Speaking of rice balls...

Here is a fascinating 12-part article about the Japanese phenomenon of the conbini, or convenience store. Reading it led me to say to S., "I think Japanese customer service is to American customer service as American customer service is to French customer service."

Though many are part of the same chains we have here (AM/PM, for example), the results are quite different. Click through and you can read about Natural Lawson, the health-oriented chain, where the "O-nigiri and other brown rice products come with the instructions: 'Try to chew each mouthful 30 to 50 times,'" and SCOCO, the convenience store for women. There's also a schematic of the layout of the typical conbini, some great photos, and "a day in the life of a convenience store," among other things.

Thanks to torakris at egullet for the link.

Posted by redfox at October 25, 2003 06:05 PM (etcetera)

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