Interesting story and I'm not surprised to hear it.

The "salarymen" in my office are all lined up like a row of ducks back
at their desks precisely at 5:30PM every evening to demonstrate to the
boss that they are still present.  And there they will remain until
late hours of the evening doing essentially nothing.  These are the
same guys I will observe the next day, during what should be their
lunch break, slumped over a table in the lab, sleeping.

One day last fall at a park, my wife and I were approached by these two
women with a video camera doing a survey about how people felt about
this proposal suggesting that men take a year (or more?) off of work
when their wife has a baby to promote bonding, etc..  (Anyone else hear
about this?)

My Japanese is pathetic (and that's being nice about it) so although I
wanted to comment on this I declined.  But what I would have liked to
have said was - well, firstly, no way can I believe these guys are
going to take 1 or more years off work, or I should say, the company
allowing them to and then come back to the same job they had before.

Secondly, instead of taking a year off of work why not just work some
freaking reasonable hours (for example eight) every day and go back
home before midnight?  That way they can still keep their job and have
a family life too.

-MB