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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 the kids the popular children's shows from NHK (Nihon Housou Kyoukai -- Like the BBC but Japanese). Some of these shows have been
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The new guy arrived from Japan just a week earlier. He is the one that observed "Americans could never survive driving the roads in Japan" -- While I was taking my Saturday to drive him around town to show him the sights. I remember considering stopping the car
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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, it means a lunchbox (usually for children), containing carefully prepared tiny portions of different kinds of food. I have compiled my own take
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I appreciate the entheusiasm for foreign cultures, but this guy in Austin has these Kanji characters plastered upside down and sideways on his shiny truck. I felt more than a little embarrased seeing them, for some reason. KR
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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, being on the phone is often the same as being face-to-face with the person on the other end of the line. It is not infrequent
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Sometimes body language can be a problem. It always counts, and in international teams it can sometimes fail to carry the intended result. When working with Japanese folks, I am always very careful not to point at them when indicating one person over another for example. For some reason using
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My friend Sterling aptly pointed out that this product from China may have some unintended connotations in the United States. In case you don't see the problem, anything called "Pasture Cake" probably brings images of cow dung to mind. This unhappy imagery is only partially negated
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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 at the same time. The NHK news announcer lady, the performers on the kids TV show "okaa-san to ishyo", and others. In addition,
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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 everything about everything. Take as an example, what happened recently at a company here in Austin. (I will be deliberately vague here to protect the
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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. Just as there are difficult people in your own culture, be aware that there are difficult or 'different' people
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I recently responded to a question on LinkedIn that I wanted to share on my blog -- this is a tough nut to crack, and lies at the core of many organization's success or failure. Question Details: Quickly scaling Software Engineering organizations - what is the best way?
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I love LinkedIn. In the US, lots of people do. This is a recognition that our relationships with people are important, and something worth keeping track of as we move through our careers. In Japan, it can be argued that relationships are even more critical to success than in the