global_jd

John Dowdell's journal of studying Chinese and more in San Francisco.

Personal Handyphone

According to dottocomu, the short-range Personal Handyphone System for cellphone communications is booming in China, while withering in Japan. I've read recently that walky-talky sales are doing much better in parts of China than elsewhere in Asia, too. The article suggests total cost of ownership as the main factor, but I don't know the numbers, and wonder if user-experience elements come into play as well.

May 26, 2004 in China, Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Japanese for Western Brain

Kim Allen has a series of articles, providing a high-level overview for primary-English learners of Japanese. I've just scanned and printed it, haven't read it fully... conceptually, I like these kinds of overviews, rather than immediately jumping into someone else's idea of the best path to follow... gives me a lay-of-the-land first. Then again, everyone organizes info in different ways, so I'll have to set aside time to read it to fully evalute usefulness. I got pointed here by Anil Dash.

May 19, 2004 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Channel 2, Japan

Norimitsu Onishi writes in a New York Times article about 2ちゃんねる, a free-discussion website in Japan. It was started in 1998 by Hiroyuki Nishimura, and is now among the Top 25 sites in terms of visits per month. The article says that "the internet came late to Japan" and "most sites are business-oriented", which I'm not that sure of... what was the prior communicational culture on NiftyServe or mailing lists, for instance? But its volume, and the amount of attention its conversations receive from businesses, seem to make it a viable candidate to track today. Is it a "place" where freeform conversation is accepted? Are there any parallel sites which may differ in details of anonymity vs reputation?

May 10, 2004 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Japanese vending machines

Nice photo gallery. In San Francisco there are vending machines for soft drinks in the top floor of the Kinokuniya building (near the bridge) and the garage at Soko Gakuen on Austin Alley.

April 26, 2004 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

J-list

J-list is a clearing-house for unusual pop-culture products from Japan. WIRED has an interview with the creator.

April 12, 2004 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Kanji tattoos

A Chicago Tribune writer walks around with a photographer and collects pictures of people with characters as tattoos. These don't always mean what the bearers think they mean....

April 09, 2004 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ito on Culture Adoption

Joi Ito offers a mini-rant on adopting surface-level customs of another culture while ignoring the deeper values: "A lot of people ask me about Japanese customs. They learn the formal way to hand business cards, they bow deeply when they meet Japanese and they call me 'Ito-san.' Stop that. It's silly. To some Japanese, the awkward foreigners trying to please their hosts by acting Japanese may look cute, but more likely than not, you'll get a A for effort but you'll be forever the silly foreigner in their minds... Rather than trying to act Japanese, I suggest that people visiting Japan be sensitive and aware of the nuances in the interactions. It is more about timing, loudness, space and smiles than it is about how your hold your business card or calling people "Ito-san." When in doubt, shut up and listen. When smiled at, smile back. If you're freaking someone out, back off instead of continuing your interrogation. All of which I believe is not unique to being a foreigner in Japan."

The comments go long, crossing cultures, and I'll need to print them out to read them effectively (although I suspect some of them may be bots ;-). The discussion is not symmetrical, however: an American in Tokyo is different from a Japanese in Manhattan in this regard, because America doesn't have the vertical and horizontal distancing mechanisms found in Japan. I am gaijin, outsider, outside the group, and my face shows that I will always be so. In San Francisco it's much easier to erase the small in-group/out-group distinctions.

But there's also that angle of which habits to adopt... when to be yourself, and when to attempt to fit in. Maybe it's one of those "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" situations... study helps us learn more about what we're seeing, but that doesn't mean we have to try to put all our study on continuous display.

There's an advantage in being outside the group.

April 08, 2004 in Cross culture communication, Japan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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