Land Of The Eternal Fax

Land Of The Eternal Fax:

Although Japan is one of the most technologically advanced countries, it still won't let go of the fax machine:

As of March, according to Japan’s Cabinet Office, fax machines could be found in 59 percent of Japanese homes. (That penetration rate, after climbing for years, has peaked in the past five years.) ... [E]ven in the early 1990s, only about 3 percent of U.S. homes had the machines, [historian Jonathan Coopersmith] said. In terms of fax reliance, "I don’t think any other nation comes close to Japan."

Mariko Oi details some reasons why, including the large senior population, the love of hard documents, and the esteem of communicating by hand:

[T]he culture of handwriting is firmly rooted here. For example, the majority of resumes are still handwritten because Japanese employers are said to judge people's personalities from their writings. For season's greetings cards, don't dare think of sending computer generated messages, says Midori's "how to write a letter" website. "New Year's cards without handwritten messages come across as businesslike and automatic," it says. Emails lack warmth, says [fax-lover Yutaro] Suzuki. Not surprisingly, people aspire to have good handwriting. Calligraphy remains one of the most popular lessons that parents send their children to and many adults take private lessons to improve their writings, too.

Money quote from the above video, which has hints of Gabe and Max:

You can go to CountryCodes.com, on the Internet.

Source:Google Reader