Tag: Japan
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The Importance of Being Human
The New York Times has a front page story about the All-Japan Phone-Answering Competition. In this day of automated voice mail trees and customer service forms, Japan still stresses the importance of having a human answer the phone promptly and efficiently. What is ironic is that, to the Western ear, the high-pitched tones and honorifics used…
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Why Ise is rebuilt every 20 years
The Shinto shrines of Ise in central Japan are famous because they have been re-built every 20 years for hundreds of years (2013 is a re-building year). In an example of long term thinking, there is a special grove of cedar trees that are grown specifically so that they may be harvested in time for…
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Specialty Coffee around the World
The New York Times has a piece about the San Francisco coffee scene, specifically the barista training upstairs from the local temple of the perfect cup, Sightglass. While the West Coast style of brewing is making it’s way to Japan in places like Shibuya, Japan has it’s own professional brewing method which they take very…
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Struggling is a given and struggling can be good
Nice post over on my dad’s blog about the difference between learning in Japan and learning in America, When that one boy as applauded for struggling to learn, the teacher gave the lesson that anyone struggling to learn deserves to be applauded. The lesson was that struggling is a chance to show that you have…
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Guns in Japan
My father (who started his own blog) shares what you need to do to get a gun in Japan. To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class.…
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Better Driving thru Optical Camouflage
This is pretty smart idea. Using principals of Optical Camouflage, researchers at Keio University project the image from a camera on the back of a car onto a recursive reflector which looks like one of those glass screens politicians use for their teleprompters. The mirror sits at an angle to project an image right where…
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Long Now Bottle Keep
As I grow older, I have come to appreciate the power of stories. I collect them as I go through life, sometimes seeking out experiences because a good story may come out of it. I was invited this past week to join the staff of The Long Now Foundation to share a story that I…
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Japanese Maps a Unique Challenge
The New York Times has a piece pointing out that the new iOS 6 cartography woes that Apple is experiencing are amplified in Japan which presents it’s own unique mapping challenges. Mainly because they are trying to jam a global mapping paradigm into Japan which has its own challenges. … cities like Tokyo are changing…
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Serving the Customer
In Japan, attending to the needs of the customer is not only a pre-requisite, it is a minimum requirement to participate in the domestic economy. The Japanese consumer is a particularly fickle shopper. The mere whiff of attitude will drive away shoppers and with it, the business. Back when I lived in Tokyo when VCRs…