04.12.07
Posted in Allgemein at 2.20 pm by dennis 
“Employment for Life” - if you’re not a 改善(kaizen)-crazed manager, this probably springs to your mind when you think about Japanese employment at a corporation. While this has started to change more than a decade ago lifelong employment may not be guaranteed anymore, nevertheless the corporations do have a paternal stance for their employees. What more could show this than company-supplied housing, car insurance, healthcare? No kidding, you get to live at a company dorm as a bachelor, corporations have an insurance division which sometimes offers over 30% rebates (!) on monthly fees and as you can see in that image, some even have a corporate hospital you can go to… Quite unimaginable in The West™ I’d think 
By the way, this explains why employees at different-sized companies may be paid a similar salary, but big-corporation employees may have a better standard of living. This needs not be the case, but when you get decreased rent expenses and double-digit cuts in insurance fees from your employer your salary just stretches so much farther.
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12.11.07
Posted in Allgemein at 2.30 pm by dennis
Mostly everyone who heard something about modern Japan has heard of Japans unique vending machine. Those things are said to sell everything, even underwear that had been worn by schoolgirls before. X-/
And yes, I asked Tokyoites, those things did exist. But that specific type has disappeared with the burst of the bubble economy of the ’80s. You know, the decade when Japanese department stores would showroom Ferarris in case you’d buy one and take it home on a sunday, sell you reservation tickes for moon journeys and some people were swimming in ridiculous amounts of money. While I got used to most of the impressive vending machines around (most sell hot and cold drinks, some sell umbrellas, yet others a serving of french fries) I was most surprised lately when I saw this one (click the image). It sells - credit. I don’t need credit right now, but it looks like one just walks into this one, presses some buttons and *bling* there’s some fresh money on your checking account. I have this hunch that interest will be slightly above the rate they advertise in the trains (sometimes 18%. Yes, there’s lots of advertising on the trains for credit).
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01.11.07
Posted in Allgemein at 5.58 pm by dennis
Now the Japanese are said to rarely be overweight or even obese and when you get to Japan you see that there’s quite a bit of truth to that. Ever since we’ve been in an elevator and someone pointed it out I kept noticing this - Whatever is the average weight in this country, it’s not that much. Take the elevator in the building I live in. Says right there: “This elevator is made for 9 people (600kg).” Roughly 67kg per adult. Makes you think… 
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29.10.07
Posted in Allgemein at 5.42 pm by dennis
It’s again been an awfully long time since I got to post to my blog but it’s definitely not like I had forgotten about my friends! Sorry it took so long. The last few posts were mostly about new phtots and I’ll try to move back to more writing again. For now, I’ll stick with pointing out two wonderful trips I had. One was a weekend to Hachi-Joo Island (八丈島) which is part of the Tokyo administative region but is about an hour to the south in the Pacific. By plane that is, a ferry would take all night to get there. A friend who’d arrived there a day before pointed out that “you sometimes feel you should be ashamed to be in such a wonderful place, where you just grill fresh fish, jump into the ocean” and watch the green hills, wondering if there ever were clouds here…
The other trip was a weekend to Hong Kong (香港) and I was amazed by the place and surprised by how much you can cram into 80 hours (the hinterland of Hong Kong is so drastically different from Kowloon (九龍) or Macao (澳門) it feels a bit like seeing different countries). The pollution is just crass, the core city itself highly fascinating and it makes you wonder how distinctly different it must have felt when you would see skyscrapers 50 meters from your window when your plane was landing (or even before there were planes, for that matter).
Gotta go!
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03.08.07
Posted in Allgemein at 6.29 pm by dennis
Graffitti! It exists in Tokyo. Seemingly as rare as it is splendid - this one is on a wall in Shibuya, not far from the Hachikou. Click it for a bigger view.
And on the other hand a critically kitsch advertisement on a wall in Takamatsu. This too is Japan. (By the way, new photos from Shikoku.)
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23.07.07
Posted in Allgemein at 2.03 pm by dennis
Today a Japanese just started speaking to me out of the blue - and as the stereotype goes it was about me breaking a rule. I was at the fitness-studio and had walked into the locker room. With my sports shoes on, which usually touch carpet, rubber or, as today, the pedals of a cardio-training bike. Now that I’ve been a member at the studio for almost a month not even the staff had told me that it’s forbidden to wear any shoes in the locker room. Guess I should be thankful the old man finally clued me in
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18.07.07
Posted in Allgemein at 4.37 pm by dennis
Having posted almost only Engrish as of late I feel that this is too one-sided and therefore present things the other way around now: Tian Tang collects on his blog what often is a very crippled collection of symbols which are supposedly meant to be Chinese/Japanese characters. Yes, many of the tattoo(!) entries Tian discusses are that faulty. I suggest you take a look at his blog “Hanzi Smatter: 一知半解” (一知半解, “icchi-han-kai” in Japanese means “superficial knowledge; half knowledge”, as you may verify in Jim Breen’s Japanese dictionary at Monash University).
Just remember that the Engrish ornaments on T-Shirts and advertising are just as negligible as the symbols on postcards and T-shits in chinatown. Though one might argue this is not the case for tattoos.
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14.07.07
Posted in Allgemein at 4.12 am by dennis
Just popping in real quick to share another Engrish, enjoy! I do remember finding a site of a Chinese consultancy in California which dissected tattoos of chinese characters that people had themselves done, explaining how nonsensical the stuff was that people now wore in their skin - but I can’t seem to find it now. I’m fine, see you later!
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20.06.07
Posted in Allgemein at 2.27 pm by dennis
Sites like engrish have long since unveiled to the world east Asian skills at creative English (I’ll contribute once I get internet at home … again, a Japanese story for another time). In the wake of the olympics in China, German news also had something on exquisite signs and menus. I’ll leave it at a wrapping for a snack, hold on to your seat:
“He are heartily glad to taste. European cakes in Japan. Original cakes made of carefully selected materials and traditional reeipes in the spirits of artisan.”
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