Word: salarymen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...what most workers in the travel industry in Asia have in mind when dealing with Japanese tourists. Despite the increase in Japanese backpackers and solo travelers, many in the industry still view holidaymakers from Japan as either rich, clueless shopaholic shutterbugs with a penchant for endless golf or repressed salarymen looking for illicit sex. And, like the fortune tellers at Hsing-tian Temple, Asians have learned that catering to Japanese tastes is far more lucrative than hosting any other group...
American executives seeking insight into Japanese business culture should pick up a comic book. The thick volumes of cartoons called manga are highly popular among the office-worker class known as salarymen. While manga have long dealt with crime and romance, one of the best-selling topics now is business...
Normally, such behavior would not get you far in the land of white-shirted "salarymen." But Shigeru Miyamoto, 43, has reached the top in the rarefied world of video-game designers by consistently creating games that kids can't resist. As a result, he's as revered as a rock star--and not just in Japan. Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and movie directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have all traveled to Nintendo's famed E.A.D. (Entertainment Analysis and Development) lab in Kyoto to meet the man known as the Spielberg of video games...
WHEN SPRING COMES TO THE CITIES OF JAPAN, salarymen dutifully assemble under cherry blossoms, and drunkenly bawl songs in what is really only a quainter version of St. Patrick's Day. In the fall, supermarkets hang paper leaves from their cash registers, and cigarette makers issue packages featuring autumn colors. To a jaded foreigner such an observation can seem as formulaic and debased as the Muzaked versions of Jingle Bells that torment every department store from Bangor to Bangkok...
Sometimes the system works and turns out efficient next-generation salarymen. But as some of these children reach adulthood, they begin to ask questions for which this narrowest of training provides no answers. The word for them then is majime, whose direct translation is earnest. They are in search of meaning but unequipped with the tools normally used to discern it. They grasp at any world vision they are offered. ufos perhaps; perhaps fortune telling, channeling, yoga or mind control. Once lured, they pursue their new faith with the stupendous energy of the lost...