Posted on 11/29/2007 5:12:22 PM PST by charles m
This is not a scientific comparison, but when I saw one scene I remembered another.
This is the recent scene: yesterday afternoon, Naha airport, Okinawa, Japan. Line crew gassing up a Cirrus SR22:
Details to notice below: crew identically dressed in company uniform; complete safety gear -- hardhats, reflective chest straps with procedural checklist clipped on, puffy protective cuff to shield the plane's wing from damage. It's hard to see in the picture, but even the boots are part of the uniform: black, with red laces, and company logos on the back. Impossible to see in the picture: the coordinated shout and semi-bow toward the plane when the fueling was done.
Now, the scene I remembered and mentioned last year: Refueling the same kind of plane in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, China. 
With usual caveats against sweeping generalization, what this made me think was: Japan is all about the way of doing things. Practice, ritual, perfectionism, as much fanatical attention to the process as to the result. China is all about finding a way to do things. Improvisation, little interest in rules, putting up with whatever is necessary to attain the result.
(Yeah yeah yeah, there are exceptions: perfectionist operations in China, loosey-goosey ones in Japan. Still.)
At the moment, I am feeling positive toward both approaches. The emphasis on the right way of doing things is re-surprising on each encounter with Japan. And the determination to do things in China, no matter what, commands respect, despite the obvious complications and problems it creates.
But when it comes to refueling the plane....
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesfallows.theatlantic.com ...
What’s amusing is that those Chinese guys look like they were pulled out of the front office to refuel the aircraft, and the guy on the left looks like he’s saying to himself, “you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
I’ll let the Far East experts here do the commenting.
You can tell neither are Taiwan by the fact that no one is spitting bin lang juice.
Heh. Try flying on “Ankor Thom” - Phnom Penh to Siem Reap Cambodia - DC-6 with an oil leak in the port engine - aircraft cleaned up at each turn around - soapy water and scrub brushes - and pumped full of oil for the flight back.
No spare parts and cheaper to just keep pumping the oil.
They are probably still flying the old girl.
Interesting
The Chinese guy in the white coat is obviously a terrorist. He’s trying to blow up an aircraft fuel tank.
Structured and disciplined approach with the Japanese and improvisational approach by the Chinese. In the end, the plane had fuel. The sum product was the same in a micro-situation as such. However, i seriously doubt the Red Army uses those techniques for refueling.
Lol. Very strange article.
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