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Father’s Day in America
Father’s Day is coming this Sunday in USA and Japan also. Do you celebrate for your father? How do you celebrate your father?
A Brief History of Father’s Day
Father’s Day was first celebrated in Catholic countries in Europe during the Middle Ages as Saint Joseph’s Day on March 19. In the United States, Sonora Smart Dobb is credited with starting the Father’s Day tradition in 1910 when she honored her father who was a veteran of the American Civil War. Starting in Spokane, Washington and spreading to the rest of the country, Father’s Day became a national holiday on the 3rd Sunday of June when President Richard Nixon signed the law in 1972. Sonora Smart Dobb spent many decades promoting the holiday in honor of her father who raised six children as a single parent after her mother died during childbirth.
The holiday was promoted by industry trade groups to sell ties and tobacco pipes. This garnered public resentment and ridicule as a commercialized holiday, but the tradition survived and still continues today.
So, Father’s Day in America is an annual tradition celebrated on the third Sunday in June. Families celebrate the Fathers and Father figures in their life with praise and recognition. Children and wives help celebrate their Fathers in their life with gifts and activities that Father wants to do. It is his day to be honored and recognized.
What do we do on Father’s Day?
Father’s Day is in the early summer (June 19, 2022) and lends itself to warm weather and outdoor activities. A traditional pastime is to fire up the grill and the father can grill on the BBQ. Gifts for the father are usually related to his favorite hobby, which could include golfing, fishing, hiking, camping, hunting, grilling, etc.
Most gifts are very masculine and could be tools, machinery, or tech gear. Other gifts could be formal dress wear, like a new tie, or a shirt. All the gifts are just for the Father and to make him feel special. It’s the one day during the year when he has no chores to do and can do his favorite activities with his family. Spending time with Dad and letting him know he is the best in the world is what Father’s Day is about. Small children will also make handmade Father’s Day cards to give to their fathers.
Adult children who live far from their fathers might not be able to travel and spend time with their fathers. They may send a gift in the mail and/or call their dad on Father’s Day.
Some children may have a biological father and a stepfather. They may choose to celebrate each father however they see fit. Also, mothers will be celebrating their children’s father (their husband) as well as their biological or step-father so they might have a busy day. Some families may choose to have a multi-generational celebration and recognize dad and grandpa at the same time. Also, in America most school years end in May or early June and families go on a family vacation in the summer and some dads celebrate Father’s day on their trip. Also, a lot of students who graduate from school in June are celebrated more than their fathers. So some days don’t have a big celebration depending on the year and if they are going on a summer vacation or have a child who is graduating.
Father’s Day in Japan
Father’s Day in Japan is celebrated on the same day. There is much less barbecuing in Japan compared to America. Japanese families usually take their fathers out to a restaurant to eat their favorite meal.
In my case, my father enjoys eating eel for Father’s Day. But, I live in California , USA now. I am not able to spend the day with him, so I arrange for eel to be delivered to his house. In other hand, my father-in-law likes to eat ribs and steak cooked on the BBQ grill. Last year my husband cooked ribs for his father. I have a 9-month-old son and we will celebrate my husband and father-in-law at our house with a home cooked meal and spend time together.
Other popular gifts in Japan for Father’s Day are ties, formal dress wear, and alcoholic drinks like beer or sake. Each family celebrates in their own special way.
At the last…
Father’s Day is an early summer holiday to recognize the Fathers in your life and show them how much they mean to you. Each family celebrates in its own way based on time and resources. Some Fathers get overlooked if the family is busy doing other things. Barbecuing is a traditional way to celebrate and Fathers don’t have any chores to do that day. It’s their special day to spend quality time with their family. Most fathers are silly and goofy, but we still need to celebrate them.
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Father’s day in Canada
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Essential tool for E-commerce Management! Benefits of outsourcing image editing
On e-commerce websites, consumers mostly judge the products qualities on whether or not it is good or bad by its image. Therefore, it is necessary to touch up and edit the image just enough to make the products look attractive. However, it takes time and effort to edit the products image. As a result, the huge task of image editing is procrastinated and very often not prioritized and left over. We recommend utilizing the outsourcing service to solve those issues for image editing which is essential for e-commerce websites. Let’s look at the importance of image editing, the method of outsourcing, and its pros and cons for e-commerce management.
Importance of the image editing
On the e-commerce website, the customer are not able to pick-up and seethe actual product, so the product images are the deciding factor for the purchasing. Image quality directly impact to the amount of sales. Let’s look at the reasons and how the product image affects the sales.
Significant amount of information
When we compares the written description and images, the amount of information the consumer gains from the images are much more than the descriptions. We gain the information instantly from the product image. Of course other information are necessary to be written in details, like size and quality. However, it is easier for the consumer to seethe color, design and shape by the images.
Provide a sense of context, scale, and usability
There are many e-commerce websites that sell unique products, useful products, excellent design products, handmade products, etc., Hence the product must be displayed well for everyone to understand the use of the product. With the relevant well edited image, the customer will understand use of the product instantly and won’t need to read long explanation of the products use.
Importance of the product image, backed by actual data
According to the “research of the smartphone usage”, the highest reason why people do not purchase from an e-commerce website is that “the image of the products are not clear on a smartphones”. Indeed smart phone screens are small. This research indirectly but proves that the product image is a very important factor for the consumer’s conversion rate.
Outsourcing options
To edit, trim and prepare all the images of the product for thee-commerce website could be a time consuming task and outsourcing could reduce such burden. We will explain the background and introduce how to outsource image editing for the e-commerce websites.
Growing need of image editing especially for the e-commerce business
Nowadays we all have computers and it is very easy to touch up and edit with free retouching software and tools. In order to run thee-commerce website, it is necessary to have the product images with several angles, such as an image of using the product, zoom in for a closer look or show various colors or options for the product. Those overall presentation of the product images will help to increase sales. However, it is time consuming to prepare all required images.
With this new demand, professional image editing service and the company, especially for e-commerce websites was established. With the growing need and the scale of service is expanding recently more companies are considering for the outsourcing options.
How to outsource the image editing
There are two options for the method of outsourcing the image editing. Ordering directly through the individual designer or using specialty firm and BPO company. In order to outsource to the individual designer directly, you can approaching the designer by reviewing their previous work. Also ordering through cloud-sourcing is another option. The prices vary, and mostly you need to negotiate the price individually.
On the other hand, outsourcing to aspecialty firmBPO corporation, it is essential to choose the company who can work according to your demand and discuss details in advance. The pricing plan is normally more clearer, since they already have the pricing structure determined by the contents and amount of tasks needed for the image editing.
Contents you can outsource
Let’s see the details, what kind of image editing you can do when you outsource the image editing tasks for e-commerce websites.
Clipping and changing the background
Image editing allows you to clip the image of the product, move the product to the center of the image, change the background or remove the background all together. Those kinds of image editing makes the product more visible and able to create an image that appeals to the consumer.
Create variation
Create various colors and materials from just one photo without taking photos of each product variations. This means you can eliminate the time and effort of taking multiple pictures by editing one image. Also easy to make variations with the same angle. This provides the consumer an opportunity to view and compare the various product materials and colors easily.
Color correction and elimination of unnecessary objects
It is common that the product image have many imperfection such as, dark lighting, tinge does not come up well or unexpected object like shadow of the photographer captured. When the professional editor properly edit the image, such as, change the tone, removal of unnecessary object or shadow, it will improve your image quality significantly.
Benefits of outsourcing image editing
Let’s see specifically what the benefits of outsourcing image editing are.
Specialized technique
Professional designers know what kinds of images get attention on e-commerce websites and increase sales. Based on their expertise and experiences, they will complete image editing with advanced techniques. Additionally, they use exclusive software, so the finished image is very professional. The quality of the image directly resultsin sales, so having the product image edited by a professional will provide additional boost to the sales.
Reduce lead time
If you spend too much time editing the image of the product, even though the access to the website is increased, your staff might not able to concentrate on their main tasks. However, if you outsource the image editing to a professional, this provides more time to focus on your core business, the e-commerce website operations.
Reduce labor cost
Instead of hiring and high cost professional designer who has the specialized skills, you can outsource this repetitive work. Outsourcing can help you leverage high quality design skills with more cost effective way along with your in-house project team.
Disadvantage of outsourcing image editing and the things that you need to be aware of
When you consider outsourcing, you need to know the pros and cons. Let’s look at the possible disadvantages more closely.
Budget of outsourcing and cost
If you order the services for outsourcing, it is necessary to budget for outsourcing. Comparing with in-house team, the outsourcing contract could prove too rigid to accommodate small change, result in higher cost or consume time in negotiation. Including the time and cost of ordering process,, you might need to change the outsourcing company if the cost-effectiveness does not meet the budget. Your prompt decisions are required in order to control your budget efficiently.
Coordination and control with the outsourcing company
If you cannot communicate or coordinate well with your outsourcing company, your products brand image might be affected in a negative way, or there is a risk of loosing brand control. Since the image editing is one of the key factor to attract consumer and to increase sales, it is important to maintain your quality of the brand image for the e-commerce website. Therefore, it is necessary to share and explain image of your website with the outsourcing company, even though you don’t meet them face to face.
Mitigating issues with a contract
If you choose the wrong outsourcing company from the beginning, you might experience problems. For example, “the edited image was not delivered by the deadline even the project fee was prepaid in advance” or “the contract did not accommodate for modifications”, these cases are quite common. These issues are not rare when you outsource. Therefore, it is important to confirm rules and regulations, also to review the contract before you order to prevent any issues arise in the future.
Mamasan&Company Inc. provides image editing for e-commerce websites
Mamasan&Company Inc. provides the BPO services(accounting, general affairs, human resources, administrative secretary etc.) With its unique system, expertise, we are expanding our business area to creative industries. Mamasan&Company Inc. has special features in managing the task and operated by multiple individual members led by consultant, instead of conventional department structures. It will allow us to have smoother detail oriented communications. A large amount of image editing could be handled efficiently with high-quality at the reasonable low cost, since multiple web designers are working as a team. Additionally, Mamasan&Company Inc. not only offers image editing, but also video editing and a variety of other creative tasks.
Let’s outsource the image editing to the professional designer!
Due to the characteristics on thee-commerce website, it cannot be denied that overall presentation of product images contribute a significant effect on the consumer’s decision to purchase products. Therefore, even though the image editing may consume time and effort, it is appropriate to edit the product image properly before releasing it to the website.
If it is difficult to manage within your in-house team, outsourcing is one of the business options. It will allow you to concentrate on your e-commerce websites management. Before choosing the strategy, examine the pros and cons of outsourcing carefully to make the right decision for your company.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Guten tag!
Suddenly, do you know what day May 8th this year was? As you know, it’s Mother’s day. Mother’s Day in Japan is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Mother’s Day in Japan is a special day to say thank you to your mother, just like in other countries. In Japan, Mother’s Day is now celebrated on the second Sunday in May, following the American model.
Did you celebrate it in your family?
Mothers Day Origins
The origins of Mother’s Day as celebrated in the United States date back to the 19th century. In the years before the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to teach local women how to properly care for their children.
These clubs later became a unifying force in a region of the country still divided over the Civil War. In 1868 Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation. The official Mother’s Day holiday was created in 1908 by Anna Jarvis, daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis, in honor of her late mother. Jarvis pushed hard for a holiday to celebrate all mothers after the death of her own, and after lots of hard work, determination and promotion President Woodrow Wilson finally made it an official holiday for the US in 1914.
Mothers Day Gift Giving
As with any national holiday, Mother’s Day involves the giving of gifts and cards to show Mum how much she’s valued and appreciated. Traditionally Mother’s Day gifts included flowers and a Simnel cake. The flowers were picked by the workers on the way home from work for a day with their mums; they could pick wild flowers from the country lanes. It is still a tradition today to spoil mum with a stunning colorful bouquet of flowers, as well as more modern gifts such as perfume, clothes or jewelry.
These coffee beans are a gift for Mother’s Day at home this year.
Mother’s Day Around the World
While versions of Mother’s Day are celebrated worldwide, traditions vary depending on the country. In Thailand, for example, Mother’s Day is always celebrated in August on the birthday of the current queen, Sirikit.
In Ethiopia, families gather each fall to sing songs and eat a large feast as part of Antrosht, a multi-day celebration honoring motherhood.
In the United States, Mother’s Day continues to be celebrated by presenting mothers and other women with gifts and flowers. Families also celebrate by giving mothers a day off from activities like cooking or other household chores.
In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Mother’s Day also is observed on the second Sunday in May. Switzerland introduced it in 1917. Germany’s first Mother’s Day observance took place in 1922 and Austria’s in 1924. In 1933, Mother’s Day was declared an official German holiday. Following World War II, German Mother’s Day was revived again with cards and flowers as gifts as Mother’s Day in the United States… Since 1949, flower shops have opened for business on the second Sunday in May in the newly established Federal Republic, West Germany. Recent statistics reveal that during the days before the holiday, around €120 million were spent on flowers each year.
Disputes about Mother’s Day
Florists, greeting card manufacturers and gift sellers long ago recognized the vast business potential and profited richly from it. Anna Jarvis, who devoted her life to the declaration of Mother’s Day as a holiday, was offended and fought against the rampant commercialization as she aimed “it to be a day of sentiment, not profit.” It was her wish and intention that mothers should be respected and honored every day, and not just with presents on Mother’s Day. Contemporary critics point out that Mother’s Day has indeed become vastly commercialized, especially in recent decades.
If you have a special day, you may think that you should celebrate only that day, but it is important that you do not forget to thank you everyday.
Mother’s Day in Japan
People usually give red or pink carnations to their moms on Mother’s Day. Some people take their mums for Sunday lunch on Mother’s Day.
Most kids give their mums flowers and handmade cards for Mother’s Day. Recently, it seems to have become a custom for a new generation of workers to present their mothers with a gift brought from their first month’s salary at the end of April.
I hope you spent Mother’s Day making you happy this year as well.
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The tip for choosing the right video maker/editor. Episode: Individual content creators
Currently we are experiencing a major shift to internet based business processes. Videos have become the most popular type of content on almost all online platforms and many businesses are looking for the best video makers to promote their services, products or overall brand. Crowd-sourcing sites and the creator’s frequent posts to social media are available to find the video maker/editor for your business. Once you find the creator, almost all processes are implemented online e.g., ordering and communicating with the creator.
Outsourcing video making to the individual content creators has a lot of advantages such as; reducing costs and customized service. However, not all content creators have the same skill level, so they must be chosen wisely.
Advantages of choosing an individual content creator
Meeting the clients request
The production company generally employees a number of staff and is required to follow in-house rules and standardized procedures. On the other hand, the individual creators could easily meet the client’s request that the production companies cannot. You can expect the creator to meet any particular requirements and demands once you make a reliable business relationship with the creator. If you find a great content creator, you could outsource the project to the creator in the same way of asking your own outsourced staff members.
Lower costs
Most projects cost less when contracting with an individual content creator, instead of a production company. The freelance creators can save any operational expenditures of sales, accounting and office management so they only charge personnel expenses. The production company, on the other hand, split the job into different tasks among multiple employees, therefore they cost more labor costs than the individual content creator.
How to choose the best individual content creator for your business
Get quotes from multiple individual content creators
The biggest drawback when using an individual content creator is the variability in its product quality. The product quality depends on the individual content creator’s skill and reliability. It is important to get multiple quotes from different individual content creators, ensuring their reliability and cost with the reference from the last job. If you need a freelance content creator urgently, contract with two or more individual content creators. Each content creator has their own skill and technique, therefore prepare well to find an individual content creator who can meet your needs.
Choosing a compatible individual content creator
You will find a lot of benefits from contracting with freelance video maker, such as cost and time effectiveness, direct communication without sales representative and dealing with particular needs. However, not all skilled video makers have time management skill. Paying attention to details and managing the project properly relies heavily on the maker’s reliability. Therefore, not only the cost and communication effectiveness, you need to find the right video maker that shares your values, delivers quality product and practices good personal and business ethics.
Key to prepare the request Prepare well before contracting
Determine the type of content you need
It is important to clarify the purpose for video making because the direction and strategy will vary depending on its purpose. Business videos are highly effective in helping you with your business and service recognition, branding, and engaging customers for purchasing your products. Additionally, it is necessary to clarify the target audience of the video and decide where to post and the optimal video length.
Set preferred deadline
If you need to advertise a product or service for a particular season or event, it is important to manage the schedule appropriately. Additional editing and video adjustments might be needed, so add in extra time to make final corrections based on the clients feedback. Make sure to inform the individual content creator about the due date and intended use so you both are on the same page.
Determine the budget
Once you define video goals and decide where to post, compare the quotes from multiple content creators. It is important to carefully see the quote meeting what you are willing to pay or able to spend. Also keep in mind that you often get what you pay for; pay little and the creator may deliver poor quality work. So, remember to determine your best choice with highly skilled and experienced by seeing the creator’s actual work.
Whether or not the content creator can correspond flexibly
If your budget is too tight, it could be difficult to outsource all of the tasks. In that case, it is necessary to ask for the alternatives or suggestions to reduce the rates. Make sure the individual content creator can work on partial editing, image creation or just subtitles. On the contrary, if you are ready to pay a bit of a premium for high volume task, make sure that the person you hire has the skill and experience to complete it.
How to find the right content creator for your business
Freelancing platforms
Crowd-sourcing sites play a key role to connect a company and a freelance content creator. If you are looking for the freelance content creator for the first time, crowd-sourcing sites are the places you need to be. The sites enable you to access to the creator’s work and review in the highly secured platforms.
Social platforms
Lately, many individual content creators release their own portfolios in their social platforms. You can easily explore their profiles and review their previous works to select the right creator for your business. A good part is, you can access and find the freelance creator with free of charge. However, keep in mind that you may need to put some extra thought into how to manage freelancers properly. Your company will handle the difficulties you may have with the creator. So, once you hire the individual content creator, be prepared to sign the outsourcing contract.
Our video creating services
Mamasan&Company offers a wide range of services such as web site production, writing, back-office duties and marketing.
Here are benefits of outsourcing video creation to Mamasan&Company:
Skilled Moms from all over the world
Mamasan&Company provides jobs for skilled people who work remotely while looking after children at home. Currently, many skilled staff members work on back-office duties such as accounting, HR, designing & coding web site, system development & operation, and creating videos. For video making, we have our own skill assessing process that allows us to develop high-quality videos. Also, we work as a team to improve our skills and deliver the best products for our clients.
Supporting communications with the creator
Our designing director manages the project process, hearing your needs, communicating with the creator, scheduling, and assuring the product quality. You will be stress-free from any inconveniences your directly-hired freelancer may cause, such as infrequent communication and chasing up the project progress by yourself.
In conclusion
There are hundred of freelance content creators you will see, from beginners to well known professionals, and their skills and rates vary. Although crowd-sourcing sites and social media enable us to connect with many individual content creators, it is not easy to find the best creator that your company will have a long-term relationship with.
As we outlined, there are many advantages to outsourcing projects to an individual content creator. When you look for the freelance content creator, remember to consider not only rates but reviews and past works.
If you have concerns or feel overwhelmed with communicating and managing the schedule with an individual content creator, we recommend to outsource the project to the production company.
Happy Easter!
Hello everyone, this is T from Chicago! It’s already the end of April but we still need a down jacket. Today, I’d like to share our Easter Holiday.
How do we celebrate Easter?
Easter is a religious event but my family doesn’t have that culture. From March to April see a lot of Easter decorations and event signs in town. And the colorful Easter decoration means “spring” to me. It’s not a national holiday in the US but most schools are closed around Easter. We need something fun for our kids. Arts, foods, egg hunts..it is so much fun.
Egg! Egg! Egg!
One of my kids’ favorites is “Egg Hunt”. Since this is our first Easter in the Chicago area, I researched Egg Hunt around our area. It was the coldest Egg Hunt ever but my kids enjoyed picking up the colorful egg on the huge grass area. Some small kids were wearing bunny ears and they were so cute and adorable.
My kids also love to decorate eggs. We made egg cards and egg coloring in the past years. This year, we did egg painting. I made a little hole when I cooked the egg and I washed the eggshell. We need to eat a lot of eggs to prepare for it. My daughter was excited and she counted the eggshell every day.
Also this year we made deviled eggs. I think everyone loves this and the twirled egg york looks beautiful. A bunch of bunny candies and chocolates are lined up at the store. I can’t stop buying chocolate…
On Easter weekend, we went to the museum and we saw the chick hatched out from the egg! The people were gathering around the egg and it was an exciting moment for everybody. I felt eggs are definitely something to provide the power of lives.
Enjoy spring and have a Happy Easter!
My house is full of candies and eggs now. Hope you all enjoy spring and have a Happy Easter!
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Achievements: Reduced overtime work, Reduced cost rate and Increased sales
WELLCOMInc. develops the BPO business based in Okinawa prefecture, which has 3 contact centers in Miyakojima, Uruma and Yonago City respectively. As a call center business professional, the company supports the clients to establish their own call centers and optimize their jobs. They also provide their training methods and other possible solutions by using the latest technology. .
Mr. Atsushi Iho
Regional Call Center Manager of WELLCOM Ryukyu Inc.
Reasons to implement BPO services
Shortage of personnel and abandoned calls
We used to operate all call businesses exclusively in 3 in-house contact centers in Miyakojima, Uruma, and Yonago. One of these contact centers operates around the clock but the lack of employees between 8pm to 9am next morning was always an issue. Moreover, many workers are unavailable on weekends and holidays and we constantly faced the shortage of workers at the centers. As a result,we failed to respond all calls and caused inconvenience to our clients in some cases. Then, we consider implementing BPO services to increase response rate by reducing the abandoned calls.
Overtime and poor workforce planning
Reducing overtime and developing strategic workforce planning were also the reasons for introducing BPO services to our company. We used to work overtime to cover the labor shortage, however, we needed an immediate action to minimize the impact of abandoned calls to our clients, thus considered implementing BPO services.
Our BPO partner, Mamasan&Company Inc.,can place operators to the positions in need. For instance, they can assign overseas workers during the night time in Japan to solve the night-labor shortage. Mamasan&Company also gave us a reasonable quote for the services. Prior to implementing BPO services, we calculated overtime labor costs to determine a budget for outsourcing BPO services. Since Mamasan&Company offers high quality and reliable services at reasonable prices, we are happy to work with them as a BPO partner.
Benefits Effect of implementing BPO services
Less overtime work, reduced cost rate and increased sales
Our company’s largest “Work style reform”* is the implementation of BPO services with Mamasan&Company Inc. Before implementing BPO services, we had so much overtime work, as we somehow compensated for remaining tasks by working overtime. After outsourcing BPO services, more management resources were secured with greatly reduced overtime, which made us see the business with much broader perspective. Moreover, we kept enough personnel to assign late night shift and weekends, which reduced the abandoned calls and increased sales. Consequently, we could focus more on business analysis and achieve cost rate reduction.
*“Work style reform” is the reform of Japanese working system for people to be able to work in diverse and flexible ways, so that both people and companies can receive benefits from it such as productivity growth.
Communication challenges and solutions with the teleworkers
Shortly after implementation of BPO services, both the managers and our in-house workers in the contact centers had difficulties adjusting to the new work style. We were unsure how to communicate each other with Mamasan&Company’s staff and it took sometime to figure out how much involvement we could expect from them. Then Mamas proactively made suggestions and took over the tasks, which led the turnover very smoothly. In addition, they shared the purpose and background of tasks and demonstrated motivation and effective communication at work. As a result of working with Mamas, we could compile the procedure in a manual and the business procedure was standardized all through the contact centers. We also utilize employee training videos, which resolved personal dependency at work and achieved effective workforce placement.
Mamasan&Company Inc. is our best BPO service partner.
When choosing our BPO services provider, we knew that Mamasan&Company was the one to work with. With the pandemic of COVID-19, many companies started shifting to teleworking or remote work from that background, we found it very attractive and had great expectations on working with teleworkers and developing work-at-home call center. Shifting to teleworking brings us great benefits, such as reducing center management cost and encouraging employees to chose their own working style. In the future, we will continue evolving by supporting more telework in the company.
Future work style and business reform
We want to take our business to the next level.
We have been implementing BPO services in order to reduce overtime work and increase resources, which made an great impact on our work style reform. We want to learn Mamasan&Company’s teleworking strategies and apply them to our work style reform. In the future, we want to shift to remote work and take our business to the next level.
The cherry blossom season has arrived!
Guten Tag! I lived in Germany until 2019, now I live in Japan.
This time, I would like to talk about spring, which is one of the four unique seasons of Japan, in comparison with Europe.
Sakura representing spring in Japan
Spring in Japan is very beautiful with cherry blossom trees. Cherry blossoms come out between late March and April. We enjoy the Ohanami festival during springtime while having a meal with friends or family under the cherry blossom tree.
Many people are enjoying the cherry blossoms in full bloom and some people enjoy feasting rather than looking at the cherry blossom.
Difference from Europe
In the Japanese mentality, this short period in full bloom and the beauty of these cherry blossoms are often metaphorically compared to human life.
Cherry blossoms remind us how human life is short and fragile, but then again, so beautiful.
When I was in Germany, there was a park in my neighborhood where several cherry trees sent from Japan were planted. In the spring, many Japanese people living in Germany gathered there and missed their hometown. I think that cherry blossoms are the ones that heal the hearts of Japanese people.
Europe has lovely countries with many types of scenery from mountains to forests and lakes. I have visited the Alps and the Dolomites many times. However, the scale is so great, the countries are appreciated less for their beauty than for their impressive size and wonderful colors.
Spring is the season to visit Japan
When first experienced by foreign visitors, Japan is often felt to be delicate, quaint, and charming for its similarity to a miniature garden.
If you want to capture the beauty of Japan, spring is the best time to visit. Japanese spring is a special season for Japanese people because of its beauty.
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How I spent a long weekend in Australia
Hello from Australia! This is A. How are you?
Last week was a long holiday in Australia! So today I would like to tell you how I spent this long weekend with my family.
Zoo?
The first day we went to the Zoo. It was the first time for my daughter to visit this zoo, so she was too excited from the morning!
In addition to animals that can be seen in Japanese zoos, this zoo has Tasmanian Devils, Quokkas, and birds that can only be seen in Australia.
Unfortunately, we were not able to see elephants, which is my daughter’s favorite animal. But she was delighted to see the lion in person, which she had only seen in videos. It had been a long time since I saw a lion before, and I was amazed at the size of them!
The park is lined with food stalls as well offering a variety of food like hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, snacks and beverages. We can buy there or we can bring our own food and have it in a green area. Just need to be careful, there are so many birds in the green area where is aiming for food!
Most of the animals were sleeping at that time. I recommend going there early if you want to see the active animals.
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Shopping and Gardening?
The second day, we went shopping to get a tool for gardening. Thanks to my husband’s hobby we are able to have our own vegetables and fruits at home! We already have so many plants but we planned to increase more vegetables such as tomatoes, spinach, chili peppers and eggplants.
It took 1 and a half days to make a garden bed and plant so the last part of the holiday finished with gardening. Hopefully, we can harvest by next year!
I always feel time flies so quickly when we are on holiday… It was not a long holiday but I could have precious time with my family.
How do you spend time in your holiday?
How do you spend time if you have 3 days off?? I hope you enjoyed my story!
Thank you for reading till the end. Don’t be scared of moving, just be ready and enjoy it!
Have a nice day!
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