Wednesday, September 28, 2005

More grief...

I think we’re all giving up on the internet people here as a bunch of useless crooks – occurrences of students being charged ¥50 instead of ¥15 for a cable and of people being connected and then finding themselves unable to go online for days thereafter are now commonplace. Also, having been told apples should have no problems going online with their company, a technician came round and asked if it used windows 2000…

As with other things in this country, all that seems to matter is appearances – the company gave everyone, and the university, the impression that they were connecting everybody and were able to provide a good service, but in reality their claims were insubstantial and their actions somewhat tainted with corruption.

The whole concept of appearances over substance is visible everywhere – even in the construction quality of our building. When we arrived, the newly decorated building seemed to be basically sound and clean. However the bathroom walls seem not to have been waterproofed, and there is now mould growing on the walls in our hallway because of it!

Fortunately, on the western food front, this appearance over substance approach seems to be much better than 4 years ago – there are passable sandwiches and pizza here now! Though some habits die hard, and croissants stuffed with dried meat floss have been spotted.

I really hope that this attitude does not extend to the preparations for the 2008 Olympics, though I fear that parts of it must be so. Looking at the country as a whole, if it cannot overcome this kind of behaviour, then its development will really be hampered.

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