Japanese people in general are over planners. They tend to think of every possible thing that could go wrong, and they tried to alleviate the potential problems. This is excellent because it means things tend to run smoothly. The problem with this, though, is that it leaves little room for something to go wrong, or […]

I have an inkling there is a mountain of advice in the discrepancies between Japan and New Zealand. What do I mean by discrepancies? Areas where the status quo, or the standard train of thought on ideas differ. Some greatly, some not so much. An obvious example would be the TV. I never realised this […]

Apparently when humans first made fire, they were afraid of it going out. What this meant was, they let the fire burn and burn and burn, for thousands of years. We were saved by lightning, giving us the proof that we could always start a fire. There are some things we do that we are […]

Had a long day today, made longer by people who interpret over you when you're supposed to be the main interpreter. One of them is a control freak so can't help it, they try to control everything not just your interpretation... I'm a pretty patient guy. It takes a lot before I have to say […]

Last night we had a bit of time to spare before our movie was on at the theatre, so we were waiting in our car when I couldn't help but care about a noise coming from the car next to us. Like us, there were two people sitting there, but their engine was running. Their […]

Multiple choice questions are unrealistic. When you go into the real world with real problems, you are not usually faced with four answers to choose from, with only one of them being correct. The thing is, if you're training people to think that there is one correct answer, when in all honesty their never is, […]

Don't want to rock the boat? Be prepared to do nothing. I guess you don't really need preparation to do nothing, but being afraid to rock the boat limits us in innumerable ways. This is extremely evident in Japan, a society where people are not forced into, but highly encouraged into submission. It's why the […]