Once again you demonstrate unsurpassed ignorance of industrial history. The airbag fiasco pales in comparison to GM's ignition switch fiasco and actua lly a lot of other stuff from the American auto industry where they *knew* their products would end up killing people. Nobody is going to get excited over a product kill rate of less than 10ppm, not even the FDA.
We had an occasional visitor to San Francisco from Hamamatsu. Whenever we asked him what he wanted for lunch, he said "sushi." He said that ours was great, and that he couldn't afford sushi for lunch at home.
I stayed at a traditional hotel in Hamamatsu, a big bare room with mats on the floor. A maid came at night and laid out a pallet bed on the floor. It was interesting but not very comfortable.
Japan is really beautiful in places, especially the small towns and countryside. The cities are pretty westernized.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
I quoted the New York Times. Complain to the editor.
Once again you show yourself to be a nasty old git.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
I guess there are plenty of US guys with all sorts of manors. But that doesn't excuse not having good manners.
-- Rick
rote:
nglish
they
iguring
dn't
peak
debate
s with very interesting ideas, and quite a lot with PhDs presenting new ide as that really does not amount to anything (easy to spot it by the paper ti tle, usually starting with "Novel")
some completely impossible to understand what they are saying even if the p aper is flawless. Some with perfect presentations, but when asked a questio n they are clueless. (they learn the sound of the English words, but don't know what they are saying)
urs and have very deep knowledge of the field
thing about manors. The Asians keep it low key, the same with the European s. The US guys like to talk loud like they are smart, but it's just for sho w. Some US guys even like to stand in the back of the room when several hun dred people are listening to a presentation, yapping on a cell phone (I mig ht just be unlucky to have those experiences)
Grin, yeah JL already ripped me for my poor spelling.
George H.
It's a bit harder to form into cool shapes and evil grins. Form will always win over function.
Gorilla glass is formed like any glass then made into the gorilla mode.
-- Rick
...and are modern automotive light lenses made out of Gorilla Glass? No, of course they aren't. They're *ALL* plastic because it can be made into cool shapes and evil grins.
I think he was just being polite. Top quality sushi/sashimi in Japan is expensive but there are plenty of other options in the back streets.
In summer we would sleep in our tatami matted room traditional Japanese style since it was inside the air conditioned part of the flat. Staying in various ryokan from budget to luxury was great fun too. Sadly I never got to do the tropical Okinawa gig - my friend did that one. I got Sapporo and the Ice Festival though and "Genhgis Khan" cuisine aka roast lamb cooked at the table on hot metal plates. In summer any matsuri festival is worth a look and if you can wangle it the fireworks competition/festival in Tsuchiura near to Tsukuba (aka Science City). I saw the worlds first "saturn" ring around a ball of fire mortars there.
Travelling to distant parts meant getting used to Japanese breakfasts of rice and miso soup too. Western breakfasts might be available but it was pot luck whether they came hot or cold (cooked the night before).
We went over to an almost entirely Japanese diet saving a vast sum in the process since the UK expat package was based on US dietary habits and seemed to assume consumption of 16oz steaks daily.
My colleagues visiting from the UK would take me out to "feed me up" when they visited. But although I did get slimmer and fitter in Japan it was mostly them getting fatter on too many business lunches.
Major Japanese cities, Kyoto excepted are pretty much like any other although a bit more neon concrete jungle than most. Nikko and Hakone are well worth a trip out from Tokyo to see. Expect long traffic jams if you try to do it in the fall when autumn colours are at their best.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
I spent 12 days in Japan 2 years ago, and worked with a bunch of Japanese physicists during that time. We generally went out to dinner in the town, and had a long chat on non-technical stuff. A couple times we went out WITHOUT the Japanese people, and tried to order food without their help. One guy was making a strong effort to learn Japanese, and carried a Japanese/English dictionary everywhere. But, we still ended up ordering spicy chicken skin quite a number of times at several restaurants. It seems this might have been the local delicacy, so it was all over the menus.
I even managed to buy some food items at the local supermarket ALL BY MYSELF! That was quite an experience. The real problem is that, other than Oreo cookies, there was practcally nothing of the packaged nature in the store that indicated what was inside. I finally managed to find some shrimp ramen noodle packages which actually had a PICTURE of a shrimp on the package!
We were fascinated to find Japan was an ALL cash society, NOBODY used credit cards! I had done a bunch of research, and already knew 7-11 was the place where the ATMs took US credit and debit cards. Very few of the others would accept them. (I also read up on the correct manner of offering cash and accepting the change.)
My boss and I went from Chiba to north of Tokyo on the Tokyo Metro all by ourselves. Just had to find a subway car that had the stations announced in English and we were fine. I loved that in one of the stations, there was a temporary sign on the wall that said in big letters "Attention!" in English. The rest of the sign was in Japanese! I would have taken a picture, but that is supposed to be a security no-no.
It was a wonderful experience, and I kind of wished I had had more time there to absorb more.
Jon
How you get on depends very much on your attitude to life and ability to gently bend the rules to get what you want. We had Japanese lessons before going out and half a day a week of company lessons.
Before we had much Japanese we ended up in Sapporo at the Ice Festival and on a Sunday when everything was shut. There was a group of us but we decided to explore separately and we were the only ones to find any lunch having spotted people diving into a shed under a railway arch. We had a "fried" something or other lunch - turned out to giant shrimp but we had no way of knowing that since there were no models and a hand written kanji menu of which the only thing we could read was "fried".
Our initial strategy was to take the waitress out and point at the model lunch we wanted or write down its number if possible. Today you could take a photo of it. Family restaurants were common and more user friendly although we initially had trouble ordering western food and making the pudding arrive after a main meal.
For the first six months we never drove out of sight of our local mountain for fear of getting lost with kanji only rural placenames.
Possibly. I don't remember that being so popular when I was there. I suspect KFC may be responsible for the rise of that delicacy.
Temupura (up market fish & chips), okonomi yaki and yaki soba are amongst the more Westerner friendly places they will take you to eat. Once you are "in group" then nattou, umiboshi and uni become fair game.
We dutifully polished our fine wooden table with window glass polish for the best part of a year before our Japanese was sufficient to work out that it wasn't the right stuff. If you are there head for the food section of a large department store on a Saturday and there may well be free tastings of various local delicacies on offer.
The biggest shock I ever got was when I though I had found jam donuts in a Western style bakery. I was so looking forward to it. The snag was I couldn't read the label - it was a *curry* donut. Very big shock!!
That used to be funny. At 3pm on a Friday our tiny Japanese secretary would go off to the bank and bring back a shopping bag with everybody's weekly expenses in cash. This would include multiple international flights so $10k would be the typical cash amount she was carrying.
It is pretty easy inside Tokyo. I presume you went and had a look at Akihabara and the electronics market. "I am so sorry I am a stupid gaijin" or "I was drunk at the time" will get you out of many awkward situations if you want or need to break or bend the rules a bit. (no good for drunk driving offences though and it is a zero limit)
The Japanese subway and train system is fantastic. If you are ever there on business it is worth adding a few days on holiday for a visit to the more scenic parts like Hakone, Ise, Nikko or Kyoto.
Do they still have backpacks with "Hello Kitty" and whacky slogans like "Have a nice survival" on? This isn't quite as weird today when Westerners wonder around with permanent random kanji tatoos on them.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
Train station near Akishima - 4 teenage girls, all wearing Mr. Zogs Sex Wax t-shirts. They stood near us on the train. Two of them spoke flawless American English with a hint of upspeak - Southern California maybe? Apparent family resemblance between them suggested that Japanese-American cousins were visiting Japanese-Japanese cousins and brought a bit of SoCal culture with them.
-- Grizzly H.
On Mon, 11 Jan 2016 07:14:49 -0500, mixed nuts Gave us:
The Japanese (younger generation) loved blue jean jackets and Elvis and bikinis too... albeit over a decade later than those in the US.
I am sure the time lag gap is smaller now with the Internet in place.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.