Multiplying and Replenishing Japan

I can't take credit for finding this article and video done by CNN, but I think it's nevertheless funny and insightful.

With a work culture used to 12 hour days (sometimes more), I find it an interesting sociological tidbit that Canon has to forcibly turn off the lights to get people to leave. When I was working in LA, if you were told by the company that you could leave early, you left early...and oftentimes skipped lunch so you could leave even earlier. Here, leaving early, even when the company tells you that it's OK, is not such an easy task. I mean, I'm surprised that turning off the lights was such an easy fix. Some people in my office would need the power cut, the office tear-gassed, and then to be carried away by commandos before they would leave.

Then there's the whole "big brother" aspect of your company telling you to go forth and procreate. It just takes the whole romance out of it when "it" becomes your civic and corporate duty, right?

But I have to hand it to Canon, with work hours as they are, at least they resisted the urge to take a page out of the US prison system by going the conjugal visit route!

Quick update

It's been almost a month since my last post and it's actually been a nice little break. I've added a few pictures taken recently in a few settings. Here's a quick update.

Ella - She's crawling everywhere and starting to pull herself up. With the help of a walker, she'll walk like Igor from Young Frankenstein - taking a step with one leg and dragging the other leg behind her. She has two prominent bottom teeth and three more popping out on the top. She can hold her own bottle. She definitely has preferences, screaming when something that she wants is taken away from her.

Anthon - He's loving English school, but not sold on the idea of doing Japanese school. Anthon's become our potty-mouth monitor. As with most families, stupid and shut-up are on the banned list. When the bad word is uttered, Anthon usually gasps and then reminds me that I need to wash my mouth out. We have identified one exception - when one steps in dog poop (as I did recently), you're exempt from the no bad words rule. Anthon has made it a priority to step in dog poop ever since.