Category Archives: A day in my life

Yesterday, I went to McMaster University to join Design Innovation class of the Engineering Design program as a volunteer TA.  As I wrote in a previous post, I was a TA in Design Thinking course last year.  Like Design Thinking course, Design Innovation is a biweekly Saturday course, and since I bought a car, now I go back to school to help teaching.  I like teaching, and it’s worth driving two hours.  Actually I joined the class from the beginning of this term, but I skipped two classes in a raw because I was asked to work on Saturday with Japanese workaholics.  It’s good to “take a day off” on Saturday.

Those two courses are led by a mechanical engineering professor and an industrial design professor.  To make a long story short, I understand that the aim of those courses is to make engineers designers.  Since I have both engineering and design backgrounds, let me assume I am a perfect match.  At the beginning of Design Thinking course, most of the students are pure engineers; once they came up with an idea, they stuck to it and tried to make it better without thinking of alternatives.  Now I can tell they are becoming familiar with design approach where they explore design ideas to find better solutions.  But changing habits is not easy.  When they try to generate different ideas, some of them seem to focus on technologies and often forget design implications such as human factors.  When I asked “what are design challenges in your project?” some of them could not answer.  But if they truly understand design approach and use their engineering expertise, I’m sure they can be “strong” engineering designers.

I like teaching, and now I want to be a good teacher; I want to show my design approach as a professional product designer.  But I still don’t know when it happens.  My journey will go on.

Last Saturday, finally, I managed to bring workaholic Japanese coworkers to Niagara Falls.  Many of them were impressed and spent a long time on watching the falls near by.  It was too cold for some others and they spent more time in a souvenir shop, which is OK.  But our experience was ruined by an extreme workaholic; everyone was rushed into going home by him.  Why?  Because he was going to work on the following Sunday and forced some others to work with him.  Yesterday, our Canadian contractors invited us to snow tubing.  The extremist joined us because he thought it was his “duty”.  After snow tubing, the Canadians invited us to drink, but, again, the extremist tried to force other Japanese to refuse.  But those Canadians knew he would do it, and managed to bring everyone to a bar.  Great job!

Probably there are different types of workaholics.  Some of them are afraid of losing their job and work hard to remain in the organization.  Some others cannot find any (other) joy and working is the only thing they can spend time on.  Some others feel they are always forced to work by something without knowing what “something” is.  I assume that the extremist is a combination of the latter two cases, but not really sure.  There must be another type of workaholics; they simply “love” their job.  I even want to find a job that I would love so much that I could be a workaholic.

Some of the “victims” of the extremist do not have much time in Canada.  I hope I will have some chances to secretly let them experience Canadian customs.  Someday, they will call me “Schindlaer”.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Japanese people are generally conservative, and some (many?) of them do not like foreigners.  Some of them openly tell that they don’t like foreigners without hesitation.  I don’t like them because I know what it is like to live in a country as a foreigner.  Some others are, of course, nice to visitors from foreign countries, and I like them.

One of my Canadian colleagues went to Japan to take training.  When I met him, he talked about his experiences in Japan, and proudly told me that a Japanese colleague invited him to a family BBQ.  It was good to know that some Japanese treat visitors from Canada very nicely.  Last week, a Japanese engineer came to Orillia to install some equipment and provide training to a Canadian lab technician for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, the Canadian colleague invited me and other Japanese visitors to his place to dinner at his place, and I found that the new Japanese engineer is the one who invited the Canadian colleague to the family BBQ.  Probably he wanted to treat the Japanese gentleman as he did in Japan.  Isn’t it nice?

Today, the Japanese gentleman wanted to visit the Canadian colleague’s place again, and I gave him a ride.  I also brought him to a gift shop ran by First Nations.  He might think I did it because I am a nice person, but it is not (I mean, I am a nice person but it is not the reason that I did nice for him).  I did it because he is nice to foreigners.

Happy New Year!

In Canada, people send Christmas cards to their friends, and spend Christmas Day with their family.  On the other hand, Japanese people send New Year’s greetings cards to their friends, and spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with their family.  As I have both Canadian friends and Japanese friends, I combined two cultures in the illustration below.  In Japan, people typically use the Oriental Zodiac of the year on New Year’s greetings cards.  The year 2013 is the year of Snake.  Daikokuten is one of the Seven Lucky Gods of Japan.  He carries a big sack and brings wealth. …I know this is kitsch, hope you understand and enjoy it.

I with everyone good luck for the year 2013.

Today is New Year’s Eve.  When I’m writing this post, it’s already New Year’s Day in Japan.  Wherever I am, I make my family’s traditional New Year’s Day dish, 正月の煮物. This is not typical gorgeous sophisticated Japanese traditional New Year’s Day dish, but homemade dish that I have had since I was a little kid with my family.  I did not have a chance to learn cooking from my grandma, but now I try to represent her taste, which I loved when I was a kid.  Let me assume I am making it well.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Yesterday I was invited to a Christmas dinner in my former place in Hamilton.  When I rented a room on the third floor and was invited by the landlord to a dinner, I went down the stairs.  Yesterday I entered the house from the main entrance.  I felt something was very different, but once I entered, it is the place where I have fun.

It is good to have a place to come back.  Compare the photo with the one that was taken on Thanksgiving Day.  It is good to meet friends and new people.

Orillia is a small town.  Life here is not exciting, but relaxing.  I wish I lived here in summer.  Many people say it is beautiful in summer, but unfortunately, the current contract job is until the end of March.

One of the good things to live in a small town is that you can see many stars in the clear night sky.  I used my Lumix the point-and-shoot camera and the quality of the night sky photo below is not good, but in fact the real night sky is way more beautiful.  This is what living in a small town can be.

If you have seen Lost in Translation, you probably remember the iconic scene of the movie.  That is mostly because of the translator’s inability, but similar things happen in my work place for a different reason.  Here is typical conversation between my Japanese coworker and Canadian colleague through Hiro the translator.

Canadian Engineer (CE): When are you going to do this task?

Me: これはいつしますか？

Japanese Engineer (JE): あの仕事が終わってからです。

Me: After finishing that job.

CE: When will it be?

Me: それはいつになりますか？

JE: あの業者はあの仕事のために来てるんですけど、実際に作業をするのはカナダの業者です。実際にあと残ってる作業は増し締めだけなんで、実質彼らがする作業はほとんどないんですが、もう飛行機も予約してあるし、それまではいます。でもカナダの業者も金曜はほとんど作業をしないですしね。けど３人は来るんで、一人くらいその作業はできますよ。

Me: それは今週末ですか？

JE: 週明けにはもう次の仕事が来るんですけど、そのためのカナダの業者の工数もとってありますし、荷物も届くんで、それにもう日本の業者も日本に帰ってますが、かれらがいなくちゃいけない仕事はもうないんで、大丈夫ですよ。

Me: じゃあ、この仕事は来週からですね。

JE: はい。

Me: The beginning of  next week.

If you read the English part only, it is quite a short conversation, and it is all the Canadian engineer needs.  But if you ask Japanese people “when” or “what”, they answer “how” and/or “why”, and never get to a point unless someone reminds them of the original question.  This is quite common in Japan.  Why?  I don’t know.  For some reasons, I feel uncomfortable when people talk in this way, but most Japanese even do not wonder why they do it and why some other people feel uncomfortable.  Seriously, this is one of the reasons why I prefer living in Canada.

On Thursday, my Canadian colleague invited our Japanese coworkers to his place to serve venison.  As I anticipated and wrote in a previous post, those Japanese engineers stay at a hotel and do not hang out.  Technically, it does not matter because they came to Canada on business.  But they are missing something.  The Canadian colleague knew it, and invited them to his place.  When we were waiting for the meal, his neighbors joined us, and it turned out to be a big party.  Those Japanese were surprised at and impressed by Canada’s small-town hospitality.  Even in the party, I served as a translator, and this is what I expected; bridging the gap between Japanese culture and Canadian culture.  I wished it was a Friday night, but it doesn’t matter when. It’s always a good time then.

On Friday, I brought the Japanese coworkers to Montana’s to let them experience Canadian dinner out.  Unlike having a meal at food court, ordering dinner at a restaurant is a difficult task for those who can speak very limited English.  For this time, they were surprised at and impressed by the volume of typical Canadian dinner.  I was the only one who ate up all the meal.  Am I becoming Canadian???

Today?  I just slept a lot.  My body seemed to need some time to digest everything I had in last two days :p