In Pamela Hartmann’s article, “Lucid Dreaming” from “Our Dreaming Mind”, she discusses why people can have a lucid dream before they wake up and how to do it. Aristotle, in the fourth century B.C.E, Oliver Fox in 1902, and Patricia Garfield in 1974 left their ideas about the lucid dreaming in their research papers. They state that lucid dream is an experience in which you can control your dream while you are sleeping. In addition to that, the author introduced the technique for developing lucid dreaming called ‘MILD” which is made by Stephan LaBerge. He said people can dream that which they hope to see, depending on their training.
Rie
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Japanese Style in Advertising
There are some differences in advertising between the U.S. and my country, Japan. If you go and walk around Japan, you'll probably experience interesting differences with your sight soon. Though the best way to understand Japanese culture about advertisement is traveling or staying there, it takes rather much time to do that. Now, I'll introduce three nice differences between these two countries to you.
The first one is about tissues whose size is small so that we can keep them in our pocket. You can get them from people you don't know at all when you are walking on a street, especially in a downtown. They give out tissues with the information paper about their companies inside to pedestrians. Of course you need no money, and sometimes it has a coupon too. This habit may seem to be strange to Americans. However, this way is a wonderful idea for both us and the company, because we can gain both tissues and news such as "What is the service at this shop like?" and the company can show their information easily. If they pass out only a bill to a pedestrian, most of them tend not to take it, I guess. Therefore, this giving act is attractive to both sides. I want to recommend this to the U.S. companies, if they have enough money to give it to them for free.
Besides the above, we advertise in another funny way. Japanese shops often use electric bulletin boards to let people know about their service. It is a very eye-catching sign, because of their glaring sign and a few stupid words. For example, the advertising machine makes the characters "YAKITORI, 3 for 100 yen" into tickers to run right to left or bottom to top in front of the pub. Another example about that can be seen even in a hair salon. Before we enter the shop, we can make sure about how much we should pay by looking at it from a distance, and even at night for the brightness. Thanks to the machine, we don’t worry about asking the hairstylist the cost. I’m looking for a billboard like this in the U.S., but I haven’t found one yet.
Finally, I’ll pick up a difference from my experience I had at restaurant in the U.S. This is about menus and it always annoys me, and it is a defining difference between the two countries. Commonly restaurants in Japan have pictures on them, but American ones don’t have them. When I was in Japan, I used to look at the pictures to choose what kind of food I would eat. These things help us to make quick decisions, so I think it is very kind and helpful efforts for the people who can’t read Japanese well to put down pictures next to the name of dinners. Therefore I wonder why other countries do not follow this method.
Actually, we can find differences in advertising between countries, but the most important thing is to care about what the customers understand from the advertisements, not just find out differences. It’s a common problem. And, to satisfy customers’ needs, companies have to learn many varieties of advertisements in other cultures and adopt a better way than the local country has, as soon as possible. In addition, when companies want to sell something to someone, they should try to make people curious.
The first one is about tissues whose size is small so that we can keep them in our pocket. You can get them from people you don't know at all when you are walking on a street, especially in a downtown. They give out tissues with the information paper about their companies inside to pedestrians. Of course you need no money, and sometimes it has a coupon too. This habit may seem to be strange to Americans. However, this way is a wonderful idea for both us and the company, because we can gain both tissues and news such as "What is the service at this shop like?" and the company can show their information easily. If they pass out only a bill to a pedestrian, most of them tend not to take it, I guess. Therefore, this giving act is attractive to both sides. I want to recommend this to the U.S. companies, if they have enough money to give it to them for free.
Besides the above, we advertise in another funny way. Japanese shops often use electric bulletin boards to let people know about their service. It is a very eye-catching sign, because of their glaring sign and a few stupid words. For example, the advertising machine makes the characters "YAKITORI, 3 for 100 yen" into tickers to run right to left or bottom to top in front of the pub. Another example about that can be seen even in a hair salon. Before we enter the shop, we can make sure about how much we should pay by looking at it from a distance, and even at night for the brightness. Thanks to the machine, we don’t worry about asking the hairstylist the cost. I’m looking for a billboard like this in the U.S., but I haven’t found one yet.
Finally, I’ll pick up a difference from my experience I had at restaurant in the U.S. This is about menus and it always annoys me, and it is a defining difference between the two countries. Commonly restaurants in Japan have pictures on them, but American ones don’t have them. When I was in Japan, I used to look at the pictures to choose what kind of food I would eat. These things help us to make quick decisions, so I think it is very kind and helpful efforts for the people who can’t read Japanese well to put down pictures next to the name of dinners. Therefore I wonder why other countries do not follow this method.
Actually, we can find differences in advertising between countries, but the most important thing is to care about what the customers understand from the advertisements, not just find out differences. It’s a common problem. And, to satisfy customers’ needs, companies have to learn many varieties of advertisements in other cultures and adopt a better way than the local country has, as soon as possible. In addition, when companies want to sell something to someone, they should try to make people curious.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Advice
Rie
AE2B
When my friend who lives in Japan is going to open a store here in Carbondale, I’ll give him/her the below advice. But my stay here is about two weeks so far; therefore, this suggestion is based on my hunch.
The first thing that I want to tell him is simple. He should not open a narrow store because people in the U.S. like big things, for example, houses, fast food, cars, etc., I think. Even in the case he can’t find a nice location to construct a store, it shouldn’t be built like a tower. Tall buildings are not suitable for this region. Of course he needs a parking area for the cars. Though there are sufficient bus stops and buses are really useful in this city, cars are more necessary to go shopping.
And then, if he wants to make his store bigger and more famous, it’s a good idea to have a party such as a BBQ by using their product so that people can obtain some information about the store. Either outside or inside is OK. They like chatting with their friends at a party. This is the difference between Japan and America. And Carbondale is a small town, so a rumor will be going around that something is good or not. Thus, taking advantage of this feature of a town is a very important thing.
Many international students are living here. So, he should keep in mind that selling foods is a little bit hard thing before he knows their culture. Each of them has a taboo in culture or in table manners, but it’s hard to understand all of them by himself. When he opens a restaurant, he needs someone who helps him. On the other hand, he had better hire a person who is familiar with cultures.
Anyway, I’m really hopeful that he can catch success and happiness. That is why I would like to send these messages to him. If he does not hear me, probably he will be in trouble to look for customers, because less research about an area which people open a store causes their failure.
AE2B
When my friend who lives in Japan is going to open a store here in Carbondale, I’ll give him/her the below advice. But my stay here is about two weeks so far; therefore, this suggestion is based on my hunch.
The first thing that I want to tell him is simple. He should not open a narrow store because people in the U.S. like big things, for example, houses, fast food, cars, etc., I think. Even in the case he can’t find a nice location to construct a store, it shouldn’t be built like a tower. Tall buildings are not suitable for this region. Of course he needs a parking area for the cars. Though there are sufficient bus stops and buses are really useful in this city, cars are more necessary to go shopping.
And then, if he wants to make his store bigger and more famous, it’s a good idea to have a party such as a BBQ by using their product so that people can obtain some information about the store. Either outside or inside is OK. They like chatting with their friends at a party. This is the difference between Japan and America. And Carbondale is a small town, so a rumor will be going around that something is good or not. Thus, taking advantage of this feature of a town is a very important thing.
Many international students are living here. So, he should keep in mind that selling foods is a little bit hard thing before he knows their culture. Each of them has a taboo in culture or in table manners, but it’s hard to understand all of them by himself. When he opens a restaurant, he needs someone who helps him. On the other hand, he had better hire a person who is familiar with cultures.
Anyway, I’m really hopeful that he can catch success and happiness. That is why I would like to send these messages to him. If he does not hear me, probably he will be in trouble to look for customers, because less research about an area which people open a store causes their failure.
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