What Not to Do in Social and Business Situations in Japan

| 17th June 2013

– Don’t spear your chopsticks or stick them upright into a bowl of rice or a piece of sushi
– Don’t point your chopsticks at other people
– Don’t take food directly from a dish and put it in your mouth. Add it to your bowl first
– Don’t pour soy sauce directly on to your rice
– Don’t wear your shoes inside the home
– Don’t wear the house slippers in the toilet. You need to change into the toilet slippers
– Don’t tip in restaurants, taxis or at hotels
– Don’t use sarcasm
– Don’t eat while you’re walking
– Don’t blow your nose with a handkerchief. Use a tissue
– Don’t wear shoes with too many ties or buckles. You’ll need to remove them in Japanese homes and at traditional Japanese restaurants.
– Don’t wear socks with holes in them if you know you’re going to have to remove your shoes
– Don’t use too much eye contact or physical contact as this is considered to be rude

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– Don’t show too much emotion in business meetings.
– Don’t be too negative in business meetings. Try to avoid the word “No”
– If you’re offered a business card, accept it with both hands and don’t put it in your wallet without looking at it
– If you’re doing business with a Japanese company, don’t use aggressive sales tactics
– Don’t forget to introduce your colleagues. Proper introductions are important in all business and social situations
– Don’t chat too much in social or business situations. Silence is more important than constant chatter
– Don’t use sarcasm or joke about your manager in a business meeting
– Don’t expect business connections with the Japanese to form straight away or too quickly
– Don’t forget to nod to show you’re listening when a Japanese person is talking to you
– Never forget harmony and etiquette are the basis of all good social and business interactions in Japan
– Don’t wear flamboyant clothing. Men should wear dark suits and a tie for a meeting or an interview and women should wear a dress or a skirt with heels
– Don’t forget to take gifts from your own country if you’re meeting with a Japanese company or if you’ve been invited to a Japanese home
– Don’t be late for meetings. Punctuality is important
– Don’t use sloppy wrapping techniques when you give a Japanese person a gift. The wrapping is just as important as the gift giving process

Is It Difficult to Learn to Read and Write in Japanese?

| 28th May 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of people who are thinking about visiting Japan are often put off by the fact they can’t read or write in Japanese. In reality, developing basic Japanese language skills is not as difficult as you might think. The steps below will help to simplify the process and make this daunting process seem a lot easier, especially for those people who believe it’s impossible to learn this intricate language.

Firstly, you need to know there are basically three scripts:

1. Kanji
2. Hiragana
3. Katakana

In short – kanji represents nouns, adjectives and verbs and each kanji character can represent a complete word or part of a word with one meaning or several meanings. Hiragana is the grammatical link between the kanji. Katakana represents any foreign item, place or name.

Hiragana and katakana only have forty-six characters each so it doesn’t take too long to learn these. Take a look at the table below:

Hiragana and Katakana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you start learning hiragana and katakana, you’ll soon realise that learning to read and write Japanese isn’t really so daunting. Many children’s books in Japan are written in hiragana with very few kanji, so think of learning hiragana as a stepping stone to learning how to read and write Japanese properly, knowing you are learning this in the same way Japanese people learn to read and write.

Once you’ve mastered reading and writing hiragana and katakana, you can start to learn kanji but you must learn how to write each stroke of the kanji character in the correct order. If you do it this way, you’ll soon start to see it’s much easier to write more difficult kanji when you’ve learnt the correct way of writing. Don’t worry – the correct stroke order will come naturally to you in a very short amount of time. Also, don’t be put off by the fact there are about 50,000 Japanese kanji characters. The Japanese government’s list of recommended characters consists of only about 2,000 and that’s really achievable if you dedicate some serious time to this task. Even if you only learn 100 kanji characters, you are already going to have a much easier stay in Japan.

There are now several apps to help you learn Japanese and “16 Best Apps for Learning Japanese Like a Boss” is a good reference point. You could also buy a kanji textbook which teaches you the most necessary 2,000 characters and at the same time shows you how to write the easiest characters from the beginning of the book in the correct stroke order. “Essential Kanji: 2, 000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged for Learning and Reference” by P.G. O’Neill is a good book or for something simpler I recommend “Read Japanese Today: The Easy Way to Learn 400 Practical Kanji” by Len Walsh.

When I study Japanese kanji characters I use the flash card method with the kanji written on the front and the meaning and the rōmaji equivalent on the back (rōmaji is Japanese written in the same Roman alphabet that we use in English). I flip these cards over and over until I can recognise and pronounce correctly each Japanese kanji character. I then try writing them over and over again making sure my stroke order is correct, until I’ve mastered the whole process. You can download PDF kanji cards with stroke order diagrams from KanjiCard.org.

I must admit when I started to learn Japanese, I had to memorise these kanji characters so I could pass my exams at university and therefore I obviously had a goal which pushed me to learn these characters properly. I’m glad I learnt so many because even now I can still read many Japanese characters. Understanding the signs in Japan and anything else written in Japanese makes it a lot easier for me to get around and find what I need when I’m in Japan. These days I rarely write in Japanese and I’ve forgotten how to read and write a lot of the characters but I’m always amazed at how many I do remember when I receive a letter from a Japanese friend or when I see something written in Japanese on the internet, in a book or in a magazine.

As with any other subject that can provide enormous self-satisfaction once it is mastered, learning Japanese takes persistence and perseverance, but if you see this process as a hobby rather than a chore you will, without a doubt, have a great time learning to read and write Japanese.

Book Review and Competition on the wonderful Jean BookNerd Blog Site

| 8th May 2013

Jean BookNerd

A few months ago I stumbled upon an amazing book review blog site called Jean BookNerd. I noticed they always give an honest review and I thought it might be interesting to see what they thought about my latest novel Tokyo Hearts: A Japanese Love Story. I sent them a copy and I’m so pleased I did. If you visit the Jean BookNerd blog site you can find out exactly what Jean had to say about my book and you can also read my answers to her very original interview questions.

Tokyo City Symphony

| 24th April 2013

Roppongi Hills, the very fashionable shopping & entertainment district in the heart of Tokyo, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. As part of the Love Tokyo Project and in line with the celebrations, Creative Director Tsubasa Oyagi has created the Tokyo City Symphony – it’s an amazing concept which gives you the opportunity to symphonize with the world through an interactive online synthesiser. The combination of psychadelic patterns and music with a fascinating miniature model of Tokyo is truly amazing and very cool.

Tokyo City Symphony