Category Archives: Just a thought

I don’t miss Japan a lot, but check Japanese internet news daily.  In last few days, two tragic incidents shocked Japan, and there is a similarity between them; Oops!… they did it again.

One happened in China.  A Japanese travel agency, Amuse Travel, ran a guided tour that included a hike to the Great Wall, and a group of elder people participated.  They were snowed up before getting to the Great Wall, and three people died.  According to some different sources, it happened because of the travel agent’s reckless planning. Three years ago, Amuse Travel ran a reckless guided tour in the Northern part of Japan, and eight people died.  They did it again after receiving administrative punishment.

Another incident was by Schindler Elevator.  A cleaner was killed when their elevator malfunctioned.  A similar incident happened six years ago and a high-school student was killed.  They did it again when they were being sued.

I visited Schindler Elevator’s web site.  They publish their “vision & values” on their web site, and it is filled with beautiful words.  If the employees act based on the “vision”, the incidents, at least the second one, must not have happened.  I have worked for some different companies in Japan, and even in the smallest one, their (more precisely, his) “vision” was nothing more than rhetoric.  In other words, use rhetoric and do whatever they want is their corporate culture.  Still, I want to believe some other companies have a clear mission statement and their employees act on it.  I just have never seen it by myself.

Today I revised my personal mission statement.  I will soon update it on my web site. Whether I act on it or it ends up in rhetoric, it’s up to me.

I often catch a cold when the seasons suddenly change, just like last few days.  In fact, I caught a cold….. 🙁

I have met many doctors.  Some of them are good, and some others are cold.  I still remember a good doctor I met many years ago.  I got sick, but did not know it was cold or flu.  It was not severe, but I went to a hospital just in case because some old people died because of flue in that season.  After the doctor prescribed medicine, I asked him “is this the flue that killed the elder people?”  He answered like this.

“No, according to the symptoms, I can tell this is a common cold.  Whether this is a common cold or the flu, what doctors can do is to prescribe medicine to mitigate the symptoms.  But medicine does not cure cold or flu.  Patients have nutritious diet and have a rest to cure themselves with their natural healing ability.  Doctors only help.”

This was a new idea for me; I admit that I had assumed medicine cures.  Typical TV commercials of medicine tell that you can go back to your normal life and keep working by taking medicine.  But what patients need to do by taking medicine is to have a rest to let their natural healing ability work.

Aren’t we missing something in today’s life style?

Yesterday I wrote about living in a foreign country.  Today, one of the top news is about the new rule of Canadian citizenship; applicants for Canadian citizenship have to prove their proficiency in either English or French.  It sounds obvious to me, but in fact, it seems controversial.

Some people insist that it does not matter whether they can speak either of the Canada’s official languages or not.  They typically argue that immigrants strengthen Canada’s economy.  If they live in a certain community and work in a certain industry, they may not need to speak either of the languages.  It is true.  Butchers and plumbers for examples may not need to speak English or French fluently.  But is it really all about citizenship?

From my point of view, they also need to think of worst situations.  A simple example is emergency cases.  If they call 911 but cannot tell anything and cannot understand officers’ advise, what happens?  More complex issues include cultural and social concerns.  It may be OK if they spend their entire life in their community.  But if someone needs to go out from the community for some reasons, can you imagine what he/she will feel?  Isolation, solitude, anxiety, fear…. It may eventually cause conflict with Canadians and other immigrants who have adapted themselves to Canadian society.  If those advocators truly think of immigrants, they should understand the necessity of language proficiency.  Anything like the “Halloween tragedy” should be avoided.

From another perspective, being a part of Canadian society is simply fun.

Today is Halloween.

Probably some Japanese remember a tragedy happened to a Japanese international student in U.S. on Halloween many years ago.  He was a university student.  On the Halloween night, he wore Halloween costume and visited a stranger’s house to get candies.  Suppose you live in U.S., imagine how you react when an adult with his face fully covered by a mask trespasses your property at night.  The owner of the house pointed a gun at him and yelled “freeze!”  But he did not stop, so the owner of the house pulled the trigger.

This was remembered as a Halloween tragedy, and many Japanese took it as a problem of American gun society.  But now I think it was tragedy of not knowing the custom.  In Japan, people do not do anything on Halloween, but many people kind of know “trick or treat”.  At that time when I did not imagine I would live in a foreign country, I, like most Japanese, did not know who say “trick or treat” and how.  I don’t know why he decided to visit a stranger’s place by himself with his face fully covered and why nobody stopped him.  But probably it could have been avoided if he understood the custom correctly.

When I lived in Calgary, I met many Japanese who went to a language school, shared a room with other Japanese, hung out with Japanese, and did not learn Canadian language and custom.  If they do not learn anything, why the hell did they come to Canada?  In coming few months, I will work as a bridge between Canadians and Japanese.  Those Japanese come to Canada on business, and whether they learn the culture or not, it does not matter, technically.  But I expect I will also fill the cultural gap between them.

The weather forecast was fortunately wrong, and it is not raining now.  I can hear kids’ “trick or treat”.  May the Japanese international student rest in peace.

A few days ago, I wrote about fitness.  A couple of days ago, I wrote about seasonal food.  Today, this “news” article connected those issues.

Sleeping too little promotes wight gain

Why did I quote “news”?  Because it doesn’t sound like new to me; I knew it from my experience.  The busier I am, the easier I gain weight.

According to the article, if you stay up,  you tend to snack late at night, which eventually promote weight gain.  A couple of days ago, I wrote that humans ate what were available at the time when they coexisted with the nature.  At that time, people probably did not stay up simply because they did not have enough lighting.  I am neither biologist nor anthropologist, but I suppose that humans have evolved in such situations; our body is not prepared to eat at night.  But thanks to technologies, now people can stay up as they like and eat whatever available whenever they want.  This is unnatural.

When engineers and designers developed those technologies some generations ago, they probably hoped to improve the quality of life.  It is not hard to imagine that they did not expect that the speed of technology advancement would exceed the speed of human evolution, which would result in unnatural consequence.  Now, which should we do, go back to the natural life style, or develop more technologies to compensate for the unnatural consequences?

By the way, when I stay up and cannot resit snacking, I eat fruits.  In the following morning, my skin looks even better.

I don’t miss Japan a lot, but miss Japanese food.  (Don’t tell me to go to a sushi bar.  It’s like telling Mexicans to go to Taco Bell or telling Italians to go to Domino’s Pizza.)

When humans (truly) coexisted with the nature, they ate what were available at the time, and developed preserved food e.g., sun dried, smoked, salted and so on.  Today, fortunately or unfortunately, many foods are available throughout the year.  But, in Japan, people still appreciate seasonal food.  Like in many other countries, preserved food are made, not to preserve the food, but to add flavor.  They are embedded in the culture regardless of technology.  I miss Japanese seasonal food and conversation about seasonal food.

Today I walked to downtown, and saw trees in various colours: yellow, orange, red, yellowish green, and evergreen.  Interestingly, those colours reminded me of Japanese seasonal food.  Wherever I live, those seasonal food seem to be remembered with the scenery.

What are Canada’s seasonal food?  This may be a tough question because the ancestors of most Canadians came from other countries.  I suppose First Nations have their seasonal food, but unfortunately, I don’t have chances to see their culture in my daily life.

Many people assume that product designers and engineers can easily understand how to use many products.  I think this is good and bad.  Why bad?  Because if we understand everything easily, it is difficult for us to see what many other non-technical people feel when they use not-so-easy-to-use products.  Ideally, products should be understood intuitively with a help of common knowledge.  Common knowledge is often referred to as familiarity, e.g., green means go, a right-pointing triangle means play, and so on.  However, many engineers forget what is familiar to many people, and design products with tricky functions.

Today I used my BlackBerry to use a telephone service, and it went “…press the pound key”.  Guess what happened.  I took some time to find the pound key.  I looked for “#” key near “0” key, which is familiar to many people.  But in fact, the # key is located at top left on the BlackBerry keyboard.  It is good to see a non-technical-people side of me!?

I was born and raised in Japan.  My parents are 100% Japanese.  So, I am Japanese.

The first foreign country I landed was the Kingdom of Tonga, a small developing country in the South Pacific.  I lived and worked there for two years.  Tonga was too different from Japan, and the locals saw me as a guy from an industrialized country rather than as a Japanese guy.  On the other hand, Canada is close enough to see the difference between Canadians and Japanese, and Canadians usually see me as a Japanese guy.  Some things that I thought was normal seem uncommon for Canadians; they find it Japanese style.  It’s good and bad; even when I do something very me, many Canadians say “wow, Japanese do bla bla bla“.  No, I did it because I am me!  But it is kind of understandable.  Japanese people generally do things differently.  Dedication to the details is one example, and it can be found in product design.

By the way, I did not know how to pronounce “robot” <róHbαt> correctly, because one of the 80s icons, “Mr. Roboto“, goes as we Japanese say robotto.

In ancient times, Japanese people thought that objects would acquire a spirit if people use it for a long time.  If you throw it away, its spirit would become a ghost…  Of course it’s not worth discussing whether objects have a spirit or not.  It’s about how people deal with objects.  But some incidents, which must have happened coincidentally, made me think if objects really have a spirit or not.  For example, the rechargeable battery of my BlackBerry was running low; I often had to charge it twice a day.  A few days ago, I went to an electronics store to buy a new one, but they ran out of it.  I went to a nearby cellphone shop, but they ran out of it too.  I did not look for other stores and went home.  Since then, the battery has worked fine.  Did it want me not to throw it away???  I have seen some other incidents like this.

My family had used a TV set for a long time, and it often did not work properly.  We decided to buy a new one.  When the new one was delivered to home, the old one suddenly stopped working completely.
Did it try to work hard until its successor was delivered?

I had used a wrist watch for a long time.  It worked fine, but I just wanted a new one, and went to some shops to look for a good one.  But I could not choose one, and went home.  On the next day, the old wrist watch stopped working.
Was it jealous?

They must have happened just coincidentally.  But people should not dispose of things easily for sure.  Recycling is not as good as reusing.

FYI, some information of Japanese folklore can be found on Wikipedia.