A great idea, executed with just the right amount of creepiness and awesome. Could stand to be bigger.
Tag: Japan
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➟ 30th Asakusa Samba Carnival
Last month’s 30th annual Samba carnival in Asakusa, from The Japan Times. I’ve only ever seen photos, so this was a good way to get a feel of the atmosphere (and the weirdness of the floats).
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➟ Bi King Whopper promo in Japan
An all-you-can-eat Whopper deal for the price of a meal with fries and a drink. Time limit: 30 minutes. Fun fact: buffet-style concepts are called “Viking” in Japan, and “V” is usually mapped to a “B” sound, hence the name.
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➟ The Japanese work environment
While we are working, conversations must be something related with the work. Personal chatting among colleagues is basically considered inappropriate. For shops, sales persons should not take a seat. They’ll always stand and ready to bow when customers enter the store. Sales person sitting on a chair gives customers goofing impressions? I don’t know, but I have never seen any cashier sitting at a check out counter at supermarket in Japan.In this summer, I’ve traveled Sydney (Australia), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Brussels (Belgium), Venice and Florence (Italy) but I have seen shop workers always chatting with colleagues even if there are customers in the store. I’ve seen many people from all these cities working much more relaxed than Japanese people.Much of the post is about how hard it is for Japanese workers to take long vacations of more than five days. I started out feeling it was a uniquely Japanese problem, but it really isn’t too different here. At the very least, we aren’t prevented from having personal conversations in the workplace.
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➟ Vintage Tokyo subway courtesy posters
Don’t Forget Your Umbrella (October 1981) If you’ve seen the Tokyo Metro company’s recent “Please Do It At Home” campaign, it might interest you to know that they’ve been at the batshit-crazy poster game since the 1970s. Click through for illustrations of considerate trainfaring starring Superman, Hitler, Catholic nuns, and Astro Boy.
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Japanese traffic lights red, yellow, blue? – JapanSugoi – Everything Cool about Japan
From JapanSugoi:In Japan, green traffic lights are considered “blue” and described as ao shingō (青信号). In modern Japanese although there is a word for “green” (”midori 緑”), which is a relatively new term that has only been used since the Heian Period. Even after “midori” came into use, green was still thought of as a shade of “ao” instead of an independent color and only became distinguished after World War II.
Includes a couple other interesting examples of how culture filters even things we take for granted, like the color of the moon.
sangsara.net 