Four billion packets of free tissues are distributed every year in Japan. Tissue-pack marketing is a proven and inexpensive way to advertise. For a cost of as little as ￥10 to ￥25 you can get your message directly into the hands of potential customers.
In a recent Internet survey of over 100,000 Japanese consumers, 76 percent said they accept free tissues. When asked if the look at the advertisement accompanying the tissues, slightly more than half said they either “definitely look” or “at least glance at” the advertisement. When asked why, many respondents said they hoped to find a coupon or special offer. Yet others displayed a very Japanese sense of obligation for having received a gift, giving answers like “because they were so kind to give me something” and “it would be rude not to look.”
The concept of tissue-pack marketing was indeed developed in Japan. It dates back to the late 1960s, when Hiroshi Mori, the founder of a paper-goods manufacturer, was sniffing around for ways to expand demand for paper products. Thinking everyone has to blow their nose, and be prepared against public toilets with no tissues, Mori developed the machinery to fold and package tissues into easy-to-carry pocket-size packs. The new product was marketed only as a form of advertising and wasn’t sold to customers.
Even now, Japan is still the main market for tissue-pack advertising, but the practice is beginning to spread overseas. A subsidiary company of Japanese trading giant Itochu International, introduced tissue-pack marketing in new York in 2005 and now offers it throughout the United States.
It’s quite common to target a certain group; a company advertising a beauty product, for example, will ask distribution staff to favor women in their twenties when passing out the tissues. But such a request is tricky. “People like to receive free tissues, and passersby outside of the targeted group may as for a pack,” an Internet sales manager Natsuki Kobayashi admitted. “Refusing might create bad feelings and hurt the advertiser’s image, so we instruct our workers to give them to anyone who asks.”
Unfortunately for those of us who count on a steady supply of free nose-wipes, the tissue-pack marketing industry is suffering a slump along with its biggest users, the major consumer loan companies. With advertisers cutting back, some tissue-pack suppliers are reporting a 20 to25 percent drop in orders. Even so, the industry in Japan alone is still generating something in the range of ￥75 billion in sales. And that’s certainly nothing to sneeze at.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Human Relations
Mary is a romantic. Candlelight dinners, flowers and thoughtful gift represent love and affection to her. She loved Francis and showed her affection by sending him flowers and gifts. She spent hours shopping for him, and could not understand why he doubted her love.
But Francis was so overwhelmed with his new business that he did not have the time or energy to focus on Mary’s flowers and gifts. They weren’t important to him. What he really needed and wanted from Mary was for her to help him handle some of the demands of his business. He would ask her to run an errand or make a phone call, and she would “forget” or say “I thought it could wait.” As the days, weeks and months passed, Francis became more and more direct about his needs. The more he complained about Mary’s lack of attention, the more flowers and gifs he received.
Mary should have listened to what Francis equated with caring and concern and spent more time to help relieve his work-related stress. Francis would have appreciated her thoughtfulness. Mary never turned into the messages that Francis broadcast; she never realized that her view of how to show sympathy and attentiveness was not shared by him. Eventually Francis became convinced that Mary didn’t really care about him and ended the relationship.
If you want to be seen as a caring person by someone who is overwhelmed by a pressing deadline at work, bring her dinner to eat at her desk. Don't tell her that she really needs to take a break and go out to dinner with you. That’s now what she wants. It’s what you want. If you force her to go along with your program, chances are she won’t see you as caring at all, but rather as insensitive and unsympathetic. Your effort to be perceived as a kind and compassionate person will fail. Kind, compassionate and sensitive people learn to detect what others value, and to help them in a suitable way.
This requires attention to others’ needs, and disregard for your beliefs of what will make you appear caring. Ask questions. Listen carefully. Provide others what the want. When you show someone that you listen, and respond, your caring actions will carry twice the weight.
But Francis was so overwhelmed with his new business that he did not have the time or energy to focus on Mary’s flowers and gifts. They weren’t important to him. What he really needed and wanted from Mary was for her to help him handle some of the demands of his business. He would ask her to run an errand or make a phone call, and she would “forget” or say “I thought it could wait.” As the days, weeks and months passed, Francis became more and more direct about his needs. The more he complained about Mary’s lack of attention, the more flowers and gifs he received.
Mary should have listened to what Francis equated with caring and concern and spent more time to help relieve his work-related stress. Francis would have appreciated her thoughtfulness. Mary never turned into the messages that Francis broadcast; she never realized that her view of how to show sympathy and attentiveness was not shared by him. Eventually Francis became convinced that Mary didn’t really care about him and ended the relationship.
If you want to be seen as a caring person by someone who is overwhelmed by a pressing deadline at work, bring her dinner to eat at her desk. Don't tell her that she really needs to take a break and go out to dinner with you. That’s now what she wants. It’s what you want. If you force her to go along with your program, chances are she won’t see you as caring at all, but rather as insensitive and unsympathetic. Your effort to be perceived as a kind and compassionate person will fail. Kind, compassionate and sensitive people learn to detect what others value, and to help them in a suitable way.
This requires attention to others’ needs, and disregard for your beliefs of what will make you appear caring. Ask questions. Listen carefully. Provide others what the want. When you show someone that you listen, and respond, your caring actions will carry twice the weight.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Culture
According to an American blog survey company, Japanese became the most common language used in blog messages between October and December of 2006, accounting for 37 percent, and doing better than English with 36 percent. This figure is all the more remarkable when one considers that Japanese is spoken by only 1.8 percent of the world7s population and that Japanese accounts for 7.1 percent of the global online population. Japan’s blogging culture has developed in a very different manner from that of other nations. Seventy-five percent of Japanese blog content is diaries or stories about everyday events. By way of contrast, many American and European blogs are like newspaper writings with an emphasis on opinion.
Kiyomi Yamashita, a professor of cognitive psychology, says Japan’s one-thousand-year-old diary culture has a tremendous influence on blogging. “The Japanese use diaries as a medium for writing down things like changes of season and natural phenomena. This is linked to modern blogging culture,” she said.
Japanese diary culture can be traced back to the Heian period, when women expressed their personal feelings in kana characters and wrote about royal lifestyles and romances. Another form of diary was used more by court noblemen for keeping records of true events in kanji characters. Another traditional element linked to Japanese blogging is to hide one’s identity when participating in a creative activity. According to Yuji Wada, head researcher at the Institute for Future Technology, the classical poetic form of renga is similar to Japanese blogs and communication on networks. For example, in Kasagi renga, a type of linked verse practiced for many hundreds of years, anyone, regardless of rank, can add a new lines while hiding his or her face with a hat. “It’s widely believed that the Internet has introduced a community where anyone can participate freely regardless of their social standing without using their names, but japan has had a tradition for centuries,” Wada said.
According to major Internet service provider Rakuten Inc., women account for 66.2 percent of those using its blogs services. Yamashita said women use more detailed and complicated expressions than men when remembering events. The tend to have a stronger desire to write about and reveal their feelings. This probably encourages women to write about their daily lives on their blogs. “In the same way Heian people developed kana from kanji introduced from China, Japan adopted the Internet, which developed in America, to create its own blogging style,” Wada said. “Blogging in Japan has grown with a characteristically female style of expressing oneself.”
Kiyomi Yamashita, a professor of cognitive psychology, says Japan’s one-thousand-year-old diary culture has a tremendous influence on blogging. “The Japanese use diaries as a medium for writing down things like changes of season and natural phenomena. This is linked to modern blogging culture,” she said.
Japanese diary culture can be traced back to the Heian period, when women expressed their personal feelings in kana characters and wrote about royal lifestyles and romances. Another form of diary was used more by court noblemen for keeping records of true events in kanji characters. Another traditional element linked to Japanese blogging is to hide one’s identity when participating in a creative activity. According to Yuji Wada, head researcher at the Institute for Future Technology, the classical poetic form of renga is similar to Japanese blogs and communication on networks. For example, in Kasagi renga, a type of linked verse practiced for many hundreds of years, anyone, regardless of rank, can add a new lines while hiding his or her face with a hat. “It’s widely believed that the Internet has introduced a community where anyone can participate freely regardless of their social standing without using their names, but japan has had a tradition for centuries,” Wada said.
According to major Internet service provider Rakuten Inc., women account for 66.2 percent of those using its blogs services. Yamashita said women use more detailed and complicated expressions than men when remembering events. The tend to have a stronger desire to write about and reveal their feelings. This probably encourages women to write about their daily lives on their blogs. “In the same way Heian people developed kana from kanji introduced from China, Japan adopted the Internet, which developed in America, to create its own blogging style,” Wada said. “Blogging in Japan has grown with a characteristically female style of expressing oneself.”
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Language
Strangely enough, in the most powerful English-speaking country, the USA, it is the speakers of the dominant language, English, who have recently become fearful for the future of their language. In the USA, hundreds of native-American languages have mostly died out or been reduced to unimportance by the spread of English throughout American history, however, immigrants have been pouring into the USA from all over the world bringing with them their own languages. At various times, huge numbers of speakers of German, Italian, Hungarian, Russia, Chinese, Vietnamese, and a hundred other languages, have settled in America. These immigrant languages have sometimes survived for several generations in particular communities. More often, however, the children of these immigrants have rapidly switched to English, in the process know to Americans as the ‘melting pot’. But in the last couple of decades, millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants have flooded into the USA from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and all over Latin America. Today, sizeable areas of New York, Florida, and the American southwest are mainly Spanish-speaking, and Spanish is often the first language in educational, medical and political fields.
Faced with such a dramatic rise in the influence of Spanish, many English-speaking Americans have reacted defensively. Several states have passed laws declaring English to be their official language, and there is growing pressure on the government to do the same for the whole country. To date, the USA, curiously perhaps, has had no official language because it had never previously occurred to anyone to doubt the primary position of English.
Is there any real need for such laws? Personally, I doubt it. First, the position of English, not just in the USA bus also in the world, seems to be unquestionable for the near future: English is everywhere ― the language of business, of technology, of communications, of science, and of popular culture. Second, if I’m wrong, and Spanish is going to take the place of English in the USA, I can’t see that passing laws against it will have any effect: we might as well pass laws against inflation, or against dying of disease. Finally, so what if English does lose out to Spanish? Spanish is a rich and expressive language, and, like Latin and French before it, English cannot hope to be the world’s premier language forever.
Faced with such a dramatic rise in the influence of Spanish, many English-speaking Americans have reacted defensively. Several states have passed laws declaring English to be their official language, and there is growing pressure on the government to do the same for the whole country. To date, the USA, curiously perhaps, has had no official language because it had never previously occurred to anyone to doubt the primary position of English.
Is there any real need for such laws? Personally, I doubt it. First, the position of English, not just in the USA bus also in the world, seems to be unquestionable for the near future: English is everywhere ― the language of business, of technology, of communications, of science, and of popular culture. Second, if I’m wrong, and Spanish is going to take the place of English in the USA, I can’t see that passing laws against it will have any effect: we might as well pass laws against inflation, or against dying of disease. Finally, so what if English does lose out to Spanish? Spanish is a rich and expressive language, and, like Latin and French before it, English cannot hope to be the world’s premier language forever.
Monday, January 23, 2012
History of Sushi
Sushi making has its origins in a method of pickling fish that was practiced first in Southeast Asia. Long ago the people of that region preserved fish by packing it with rice. As it fermented, the rice produced lactic acid, which pickled the fish and kept it from spoiling. It seems probable that this method of preservation was introduced to Japan during ancient times.
One of the forms it eventually took was nare-zushi, a sushi made with carp in the area near Lake Biwa. Only the fish was eaten; the rice was thrown away.
Preparing nare-zushi can take from two months to more than a year. People in fifteenth and sixteenth century Japan came to think this king of preparation represented a waste of rice. They didn’t want to waste such a valuable grain, and this led in time to the development of nama-nare or han-nare, which matures in a few days. Eating both fish and rice dates from this period.
In the mid-seventeenth century, a doctor named Matsumoto Yoshiichi, who lived in Yotsuta, Edo, hit upon the idea of adding su (Japanese vinegar) to sushi ride. The resulting sourness was pleasing, and the waiting time before eating the sushi was substantially reduced. Still, it was not eaten right away in keeping with the cooking practices of the time, the rice and fish were boxed or rolled up before consumption.
In the early nineteenth century, nigiri-zushi was born in the city of Edo. It is often referred to as Edomae-zushi, possibly because the seafood used was taken from the waters of the large bay of which the city is situated.
In 1824 a man named Hanaya Yohei conceived the ideo of sliced, raw seafood at its freshest served on small fingers of vinegared rice, and instant improvement on the older sushi dishes. He opened a stall in the Ryogoku district of Edo and it was immediately a success.
The sushi shops of Edo period (1603-1868) looked very little like the ones of today. For one thing, the cook worked seated behind a screen. Still, there are some similarities. There was often a raised tatami-floored section for a small number of guests, as there are in some modern shops. Back then also sushi was delivered, but not as it is today. In those days men walked around selling it from large boxes carried on their backs.
One of the forms it eventually took was nare-zushi, a sushi made with carp in the area near Lake Biwa. Only the fish was eaten; the rice was thrown away.
Preparing nare-zushi can take from two months to more than a year. People in fifteenth and sixteenth century Japan came to think this king of preparation represented a waste of rice. They didn’t want to waste such a valuable grain, and this led in time to the development of nama-nare or han-nare, which matures in a few days. Eating both fish and rice dates from this period.
In the mid-seventeenth century, a doctor named Matsumoto Yoshiichi, who lived in Yotsuta, Edo, hit upon the idea of adding su (Japanese vinegar) to sushi ride. The resulting sourness was pleasing, and the waiting time before eating the sushi was substantially reduced. Still, it was not eaten right away in keeping with the cooking practices of the time, the rice and fish were boxed or rolled up before consumption.
In the early nineteenth century, nigiri-zushi was born in the city of Edo. It is often referred to as Edomae-zushi, possibly because the seafood used was taken from the waters of the large bay of which the city is situated.
In 1824 a man named Hanaya Yohei conceived the ideo of sliced, raw seafood at its freshest served on small fingers of vinegared rice, and instant improvement on the older sushi dishes. He opened a stall in the Ryogoku district of Edo and it was immediately a success.
The sushi shops of Edo period (1603-1868) looked very little like the ones of today. For one thing, the cook worked seated behind a screen. Still, there are some similarities. There was often a raised tatami-floored section for a small number of guests, as there are in some modern shops. Back then also sushi was delivered, but not as it is today. In those days men walked around selling it from large boxes carried on their backs.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The North-South Problem
Some readers may have noticed a book called “If the World Were a Village of 100 People” in the bookstores. Frankly, though I helped write the book ( I did the English translation ), I am wondering why so many people are buying it.
The book gives a portrait of the situation of the world’s people. By imagining the world as a village of 100 people, the statistics become vivid. The statistics showing the rich-poor gap shocked many readers. The numbers show that most of the world’s wealth is controlled by a minority, while the majority have little.
I think part of the shock effect comes from the word “village.” A village is not just a crown of people. A village is a group of families living together. Traditionally, villagers distribute wealth pretty fairly and help each other. You cannot find a village where some people have nice houses and others no shelter, where some people have access to clean water and others don’t. In short, a real village that has the statistics of the “100-person village” does not exist.
Missing from the book is an explanation of how the rich-poor gap has come into being. Do the poor live in regions with fewer resources? No. Is it because the poor don’t work hard? This is not true. Is it because the poor countries are less “developed”? Many people believe this, but it is a great mistake. Since the project of “developing the underdeveloped countries” began in 1949, the rich-poor gat has widened. In 1960, the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s people had incomes 30 times that of the poorest 20 percent. By 1990 the gap had doubled: 60 to 1.
“Development” doesn’t get rid of poverty; it brings poor people into the world economic system, and uses their poverty to create wealth, which most benefits ― guess who?
Should we, who live in one of the wealthy countries, feel guilty? Not at all. People are nor responsible for where they are born, but only for what they do, or fail to do. But it does mean that our “100-person village” is both unjust and unstable. And so there is much to be done, many changes to be made, before we can call it a decent and safe place to live.
The book gives a portrait of the situation of the world’s people. By imagining the world as a village of 100 people, the statistics become vivid. The statistics showing the rich-poor gap shocked many readers. The numbers show that most of the world’s wealth is controlled by a minority, while the majority have little.
I think part of the shock effect comes from the word “village.” A village is not just a crown of people. A village is a group of families living together. Traditionally, villagers distribute wealth pretty fairly and help each other. You cannot find a village where some people have nice houses and others no shelter, where some people have access to clean water and others don’t. In short, a real village that has the statistics of the “100-person village” does not exist.
Missing from the book is an explanation of how the rich-poor gap has come into being. Do the poor live in regions with fewer resources? No. Is it because the poor don’t work hard? This is not true. Is it because the poor countries are less “developed”? Many people believe this, but it is a great mistake. Since the project of “developing the underdeveloped countries” began in 1949, the rich-poor gat has widened. In 1960, the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s people had incomes 30 times that of the poorest 20 percent. By 1990 the gap had doubled: 60 to 1.
“Development” doesn’t get rid of poverty; it brings poor people into the world economic system, and uses their poverty to create wealth, which most benefits ― guess who?
Should we, who live in one of the wealthy countries, feel guilty? Not at all. People are nor responsible for where they are born, but only for what they do, or fail to do. But it does mean that our “100-person village” is both unjust and unstable. And so there is much to be done, many changes to be made, before we can call it a decent and safe place to live.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Society
I have no doubt that a large number of American lawyers do wonderfully worthwhile things. But the trouble is that there are just too many of them. In fact, the U.S. has more lawyers than all the rest of the world put together. The U.S. now boasts 346 lawyers for every 100,000 citizens. Britain, by contrast, has 196; Japan a mere 22.
Every year over 90 million lawsuits are filed in the U.S., and many of these are what might simply be called ambitious. Two parents in Texas are suing a high school baseball coach for benching their son during a game. In Washington State, a man with heart problems is suing local milk companies “because their milk did not warn him about cholesterol.”
Along with the idea that lawsuits are a quick way to a fortune, there is the interesting and uniquely American notion that no matter what happens, someone else must be responsible. So if, say, you smoke eighty cigarettes a day for fifty years and eventually get cancer, then it must be everyone else’s fault but your own, and you sue just about everybody involved in making and selling cigarettes.
The cost of all this to society is enormous. New York City alone spends $200 million a year settling “slip and fall” claims – people tripping over the edge of a sidewalk, and the like. According to a recent TV documentary, because of the ever-growing legal costs, consumers in the U.S. pay $500 more than they need to for every car the buy, $100 more for football helmets, and $3,000 more for heart pacemakers. They even pay a little extra for haircuts, because several customers successfully sued their barbers after being given the sort of embarrassing haircut I receive as a matter of routine.
All of which has given me an idea. I am going to smoke eighty cigarettes a day and slip and fall on a New York sidewalk while drinking high-cholesterol milk, and then I’ll call a lawyer and see if we can strike a deal. I don’t expect to settle for less than $2.5 billion ― and that’s before we’ve even started to talk about my least haircut.
Every year over 90 million lawsuits are filed in the U.S., and many of these are what might simply be called ambitious. Two parents in Texas are suing a high school baseball coach for benching their son during a game. In Washington State, a man with heart problems is suing local milk companies “because their milk did not warn him about cholesterol.”
Along with the idea that lawsuits are a quick way to a fortune, there is the interesting and uniquely American notion that no matter what happens, someone else must be responsible. So if, say, you smoke eighty cigarettes a day for fifty years and eventually get cancer, then it must be everyone else’s fault but your own, and you sue just about everybody involved in making and selling cigarettes.
The cost of all this to society is enormous. New York City alone spends $200 million a year settling “slip and fall” claims – people tripping over the edge of a sidewalk, and the like. According to a recent TV documentary, because of the ever-growing legal costs, consumers in the U.S. pay $500 more than they need to for every car the buy, $100 more for football helmets, and $3,000 more for heart pacemakers. They even pay a little extra for haircuts, because several customers successfully sued their barbers after being given the sort of embarrassing haircut I receive as a matter of routine.
All of which has given me an idea. I am going to smoke eighty cigarettes a day and slip and fall on a New York sidewalk while drinking high-cholesterol milk, and then I’ll call a lawyer and see if we can strike a deal. I don’t expect to settle for less than $2.5 billion ― and that’s before we’ve even started to talk about my least haircut.
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