By Raven Bluford

The section in Geek in Japan about giri and presents is quite interesting to me because in some ways it is similar to what we do in the United States, but in some ways it is completely different. I found it quite intriguing that the gifts Japanese people give to people depends on the relationship of those two people, and that if you give a person a really good gift, but you just met them, they would be offended because they are obligated to get you a gift that is just as good. This is a little similar to the United States because almost everyone puts more effort and spends more on a gift for someone they are close to, as opposed to someone they just met.

Another thing that I found fascinating is that Japanese people give gifts to people for funerals, whereas in the United States it is seen as impolite to give gifts to someone who recently lost a loved one. Japanese people also give gifts on the first day of work to your boss or co-workers, while in the United States doing something like that is quite uncommon.