Not Japan specifically, but I’ve got say I’m jealous as hell about the snack scene in east Asia.
I generally don’t have a sweet tooth, and things like potato chips don’t have that umami I like. I try to keep snacks around because I forget to eat, but nothing appeals to me. But man… all those pre-packaged tofu squares, various bits of marinated meat… that’s my deal. There’s one solid “Asian Mart” near me, I’ll stock up a few months worth at a time.
Closest you get in the US is basically jerky/slim jims, which are great but expensive and kind of one note for flavor.
They have a device which progressively shines a light on a piece of paper while moving across the page and converts the brightness of the reflected light into an audio signal. Once it reaches the edge the paper is incremented and the process repeats. Each of these segments of sound are sent via a standard telephone connection to a similar device on the other end which uses the sounds to reproduce the image on the original paper on a new sheet of paper. This can be used to send forms, letters, black and white pictures, and even chain letters. It also forms the basic underpinning of a significant fraction of formal communications with landlords, employers, medical systems, government offices, and so on.
I think he’s saying that, for as futuristic as Japan may seem, they also still rely on outdated methods for certain things, just like every other country.
Ironically, I just noticed this morning that the pizzaria on the corner (here, in the US) can take orders via fax (as well as in person, via phone, and on the Web).
I don’t know about today, but back around 2000, stuff on the Japanese market was quite a bit ahead of the US in small, portable, personal electronic devices, like palmtop computers and such. I remember being pretty impressed with it. But then I also remembered being surprised a few years later when I learned that personal computer ownership was significantly lower than in the US. I think that part of it is that people in Japan spend a fair bit of time on mass transit, so you wanted to have small, portable devices tailored to that, and that same demand doesn’t really exist in the US.
Then everyone jumped on smartphones at some point after that, and I think things homogenized a bit.
Yeah, PC games are a nothing market in Japan as virtually no one owns a gaming PC; they’re much more likely to own a console (Sony and Nintendo are domestic companies) or a mobile device.
I think it’s because the country did not significantly recover from the 90s financial crisis, and their society is so conservative that they literally could not try anything modern again afterwards
They literally went “industrial society and it’s consequences have been a disaster for Japanese society”
The impact of the financial crisis reverberates to this day, and that drives a huge proportion of the issues, but the crisis in my opinion was inevitable. From my perspective, the Post-War Economic Miracle, as it’s called, catapulted Japan through all the stages of economic development into an almost accelerated version of the same problems that are afflicting the U.S. and other Western countries.
The dream of infinite growth in the Japanese context fell flat for the same reasons it is falling apart in other developed countries. A rise in standard of living and wages led to offshoring and outsourcing of production, the hollowing out of the middle class, a work culture at odds with family life, and so on. The country’s land and businesses were valued in the late 1980s as though it could remain competitive internationally with a mostly domestic supply chain, even as the production costs of its goods continued to rise along with the needs of its population, which in a globalized economy turned out to be a pipe dream.
We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton. But the conservatism of Japanese society certainly plays a role, in that the country is highly resistant to change, and also due to a rigidity that stifles innovation, making it hard to start new businesses outside the keiretsu/conglomerate structure. The U.S. has somewhat mitigated its manufacturing decline through the creation of new service sector and especially tech businesses that operate internationally, which path is less available to Japan due to the rigidity of its business structure.
But the part I disagree with is the idea that Japan has rejected industrial society. Japan is still extremely proud of its culture and the impact it’s had globally. They love that people in western countries eat ramen and sushi, play Nintendo games or watch anime, and they have a deep reverence for their globally successful businesses and particularly the auto industry. They have no desire to reject or withdraw from industrial society, they just haven’t been able to figure out amidst external economic barriers, and internal cultural and financial barriers, how to move forward.
We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton.
That is the lie they tell us. Meanwhile we do everything we can to make we don’t have an industrial base.
We zone factories far away from everything instead of allowing them to be in normal commuting range
We tax the land they are on the same way we tax commercial property. Which you might think is fair but we don’t do that to farmers. Especially considering how easy retail gets it, with governments willing to give plenty of free roads and police protection to them
We treat inventory as taxable which punishes factories that want a buffer and rewards the quick turnover of fast fashion places. Ever wonder why they never have your size and you have to go to the website to get it?
Thanks to our shit medical system any workplace injury is going to be devastating which means that the insurance as a whole will be very high.
Factory investments take longer to pay off which doesnt mean much when we all think quarterly. A tax on rapid stock trading could probably fix that but that isn’t going to happen.
There are other factors as well. We don’t hire women to do factory work which limits the labor pool. There is still a lot of discrimination against Latinos and African Americans. Which again lowers the labor pool and kinda leaves us with…well the kind of people who feel only comfortable only working with white Christian men.
Found at 7-11, combo ketchup/mustard blister pack that when you simply bend and squeeze together, ketchup and mustard come out evenly for your corn-dog and no mess for your fingers.
You have tomato sauce packets? It’s funny to think of ketchup as tomato sauce, in the US if you called it that everyone would be confused even though it is really the most accurate thing you could call it
We would call the sauce for burgers, fries etc ketchup, ‘tomato sauce’ in the US would be the sort for pasta, like marinara. If you asked for tomato sauce for a burger people would be very confused lol.
Is it though? There are other things people refer to as tomato sauce and that could be confusing. As an Italian living in Australia i cringe every time someone refers to ketchup as tomato sauce. Tomato sauce should be a beautiful thing that goes in pasta, lasagne and all gorgeous food stuff. Ideally home made.
The vinegary shit that drunk people here put on their meat pie (that BTW would taste beautifully as they comes out of the oven, no need to put any nasty shit on it) - it’s called ketchup and you just ruined that beautiful pie.
$40 for the basic ones. They still work great, (I have them on all my toilets at home!) but they definitely aren’t as flashy as the Japanese toilets. Self-cleaning seats, heated seats, heated water for the bidet, etc…
We have plenty of bidets here in the States, they just install them outside the bathrooms and they mount them kind of high so they’re kinda awkward to get a good clean angle, though.
Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button. This is the optimal solution as the door doesn’t open needlessly but still allows for ease of access.
Ordering machines, where all your menu options are clearly listed and priced. Pressing on a combo of buttons will print a receipt which you can sit down and show the staff/cook your order.
Water (hot and cold) tapped straight to your dining table for self serve drinks.
Unfortunately becoming less applicable with the smartphone domination finally reaching Japan, but their flip phone technology.
taco bell in particular is embracing the kiosks and it’s wonderful. they have signs in the lobby saying ‘order at the kiosk’ even. and why wouldn’t you? why do people in the US have this pig-like stubbornness where they must have a human stand there and ‘PeRsONaLIze tHE iNtERacTion’ or some shit
i just want to pay cash, otherwise i prefer kiosks… but i see a future of hostile, nagging UI design…
like at some stores self checkout, you have to click 80 different confirmations and give your phone number, email and social security number…
Because I don’t want to be bombarded with ads and “did you consider this offer” shit and take 5 minutes to use some usability nightmare? Because I do not want to touch a greasy screen that 362 people used today without washing their hands after taking a shit? Because I do not support corpo greed that will not rest until every employee has been fired?
Why should I have to do everything myself when I’m at a commercial establishment? Why is interaction with a human a bad thing? I absolutely hate self checkout for the same reasons. Quality of service is valuable and humans benefit from interaction.
There was an article published last year, maybe the year before, where they tested the touch screen kiosks in McDonald’s. Every single one of them has traces of faeces on it.
Even if that wasn’t true, it takes me significantly less time to tell someone my order than to scroll through however many sub menus the restaurant has decided to put their food into, and then select the options for each item and add it to my basket, then check out.
Everything has traces of faeces on it, this fixation on it seems irrational when you put it into context. The burger meat comes from a dead animal that spent it’s life wandering in a field and trampling it’s own shit. The fries come from the root of a plant grown in the dirt. The bun is made from wheat which was probably infested with mice. You yourself are a biological machine that turns food into energy and discards the waste. Your body has a tube filled with faeces right now.
Yes, we try to keep waste separate from food, but the world is not a clean-room.
All of those things are cleaned before being consumed. The touch screen menus are one of the last things you touch before touching and eating your food.
The world may not be a clean room, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to deliberately interact with someone else’s faeces, especially when I’m about to eat.
Strangely enough, you’ve made me realise that I haven’t for a while. Not a deliberate thing, it’s just that everything I’ve bought in person recently has been with a contactless method.
Having to crawl through multiple menus to order is not that big of a deal for restaurants. They don’t value your time, they value their staff time (because they have to pay for it). There is probably very little ongoing cost to double the number of order kiosks while every additional human taking orders needs to be paid minimum wage. The restaurant owner watches with hate as their money slowly melts away while you decide if you want pickles, fried onions, and jalapenos on your burger.
That’s a good point. I could be in the restaurant for an hour trying to order, and as long as there are other kiosks available, it wouldn’t make a difference to them.
I often see buildings in Japan that have a manual sliding door followed by either a push button or proximity automatic door. If I am going to have to open one door myself, I might as well open both. If one is automatic, the other might as well be too.
I work in a pharma research facility, so people can have literally any disease or chemical on their hands, so we have a lot of doors with hand wave sensors.
Just wag your mitts in front of it, and the door opens. They’re on the wall a few steps before the door, so the door is usually open by the time you get to it.
I guess you have a point. What I meant is that it’ll still slide open (like an automatic door does) but you push a button that has a similar feel to a door bell. So, still very accessible and automatic!
Water (hot and cold) tapped straight to your dining table for self serve drinks.
This in particular sounds awesome, speaking as a heavy water drinker who always feels like a bit of a heel having to pester busy wait staff to come over and refill my water glass a bunch of times.
Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button.
I think it would be cool to have a hybrid system where you can wave/nod/bow to a sensor to activate it, but also implement an open standard frequency that can trigger it so people with reduced mobility can mount a transmitter on a wheelchair/cane etc. or just use their cellphone. Would eliminate having any external equipment that would be exposed to weather or vandalism and is one less common surface for the public to have to touch.
I still think about how Blizzard originally made their WoW expansion, Panderia, to include Samurai and sushi. And someone had to explain them the difference between China and Japan.
That’s not even necessarily mixing the two up so much as failing to distinguish cultures within “Asia” in the first place. A lot of people think of the whole region as one place. Put some soy and garlic on something? You’ve got an “Asian” dish. Never mind that there are numerous regional culinary traditions within China alone.
Yes, but not to mention Asia as in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh! 1.5 billion people living on the Asian continent, but “Asian” in popular American usage seems to only refer to China/Korea/Japan, and maybe Southeast Asia to a slightly lesser extent.
Ye-es. And then SE Asia is not the same as CJK, and then Middle Asia is not the same as West Asia/Middle East, and then India in itself has Dravidic parts, and then …
Though, returning to the example above with “Asian” dish, in Russia people usually refer to cuisine by country, not by continent. But may make a few diplomatic errors (possibly mistakes) this way, like saying that Armenians and Iranians drink Turkish coffee, etc.
This has absolutely nothing to do with xenophobia. This was based on a documentary of chinese economic waste and the people that fall into poverty because of it.
Fast my ass. Once they finally start maybe… But it takes ages to lay the first stone. There’s not enough people available to build everything they want to build. It’s a serious issue
Ok, well maybe they have a long pipeline of projects ready to be built, but they are getting things built. I went with a friend who was there like 5 years prior and he said everything looked totally different since the last time he was there. I don’t know about the planning process but even if that’s slow that’s still way better than most places where it also takes ages to get something started, takes ages to get something built, and they don’t have enough projects going through the planning process in the first place.
From what I see joked about in tv and film: toilets.
From what I know from people who have actually been there personally: Vending machines.
Also they have the most advanced KitKat flavors in the world. I want them. But they’re like specialities of specific regions kinda like Pokemon. It’s wild.
They have more drink vending machines than you’ll believe, with a huge variety ofcold and hot drinks and even soup, but essentially no food vending machines.
Well it’s moot anyway; I’m in the US where Nestle sold all their confectionary brands. I just noticed all the kitkats at the store I shop were branded by Hershey now and had to look up wtf. I noticed this before with another candy not too long ago, too. Didn’t realize it was literally all their candy brands in the US.
On the flipside, something most developed countries consider normal but would blow Japanese minds is the ability to do all “paperwork” on your phone or laptop without any paper ever being printed anywhere. Japan is somehow still a country of fax.
And when it isn’t cash only it’s a completely random grab bag between credit cards, transit cards, QR codes, app payment and e money. Just hope you have the supported option of like 20 options.
Here in the Netherlands you can pay practically everywhere electronically (even the door to door collectors for charities carry a qrcode in addition to their collection box) , but if you go next door to Germany you’d better bring cash if you want to buy anything.
They’ve made a stunning amount of progress in accepting credit cards in the past couple years though. I’m there pretty regularly and the shift has been wild. By spring 2023 I didn’t really need cash anymore. By fall, I used cash maybe twice.
There was one thing I was sure I’d need cash for— nope, the hotel paid them and added it to my tab. Back in the day, that mostly happened only if you skipped out on a reservation and the restaurant wanted to collect the cancellation fee. Which has never happened to me so I guess I’m not sure it worked exactly like that.
I know a lot of people here hate credit cards and only use cash, but it’s honestly a pretty large hassle to get cash in every country you visit. Using the same card everywhere is way more convenient and cheaper (exchange fee + no % back like with a credit card)
Isn’t this because of those special stamps they use in Japan to notorize documents? I heard about them on a podcast: 99percentinvisible.org/episode/hanko/
I’ve heard it’s just more of a burocracy thing. A friend there once told me he always puts the date wrong on the top of documents because there is a person who’s job is to double check your work. They’re judged on how often they find mistakes, so it’s easier to put something blatantly wrong at the top that easily fixed so they can quickly find it and he can move on.
Refrigerators that make way less noise than the ones we have here. Japanese more often live in small apartments so noise is a bigger nuisance. But, those refrigerators are ridiuclously expensive by our standards. I had been interested in buying one, oh well.
When I looked into it a few years ago, I found that, contrary to the stereotype, Japanese homes are surprisingly big. Smaller than the US or Canada, which are some of the biggest in the world, but actually bigger than most of Europe.
The result of a quick search: the average Tokyo apartment is 65.9 sq m (710 sq ft). The modal apartment size is 19.7 sq meters (212 sq ft), so maybe that’s what you’re referring to. But that’s only 21% of Tokyo apartments.
One that I haven’t seen mentioned ever was neat flashlights in every hotel room I stayed in. They were all mounted to the wall, and had no power switch. The wall mount had a tab sticking out that separated the batteries, so when you went to use it, the batteries touch and make the circuit. They were always low power, so that you didn’t disturb others in the room, and you have to keep it in its location to turn it back off. They worked well for going to the bathroom at night and not messing up night vision too. I tried finding one in the US, to no avail, but they’re all over in Japanese 100 yen stores. A clever, cheap design.
Similar in that it’s mounted, different in that it has no buttons/switches and wouldn’t be on, or even able to be on when mounted. Those look pretty cool though.
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