Related to Japan

A relatively young woman, Q, joined the Taiwan-Japan Industrial Promotion Center at the Institute for Information Industry, initially believing it would be a platform for digital transformation and international cooperation. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be a Taiwanese-style power struggle mixed with a touch of a “very inauthentic” Japanese-style palace intrigue drama. Deputy Director Hou Jingyi and Deputy Manager Fu Wangqi have a close relationship (possibly relatives). They smile and act overly familiar with male colleagues, while the Line group is filled with “XX~” messages all day. Toward women, however, they are critical and cold, and toward Q they display an almost pathological sensitivity and hostility. Fu was not originally part of the group; she joined only after Q arrived, then immediately aligned herself with the deputy director, adopting the same stance and attitude and repeatedly targeting Q. She even imitated the background photo of a young male colleague, making the workplace atmosphere awkward and uncomfortable.

When Q first joined, the division of work between her and an older part-time employee who started on the same day seemed extremely unfair, and she was often treated like a servant. After she raised objections, team leader Lu Jianhao appeared to compromise on the surface, but in reality held a grudge and gradually showed a tendency to manipulate and exclude her, including cutting off colleagues’ communication and creating information asymmetries.

What troubled her even more was that her interactions with male colleagues of a similar age were subjected to one-sided stigmatization and suspicion. She was even subjected to restrictions such as being “forbidden from contacting” them, turning ordinary colleague interactions into something tense and unnatural. These malicious efforts to target her were widespread, while no review or criticism appeared when married employees such as those described above engaged in inappropriate behavior that affected the office atmosphere and interactions. Her supervisors and HR even abused their authority to monitor her conversation records with colleagues and arbitrarily frame them as sexual-harassment allegations, then refused to accept her gender-equality complaint.

On one occasion, her supervisor even asked to borrow her computer—in a unit that prides itself on digital transformation, a supervisor asking an employee to lend them a computer really resembled a circus performance. Afterwards, the supervisor deleted her calendar permissions on the grounds of “personal data,” which was essentially using personal data as a moral pretext for bullying while revealing a double standard whose underlying logic did not actually respect personal-data protection.

When she sought assistance from HR and the Gender Equality Committee, she received cold treatment and counter-smearing instead. On the very day she filed a complaint, she was suddenly removed from the office and forced to work remotely. Her calendar, meetings, and in-person work were all blocked; her duties were downgraded to support work, and she was expelled from the workplace’s social circle—made invisible and humiliated.

Filing a complaint did not bring a resolution; instead, she was “listed as a subject of investigation.” Watching them manipulate the complaint system, smear and sexually insinuate against an innocent person to suppress her, she truly felt that the complaint resources were being wasted. As for the deputy director, she apparently fantasized that she had an ambiguous relationship with a young male colleague, then turned around and accused the young female employee whom she had bullied of bullying her.

The Labor Department also brushed the matter aside as a “civil dispute” with a verbal admonition, handling it like a teacher disciplining elementary-school students.

For women, young people, and those who value systems and responsibilities, entering a quasi-official organization like this requires serious consideration. The supervisor who appeared harmless during the interview was actually skilled at using smiles to disguise PUA-style control and served as the deputy director’s puppet. He watched the deputy director’s reactions and busied himself suppressing young women; after being reminded about his bad breath and arbitrary division of work, he appeared to hold a grudge and focused on retaliation.

Many people in the team appeared to be in poor mental states. Some lacked a sense of boundaries, some were enthusiastic about emotional affairs, and some thought they were playing antisocial games within the system, when in reality they were merely slacking off and drawing a salary, wasting social resources. People who focus on their work generally do not look very cheerful; naturally, I had no reason to put on a pleasant face in such an environment either.

Even after her complaint failed, she continued to be stigmatized and made invisible until her final day of employment. After the colleague who had demanded that she be silenced was challenged and was no longer treated as the main attacker, the team leader once again took action against her, claiming that she had “caused trouble by asking work-related questions” of other male members of the team and former friendly members of another team. This misuse of Japan’s etiquette culture of not causing inconvenience to others became behavior that confused and offended people. As in the past, colleagues’ interactions were maliciously distorted and interpreted, employees’ privacy was violated, and she was harmed and isolated. Ironically, the person being excluded was socially skilled and attractive.

In fact, she was merely forbidden without cause from interacting with certain people, so she discussed business with other colleagues instead. Almost all of those collaborators happened to be men, which was not something she could choose. This staffing arrangement reflected the long-standing gender-based manipulation preferred by the deputy director, her inner circle, and the team leader.

Finally, a reminder: if anyone plans to file a complaint in an environment like this, internal channels are mostly just for “going through the motions,” so it is unwise to place much hope in them. When being suppressed and retaliated against, hold on until the right time, then seek external or judicial remedies. After all, this culture of protecting insiders and oppression is unlikely to be eradicated in the short term.

Since last year, several members have experienced mental-health problems, and the Institute for Information Industry itself also uses the complaint system to help suppress people targeted by supervisors.