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Japan's Paper Culture
21–30 of 164 posts
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#22I have no affiliation with jetpens - but if you are into pens at all, buy one of their sampler packs. It's a great way to try out different styles of pens that you won't find at Staples or Walgreens (or the office supply closet).
+1 for jet pens. No affiliation, just happy customer who’ve spent more than should have.
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#23Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in comparison. Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their co…
As a Chinese my friends and I are always amazed by the contemporary Japanese art, music and movies. I attributed the success partially to the democratic system and remain hopeful for our own culture. Their cultural marketing is also great
Japan had interesting art and culture before their modern political system, which largely stems from post WWII.
Btw, there's a reasonable argument to be made that constraints are what drives creativity. From my own experience, East Germany had much better political jokes than West Germany. Mostly because you didn't need a carefully worded joke in the West, you could just open a newspaper.
Compare also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo and http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db8/oulipo/feature-oulipo/para/oux...
(Just to be clear: I vastly prefer to live in a free society.)
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#24If you go to Japan, check out a place called Tokyu Hands.. tons of paper notebooks, pens, pencils, pencil organizer pouches, tons of awesome stuff..
Last week.
Tokyu Hands was acquired by a major DIY store.
don't worry, Business will continue.
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#25Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in comparison. Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their co…
> Japan is, of course, just a place. You allude to this later in your comment, but it really isn't when it comes to paper (and to some extent, cardboard). The irony in your comment re:fetishizing is that TFA talks of traditions whereas you say things like: > She had supernaturally neat handwriting
I thought that last phrase was very cleverly worded.
The author obviously has an appreciation for crafting advanced stylistic prose in English.
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#26Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in comparison. Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their co…
There are still places here that require you to submit a handwritten resume for that matter
Don’t forget you need to submit a new one for every place you apply.
It does show a certain kind of dedication I suppose.
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#27Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in comparison. Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their co…
One of the things attractive about Japan is that it actually does have a lot of unique culture in a world otherwise somewhat dominated by a global culture, when you are actually different there are bound to be several things about your culture which others see in awe.
One of the disappointing things (not that there aren’t awesome things) about traveling across the US is all the things which aren’t different even though separated by thousands of miles. I recently moved back to Minnesota from several years in California and often get the strange sense that I’m still there because I’m in an environment so familiar that I think I’m in Sunnyvale for a moment. (Walking through a shop or doing this or that… the snow though is a bit of a differentiator)
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#28Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in comparison. Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their co…
appreciating is not something ‘genuinely harmful’
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#29Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in comparison. Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their co…
> Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their country and society have plenty of problems, just like any other. There is nothing magical about Japan or any other place.
Japan, by your own description, isn’t just a place. It’s the place of a people who share a long and deep culture. If you substituted New Yorkers for Japanese in Tokyo, it wouldn’t be like Tokyo for very long! (Feeling like a “clumsy, nasty barbarian” is certainly an apropos description of how I feel returning to New York after visiting Tokyo.)
Most Japanese wouldn’t describe Japan as “just a place.” A Japanese acquaintance of mine (a law professor) and I were once discussing the issue of government corruption in Asia. My acquaintance dug into some 400 years of Japanese history to explain why it had less problems with corruption than China, next door.
Of course it’s not “magical”—just as there is nothing magical about Apple under Steve Jobs. But it is an achievement—the achievement of a group of people who share a particular culture. When my dad was born in 1951, Japan had a GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) similar to Bangladesh’s today. Within a generation they had become a first world country. You shouldn’t fetishize their culture, but it’s okay to marvel at their achievement!
Re: Japan's Paper Culture
#30If you go to Japan, check out a place called Tokyu Hands.. tons of paper notebooks, pens, pencils, pencil organizer pouches, tons of awesome stuff..
Also Ito-Ya https://www.ito-ya.co.jp/lang/en/index.html
Itoya is amazing, it's like a wonderland of stationery!
I also highly recommend kakimori, which builds custom notebooks that you can select all the parts for (binding, paper, cover, etc.). Really memorable experience, and it's in a quieter residential part of the city (but still fairly convenient/central) that feels very different from the usual tourist spots.