Google in Japan

Visiting a country where you don't speak the language can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. This is especially true in Japan where I don't even understand the characters. When I first got to my hotel here in Tokyo, I wanted to look up some of the sights near to where I am staying. Naturally I went to www.google.com. I was immediately redirected to www.google.co.jp. The user interface is so familiar that it didn't matter. I entered my search criteria and soon I was looking at a bunch of Japanese web sites. I didn't understand a single one and so I revised my search and added the word "English". That made all the difference.

Google owns a lot of web properties (such as this blog site) and so this instant localization occurs whenever I try to visit one of their sites. For instance, trying to log in to post today's blog, I had to figure out which one of the links was "Log in". Once I got in, the system is smart enough to know I prefer English over Japanese. Figuring out how to log in was the tough part.

When I first started working with a team based in Japan, I thought it would be enough to start learning a few basic words in Japanese. I figured that the written language would be too difficult to figure out and so I shouldn't even worry about it. The more I am in Japan, the more I realize that I may want to learn a few characters as well. I've only been here a couple of days, but I think I have "Search" and "Log in" pretty well figured out.