If you live in Japan, you don’t drink at work. You work at your drinking.
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On Ozu, Architecture and Japanese Lunch Boxes
Japan is really good at dividing wholes into smaller parts.
Just look at the Bento box a mother makes for a 4-year-old or the masterpieces of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. It’s in the architecture, where panels are carefully measured and placed, where windows look out into windows. It’s evident in the sacred gates of Shinto that serve as open doorways to places of awe; it’s in the wicker rope tied around trees.
J-Cin Sundays: Godzilla vs Fukushima
Posted in Earthquake, Movies
Tagged earthquake, fukushima, godzilla, gojira, japan, japanese cinema, movies, nuclear, power
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On the Psychic Abilities of Japanese Salarymen
The first thing you’ll do at a new job in Japan is sit for weeks without instructions.
You will show up to work and sit at a desk. You’ll have lunch around 12:30, then sit at your desk. Your supervisors will ask how you are and if everything is going OK. You’ll say you don’t have anything to do, really. They’ll say relax, don’t worry, don’t try to do everything at once, etc. Weeks will pass. Maybe months.
Then you’ll be told to do something impossible in 40 minutes with no preparation.
This happens because Japanese people can read minds. Sometimes they forget that you can’t.
Posted in Culture Shock, Weird
13 Comments
J-Cin Sundays: “Linda Linda Linda”（リンダリンダリンダ）
J-Cin is a new, semi-regular weekend feature for This Japanese Life discussing Japanese Cinema. This is the first installment.
On Japanese Funerals
My first conversation about the earthquake was a week and three days after it struck. In the office, we talked about the peripheries of disaster: Blood donations, fundraisers, TV coverage.
We didn’t talk about victims. When the media focused on pictures of widows and orphans, my colleagues bristled at the invasion of privacy. “Get the cameras out of the shelters,” a co-worker complained.
Mourning comes slowly in Japan. People address tragedy by consensus.
Posted in Earthquake, Photography, Shinto, Shrines, Temples and Ruins, Thinking, Tradition, Uncategorized, Zen
Tagged buddhism, death, earthquake, funerals, japan, photos, shinto
6 Comments
