ice cream

When I went to Umeda in Osaka with my friend in the day of Golden Week, I saw this sign. The sign said that May 9 is the day of “ice cream.” This is the day that was decided by Japanese association of ice cream and to let people know this day, member of this association give ice cream to the people for free! The character in the picture is “prince of ice cream” who comes from star of ice cream to let people enjoy ice cream more. After coming back to my house, I researched about the association on the Internet. On the homepage of the association said that this day was established by Tokyo association of ice cream in 1964. (This is former name of Japanese association of ice cream). The purpose of establishing is to increase the sales of ice cream. This day is start of the season of ice cream so they chose May 9. The goal of this association is improvement of quality and manufacturing techniques of iced dessert and to help improvement of diet of people. I did not know the existence of the association before and it was very interesting for me. I think the cost of ice cream which was given by the association was not cheap because so many ice cream were given. However, to attain their goal, they gave it for free.


It was surprising for me because I thought that the purpose of company or some other group is to obtain profit. Sometimes the companies are too eager to earn money. Therefore, some company do illegal action. For example, it was broadcasted that one of the famous Japanese restaurant served the dishes which was served other customer before. It means they served leftovers dishes to the customer. Like this some company do illegal action to earn much money. Therefore, I was surprised to see the way of advertisement of the association. Moreover, I was surprised that the existence of such kinds of association. Then, I realized that even if I live in Japan and I am Japanese, there are a lot of things that I do not know about my country. I become sensitive to the thing witch I do not know or about my own country. It is very important to know about own country because the knowledge of own country help us think and judge about our own country. Therefore, I think people need to keep studying and thinking. Thanks to the class of visual anthropology




http://www.icecream.or.jp/

Japanese way of politics

I would like to tell you about way of politics in Japan.

Recently, as one of the ways to solve the problem of smoking of under 20 years old, card which is called “taspo” come up in Japan. When people buy tobacco by vending machine, people need to stick this card to vending machine. This card is built-in function which distinguish under 20 or not. Without this card, adult cannot buy tobacco by vending machine. Therefore, they need to obtain this card. When people obtain this card, they need to take picture and write their information in application form.

This card is developed by three groups: corporate juridical person of Japanese association of tobacco, the union of cooperative of tobacco sale in the whole country and industry association of Japanese vending machine. Those groups are not related to Japanese government. Those groups are admitted their existence by Japanese law but they are moved by government. Some countries way of politics are communism or socialism so that country’s direction are decided by government. However, Japan is a country which principle of politics is mixing of socialism and capitalism. Therefore, some companies are left administration by their own way. The reason why Japanese government introduce both socialism and capitalism is that to keep the balance of economy and gap between poor and rich. Japanese government believe that if companies can do their way, competition between companies occur and thanks to this competition, Japanese economy will increase. However, Japanese government forbid monopoly of company. That is because if only one company win the competition with other companies, other company bankrupt. Then, a lot of people lose their job and homeless will increase. To avoid those situation as possible Japanese government introduce both socialism and capitalism. Japanese want to enrich economy but they do not want to increase poor people who do not have something to eat in their daily life. Not only Japan but in other countries, this way is introduced.
This way is reflect Japanese thinking. Japanese tend to obtain part of good point in some things. For example, Japanese celebrate Christmas but the most of them are not Christian. The most of Japanese just want to enjoy that day.
Like this, even in politics Japanese characteristic is reflected.


The pictures are vendingmachine which have function of "tasopo"






http://www.taspo.jp/taspo/Management.html