

I was still working there.

Although she wasn't a direct acquaintance,

we had many mutual friends.

There was this general atmosphere

where people didn't want to talk about it.

Honestly, a lot of people said she was at fault.

I thought maybe the company felt

work was more important than peoples' lives.

Maybe that's too strong of a statement!

Hang on, I think I said too much.

They showed me a time sheet with her alleged hours worked.

I said I didn't think there was any way it was accurate.

Matsuri's death...

was a result

of karoshi.

Karoshi is due to long periods of excessive labor

and psychophysiological stress.

Overwork can cause brain and heart diseases

as well as mental disorders

resulting in sudden death or suicide.

Between 1998 and 2011,

there were over 30,000 suicides each year.

I think that overwork and stress

are an epidemic in Japan.

Immediately following Matsuri's death

the company's stance was

that it was not a case of death from overwork.

Inspectors from Japan's

labor ministry have raided advertising giant Dentsu.

They suspect the company

broke the law by forcing

employees to work excessive hours.

The investigation began last month after 24-year-old

Matsuri Takahashi killed herself due to overwork.

The company finally acknowledged

that Matsuri died from overwork.

I am truly ashamed that I could not prevent

the excessive amount of work placed upon a new employee.

As someone in charge of overseeing

the operation of this company,

I solemnly and gravely accept

that my actions may have brought about such circumstances.

Each morning when I wake up,

I find myself before Matsuri's picture,

saying, "Why were you foolish?"

"Why did you have to die?"

You could say that being a Salaryman

and being a member of adult society

overall is a form of theater.

Everyone has a role to play.

If you see someone standing at attention in a suit,

they are probably a Salaryman.

To some degree,

I suppose the clothes do make the person.

So I think that how you dress has

a large effect on how you feel.

We all have our own role

and being an adult is a matter of whether you are a good actor

and convincingly play your role.

That's fine, but when you're acting all the time,

you start to forget who you really are.

It wears a person out.

When that happens...

being able to come back to this outfit

reminds me of my identity

and I feel relieved to know who I am.

My name is Hideaki Kobayashi.

I am 53 years old.

I work for a company.

From Monday through Friday,

I dress like a normal office worker.

But on the weekend,

I walk around town dressed like this.

You could say that the clothes I wear to work

are more comfortable on a physical level.

But I feel more like myself when I'm dressed like this.

After all, my real job is as a Salaryman.

There are parts of that lifestyle that are challenging.

I'm not an exception in that department.

When you're in a jam,

it's the best time to put on a sailor uniform

and take a walk outside.

You'll feel free,

and most of your concerns will melt away.

I'm turning 74 this year.

I worked in a department store that handled souvenir goods.

Are these your neighbors?

Yes, yes, yes, they are.

I'd always wanted to be a painter.

I was torn between two worlds,

painting and work.

At a certain point I realized

that I didn't want to die without painting.

I quit my job when I was 60.

I have a younger brother.

So I told him that I wanted to give up everything...

our family's wealth.

Instead...

I asked him to leave me alone,

to let me embark on this journey.

It's a battle between life and art.

You can't survive on art alone.

In order to eat, you have to work.

One means to this end is being a Salaryman.

Even if you fall within the rubric of the Salaryman

it becomes a question of how much

you can retain your humanity.

This is where extreme commuting comes into play.

So I'm leaving from a different station

to catch an earlier train.

That's why I'm out here at this ungodly hour.

We compete to see who can do the most extreme activity

in the window between waking up

and arriving to the office.

I started extreme commuting

with my friend Mr. Amaya.

We consider it an extreme sport.

Oh! The sunrise!

Looks good!

There are around 1,000 extreme commuters

all across Japan.

A mid-level urban commute would generally entail

traveling around the city

riding the entire length of the Yamanote line.

Visiting urban landmarks

and public baths,

or treating yourself to a good meal

to have an edifying start to the day.

The most extreme activities for advanced commuters

would include:

mountain climbing,

swimming in the ocean,

surfing.

By approaching our commute with a new mindset

and turning the ordeal into a game

the goal is to reduce stress

so we can have healthier and happier lives.

I'm attempting to reclaim my humanity.

Without it I believe...

the majority of people just exist

for the sake of their daily life.

I work at Narita Airport.

I assist with check-in and gate services.

Ground staff.

My dream came true. Thank you.

And so tell me, how how do you feel

now that your dream came true?

At first, I was thrilled.

But it turns out ground staff is more

than just interacting with customers.

Airplanes require a lot of maintenance.

I thought it was a pretty glamorous job.

But in reality, it's very physically demanding.

I'm a Salaryman.

It's a Japanese company.

There's a very strong sense of hierarchy.

It's very important how I greet my superiors,

so I mind my manners when I see them.

It's fun but sometimes I mess up

and get a little bummed out.

But I'm still having fun.

Are you happy to be a Salaryman?

Happy?

Happy...?

Salaryman...

I wish I could have been a student forever,

but I had to get a job.

I'll do my best.

I finished job-hunting a year ago.

I had hoped to get into the hotel or airline industry,

but unfortunately things didn't work out that way.

I'm working in customs now.

When I first joined a trading company,

I had all these dreams of doing

tons of international communication,

or maybe going overseas and flying

to lots of different places.

So if we're talking about the glamorous side of the job,

the reality is far from what I had hoped for

since I'm really only doing low-level work.

Overtime is an everyday occurrence,

so I usually don't get home until after midnight.

Every day is just work, work, work.

I sometimes wonder if we really need to do this much.

I occasionally work straight into the next day,

and it makes me ask myself why I'm alive.

Why do I have to sacrifice my private life

working into the next day at this job?

I was a total Salaryman back when I was working in Tokyo.

I think every day was pretty stressful.

I moved from Tokyo to work here,

at the Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine in Fukuoka.

Now I'm able to work surrounded by nature on a holy site.

These are the grounds of the shrine.

Many shrine maidens and priests

serving the temple are at work here.

Everyone's different,

so there's no single definition of happiness

or meaningful work.

I'm now able to truly live in the moment.

I think one's familial relationships

are related to the level of happiness

and fulfillment at work.

If you do what you love, then not only you

but also your entire family and those around you

will enjoy peace of mind.

It's important that we learn to find

happiness and fulfillment in our lives and work.

Am I happy?

Honestly, it's fifty-fifty.

If I could choose, I'd go in a different

direction than the Salaryman lifestyle.

But taking various other factors into account,

I think I've settled

and I'm comfortable with my life now.

But that's not really what it means to be a human being.

We're supposed to do more, do more to liberate our souls.

Today's generation has a gut sense

that something isn't right,

but change will only happen when

they learn to have their own opinions.

Then society and companies will change in turn.

To be good as a Salaryman

we have to give up our dreams

and our real personality.

We have to give up ourselves.

I don't think it's a bad thing.

Some people are really suitable

to that kind of life.

But the reality is

it's very difficult to choose.

I think art and education are the platforms

with the power to strike down this mentality,

to point out that lacking opinions

doesn't make you an adult.

The truth is there are always escape routes.

There are exits all around us

but when you're in a tough situation,

you lose sight of these ways out.

I don't particularly think that Salaryman is a bad thing.

But I personally think work and life balance

is very important.

It's very silly

to devote your life

for the work.

When I look at Japan and the larger world,

I expect tough times are coming.

I think that young people don't dream anymore.

I suppose this is understandable

considering the odds are stacked against them in present society.

Still, I don't want them to give up.

The death from overwork problem is worst in Japan.

But it's going to spread to other countries in the future.

I think it poses that degree of risk.

That's one reason why I agreed to speak with you all today.

I would like to give some advice to salarymen

as someone who's been in the business for over 22 years.

Make sure to take it easy.

Even if your schedule is packed,

carve out some time for yourself and do something you enjoy.

Otherwise you won't be able to

lead a healthy life as a Salaryman.

Gambate!

Gambate!

They might look weak when passed out.

But that's just a temporary phase.

I think the Salaryman is someone who

always comes back and rises again.

In a sense, Batman combats evil.

However, he still has internal conflict.

He's a tormented hero,

with many worries and hardships,

but I still think he is a hero.

The first time I saw

a Salaryman lying on the street,

I projected onto him all sorts of meaning.

We all have to find ways to provide

for ourselves and for our families.

But it forced me to see

what working all the time can do to us,

what it can do to our souls.

In New York, I was so busy working, I

never questioned why I felt this void.

It was only here in Japan

that I really began to find answers.

We're all salarymen in one way or another.

That's the truth.

When things feel dark,

when we start to lose ourselves along the way.

I think back to what Hideaki said,

there really are exits all around us.

Hi Sheena. How are you?

Hello.

Thank you for joining.

It's been a long time.

What's it looking like in Japan?

How, how is everybody working?

How are you working?

First of all, because of the pandemic

everyone has stopped riding packed trains at rush hour

because they’ll get infected and are staying at home.

Salarymen, who don’t usually do these things

because they’re a bit stubborn,

are actually working from home

and are doing a good job

not commuting in packed trains.

And so we’re not able to do extreme commuting now.

After the pandemic, even the people who drank too much

and slept outside train station entrances are gone.

Now, even if the coronavirus goes away,

I don't think we'll be able to go

back to how things were before.

I think that the excess of what people don’t need to do

will go away and work will become more substantial.

So the new Salaryman will become more efficient,

or it seems like people will find a way of working

that’s most effective for them personally.

If your opportunities to go to the

office decrease with remote work,

the level of closeness you have within the company may decrease.

The new Salaryman will work wherever they want,

whenever they want,

sleep whenever,

have fun whenever.

With this situation, it’s become an opportunity

to realize the preciousness of family.

It’s a time when people have the chance

to think about what

the best way to live is.

I have the sense

that people will live their lives

with more compassion for one another,

and this is a good opportunity for that.