If Japanese business men dance in New York, it should be like this...

What are the differences between American business style and Japanese business style?

1.      Clothing

Is it my prejudice that American people usually wear simple cloth at their office?  Because I do not often see my friends wear business suit. They usually ware like this picture.

             However, it was common to see that my Japanese friends wearing business suit. 

2.      After worked

American people go back to their home immediately after worked and they spend time for their family or friends.

Japanese go out with their boss or coworkers, 2 or 3 times a week. When my boss asks me to go out, I cannot say “no.” Even if I have other promise or I do not like to go… This is typical Japanese behavior. Our only choice of answer is “yes sir”.  Japanese believe that collective action is most important in the company (working society). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDOPNLzEFH0

I imagine that if Japanese business men visit in New Yoke, they would move like this…. (as a working machines)

Do you know how to use Japanese toilet. I'm not joking!

So far, I have written about Japanese side what Japanese are surprisied by differenece from American things; however, I would like to introduce about American people side what they are surprised by Japanese things.

When I lived Japan, one of my American friends, who visited Japan first time, stayed my house couple of days. First day, I heard his yelling from the bathroom and he was soaked. Why? He tried useing the Washlet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washlet

The toilet has so many buttons but, he could not read Japanese. He just pushed many buttons for shitting to the toilet seat. And one of the buttons was to wash your bottom automatically. The toilet bowl throw water on him.....  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veW2yRYBADY

 The other day, he did not come back over 30 from the comfort station. He was playing and taking photos. He was supplied by the toilet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km3xt49fHq4

 Now, you understand the reason why he did not come back, right?

If you use Japanese toilet, you might need to bring extra your closing because you will take my friend place…. Be careful!!

Can we measure our life style with the numbers?

Can we measure our life style with the numbers?

This time, I use the numbers to compare between Japanese life style and American life style. And it is easy to understand how difference between those life style.

Figures:

Male

The basic American:  Average of height 5.84 feet

                                       Average of weight 191.8 pounds

The basic Japanese:   Average of Height 5.57 feet

                                      Average of weight 143 pounds

Female

The basic American: Average of height 5.35 feet

                                     Average of weight 164.6 pounds

The basic Japanese:  Average of height 5.18 feet

                                     Average of weight  117.8 ponds

Why?

Average soft drink consumption

Japan:       22 liters/ a year

America:   216 liters/ a year (wow!)

Other difference is:

Median yearly income (after taxes)

Japan:      $21,760

America: $25,200

However……

Average daily TV time (advantage of American life)

Japan:      3.6 hours/ a day

America: 8.2 hours/ a day

Average alcohol consumption (advantage of American life)

Japan:      8.0 liters/ a year

America:  9.4 liters/ a year (“no drinking, no life!” ← it is quotation from my American friends’ expression)

Average medical expense (disadvantage of American life)

Japan:     $1,857

America: $4,938 (Ouch!!)

Moreover:

To have a part of housework:

Japan:    Women 83%

              Men 17%
(Do you want to marry Japanese men?)

American:   Women  58%

                     Men         42%

What do you think the numbers? Isn’t it interesting?

Cultures Can Affect a Person’s Character

Customs are different between Japanese and Americans. Americans are more open minded and friendlier. For instance, if in America people make eye contact, they usually smile and say “Hi” even if the person is a stranger.  And this may lead to small talk. I often see this situation at Starbucks. However, most Japanese are shy and bashful. When I made eye-contact with a woman the first time, I was in the U.S. She gave me a big smile and tried talking to me. I thought she was hitting on me, but it was definitely not the case!

(Now, I understand…… I was ready to sink into the ground…)

It is basically a collective action. Japanese think that living alone and showing their emotion to someone is shameful.  Being a cooperative person in a Japanese society is considered important.  However, American people believe that exchanging opinions is more important than remaining silent. It is interesting that cultures can affect a person’s character.

So, I think Japanese and Americans use social media in different ways because of customs. 

How the “shy Japanese are Using Social Media.”

http://blog.btrax.com/en/2011/12/26/how-the-shy-japanese-are-using-social-media/

Can you drive a car without a windshield?

 One day, I was so astonished that a person drove a junk car which did not have a windshield in winter!! Of course, the car was not a convertible car! Also, it was on freeway and snowing and night time!! My friend suddenly pinched my cheek because he thought it was a dream.  And we opened car window, we just wanted to know driver’s feeling, but we could not stand to open the windows, even thought it was less than a minute. Our best solution was that he is made by Detroit (because we could not find any other words or answer why he could drive like this). Don’t you think so?

Anyway, in my country, it is legally responsibility that Japanese periodically has their car inspected by a qualified mechanic at a garage.   However, the U.S. is different that maintenance your car is your responsibility. So, here is a question that do you know how to change flat tire?

Getting a flat tire happens frequently in our automobile life. At least we had better know how to change a flat tire. It will help if this pressing matter happens.  

Tools needed: spare tire, jack, lug wrench.

Step1: Park your Car on Flat Ground

When you get a flat tire on the road, park your car as far away from traffic as possible. Make sure to turn on the emergency brake.

Step2: Unfasten the Nuts

Take out your spare tire, jack, and lug wrench from the trunk. Loosen the nuts up by turning them counterclockwise. Loosen them just a few times, but do not take them off completely.

Step3: Jack Up

Put the jack underneath your car and look over your owner’s manual for the proper placement of the jack. Start cranking the jack when the tire is high enough and then remove the lug nuts from the wheel.

Step4: Change the Flat Tire to Spare Tire

Take the spare tire and line up the lugs and bolts with the holes in the wheel and slide the wheel on. After finishing this, take the lug nuts and tighten by hand.

Step5: Lower the Car and Finish Tightening the Lug Nuts

Let down the jack until the wheel is on the ground. The nuts must be super tight to safety driving, so there are methods of fastening the nuts.  Start with any lug nut and then follow this pattern:           

Before you get in an emergency situation, I strongly recommend to practice this process once. It will help your emergency situation.  I hope this information will help when you get a flat tire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlyrv-h97z8
This is YouTube, you can see how to change the flat tire

Writting

Before coming to United State, I worked at restaurant business. My country, Japan, had a recession. When people had the recession, they would control their spending. I clearly realized that the customers had decreased sharply over the past few months. However, I did have enough skills to get a new job. I thought only studying accounting in my country was not satisfy to survive this severe world. Moreover, Japan is not good environment for studying as America. This was reason why I decided to study business accounting and English in US. 

When I came to America, I learned how to read and write English in ESL class. I was surprised by difference between Japanese and American writing taste. Japanese writing are organized by logical development such as occurring, evolution, and consequence. It is vague and difficult to understand. However, American writing uses completely different forms. It is quite understandable  what they want to say, because American writing usually tells their purposes at first, and each purposes are supported by what, why, where, when, who, and how. So, knowing both languages is my strengths. When I writ, my idea is shaped by my business experiences.

Also, my country uses tree different type of letters which are Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji.

Katataka(カタカナ)-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana

Hiragana（ひらがな）-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

Kanji（漢字）-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji

This links explain how we use those differently. If you are interesting how to write your name with those types of letter, please let me know.

The doggy bag

 This is my first writing a blog. What I would like to introduce is the differences between Japan and the U.S such as; food, customs (behaviors), and cultures. I hope my blog will provide insightful information about my country.

Coming to the United States, I was afraid to go out to eat since I could not speak English well. The only familiar choice was to go to McDonald’s. And like in the movie, “Super Size Me” this was the only fast food restaurant I could go to. I drove to McDonald’s for more than one month. It was easy to order from the menu. I just needed to point to the picture and say, “number one combo please”, and I then swiped my card to pay.

I still remember vividly. One day, I ordered the Big Mac combo and an extra burger because the extra burger was supposed to be my dinner. However, I did not know the word “extra”.  I said “give me other burger” instead of “extra”.  When I got the doggy bag, there were two Big Mac combos which were supersized. Of course, I could not express myself with English, so I wasn’t able to change my order.  I was sick of eating Big Macs at that point!

By the way, the McDonald’s menu in Japan is very different than the American menu. In Japan it is common to find teriyaki-burger combos.

  It is a very popular burger to eat.  Before coming to U.S I thought I could have a McDonald’s teriyaki-burger everywhere in the world.  The other thing that surprised me was the ability to get refills on drinks.  In Japan, we do not have this system. If you want to refill, you have to buy another one. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVWz6_-6ZO8&noredirect=1