New Year Eve (Japanese style)
New years at our house means two things: Food and Japanese TV. My wife is from Japan, so when it comes to big holidays we …
Culture Archive
Instituitions Versus People: A Japanese Perspective
We have 3 kids who we are teaching to speak Japanese. We also have Japanese TV by satellite at home. This means that we show …
Bento: Go Forth Into The World, My Child
Bento. Traditional lunchboxes from Japan. I would go so far as to say that Bento is becoming an English word. In case you don’t know, …
I’m On The Phone (and NO, I don’t see you.)
Working with Japanese engineers, one thing that was hard to get used to is how the phone is handled. I have noticed that for Japanese, …
Its Springtime: You’re fired.
Japan is funny sometimes. We watch Japanese TV at home (more than American shows) and I noticed that a number of TV personalities all disappeared …
The Gossip Machine – Fear it. Respect it.
Information flow in the Japanese community is down-right scary. One person hears something, then the grapvine kicks in, and before you know it, everybody knows …
Who is in charge?
Here is a funny story about ‘being in charge’ that came about on a multinational project’s ski trip a few years ago. A group of …
Culture is not always the problem
I have observed that there can be difficulties when working with people from other cultures. Occasionally though ‘culture’ gets blamed for things that it shouldn’t. …
When in Rome
In the context of international engineering projects… A coworker of mine who has worked with people from many different cultures was recently observing how impressed …
Getting Ahead in Japan
What does it take to ‘get ahead’ in Japan? More than anything it means that you graduated from the right university. At the top of …
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