I am back, and…
I have an announcement to make: I think I will be relocating to the Tokyo branch of my bank for work fairly soon.
Didn’t you say you already resigned and wanted to live in Kyoto for 3 months to do nothing except reading history books, learning Kyoto cuisine and zazen. Yes, I said that. After a lot of lengthy and complicated negotiation with my bosses, I can go away for 3 months before I report to our Tokyo office for work. But it is not my intent to write about work on this blog, so I will leave it at that.
I still have not written about:
- My trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou in March 2011: This was sobering lesson on new-found wealth and all the social complications that come with it. I was staying at five-star hotels either owned by someone I knew or paid for by someone I knew. I was even offered a car to drive around by someone I knew. (“Do you have a driving license? I can lend you one of my cars – they are all just sitting in the garage!”) I also managed to steal some time off to see some out-of-way neighbourhoods that I can only describe as Dostoyevskian.
- My trip to Kyoto, Uji, Nara and Osaka in April 2011: Also a sobering lesson on what a devastating earthquake can do to a country.
It’s not that I don’t have time to write; it’s just I need some time off to think.
Other than that, I have been busy digitizing my collection of books for reading various devices I own (the iPhone 4, the iPad 2 and the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3G). They sell a lot of good tools for digitizing books in Japan – I really must post more information about that at some point.
Good to hear from you again.
It seems you aren’t taken aback with your plans by the earthquake and Fukushima crisis.
How did you come to the honor of being acquainted to seemingly so wealthy people? ^^ Through your work relations?
I would be very interested in your trip to Shanghai. I was there last year, but too much time of the stay was consumed up with visiting relatives I have never seen before in my life, so I didn’t have quite any time to wander around on my own.
Through, for one curious thing, I was just in Paris, and lost my way to my hostel and, to my surprise, ended up in a Chinese quarter about two streets away from the hostel. It seemed quite almost the same as in these moderate (not too poor and shaggy) backstreets in Shanghai that I have seen. (Even the state of the street was quite similiar.)
Isn’t digitalizing books quite time consuming?
Luna:
Well, I do see my share of people that the world would call “wealthy” at work, though I try to separate work and personal life – an increasingly futile attempt as time goes by. Those people were not really work relations in these sense that I currently make money off them from my job, just people I came to know through the course of social networking. And social networking means the old-fashioned way of having lunch, tea and dinner together… not Facebook, not Twitter, not even Linkeln.
I do think the old fashined way leaves more of an impression. Though I suppose there are quite some habits to know nowadays. (I was told something like, if people sit together and drink wine, they would always leave the last drop in the bottle as drinking it by themselves would be rude and giving it to the other one was an implicit invitation to have him order a new bottle which oneself would pay for.)
Through not that it matters anything, if one does not even get much of a chance to see people to even start such networking.
Luna:
> Through not that it matters anything, if one does not even get much of a chance to see people to even start such networking.
You live right in the middle of an ocean and you complain that there is no water? ^^
You may have well a point on that. =D
Through it would interest me, is the whine-bottle custom actually real or not? They were all so serious, and appearantly I made some very serious, comedic face after hearing that, too, and they laughed and said it was a joke.
Luna:
Customs can vary with the social group, geographical region or a combination of both, so there is no right or wrong answer to that. Frankly I have never run into that situation in this part of the woods – they always seem to order more food/drink than they could possibly finish. If anything, they would probably be offended at any implication that they cannot order another bottle of wine.
That was also my very first time I came cross eating with others, with wine in that. The only other time was on a occassion in a Beer Garden und everbody got themselves some 2-3l Pot, which did not seem to run out too fast. I get the impression down here you always order pay for yourselves, if one pays together for convinience of the shop, it will be given to the person about right away back or next time the other person pays for all and the person gives back the difference.
I would be quite interested in such customs of China and Japan, if you would find time and words to describe some. =D