Shiho Fukada on Life in Japan
Shiho Fukada is a photo journalist, cinematographer, and filmmaker based between Tokyo, and New York. She has made 4 short documentaries (each about 10 min) about the life of Japanese people and their work (ethics) and how they make a living (or not) to survive in Japan.
The project is called “Disposable Workers“. We feel it’s a must-see, certainly for us Europeans, our life-standard differs so much from the Japanese it’s hard to imagine how some people cope with keeping up in Japanese society: If you think you have a busy or horrible job, and feel like your house is too small; watch the films and you’ll know there is no reason to complain. If your life is similar or you recognize yourself in these movies; Seek. Help.
“One billion people, 30 percent of the world’s workforce, are jobless. Recent political instability, from the Arab Spring to the London riots and Occupy Wall Street protest, all have one thing in common – frustration over unemployment and anger towards the growing gap between rich and poor. Unsustainable employment, and the political turmoil it provokes, is a global crisis.
Once a birthright for the middle class, the 40-hour-a-week job with medical benefits and a pension is fading. Disposable workers – those easily fired without a social safety net – are becoming the norm.
Japan has gone through a painful transformation from a lifetime employment system to one that readily discards unwanted labor. This project is about lives of such disposable workers in Japan: temporary employees who live in internet cafes, female college graduates who get by as bar girls, and businessmen who, desperate to retain their jobs, sometimes work themselves to death. ” (read/see more disposableworkers.com)