...epicenter, which was a very disappointing trip. Little Tokyo proved to be quite the opposite, as I was able to ascertain a much deeper understanding of the Japanese culture because of it, and at the same time was able to reflect on the differences and similarities of my Filipino heritage. From what I was able to gather, the Japanese and Filipino cultures have quite a few significant differences, but have more similarities than I originally anticipated. As the name would suggest, Little Tokyo is fairly little, with its borders spanning a radius of only a few blocks. Walking from one end of the town to the other took no more than five minutes. That afternoon, we started our trip right in the middle of all the activity, into the mouth of a little alley known as the Japanese Village Plaza. People were walking in and out of cosmetic stores, bakeries, bars, gift shops, a brightly lit Sanrio store, cafes, a market, and a number of restaurants serving sushi, shabu shabu, ramen, even Korean barbeque. Many of these shops were playing traditional Japanese music, and interestingly, almost all of the employees that worked in these shops were women. The same could be said about the restaurants, as many of the servers were also women. The chefs on the other hand were all men, which may be one aspect of gender roles in the neighborhood. The Japanese had great pride in serving the food they prepared, something my sister and I noticed while eating at one of the more traditional ramen houses. There...
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...arguable that monsters have become a “fad” of the modern era, and many are created to represent the culture of their origin. Thus, the question is why yokai are seen as a key component of contemporary Japanese identity, and what was the reason that lead to an increased interest in yokai and their appearance in popular culture? Folktales in The Legends of Tono were originally created, as argued, to protect the local society and identities of Tono. However, the recording of these folktales and their appearance in modern society can be attributed to the crisis of identity and modernity that Japan faced from the nineteenth century onwards. The Meiji Restoration focused on a fusion of antiquity and modernity in creating an identity that defined the nation-state, while the post-WWII era re-evaluated the importance of the individual identity. Undeniably, part of this identity resides in the yokai that descended from the kami in The Legends of Tono, where even today, they are something that is often associated with Japanese culture. The kappa and tengu contain local identities since the kappa in Tono are known to be red-faced, while the tengu are said reside in the mountains surrounding the region. On the other hand, they are often the first that come to mind when talking about Japanese “monsters.”...
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...Perspectives 9/3/2013 Elizabeth Glasser Japanese Culture I am choosing to do my session long project on Japan. I think Japan is a very interesting and beautiful place. No other country in the world has experienced such a confluence of tradition, technology, and circumstance. Japan is the hub for cutting edge technology; it is the only country that has witnessed the wrath of the atomic bomb, and it has the most massive economy in the world. The Japanese have interesting and amazing traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years. Japanese people can be very modern but till hold onto traditions that have been passed on for centuries. They wear amazingly beautiful clothes, have interesting art techniques and have one the largest markets for music. Japan is also known for their Geisha girls, martial arts, and bizarre foods. Origins “The Japanese Archipelago includes more than 3,000 islands, covering a total area of 377,835 square kilometers. The four main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu” (Szczepanski, n.d.). There is evidence that people inhabited Japan 30,000 years ago. According to Szczepanski (n.d.), these people were called Jomon and were hunter and gatherers who lived off the land. Japan first appears in the historical records of China in about 300 BC. There are many theories regarding the evolution of Japan. The most popular is that “Japanese gradually evolved from ancient Ice...
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...Li Zhou Japanese Issues and Topics 2 Professor David Uva 10/21/2014 Summary of Chapter 2 - Lost Decade: Began in the early 1990s (Heisei era), persisted for two decades 1. Dark period began with asset bubble in 1980s 2. Banks: bad loans 3. Economy imploded 4. Social Problems: Unemployment, divorce, suicide, violence 5. Anxiety, insecurity 6. Japan, Inc. lost credibility - Led to transformation, people found out gov’t was incompetent - Junichiro Koizumi 1. Bold 2. Amplifying disparities 3. Increasing risk 4. No safety ❖ Economy Implodes ➢ Crash of the stock market and land prices(hammering banks, business, investors, borrowers, customers, and employees ➢ Lost US$16 trillion, 3 times the size of GDP ➢ Lost Decade ▪ A story about how businessmen, policymakers, regulators, and investors RECONSIDERED the norms and verities of Japan, Inc. and began the process of RETOOLING economics institutions, practices, and patterns to REVIVE the economy ▪ Measured and incremental reforms ▪ Other people: Disparities, betrayal ➢ Company ▪ First, little retirement with less pay and bonuses ▪ After the baby boom generation, companies relied on non-regular workers who are usually paid much less and have little job security(Regular workers needed to work long hours(Low birthrate • Baby boomers: people born during the Post-World War II baby boom between 1946 and 1964. ...
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...Sunshine and Noir in Historical Los Angeles: A Contextualization of Nina Revoyr’s Southland Nina Revoyr’s novel, Southland, provides a glimpse into the injustice, scandal, and struggle in Los Angeles from the 1940s to the 1990s due to its racial composition. The novel contains a unique cast of characters who, although often times interact with conflict, are forced to live side-by-side one another in their separate attempts to attain the American Dream. Southland takes its readers on a journey through a history full of trials and tribulations, with Los Angeles as its stage; throughout this story, the reader begins to understand that there was much more to this place than what was originally promised by the boosters. Revoyr makes it clear that Los Angeles, or Angeles Mesa to be more precise, during the time of the boosters, was not solely a place where one could find utopia, or sunshine – but also a place that was plagued with dystopia, or noir. Southland proves to be a story that illustrates how ethnic, racial, and gender differences can play a major role in one’s actions, behaviors, and perceptions of others. This novel uncovers the fact that Los Angeles was a socially stratified city, which was full of inhabitants who were governed according to their differences. Whether one was white, black, or Asian during the 1940s-1960s (especially in Angeles Mesa, as relevant to Southland) determined how others perceived and treated them. In a cyclic rotation, most of the time it...
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...538 Dr. Danielle Babb December 6, 2015 A culture that dates to 13,000 B.C., and the leadership traits that have made Japan a world power, are not easily defined. Such is the mystery that is Japanese leadership. Prior to the Meiji period, 1872 to 1910, Japan vacillated between warlord land grabs and adherence to the belief in a divine Emperor that demanded absolute loyalty and subservience. It was during the following period of Japanese history that the modern concept of leadership emerged and the nation found itself becoming a dominant world power. During the Taisho period Japan found itself in a difficult position. While a modern and powerful military influence in the Asian arena, the west continued to dismiss the nation’s culture and ambition. Following the disastrous war with the allied powers in the 20th century, the nation found itself again at a crossroads. Adhere to the leadership concepts of an ‘Emperor’ or finally focus on economic growth and democratic ideals? Japan chose the latter and thus engaged in a period of leadership evolution that set the standard for the modern world (Davies, 2002, p. 36). Where once blind allegiance to a living deity ruled the social structure, Japan evolved into a nation of dynamic and evolving leadership that tapped into a cultural norm of teamwork and sacrifice. Relevant values in Japan Values play an important role in any society and in any organization and values “are fundamental beliefs that an individual considers to...
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...that is a fraction of the former two, Japan owns a great deal of its achievement to various homegrown aspects (World Bank, 2014). This essay analyzes keys aspects of Japan to get a broad overview of Japanese business culture, using the Hofstede's Model and key social institutions. II. HOFSTEDE’S MODEL OF JAPANESE CULTURE: Figure 1. Japan on the Hofstede's Model (The Hofstede Centre, 2016). Figure 1 shows Japan's scores on six dimensions of the Hofstede's Model. Based on these scores, Japanese culture is characterised by low power distance, high masculinity, high context, medium individualism, very high uncertainty avoidance, and high long-term orientation. 1. Power Distance Japan is ranked at an immediate score of 54 in power distance index. It shows that the extent between the powerful and the less powerful within institutions and organizations is neither very far nor showing immense inequality. Japan almost reaches the balance. Confucianism makes a deep impact on Japanese culture. The main effect of Confucian philosophy on Japanese business is in the development of a strictly hierarchical working environment. Decision-making process is slow because all decisions have to be confirmed by each hierarchical layer and finally by the top management. A typical style of Japanese management is Ho-ren-so. Ho-ren-so stands for Hokoku (report), Renkaku (communication, touch base) and Sodan (discussion). Firstly, the supervisor gives a general instruction to the...
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...Nova Southeastern University H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship MGT 5012– Twenty First Century Management Practices Date of Submission: March 17, 2013 Title of Assignment: Managing Cultural Diversity Syllabus: MGT 5012- 21st Mgmt Practices 26 Over the years, the workforce has grown to have diverse groups of people working together. Diversity is defined as the differences or dissimilarities among people. These differences can be age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, education, experience, and any characteristic used to distinguish between people. (Jones, 2011) To understand the present, a look at the history of diversity in the workplace will be discussed. I will research and discuss the cultural diversity and how managers today have evolved over the years to learn how to handle it. I will discuss certain steps that managers can take to effectively manage the diversity in their workplace. I will look into the business etiquette and protocol of countries like the United States, Mexico, and Japan. I will also look into where these countries fall on Hofstede’s model of national culture. I will also discuss why it’s important for mangers to learn about a culture they are not familiar with when doing business to make sure they don’t offend the other person or company. History of Diversity in the Workplace The workforce slowly changed after World War II as a growing number of minority groups began to speak up and demand...
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...9000 Cabanha Orgânica Lomas Negras Ltda. Caixa Postal 95 Campo Alegre, SC 89294-000 Brasil Ronald Jean Degen is in the Ph.D. Program of the International School of Management in Paris, and the Vice Chairman of Masisa in Chile. He was a Professor at the Getúlio Vargas Graduate Business School of São Paulo where he pioneered the introduction of teaching entrepreneurship in 1980 and wrote the first textbook in Portuguese on entrepreneurship published in 1989 by McGraw-Hill. He just published a new textbook on entrepreneurship that was published in 2009 by Pearson Education 4 The success of luxury brands in Japan and their uncertain future ABSTRACT The Japanese are the world’s largest individual consumers of luxury brands and form the second largest market for luxury goods after the US. The Japanese were the driving force behind the exponential growth of the European luxury industry and the resulting “democratization of luxury”. This concept of giving everyone access to luxury branded goods is a paradox because it abandons the exclusivity that was the...
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...covers other relevant concepts. The focus is on the major approaches used to study consumer behavior. The basic purpose of this chapter is to acknowledge the role that determinants other than culture play in influencing consumer behavior. The chapter thus examines the psychological and social dimensions, and these include motivation, learning, personality, psychographics, perception, attitude, social class, group, family, opinion leadership, and the diffusion process of innovations. PERSPECTIVES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR Consumer behavior may be defined as a study of human behavior within the consumer role and includes all the steps in the decision-making process. The study must go beyond the explicit act of purchase to include an examination of less observable processes, as well as a discussion of why, where, and how a particular purchase occurs. Domestically, marketing scholars have employed a variety of techniques and concepts, including the cultural approach, to study consumer behavior. Yet consumer study on an international basis has employed the cultural approach almost exclusively without much regard for other psychological and social concepts.This is a very curious approach since it is the norm for virtually all consumer behavior textbooks to treat...
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...Culture identity I am a nineteen year old Taiwanese, mandarin speaking, Asian with Maitreya Great Tao as my beliefs. I came from Taiwan, a small country in Eastern Asia with come a culture deeply connected with China. The people in my country are mostly Han Chinese who came from mainland China before 1949 or have ancestors that were. They are divided into three group based on the Chinese dialect they speak: Taiwanese, Hakka, or Mandarin. The traditional values that we have are based on Confucian ethics which are now challenging to industrialization. However, some traditional values remain strong, including piety toward parents, ancestor worship, a strong emphasis on education and work, and the importance of saving face. And these are also my values, beliefs and practices. I was born and raised in Taiwan which is Home Island. I consider myself Taiwanese no matter where I live because I am descendant from a long line of Taiwanese who came from a small village in Kaohsiung city. I know that China prefers to view Taiwan as an inherent part of China going back to “ancient time” and China wants to claim sovereignty over Taiwan. I do not consider myself to have a shared Chinese identity because I am one hundred percent Taiwanese. The communication styles of Taiwanese are in front of words, gestures and facial expression. Mandarin, the official national language of Taiwan is my main language. It has allowed me to share my way of life with others and allows me...
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...‘breaking bad news’. As this conversation requires that the clinician divulge extremely sensitive and personal information, and usually incurs an emotional response from the patient, truth-telling to advanced cancer patients is not only a challenging task but also one likely to be handled differently in cultures according to differing norms for interpersonal behavior and communication. China and the United States, with their deepset communitarian vs. individualistic ethics, respectively, typify divergent cultures. This paper discusses cross-cultural differences in norms of truth-telling to cancer patients, that is, the extent to which physicians inform patients themselves of their disease status when prognosis is poor; China and the US are used to illustrating potential differences in approach and consequent cross-cultural misunderstandings. In an increasingly mobile global community, in which information technology and telecommunications span cultures and patients are increasingly well informed, clinicians around the world would be well advised to become aware of the communication styles and expectations, and to make an effort to understand the norms, of their patients’ cultures of origin....
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...many ways to express themselves with their tattoos. Tattoos are a form of body art, and like all art, some like them and some don't. Nowadays, elderly have bad impression about people with tattoo. As we see today even women are having tattoos. The purpose I choose this topic is to explain that tattoo is an art. THE HISTORY OF TATTOOS History shows that tattooing has existed since 12,000 years BC. The purpose of tattooing has varies from culture to culture and its place on the time line In Borneo, a woman’s particular skill is indicated when they tattooed their symbols on their forearm. Throughout history tattoos have signified membership in a clan or society. For an example, Hells Angels tattoo their particular group symbol. It has been believed that the wearer of an image calls the spirit of that image. The ferocity of a tiger would belong to the tattooed person. That tradition holds true today shown by the proliferation of images of tigers, snakes, and bird of prey. Egypt is the place where earliest tattoos can be found during the time of the construction of the great pyramids. As they expanded their empire, the art of tattooing spread as well. Around 2000 BC tattooing spread to China. Tattoo was used for the communication among spies in Greek. Romans marked criminals and slaves. This practice is still carried on today. The social status is showed through tattoo by Ainu people of western Asia. In New Zealand a facial style of tattooing called Moko was developed and still...
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...Crimes against the elderly in socially organized and disorganized communities Table of Contents Introduction 4 Defining Elderly Abuse 7 Traditional Societies 8 The length of the problem 9 Institutional Settings 9 Risk factor for Elder Abuse 10 Individual factors 10 Factors of Relationship 11 Factors of Community and Society 12 The result of elder abuse 14 Domestic Settings 14 Treatment in institutions 14 Preventing Elder Abuse 15 Feedback from national level 16 Responses from local people 18 Social Service 19 Health Care 20 Legal Proceeding 21 Campaign to generate public awareness 22 Recommendations 23 Greater Knowledge 23 Causes of the abuse 24 Impact of abuse 24 Evaluating the process 24 Stringent laws 24 Basic Rights for Elders 25 Traditions 25 Other preventive measures 26 Conclusion 27 Reference 28 Introduction The history of elderly abuse is not a very new phenomenon. It can be traced back from a very early age if we flip through the sociological status of yesteryear. However with the passage of time and further defining a goal to reform child abuse and domestic violence, the objective of elderly abuse has also been considered in the agenda. Unlike other form violence, the elderly violence has come into limelight with the progress of public health and criminal justice. The issue of these two forms has paved a way to view, analyse and curb the issue on violence towards senior citizens of a society. This paper...
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...Intercultural Communication (Spring 2015) Moodle Title: BA3H HM302 Date: 22nd May, 2015 Words Count: 3982 Table of Content Table of Content 2 Introduction 3 Comparison between dimensions of American and Japanese culture 4 Background of cultures 4 Power Distance 7 Individualism v.s. Collectivism 9 Masculinity v.s. Femininity 11 Uncertainty Avoidance 13 Long-Term Orientation 15 Important issues during business negotiations in Japan 16 Greetings 16 Time 17 Appropriate attires 17 Business cards 18 Gifts 18 Meetings 19 Seating 19 During the negotiations 20 Role of language negotiation 20 Exchange of favors 21 Japanese Etiquette of non-verbal expressions 22 Leaving 22 Follow-up of the negotiation 23 Relationship building 23 Conclusions 24 References 25 Introduction Dear Ms. Johnson, Regarding globalization brings culture diversity into organizations all over the world, while there are managers and staff from different cultural backgrounds, potential conflicts may arise in organizations if we are not sensitive to the inherent differences. As a manager in hospitality which is a people-orientated industry, it is relatively important for you to understand well intercultural differences in working places, whenever dealing with guests or fellow staff, because of same behaviors under different cultural backgrounds can greatly affects the comfort and harmony atmosphere within an organization...
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