Japanese smile
I teach a cross-cultural communication class in English/Japanese to Japanese college students, and I wanted to give my students an example of “the inscrutable Oriental”, or an example of how ways to express emotion are not always the same across cultures, and therefore not always easy to “read”. I used this example: I used these [...]
Spooked consumers snapping up cheap Geiger counters | The Japan Times Online
Astonishing. A society which has been trained to obey orders, to undertake nothing on one’s own initiative without consulting superiors and peers/fellow group or community members, is taking matters into its own hands at an accelerating pace. Reality is forcing itself into people’s consciousness. The idea that they might have been living in a dream [...]
Yakuza eye cleanup profits | The Japan Times Online
The government and law enforcement authorities appear to be fighting an uphill battle to prevent gangsters and other “antisocial” groups from cashing in on disposing of huge amounts of debris generated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which played havoc with large areas along the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan. via Yakuza eye cleanup [...]
Stand up! Stand up, for the Emperor!
Image via Wikipedia I used to feel sorry for these people, and I do feel a lingering sympathy, but not much and it’s ebbing away quickly. Why are these people surprised? What were they expecting? The state is often institutionalized coercion: if they can make everyone study the same subjects, from the same textbooks, why [...]
Japanese version of “The Office” and other Japan news
Thanks to Japan Probe, I discovered that the British comedy series The Office had a Japanese inspiration. Like The Office itself, people seem to either love it or not find it funny at all. And speaking of Japan news, those foreigners living in Japan may be glad to know that the term “gaijin” has been [...]
Japan’s food statistics
A friend’s shared Google Reader feed alerted me to this video created for the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). It contains some interesting statistics, and begs some interesting questions. E.g.: Japan only produces about 40% of the food it consumes. This is the lowest among all major developed nations. This is the [...]
The nail that sticks out…
I teach a writing class, for which I have the students create blogs. I have the same group of students as in the first semester. There’s one student who showed up for a few classes, but then stopped. In a brief conversation, this student said it was difficult to “join” the class, as it was [...]
