I’m an international student. I emailed one of my professors about a pretty serious medical condition I have which started to act up, which caused me to miss a morning class to see a doctor. He was understanding and told me to get better. I thought that would be that.
I come in the following week to a sea of concerned faces (classmates), with everyone giving me advice on what to do to help cure my sickness (which I’ve had since childhood), with groundbreaking methods such as eating more natto or gargle warm water. ??
I know everyone meant well… but I’m really pissed at the professor because he apparently felt the need to tell everyone exactly what condition I have and why I missed class. I feel like in my country this would have been a violation of student privacy, but it seems normal here. I don’t expect much protection for students in Japan, because I mean, we’re the bottom of the hierarchy here, but with all this talk of “マナー” and sh*t I would’ve expected at least a little shred of privacy.
I could go on about other instances where I emailed a superior private information to find out they spread the news to the whole damn town via megaphone.
Any similar stories?
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Japanese people like to snitch. Had a colleague report to HR when I was out with him and jaywalked a street in this non-busy inaka.
Don’t tell anything confidential to anyone tied to your work or school.
Don’t share details, especially not in writing. Once they’re out you no longer have control. “Due to medical reasons I cannot attend …” is enough. If they want details and it cannot be avoided, share them in person in exchange for the promise of confidentiality.
Norms are different here. Err on the side of caution of what you want to or have to share. Do not expect everybody to behave like where your grew up.
My company will publish the full name, date of birth, address of new employees on the internal web portal.
The village mentality can still exist within organizations, such as schools. It was quite normal for people in communities to look out for each other and to do that everyone knew what was up with everyone else. I’m sure if you prefaced your email to the professor to keep it private that request would have been respected but sometimes, especially if your professor is old, that level of privacy might not be default.
Sorry this happened to you. It happens a lot. I would report it to the university and take issue with it so it will not happen again.
I had a serious medical condition occur at my last place of employment. I got it checked out at the same time as a much less pressing, but more sensitive issue (to save time and extra visits). I was on company insurance. The president told a coworker in front of me (thinking I couldn’t understand Japanese despite having previously worked as a translator – this was a temporary job I needed for visa purposes) that I wasn’t actually sick and it was just the sensitive issue.
If it’s private, why would you tell anyone? Unless it’s your spouse or your doctor, they don’t need to know.
I had a similar issue at my school, it ended up in two departments where I felt pressured to just give in and walk back on my initial request because of the grand inquisition on my health condition in relation to COVID.
It went from “provide us a shindansho and we will go from there” to 4400 yen and two departments worth of emails openly discussing my medical confirm to essentially say, “yeah we’re just gonna deny this request.”
Ha. I learnt this one early. Told my boss I was having trouble with the 2ic. He was sympathetic and said they’ve been having problems with her for years, he had a list of shit she’d done, etc. Next day he went and told her. Never trusted anyone in the workplace since.
If anyone wants the end of that story, dumb bitch got demoted and transferred later that year. So the result was fine in the end.
Company I used to work for told EVERYONE by a single group email that one of our co-workers (who hadn’t even officially announced that she was pregnant) had miscarried.
So they actually knew what your sickness was? Because in Japan “Eat natto” and “gargle warm water (possibly salt)” is pretty much the go-to.
A friend of mine had a parent die and kind of relapsed into a booze-loaded depression after returning from the funeral in his home country. He’s normally a marathon runner, reasonably healthy, but for a few months he hit the bottle every day hard, while functioning just fine at work.
Company health check came around that time and at a meeting (that could have been an email) the boss started talking about everyone’s health and that he was genuinely concerned for a few people, which was nice, but then when he brought up this coworker’s issues, it was like “We need to take care of our mental health, and our liver health. Right, (coworker’s name)?”
the names of everyone who undergoes a mental health evaluation, regardless of whether they chose to do it themselves or were forced to by their manager, is reported to the board of directors at my company. it’s so they can track whether any candidates for promotion are crazy in the head, I guess.
everyone is also super hungry for romantic gossip, it’s ridiculous. why are married 40-something, 50-something men so desperate to hear about the latest rando I’ve been talking to? so yeah, pretty much everyone in the office knows I’m single and exactly what kind of men I’m into, not that any of them actually bother to introduce me to anybody…
At a rural public junior high school several years ago, one of the veteran teachers had to stand up during the morning teacher meeting tears streaming down his face, his body in jitters to apologize for the trouble he was causing by taking leave to go seek treatment for his alcoholism.
Heard at the pharmacy:
‘OH, HAS THE HERPES FLARED UP AGAIN?’
Also, my local doctor leaves open the door between his consulting room and reception so everyone can hear most of what’s being said.
Golden snitch moment
On the positive side, you have a bunch of people that care about you and want you to know that they do. They know as a foreigner, you can be quite isolated, especially during a pandemic.
It is not acceptable for a professor to share that kind of information without your consent, especially with students.
I’ve taught at universities and supervised international students who sometimes consult with me about personal matters similar to that. Depending on the situation it might be necessary for me to share information with other professors or staff (ie to see if they could help with the student’s problem), but I always ask the student if they are OK with that first. I can’t think of a situation where it would be even remotely acceptable to be sharing that information with a whole class of students.
I wouldn’t say confidential, but definitely private. Why the fuck do people think it’s okay to ask how much you weigh? Or just in general questions about your health or body?
What a scummy and despicable thing to do. How small of a person does it take to do something so childish.