The Mainichi Daily News reports that Japanese people take on average only 8 days of vacation a year. Yes, this is pretty miserable – and doesn’t even factor in the fact that Japanese people also work more PER day, making those vacations all the more necessary. That is, at least to me – I don’t take a masochistic pride in how much unnecessary overtime I do.

The part most depressing to me as someone who lives here and most interesting to me as a bored-certified armchair sociologist, though, is this:

When asked what countermeasures should be introduced to deal with the problem, most people said, “Managers should encourage workers to take more paid holidays.”

Way to display a fundamental grasp of the concept of rights, guys!