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Chinese mushroom picker discovers monstrous beehive

Now that it’s October, fall is slowly beginning to creep up on Japan, which means seasonal favorite dishes including pumpkin, sweet potato, and mushroom will again be arriving on dinner tables across the land in no time. As for the lattermost, people from the countryside are more likely to pick or grown their own rather than buy mushrooms from the supermarket, and some varieties like matsutake can easily retail for a few hundred dollars.

Unfortunately matsutake and other kinds of mushrooms don’t fetch quite as high of a price in China, but while one man was gathering mushrooms, he stumbled across something that was worth much more: a giant bees’ nest.

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Top 11 tweets to make you feel glad you don’t work in Japan

It’s no secret that working in Japan can be pretty miserable. Long hours, unpaid overtime, power harassment, and mandatory drinking parties with coworkers are just some of the factors that contribute to workers all over Japan leading stressful lives.

But misery loves company, so that’s why we present the top 11 tweets to make you feel glad you don’t work in Japan. Some of them are attempts at encouragement, some of them are commiserating, and some of them are so painfully sad that you can’t help but cry. So read on and see how your own work compares to Japan!

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Japanese Twitter user reveals why taxi drivers flock to Big Sight during Comiket

Comiket 88 is over now, sadly enough, but the Internet is still awash in the afterglow of dojinshi and cosplay. Of course, everyone is already looking forward to the next event this winter, from cosplayers to artists to taxi drivers.

Yes, you read that right, it seems that fans and artists aren’t the only ones who love Comiket! Apparently the massive event draws taxi drivers from all over Tokyo because it’s the best place to make money, according to one tweet that captured a ton of attention in Japan last weekend.

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The corporate culture at RocketNews24 is pretty casual, but before I joined the team I spent several years working in the service and hospitality sectors. As a country that takes both work and etiquette very seriously, it’s probably not a surprise that Japanese business etiquette has a detailed code of proper conduct, all in an effort to foster an atmosphere of mutual respect and smooth cooperation.

Still, even for some people born and raised in Japan, the list of dos and don’ts can feel a little too long, and those who’d rather not have to stand on ceremony compiled a list of their own of the top 10 Japanese business manners young adults could do without.

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Top 10 acts of customer service that Japanese men would rather do without

In Japan customer service can be pretty unreal. Little things like taxi doors opening or closing automatically and complimentary reading glasses at check-out counters are harmless and go unnoticed by many locals, and are probably under-appreciated. Sometimes, however, the desire to please the customer and attend to their every need is a little over the top and some people find it just down-right annoying. 

Online research group iResearch surveyed a group of 200 male 20-somethings for their thoughts on “Which services do you secretly wish people would stop providing?” Some of the results are pretty understandable, but some of them make you wonder if the guys surveyed just hate people in general!

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As information technology continues to evolve, telecommuting is becoming increasingly feasible and popular in Japan. Still, sometimes mobile workers find themselves in need of more business-oriented facilities than their home office has, and make use of shared workspaces like the ones we previously looked at.

But while all of those communal offices have amenities such as Wi-Fi, power outlets, and meeting areas, only this one has a resident cat that you can play with when you need a stress-relieving break from work.

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One day in college, my business operations management professor was talking about Japanese automaker Toyota, and about the huge impact of its production processes and corporate culture on the business world. “Toyota owes much of its success to its kaizen system,” he told us, and while I largely agreed with what he was saying, I didn’t really agree with how he was saying it.

See, while Toyota’s ideal of continually looking for better, more efficient ways of handling tasks is nifty and all, there’s nothing particularly special about the word kaizen, which just means “improvement.” Even as someone who’s spent most of his life looking for excuses to speak Japanese, insisting on using the word kaizen, when otherwise speaking English, has always seemed a little odd to me.

Oddly enough, though, right now there’s probably a Toyota employee sitting at his desk and scratching his head over one of his Japanese coworker’s penchant for using foreign loanwords, many of which might be on this list of the top 10 commonly used English business terms that Japanese businessmen wish their colleagues would use Japanese for.

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Rolling suitcase with built-in desk is perfect for mobile businesspeople and cosplayers alike

Modern technology makes it easier than ever for people to work anywhere, not just in a traditional office setting. But every telecommuter or creative type knows the frustration of grabbing your laptop and any other necessary items, then carrying them to your local cafe, anxious to punch in and get some projects done, only to discover there’re no available seats.

Sure you might not need a whole office, but not even having a small desk to work on can really hurt your productivity. Here with a solution is ambitious and creative design house Bibi Lab, which is now selling a wheeled suitcase with an attached desk and chair that’s not only great for mobile professionals, but for artists, cosplayers, and all sorts of other people on the go.

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Chinese company Ninebot buys out Segway

It’s hard to imagine life before 2002 when the Segway standing scooter thing hit the scene completely revolutionized the way we get about, just like everyone predicted it would.

Its staggering success has made it an American institution. Like many of you, I have fond memories of making out with that special someone in the back of my Segway at the Segway-in movies during those hot summer nights.

But now, the vehicle we have all welcomed into our lives is entering a new chapter having been bought out by Beijing-based Ninebot Inc. I guess we won’t be able to use the old cliché “it’s as American as a Segway” anymore.

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Going out to see cherry blossoms, regardless of the weather, is by far Japan’s favorite springtime activity. But there’s another tradition that’s almost as enthusiastically followed: veteran employees complaining about the new hires at their company.

The business year starts in April in Japan, which means that right now at companies across Japan older employees are grumbling about how the younger generation just doesn’t get it. But with Japanese homes not having lawns for their upset elders to yell at them to get off of, just what are young professionals in Japan doing that’s rubbing their coworkers the wrong way?

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Fear of failure could be behind the extremely low happiness rate among Japanese men

Recently the world got a look at the busy world of salarymen in Japan via a viral video, but there were also some slight reassurances that these company men didn’t necessarily hate their lives. We may have been a bit too optimistic, however, because a study done last year found that less than 30 percent of Japanese man can confidently say, “I am happy.” Well… that’s some statistic.

What’s behind the unhappiness factor among Japanese men? Bad marriages, work problems, convenience store diets? Accomplished Japanese author Reiko Yuyama gives her two yen on the root of the problem.

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Japanese netizens rewrite fairy tales in modern corporate situations so real they make us weep

In this modern age and day, most of us spend our days running the rat race and getting worn down by work and school, which is probably why some of us fantasize about the happy endings of fairy tales to get away from real life for a while. But then reality slaps us in the face and reminds us that the birds and mice aren’t going to help you with your chores even if you can sing like Celine Dion, Prince Charming is not coming to whisk you away from your office desk, and your bills aren’t going to vanish even if you fall into a deep, deep sleep.

If the heroes and heroines in fairy tales existed in modern-day and had to work like the rest of us, would their stories still be filled with all that magical glitz and romance? Perhaps not. Japanese Twitter users have been re-interpreting some fairy tales from a corporate perspective, which was supposed to be a creative and entertaining activity, but the new tales were so close to home they couldn’t even laugh over them.

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Fukuoka chicken restaurant in legal trouble for trying to “multiply” good workers

Securing a quality labor force in any workplace is difficult, but it’s especially tricky in the restaurant business. The demanding nature of the job and younger, sometimes less dedicated, employees often means a high turnover rate. However, one small chain of yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurants felt they had the solution.

When an employee was doing a truly great job, their manager would approach and ask them “How about we make you into two people?” That might sound like an excellent proposition for any busy worker, but as is often the case with magical offers, the reality is often illegal.

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McDonald’s Japan to release “complaint app” to help restore faith in the company

The once mighty fast food chain McDonald’s has fallen on hard times in Japan lately, suffering a heavy blow when it become entangled in an expired meat scandal about a year ago.

Although other establishments were also implicated in the problem, the public in Japan seems to be holding an especially big grudge against the golden arches. On 9 March, the company announced that Japanese sales were down 28.7 percent from the same month in the previous year.

In response, McDonald’s Japan is looking to improve its customer service and restore public faith in the company. How? By releasing a new app for smartphones that will allow customers to lodge complaints with more convenience and speed than ever before!

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We’ve talked before about handy Japanese words and phrases we wish we could toss around in English. This kind of linguistic jealousy doesn’t flow in just one direction, though. Japanese businesspeople regularly make use of a number of English phrases, either because they’re more concise, precise, or just sound cooler to their ears than their Japanese counterparts.

Sometimes, though, knowing English isn’t enough to understand these loanwords, since their pronunciations can get pretty garbled in the transition from English to Japanese speakers. Feeling confident in your ability to translate English translated into Japanese back into English? Read on and see how many you can decipher.

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Funny Dachshunds and gyoza dresses – Korean retailer’s unique item names tickle our funny bone

I love shopping online; nothing beats shopping at a mega sale sans the crazy crowds and long queues. In fact, I’ve gotten so accustomed to shopping for clothes, accessories, appliances and even manga online, these days when I step into an actual store I feel kind of lost and confused.

Having purchased from various online retailers based across the globe, I think I’ve had my fair share of browsing through all sorts of web stores, yet none of them managed to crack me up like this Korean online shop I stumbled upon a couple of days ago. Think along the lines of kidney bean shoes and dresses with gyoza necklines. Sounds ridiculous, but it’ll all make sense when you see the pictures after the break!

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Famous action anime director’s latest stop on the comeback trail: bank ad with giant robots

Last summer, we took a look at a series of ads from Okinawa’s Bank of the Ryukyus, known locally as Ryugin, that featured magical girl idol singers and giant robots. Those are certainly more visually appealing images than a staid banker or graphs explaining interest fees, but if we’re being totally honest, the sort of CG animation shown in the commercials really isn’t Japan’s forte.

Where the country’s artists really shine is in a more traditional discipline that mimics the style of hand-drawn artwork, regardless of whether or not it’s done with pencil and paper or all on a computer. Thankfully, that’s just what we get in the bank’s newest ad, which comes from one of anime’s top veteran action directors, plus one of its most accomplished voice actors.

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Small Hokkaido bookshop’s unique service is getting business from all over Japan

Iwata Bookstore is a modest little shop in Sunagawa City way up in the Northeastern part of Hokkaido. It also the site of an unlikely success story as it has recently been receiving orders from all over Japan by people wanting its one-of-a-kind offer of 10,000 yen (US$84) worth of books.

They’re not just any books though; these books are recommended by the shop’s owner Toru Iwata and hand-picked for every customer who orders.

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A trait of good business leaders is that however high they rise in the company, they never overlook the organization’s frontline operations. It’s important, even for presidents and CEOs, to understand how low-level employees go about their tasks and the manner in which products are purchased and used.

According to accusations from Korean electronics maker Samsung, though, a senior executive from rival LG Electronics got a little too zealous in his point-of-sale activities when he stopped by a retailer and broke one of Samsung’s display models.

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Coming to Harajuku? Check out this new tourist booth for maps, Wi-Fi, crêpes and more!

Long before Gwen Stefani was inspired by the Tokyo neighborhood, Harajuku’s status as the center of Japanese fashion and pop culture had been well solidified. From strange footwear to unbearably cute cuisine, a visit to Harajuku is never dull and is a must-see for any tourist coming to Tokyo.

But the crowded streets, small shops and the language barrier might be a bit daunting for a first-time visitor. So to make that trip more worthwhile, a tourist organization is opening up a bilingual information booth in the heart of Harajuku to make sure visitors get the most out of their time in the exciting neighborhood.

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