Japanese language friends reunion at Funabashi

There were lots of fun and play when our Japanese classmates met once again for get-together party at Remus’ house. We decided to meet at Funabashi railway station exit before moving together to his apartment. Remus, an Engineer by profession and a prospective young and gentle bachelor from Singapore is one of the few friends I got during my stay at Sakura for training. His Japanese language proficiency is good and he takes care to help friends – one of the rarest human values we slowly miss in the process of modernization and industrialization.

We saw some free medical checkup campaign tent built right at the entrance of the station. One of the volunteers approached us as part of inviting us to have a free medical checkup. The volunteer showed his interest in talking to us. He told, he had a neighbor from India when he lived at Osaka. He was all admiration to the beauty of Indian women! It was interesting to hear his experiences.

We, the Asian friends are from different countries, mostly from ASEAN. Ms Pappathorn Kongkrew from Thailand, Mr. Mohammad Mustain from Indonesia, Mr. Remus Sim Teck Huat from Singapore, Ms. Misaki from Japan, Mr. Wong from Malaysia and Watashi ('watashi' in Japanese means 'I') from India – it was an Asian friends get-together.

Remus had prepared East Asian foods to serve us. Such casual reunion of friends working together brings more excitement and color to the otherwise usual life. Sharing of experiences, communication with different nationalities, ideas on new cultural trends, travel experiences and related friendly activities are signs of healthy interpersonal relationships. I was always fond of such gatherings and longed for more in life, though came rarely.

Language sharing was useful as I learned some new Japanese words and forms of use. While we attended the Japanese class itself, our classroom was one of the lively one with more fun. Cultural information sharing among friends of different nationalities is an appealing way of learning new things in life. The essential criteria is to have friends of almost similar mentality.

One of the lengthy discussion was about the white elephants in Thailand. Ms. Pappathorn told they have white elephants in Thailand. Though I have learned in childhood that the Hindu mythical king Indra possessed white elephant named ‘Airavat’, it all seemed excerpts from Indian fairy tales. She told is a truth and to be frank, it is really a new knowledge for me. She told the elephant is not exactly white, but having grey shades or more like a cream color. Since I have not seen such elephants I can not comment.

My interest in elephants is natural and inborn as I hail from Thrissur in Kerala. Thrissur is place of temple celebrations with decorated elephants. Since my childhood, I can recall, our lives are very much associated with temple celebrations and decorated elephants. My native place, Kerala in India is known for its famous elephant pageant. Many of the stories elders used to tell us were surrounded to temples and elephants.

Possessing a white elephant may seem a metaphor for an encumbrance, a worthless possession. For people at Thailand a white elephant is a highly unusual creature to be venerated. Thai art and handicrafts are flooded with the pictures of elephants.




Ms. Misaki brought strawberries, which we tasted after lunch. Strawberry is called ‘Ichigo’ in Japanese language. Ichigo is one of the first few Japanese words I learned in India before coming to Japan. I loved to snapshots the lovely strawberries to my mobile camera.




It was almost 6’O clock in the evening when we decided to part away. I could not resist asking my friends to gather for a photo so that I can go back to memories of sweet shared moments and ruminate them once in a while. We said good bye to each others and diverted to six different directions along with the sun at the western horizon saying good bye to the earth in the cloudy sky.

Fully Automatic Hi-tech Japanese Toilets – Ultimate human engineering skills!

At first I was really baffled and thought to use the old manual way of business in the toilet of the Hotel room at Katsutadai. It was the first time I encountered a Japanese hi-tech toilet after I landed in Japan. Confused and bewildered I tried pressing on the buttons randomly to know what happens.

When pressed a button at the keypad provided near to the arm rests, a nozzle like thing looking like a squirt gun came out from the bottom of the flush and started jetting water all over the toilet.

Even though embarrassing at the first experience, the hi-tech toilets in Japan is really convenient. People who are used to it will never like to do their daily morning business in any other old fashioned toilets. I could not see this much automation in any of the toilets used so far in any of the luxury hotels at places I had chance to visit and stay. Japan is home to the real hi-tech toilets.

Virtually the toilet will do almost everything for us. The only thing we have to do is to do the thing properly for what we can in!

There is a control pad with many buttons on the side. The sitting pad can be heated to make it warm during winter. The sprinkling or Jetting speed of the water which will squirt water beam to clean the backside once the business is over is also controlled. There is low pressure, medium pressure and high pressure. As we like we can control the speed by pressing it. Also the warm water and normal water options are there in the control pad.

The toilet senses once the business is over and even if we forget to flush, the toilet will do it. Japanese toilets are also self disciplined!

In public toilets, there is provision to place kids which is very convenient for mothers who carry their kids to the toilets. The safe use of toilet and the baby seat is also displayed inside the toilets through instructions. It is amazing that Japanese care even minute details of every walk of life. It is beyond words to praise those genius minds who planned and implemented all these conveniences to the common people in Japan.

Japan is the world leader in producing automated hi-tech toilets. Japan’s biggest automatic hi-tech toilet maker Toto sells their toilets for a price approximately at US$ 2000 to 4000. There are some toilets which will chemically analyze the urine of the user and tells the medical problems! I am not sure, just heard about it.

Toto have their market in the United states. They sell the automated toilets at a lower price in US as per information I have, which I am not sure to comment. Please check with Toto USA for prices and related inquiries.

The use of tissue paper is also almost eliminated in Japanese modern toilets, but the option is still there. The work instruction for use and change of tissue paper is also displayed in the toilet.

Japanese hi-tech toilets are good example of ultimate human engineering skills. First embarrassed though, once get used to, people get addicted to use these hi-tech toilets even though it is a few minutes business. Some models display the time too. The clock will say how much business we did inside! Wow!

Japanese politeness and discipline - How to distinguish Japanese people from other East Asians?

It was start of a debate when I declared that I can distinguish a Japanese person from other far east Asians. Probably I was little excited and exaggerated. But I had enough reasons to argue with my friends. The topic I started was interesting to many friends since they were from East Asian countries.

They wanted to know how I can differentiate Japanese people from other East Asian people. In fact, I used to observe the behavior pattern of Japanese people in public and their manners. The attitude of Japanese people to others, especially to people from India is totally different from the attitude of other East Asians towards Indian people. There is a great extent of positive patterns when Japanese people interact with Indians.

By observing East Asian people, I could guess to almost nearly accurately the country of east Asian people. I agree that it is difficult to distinguish Japanese and South Koreans, North Chinese and some Thai people. But most of the time, the behavior pattern helped me to differentiate other East Asians from Japanese.

One of the major characteristics with Japanese public behavior is Discipline. This is what I like to appreciate the whole system of bringing up a generation in Japan. Japanese people and education system has a vision to build future generation and they are well aware of the impacts of discipline in the society.

The robust and healthy Japanese society has been practicing an admirable system of discipline for many decades. History says the modern Japan became a self disciplined society from the time of Edo. I am not a scholar to comment on this. But I can say from my observation of Japanese people for the past one year that Japanese people are different.

There may be an argument when Japanese people say that they are a different human race. The secluded island culture for many centuries has resulted in a kind of oneness among Japanese people and similar cultural proximity among different regions of Japan. This may be the reason for Japanese people thinking that their race is different. By race they mean only the society, I believe.

Even though other East Asians looks like Japanese, they fail to behave like Japanese. In that sense, Japanese culture is different from other East Asian cultures though it is affected. The attitude of majority of people makes the society proud. In that sense Japan has got all to proud of her people. The aligned and programmed nature of behavior of Japanese people makes the things simple in every walk of life.

Airport is the most noticeable place for Japanese politeness. The moment I landed in Hong Kong Airport, I could experience the difference between Japanese and other East Asians, though they look same. The careless and arrogant nature of approach and attitude is missing in Japan Airports. Instead, people are warm and polite. They wish politely every traveler pass through. That is amazing. There are guides with smiling face in Tokyo Airport for any kind of help. Such a convenient and pleasant Airport I have never seen anywhere. Malaysian Airport is another place which reinforced my observation that Japanese people are different from other East Asians in behavior. The same arrogant nature as in Hong Kong I could watch in Kula lumpur airport also.

Why Japan is different? And who told them to behave good to strangers? Why most people at Hong Kong and Malaysia are arrogant?

The answer is in the culture. The cultural background makes the difference. Japan is a country with full fledged development. That development is not limited to the technological field, Japanese people are also developed much higher than other East Asians. That is the reason we miss to experience the politeness and pleasant experiences at Malaysia and other East Asian countries. I have no experience with Korea, but my interaction with Korean people says, they are also warm like Japanese.

Japan has an edge over others with their politeness, discipline and pleasant attitude. That makes life and society beautiful.