Business Cards, Coneflowers, and Music (Oh My!)

It's been a busy month here in Yokohama, out here on the edge of the Tokyo Bay. I managed to get my hands on a new Visa (Designated Activities/特定活動) that allows me to extend my stay for job hunting, and I've been doing all sorts of projects to get my portfolio and resume up to where I want them to be.

That process included desgining and printing business cards (名刺), which are a staple of the Japanese working environment. There is a careful process (complicated enough that we studied it in school) of how to give and receive these slips of paper. Business cards are in seen as an extension of the person, which means you accept them carefully and after confirming the person's name, you keep them face up and available throughout the conversation, and only put them in their specail card holder at the end of the interaction.

Now as an American, I come from a slightly different set of ideas around self-presentation, which fused partially with the Japanese way as I printed my card: my own, brigher choice of colors and design, but with a rather traditional layout and style. I even managed snag what seemed to be the last (?) hard card case from the tech store to keep mine safe!

I've also had a lot of chances to enjoy the warm weather, albeit still within the cities. We took trips to local parks to admire the flowers (the ones planted and the volunteers as well) that are blooming. Japan seems to have a huge variety of flowers blooming all year, which means I can see Coneflowers like the one below that make me think of our neighborhood gardens back in Boston.

There have also been several concerts and music events (I divide them since the word Concert sounds rather big, while some of these were rather intimately sized) around the cities. From jam sessions of Jazz and Irish music, to fusion of music styles from all around the world last week in Tokyo, it's been a rich wash of different sounds to enjoy.

It's the best thing we can do to enjoy nature and music before the sweltering heat of Kanto summer is fully upon us. Here's to cool weather and ice tea!