Tofugu's list of cool Japanese fast food joints and my take on them.

If you want a website that will take you through all things Japan, you won't do much better than Tofugu. On this post they take you through the reasons to love Japanese fast food, of which there are many. They give their take on Japanese fast food chains, so I do also. These are all Made in Japan concerns to, not American.

The headings are links to relevant pages too. How convenient.

Enjoy.

Mosburger

The undisputed king of Japanese burger joints. I love Mosburger, as does almost everyone. The thing about Mosburger is that the burgers actually look like the pictures. They make them with care, and you will always get a good burger. They make burgers with rice buns instead of bread buns. Taste alright too. 

For some reason, their onion rings are insanely more expensive than their fries.

Just a heads up, if you ask for French Fries in Mosburger or anywhere else, you will get very little love. You must ask for 'furai pototo'. That one's for free.

Sukiya

Soon to be featured over on my Eigomenu website, as they have full English menus, you will not find a cheaper, more filling feed than at Sukiya. They are a -don restaurant, which means they have a variety of dishes which are served in a bowl over rice. They taste good, and are as cheap as chips (or don in this case). They have started doing curries, but I say stick to the don. 

First Kitchen

I know nothing about this restaurant as they don't have branches in Hokkaido. Wikipedia informs me that they had issues regarding their colloquial name, which was 

ファッキン (Fakkin for those who can't read katakana.). Big lol. 

If anyone can tell me anything about this place, please do in the comments.

Yoshinoya

Yoshinoya is well over a hundred years old. Their website (linked in the title) has been written in very nice English, which shows to me that they care about the little things. Another beef bowl restaurant (meat on rice), it is a safe bet for a good cheap feed. They are two a penny all over Japan. They are really aiming to be the market leader, and as such have developed English menus. 

Great place for a cheap, tasty, quick, filling nosh.

Coco Ichiban Curry

Everyone likes a good Japanese curry. My mum likes it so much, when she went Shanghai that's what she ate. Coco Ichiban is the place to get heaps of different things in your curry. If you go over to the website (linked in the name above), you will find the menu in about six different languages. Impressive.

Another hint for free, curry tastes better the next day, so get some and put it in the fridge. Take it out the next day and enjoy. Trust me.

Pizza La

This has got me in a bit of a spot. I have always told anyone who cared to listen that the best pizza in Japan was the Combo pizza from the Costco food court. It's grand. 

This place has mad kinds of pizza. Crab and mayo, Bulgogi, Pumpkin, Sausage and thick-sliced bacon with meat sauce, and of course, a heart-shaped pizza, and Hawaiin.

They've also got fried chicken and stuff, but I say stick to pizza at a pizza place.

Not cheap though. What's with that? I can go to a restaurant and have a good feed and two hours all you can drink for the price of one of their large pizzas? Crazy.

Ichiran Ramen

Can't say I've been here. Akiko would know. I'll have to ask her. I googled it and there is a lot of people saying a lot of good things. One thing I did find is that they pride themselves on the lack of interaction you need to have with anyone. It was established to cater for shy high school girls. You buy a ticket from a machine (don't know if they are in English), get your ramen and eat it in a booth where noone can see you slurp. There are pictures over on eiher link.

So there you go. A list of the best according to Tofugu, and they would know.

They list a few others, so pop over to the link at the top.

And remember, if you are in Hakodate, and only Hakodate, you have to go into Lucky Pierrot.

Seven things that surprise Japanese workers in foreign offices

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Greetings,

The weather has turned kind of warm again, for a couple of days at least.

The only thing on the television is Donald Trump or a guy killing nine people and storing parts of them in his refrigerator. Not sure which of the two is less pleasant to watch. 

Let's move onto something more interesting. What are Japanese staff surprised about when they move overseas and work in a foreign office. This story was on Rocket News, which is a great website to get a different look at Japan. Another version was on Japan today. They both come from the same source.

So let's get into it. What surprises people about working overseas.

1. Overtime (or lack of it)

Everybody has heard about karoshi. If you haven't, it is working oneself to death. The BBC breaks it down for you. You may have heard about the recent case at the PR firm Dentsu. Poor lass worked every hour of the day and chose to end it all than carry on. Shocking stuff.

As a foreigner, I have never had it happen to me. Maybe if I was in a high-powered job I would be, or if I chose to be a full-time teacher (because they work every hour God gives them). My wife has put up with it a little, but not so much. 

One thing I do notice is the sullen look on people's faces when they are going home from work. They say that the seishain (full time employee life) is the way to go, but you work for every cent (or yen). That being said, the non-seishain life, or 'part-time employee' is such a disaster, with the lowest of low pays and zero benefits....... (tailed off before getting angry).

Essentially, overseas (or in New Zealand anyway), work is to facilitate life, whereas work here for many is life.

2. Unapologetic attitudes

The article speaks of people never saying sorry in Chinese offices. I worked in China, in a hotel, for a year and a half and can kind of get that. The passing the buck that is mentioned, that goes on everywhere. I think though, that the apologetic attitude comes from the overall Japanese way. People apologize all the time for the smallest things. I even saw a policeman apologizing for arresting someone once.

3. Tonnes of time off

This is somewhere I really think Japan needs to look at the evidence and realise that time off is not a negative.  If you Google 'time off helps efficiency', there are heaps of articles from recognized thinkers and experts extolling the virtues of a holiday. I didn't go a Google search in Japanese. It would probably give an Error 404 message.

Not having any holidays is the way it's done here. Why? Because it's always been like that.

What if it wasn't done like that? Maybe lower suicide rate, maybe higher birthrates. Maybe everyone will just be a little more happy.

4.  A focus on food

An army marches on its stomach as the saying goes. There is nothing wrong with focusing on feeding the machine. If you are working overtime, it goes without saying that you will do better if you have had something to eat. The body and mind will function better.

It's kind of funny, because when it comes to going out, the focus is very much on food. In New Zealand you go out drinking, either having a feed first or after. But in Japan, the drinking is usually done over a meal of some kind. Izakaya baby. Love it.

5. The obvious 'I' in Team.

This is drawn from the cliche 'There's no I in team'. No letter i in the word team, and no subjective 代名詞 I in a team.

This was something new to me when I got here, and I still aren't really down with it. I don't work full time anywhere, so the drinking party thing isn't really an issue for me. My lovely wife indeed worked full time (or should I say part time full time), so had to go out drinking with the company. 

I take no issue with that, as I like a sip or two, but when it is 'expected' that you go, and you have to pay your own way, it gets a bit of a drag.

This is another area where I have not been immersed in the culture to a local person's level, so I can't really comment one way or another.

6. Reversed gender roles

I saw in the New Zealand Herald today that the new Labour party will extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 2020. Good on them. This could be one thing Japan could really look at to boost their birthrate. The thing is, either the father or mother can take the time off. Pretty cool, but it is usually the mum who does I think.

I have to say, with the prevalence of part time, or non seishain workers around these days, the old husband works and earns the money and the wife stays home stereotype no longer applies to many. As companies try to shift more and more people off full time, the benefits are lower, so mum is out working too. 

There is still a great deal of gender bias here. It goes both ways though. As a man, I can't join my wife at her baking class, as there are no men allowed. Outrageous. I don't think the UN would spend their time on my case, but I feel so excluded.

7. Companies not caring for their workers

If you have made it this far, I hope you found my thoughts, as that's all they were, interesting. This last one really gets me mad.

This is a throwback to the old Japan. In the old Japan, with a job for life, the staff were well looked after. Putting the excessive workload and discrimination against woman aside, if you worked hard, went to drinking parties, apologized a lot, didn't take your sick days, and stayed in the same job; life got progressively better for you, and you could look forward to a nice retirement. 

Although that still exists for some, it is not the case for many. To get the seishain jobs, you pretty much have to join the company straight out of university. If you go overseas for more than a year, the window will have closed, and you will be scavenging around for jobs that pays $US7.80 an hour, with no benefits, no sick pay, no retirement, no nothing. So, I call rubbish on this last point.

Three difficult situations you're likely to encounter in Japan

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First of all, kudos to Guidable, because I just bookmarked them on account of their great content. Well done. Loving it.

This article intrigued me somewhat. I am as good at 'reading the air' as I am at 'reading braille,' or 'reading sanskrit', so this article got me thinking I may or may not be doing something wrong. I'm going to break down my thoughts on the three points they make, but do go and look at their article as it's super enlightening, as is their website.

Here we go.

1. Last piece of food on the plate
We're talking izakaya here. I love izakaya. I know you love izakaya, as it is to be loved.
We've all been there. That last piece of five pieces of yumminess when there are six people in the house. Who grabs the last piece? Those who know me well know that I have never been shy in this regard, but have I been that out of order. It's a minefield.
Can anyone offer any ideas in the comments on how to approach this?

2. Being offered a tea
Although tea is a huge thing in itself, I wonder if this is best applied to general life. 
Here are my thoughts on this part of the advice. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have 'stopped by at a friend's place to drop something off.' And unless it is an uber-friend, you are just handing it at the door.
You always get offered tea, and I have to say that this is one time I can read the air. You can tell if it is just being offered as par for the course. Is it a tough one? I don't know. I kind of think that there are bigger things to worry about than accepting a cup of tea, but maybe that is my cultural ignorance.

3. Offering a seat on the train
This is apparently a tough one, and although I have changed my ideas about this after five years, it has only changed from old school to indifferent for me.
At risk of a clip around the ear from my mum, I religiously offered anything I may have been sitting in to any female within 20 metres of me. 
My behaviour has changed, or perhaps call it evolved. I realise now that when people hop on the train, they know they are going to be standing, so it is nothing to them. The fact that someone is offering them a seat jolts them out of their groove, and they look less comfortable on account of my offer. So now I don't do it, as much as it grates on me. (I'm the victim here). 
I still offer my seat to anybody who looks comfortable older than me (it's funny what an easy distinction it always is. A yes or no kind of thing), and I still, and always will check to see if their is a lady coming behind me, and if so, hold the door for her to go first. Call me old school.

Thanks for reading. Any comments, leave them in the box. I'd love to hear from you.

Homework is a waste of time.

Living in Japan, and having had some interaction with elementary and junior high school students, I have to ask myself whether homework is all it's meant to be.
This story about research in New Zealand (NZ Herald, 5 Nov) puts the spotlight on homework. 
A few take-outs from the story (remembering these are NZ figures):

• 93% of students said they had to do homework, and 87% of teachers give it
•  37% of teachers agreed with the statement, 'I am increasingly doubting the value of homework'
• 38% of parents and 37% of students agreed with the above statement

However:

• 73% of parents said they liked to be involved in their child's homework
• 56% of parents said they agreed that their child benefited from homework
• 73% agreed that homework helped their child develop study skills
• 70% agreed that it taught their child responsibility
• 68% agreed that it taught their child discipline

And from the children:

• 50% agreed that homework helped them be responsible for their own learning.

So where do the contrasting opinions come from? 

What I think is that much of the homework is being given for the sake of giving it. It's the way it always has been so it is the way it must be, especially here in Japan.

If you listen to Ken Robinson  here or here in a couple of his excellent speeches about education, anyone who knows anything knows that education must change with this crazy changing times. To paraphrase Ken Livingstone, 'We don't know what's happening next week. How can we educate children for ten years down the line?'

Not the way we're doing it I suspect, as indicated by the findings of this study.

Parents will always value education, and it seems that the children know it's a good idea deep down, but are losing faith in how it's being delivered.

I don’t feel at home in this world anymore.

Courtesy of imbd.com

Don't worry, I feel right at home. But the movie 'I don't feel at home in this world anymore' is one I recommend you watch. It's on Netflix, which is only ￥９８０ a month (+税金), and that's 見放題.

Most of the movies/programmes have English and Japanese 字幕, so it's a good learning tool for listening. Or you can just watch and enjoy.

Let me know what you think of the movie.

Why do passports from all countries look kind of alike.

(picture courtesy of Business Insider)

So, we are always complaining that our flag looks the same as Australia's when actually Australia's looks the same as ours. No-one ever complains about passports being the same. They're all 15.5 x 10.5cms and have 32 pages. The first four pages are for your details, with the other 28 being for stamps. (The passport I had two passports ago was three-quarters full. My last passport had two stamps. Bit of a lifestyle change there.)
The NZ Herald article below tells the story of the League of Nations in Paris, and the decisions they made in October 1920 which still stand today.
That being said, New Zealand passports have always been pretty cool. They have cool pictures on the pages documenting our history. Better still, they've gone back to 10 years now so the government can stop taking so much money off me.



Have a look at the NZ Herald to find out more.

Have a 'Kita Kata Adventure'

This story, from the Inquirer.net tells the story of a Filipiono tour guide and a down out Filipino man falling in love.
It apparently is hugely popular in the Phillipines. (is there any one who can confirm this?)
Two things interested me about this story.

1. It is great to see the beauty of Hokkaido being touted around the world, and Japanese culture being appreciated.

2. Second, why the country is spelt Phillipines, with a Ph, but the people is spelt with an F. Maybe it is because the word for the people is Tagalog (the Filipino langauge). Any ideas?

#alempoy #makesense