Doing business in Japan used to be about hiding your emotions. But almost overnight a substantial economy has grown up around tutoring executive Japan to perfect flawless deal closing grins.
‘Smiling schools’ have begun training executives on how to make their grins as convincing as possible and a book on the careful use of smiling has become a bestseller. This corporate obsession with smiling has fuelled the development of a new generation of digital cameras. Both Sony and Olympus are releasing models with smile recognising and enhancing software. Furthermore Omron, a medical devices company is developing a face scanning technology called ‘Okao Vision’ to measure not just the physical extent of a smile, but its perceived quality. The project’s supervisor Yoshi Kadokawa explains the demand for this technology. Shops, hotels and restaurants are all keen to acquire it, so as to train their staff in improving the quality of their smiles. But can a fake smile ever be a winning one?
译文:
微笑经济
以前在日本做生意常常要隐藏你的情感。但几乎是在一夜之间，一种实体经济发展起来，教导日本的行政人员如何完美无暇地咧着嘴笑。
“微笑学校”已经开始训练行政人员如何让他们的笑容尽可能地使人信服。一本关于笑容的慎重使用的书成了畅销书。这种公司对笑容的迷恋已经加速了新一代数码相机的发展。索尼和奥林巴斯都推出了拥有笑脸识别与强化软件的相机模型。而日本欧姆龙（Omron），一个医疗设备制造公司，进一步发展出一种叫“Okao Vision”的脸部识别技术。该技术不仅能捕捉微笑牵动的肌肉变化，也能判读微笑的品质。该项目的监督者Yoshi Kadokawa解释这种技术的需求。商店、旅馆和餐馆都迫切地希望得到它，以便训练员工，提高他们笑容的质量。但是，一个假意的笑容会胜出么？