I read an interesting article today. It touches base on how to properly eat sushi in Japan, how not to handle your chopsticks, tips on business meetings, the art of bowing, how to give a gift, and a few other topics.
Click here to check out the article.
Here are a few that really stood out to me.
- Exchanging Business Cards
It’s very important that yours be crisp, clean, and presentable; you will be handing them out often. A card should be offered with both hands, and received with either your right hand or with both. Look at it long enough to convey that you’re processing the presenter’s name and rank and the importance of his or her title-even if you don’t know what it means. You can show it to your concierge later for a full translation.
- The Art of the Bow
There are three types of bows in Japan; you’ll be using the first almost exclusively. Here’s who they’re for”¦
- 115 degrees (a quick dip of the head and shoulders)|
For neighbors and friends.
- 230 degrees
For saying good morning to a colleague, thanking a boss for assigning you a task, or entering an important meeting.
- 345 degrees (really bending at the waist)
For the president of a company, when showing deep appreciation or sympathy, or upon greeting the emperor. This one is reserved for rare occasions and is considered disturbing or disingenuous when overused
- Dress up for a bit
Fashion is fairly Western in Japan, but “you don’t see many-how should I say it-mature men in T-shirts and shorts,” Fautt says. A polo shirt is about as casual as it gets. Women should go easy on the tank tops
- Never eat or drink while walking
Although vending machines are ubiquitous, locals buy their soda, drink it by the machine, throw the empty away, and continue on their way. No one eats while walking, and public consumption of alcohol is even worse. “Walking around with a beer makes you look like an idiot,” Fautt says.
iTunes is a great piece of software in my opinion but it does have some disadvantages and some problems on occasion. One of the worst problems I’ve had with iTunes is after an upgrade it started skipping songs… what I mean is a song plays fine for a while and then gets all messed up and sounds like a scratched CD that’s skipping. I would play the song in Windows Media Player and it sounded fine. I play the song in iTunes again and it sounds fine.
If you are running into the same problem with iTunes sucking balls then here are a few solutions that might work for you.
iTunes Skipping on Windows XP Solution 1:
- Exit iTunes
- Upgrade your sound card drivers (just to eliminate that as an issue)
- Upgrade to latest Microsoft direct X version:
- Click the Start Button, then click the Run button
- Type: dxdiag and then hit enter
- Click “sound 1″ or similarly named tab
- Slide the bar to “basic acceleration”
- Exit
- Restart iTunes
Continue reading ‘iTunes Skipping while playing Songs’
I’ve seen some amazing and interesting things here in Japan so far and here are some photos of the smallest Coke I’ve ever seen in my life. Can you imagine drinking this with a Mega Mac? It’s 160ml (or 5.4 ounces), it cost 53 Yen, and it came in a heavy duty can. Speaking of cans, a lot of canned drinks here in Japan are pretty strong. I’d say they are somewhere in the middle of an American beer can and a can of vegetables. I was in a rush so the only thing I had hand to compare size was an 8 ounce coffee mug.
Why is Japan awesome? There are many reasons and here’s another one to add to the list. Already sliced butter! Who thinks of this stuff, seriously? They should give it it’s own name. I’d name it Awesome Butter. Pre-sliced butter has changed my life.
It’s getting cold so it’s sweater time for Lulu. Here she is modeling her new threads. She’s a ball of energy so I was lucky to snap these photos.
This is my first year missing a Thanksgiving feast in the U.S. Do I care? Not so much. It’s always been a nice extended vacation from work or school and a chance to get drunk with friends and family while eating dry turkey… and then left over dry turkey for another week, bleh. That reminds me… something interesting I’ve noticed over the years is how people in America love the holidays because of food. My friends and I have always talked about home cooked meals, eating this, and eating that, but it was only around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why is that? Why don’t Americans prepare good food on a regular basis? Hamburger Helper, easy cook instant dinners, what is up with that!? Luckily my fiancee is the best cook I’ve ever known and her meals can put a 5-star restaurant to shame! So in the sake of Thanksgiving I am going to share some pictures of two delicious lunches, Bento, that I’ve recently enjoyed. Continue reading ‘Thanksgiving in Japan?’
Running low on my regular coffee I decided to give some instant Japanese coffee a try. I didn’t have much hope because instant Folders coffee in the U.S. tastes like ass but my choices were slim so I went for it. The result: Pretty OK. Yep, it’s not terrible like the instant coffee I remember and it was pretty ok (now I didn’t say good). I would choose this over no coffee but I’d choose no coffee over the U.S. instant coffee. There’s one more reason to add to the list of why Japan rocks!
When I click on Send and Receive in Microsoft Outlook I started getting the error Interface Not Registered. This error started to appear after I installed some video editing software and also ran some updates to the software. I searched around the Internet and found this solution from Microsoft which fixed my problem.
You receive the “Interface not registered” error message when you try to send or to save an e-mail message to the Drafts folder in Outlook 2002
SYMPTOMS
If you use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor in Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, and you try to send e-mail messages or to save e-mail messages to the Drafts folder, you may receive the following error message:
Interface not registered
Or, you may experience the following symptoms:
I’ve read the SkyMall magazine over and over while waiting for a plane to take off and I’m sure I’m not alone! I’ve never bought anything from the magazine but I did see something that made me go ‘wtf’ the other day when checking out their site… for just $225 you can have your very own Sumo table.
“Basho, The Sumo Wrestler” Glass-Topped Table
Add a touch of the Far East with “Basho” (Japanese for “tournament”), a traditional Sumo practitioner of one of the world’s oldest martial arts. Basho crouches in his mawashi (Sumo belt) in these intricate sculpts with wide stances. Our table is topped with a 3/8″-thick, pencil-edged, 27″ dia. tempered glass top for views from any angle. This Toscano-exclusive heavyweight is cast in quality designer resin for display in home or garden.
