Work Week

I had a pretty cool week at work. On Wednesday we celebrated a big milestone in our plant's construction. To mark the occasion we had a Shinto priest come in and perform a prayer ceremony. The entire ceremony was in Japanese but we had a translator for myself and a few other English speaking folks. The ceremony was very interesting for me. It was very well choreographed with lots of prayers, chants, bowing, standing, sitting, and clapping. I was told to be safe just do everything that the Japanese guy in front of me did. That made it easy - no International incidents to report. The ceremony was great, and the milestone we were celebrating was even better. The job is really getting interesting. It may seem a little strange to have a ceremony like this, but doing some reading I found "Moreover, every Japanese car factory built in the United States or away from Japan has had a groundbreaking ceremony performed by a Shinto priest, with occasionally an annual visitation by the priest to re-purify".