Prints

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to get someone a gift but were at a loss when trying to think of what to get them? well, I have recently been there.

A bit of background information:
This summer I am planning to visit my all-time favorite country, Japan, with a few friends and of course along the way will be meeting many friends that I have made there. One of the cultural aspects of Japan that I like is that you usually bring gifts to people that you either meet for the first time, haven't seen in a while or in general out of politeness. To some people, this can become a cause for headaches if they meet a lot of people during their journey.

It is important to not overdo it with gifts because it can make the other person feel like their gift is not sufficient enough. This, of course, limits the gift options a bit. Like any culture though, you don't want to be the guy who gifts someone something mundane like a keychain. Well, what are the options then? One thing that I found that always works is sweets from other prefectures (or countries!). Since in Japan, every prefecture has its own kinds of sweets which are almost always conveniently packaged in a way that you can gift right away and are to be found almost everywhere, you don't need to break a sweat to find a gift.

Now If you want to try something different than that then here's something that I will be trying. Conveniently I do photography in my free time and shot this pic 10 min before meeting a friend of mine:

I didn't show him at the time but now after editing it, I decided that I would print it and gift him that. The print is about poster sized and was not too expensive to print. The benefit of this is that there is a bit more value than money involved. What I am trying to say with this is that sometimes going the extra mile is worth so much more than let's say buying something from the convenience store and hoping it will suffice. Preserving friendships is something that goes beyond just throwing out money in my opinion.

Feel free to comment and tell me about your gift ideas and the reactions you have gotten!