Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail | |
The man who sees, on New Year's day, Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant is forever blessed. -- Old Japanese proverb | |
The reverse side also has a reverse side. -- Japanese proverb | |
Documentation: Instructions translated from Swedish by Japanese for English speaking persons. | |
Old Japanese proverb: There are two kinds of fools -- those who never climb Mt. Fuji, and those who climb it twice. | |
Japanese Minimalism: The most frequently offered interior design aesthetic used by rootless career-hopping young people. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Armanism: After Giorgio Armani; an obsession with mimicking the seamless and (more importantly) *controlled* ethos of Italian couture. Like Japanese Minimalism, Armanism reflects a profound inner need for control. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Have you seen the latest Japanese camera? Apparently it is so fast it can photograph an American with his mouth shut! | |
The best case: Get salary from America, build a house in England, live with a Japanese wife, and eat Chinese food. Pretty good case: Get salary from England, build a house in America, live with a Chinese wife, and eat Japanese food. The worst case: Get salary from China, build a house in Japan, live with a British wife, and eat American food. --Bungei Shunju, a popular Japanese magazine | |
No one likes us. I don't know why. We may not be perfect, We give them money, But heaven knows we try. But are they grateful? But all around, No, they're spiteful, Even our old friends put us down. And they're hateful. Let's drop the big one, They don't respect us, And see what happens. So let's surprise them We'll drop the big one, And pulverize 'em. Asia's crowded, Europe's too old, Africa is far too hot, We'll save Australia. And Canada's too cold. Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos. And South America stole our name We'll build an All-American amusement Let's drop the big one, park there-- There'll be no one left to blame us. They got surfin', too! Boom! goes London, And Boom! Paree. More room for you, Oh, how peaceful it'll be! And more room for me, We'll set everybody free! And every city, You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe; The whole world round, There'll be Italian shoes for me! Will just be another American town. They all hate us anyhow, So, let's drop the big one now. Let's drop the big one now! -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One" | |
In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value to product." According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has 10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have been an efficiency expert? -- Motor Trend, May 1983 | |
The documentation is in Japanese. Good luck. -- Rich $alz | |
A mouse is an elephant built by the Japanese. |