Breadcrumbs and thoughts from Japan

I haven't posted on my blog for such a long time that I don't even know where to begin. Almost 1 year ago (on August 26, 2010) I wrote the first post on my blog:

It's less than a week to my departure and 6 days from now, I will be landing at Narita Airport, Tokyo (Japan) after flying from Ljubljana (Slovenia) accross half of the world.

I am prepared and ready to leave home town and take this opportunity to get a lifetime experience. And only 19 hours and 15 minutes over the clouds separates me from arriving to this wonderful country, whose language I don't know and whose culture I don't understand... only to start learning... fast!

And now it's coming to an end. 

This Friday was my last working day at SANYO Electric and very soon I will be finishing the Vulcanus in Japan 2010/11 programme and fly back home. I still haven't had the time to process everything I experienced and learned or to reflect on all things that happened to me during this wonderful year.

I spent the first four months learning Japanese in Naganuma school of Tokyo. You can play the recently published promotional video below. If you look closely, you can see me coming out of the main entrance of the school at 00:26 :). 

I've written extensively about my experience during the first four months, the school and Tokyo. Some of my most popular posts include:

• This is my place
• Flashes of tranquility
• Why Japan sucks: Rules are Rules
• Looking back at the first 4 months in Japan

While some people were not satisfied with the school, I am grateful for the added pressure and interest that they showed in us. They pushed us to the limit and over, but I could not speak Japanese if it weren't for the intensive program that was prepared for us. Thank you Ishikawa-sensei, Yatsu-sensei and all the other teachers! 

After the New Year I moved to Hirakata-shi, a small city in beautiful Kansai area between Osaka and Kyoto, to start my internship. I continued to study Japanese at Hirakata Japanese Language Volunteer Association for the next six months. I finished the lessons at the beginning of June. On the photos below you can see me with my sensei Hosoe-san and the others.

On my last day I brought a few small things from my country and gave it to her as a present. After all, she had been teaching me Japanese one-on-one for nearly half a year, without charge. Nobody at the Volunteer Association got paid. Teachers there were mostly older people and they enjoyed company of students, who appreciated their help and their time. So giving my teacher a few small presents was the least I could do. Still, it not only surprised her, she felt really bad for not having a present for me in return. She insisted that I give her my home address. I didn't realize at that time, but after two weeks I got a package - really beautiful Japanese wind chimes (or garden bells), known as "furin" in Japanese. The kindness and generosity of the people I experienced here during my 1 year stay in Japan is really incredible. Just today I was relaxing in a sauna after my training, when a Japanese man spoke to me. We chatted for about 5 minutes - he asked me where I am from and what I'm doing in Japan and after he learned that I had an internship in SANYO, he told me that he had been working for Panasonic for the most part of his life (he's retired now). At the end he wished me good luck and thanked me for the conversation. Unbelievable!

I found a very nice salsa club in Kyoto and have been going to dance there most Fridays. So I met a lot of people and made quite a few friends (I guess people who dance salsa are great, no matter where you go :)). One of my friends invited me for a picnic at the lake Biwako. We had a really great time! We swam in the lake, ate and drank, laughed a lot and even danced salsa a bit. Lovely afternoon!

In this video I'm teaching my friends how to make a toast in Slovenian. By the way, in Japanese one says "kanpai". 

My colleagues from SANYO have prepared a farewell party for me and Flavio. We were working at the same department and are both Vulcanus in Japan 2010/11 participants. Naturally, we went to izakaya and had a wonderful evening. We ate a lot of different food, from sashimi, sushi, salads and even to french fries and chicken:). No alive fish this time! One of the times we went to izakaya, we ate ikizukuri. It's a special preparation of sashimi (raw fish), where the master chef cuts out the meat of the fish, avoiding the heart, so the fish is still alive when served. The meat is then sliced and put on the same plate as the fish, "creating" the shape of the original fish back again. It's kind of scary to have still alive fish (moving, opening mouth) on the plate. I put a photo of ikizukuri from that party as the last photo in album below. 

Last year in December Panasonic bought 50,2% shares of SANYO, thus becoming an owner and SANYO joining the Panasonic Group. During this year there was a lot of restructuring. I remember seeing people working in the rooms next to our department in January, but when I left in August, those rooms were empty and dark. Also, a couple of people I knew from Kozenji office were relocated to other SANYO subsidiaries. From next year on, SANYO brand will cease to exist and the products will be rebranded as Panasonic. 

During my internship I had the possibility to go to Kasai Green Energy Park, a newly-built factory in Hyogo prefecture with the world’s largest battery system (1MW Mega Solar System and 1.5MWh Lithium-Ion Mega Battery System). Since the project I was working on was connected to GEP, it was very interesting for me. 

A while back I took a walk at 5 in the morning. Interesting enough, I saw an older couple picking up trash, cleaning the park. Also, I saw a dozen of other older people in their sneakers, walking, running or exercising in that park (at 5 in the morning). 

Which brings me to the next point. The difference between the gym I used to go to back in Slovenia and the gym here is that 2/3 of the people in the gym here are 50 or older. Some of them are much older, as old as 70 or even 80. I was discussing this with another Japanese and we came to these conclusions:

• Japanese population is getting older. There are a lot of older people, who have money and a lot of free time. Japanese must retire at the age of 60, so there are more and more older people.
• Work culture in Japan in different. In many cases it is considered normal that people show commitment to the company by staying in the office until dawn. Also, younger employees want to be embraced, so they try to put a lot of hours in. It is important how much/how many hours you work. Probably even more important than the productivity you achieve during that time.
• For many people, work is only life they know. Also, Japanese men are not so good in using their free time. Probably a majority of working Japanese men have one common free time activity - going on drinking parties. 

I think that is also part of the reason why we foreigners are interesting to them. Usually we have a lot going on. I had a lot of activies outside of work: gym, japanese lessons, swimming, salsa, trips... just to name the most regular ones. Different social norms, I guess.

There is, however, one thing I particularly like. Every time a new staff member starts his/her shift in the gym, he comes around the room and greets each person individually with a deep bow. The first time this happened to me I was listening to the music on my iPod and didn't understand what was going on. Does he want something from me? Why did he just bow to me? But I kept watching and then I saw what it was about. Being a customer in Japan is just great. No Western title "Mr." can beat Japanese title "sama", reserved for gods and... yes, customers.

Another izakaya evening, this time with Fujiyama-san from Human Resources, who was most helpful in dealing with all the birocracy when coming to SANYO and also at the time of the earthquake.  

Just a few days ago, Makito-san and her husband from swimming course invited me to have a dinner with them. Later, our swimming coach also joined us and we had a fantastic evening together!

Why so many Japanese practice golf swings is beyond me. But you can see people in daylight, practicing their golf swing with an imaginary golf club, like the man in the photo I took below. Look closely and you will see that he doesn't have a golf club in his hands.

In the beginning of April, for about a week, whole Japan turns heavenly white. Cherry blossom viewing or "hanami" in Japanese is a popular activity. People go see beautiful cherries together, have a picnic under one or just enjoy the beauty of those innocent cherries. One doesn't even notice all those cherry trees until they start to blossom. It's gorgeous! Check those pictures and video I made below.

Japanese don't swear. I don't even know any Japanese swear words. I remember an izakaya night with some Japanese guys, our age, and we asked them to tell us some swear words. They were looking around and since we were not alone in the room (there was another party of people at the next table), they didn't want to tell us. After those people left the room, we pushed again. "Come on, nobody will hear you, it's just us. We really want to know." Funny enough, the guy was too embarrased to tell us any swear words, but he told us that he can send us the PDF version he has. A funny memory:). Especially since when I think of the European languages, the first thing I learned were probably swear words.

Japanese and English are very connected. After Japan lost in the WW2, none other than americans had helped built this nation back to its feet. And naturally, at that time many americans stayed in Japan, especially in the years of the occupation. From that time on, U.S. and Japan are very closely connected (U.S. even has a military base in Okinawa), which affected the language. There are a great deal of English words in Japanese. Just a few examples: cofee becomes コーヒ(ko-hi), juice becomes ジュース (ju-su) and ice cream becomes アイスクリーム (aisukuri-mu). They are all written in katakana, a Japanese syllable, reserved for foreign words. Sometimes the Japanese pronunciation of the word is so strangely twisted, that it's impossible to recognize its English counterpart. Only after you get the meaning comes the "ahaa" moment, when you realize it's actually an English word in katakana. 

It's also funny that most Japanese think that all foreigners speak English. Sometimes they are surprised when I tell them that English is not the official language in Slovenia. It doesn't bother me though, however it could be a problem for a foreigner in Japan who doesn't speak English nor Japanese. He would have a hard time! Most Japanese learned English in school, but since the teaching method is very bad and inefficient (their own words), they are not able to speak English. In their wish that their children would be able to speak English, some parents go even that far as to pay a native English speaker to talk to the yet-unborn child during the pregnancy. A friend from Australia told me this, and the money is not bad at all, she said. (Most probably this is a very rare case, as I haven't heard of any other like it) While adult Japanese are more shy with using English, this doesn't hold for Japanese kids. They greet me all the time with "hello" or "how are you", just to practice their English a little bit. 

All in all, an amazing year. Now I am looking forward to go home, be able to hug my sunshine Katja again, see my family and meet my friends! 

Exactly two months have passed since my last post, where I wrote that I left Japan because of the situation at that time. Well, I have since returned to Japan and a lot has happened in those two months. The situation here in Kansai (area where I am living) is very safe and there is currently no reason to worry. Even though some Tokyo-based Vulcanus in Japan interns lost the internships due to the closure of their companies' offices, most are back in and around Tokyo and resume their internships. I can even see that, with exception from occasional news here and there, even international media has stopped reporting about nuclear power plant in Fukushima and Japan's earthquake and tsunamis. There are other, more pressing disasters to be conveyed to the peoples around the world. Japan will, however, feel the effects of the March 11 disaster for years to come. Even now, two full months after the incident, Japanese have still not brought the nuclear power plants in Fukushima under control (link), but they are aiming to do so in the next 6 months. With the Fukushima power plant gone, there is a lack of about 20% of electricity in Tokyo area, so the government is trying hard to see that people consume less and that industrial consumption is spread through the week. One of my friends just recently posted on Facebook that in his company, starting from July, they will switch weekends for Thursday and Friday. So, instead of going to work on Thursday and Friday, they will have 2 days off and instead they will need to go to work on Saturday and Sunday. I guess it makes sense as the peak demand is in summer.

I had an interesting incident at the airport in Frankfurt when returning back to Japan. I heard the voice from airport speakers tell my name and instruct me to see the officer at the Lufthansa desk. So I went there and the officer told me they needed to see my passport for a check-in (I already made a check-in in Ljubljana, but apparently they needed to verify it again). After staring at my passport for 5 minutes and typing something in the computer I got the feeling that something must be off, so I asked her what the problem was. She told me that my visa for Japan expired in November 2010 so they will not let me take this flight as I will be rejected at the Osaka airport. Good, now what? Well, Japan has a system, where they issue a visa with single number of entries and then once you come to Japan, you need to buy additional re-entry visa, which is actually just a small stamp with QR code and printed dates of eligibility. The officer before me was looking just at the original visa (which is very big and shiny) and not at those "patch" re-entry visas. Well I tried to explain it to her that I already left the country and came back AFTER November 2010, so I was okay, but she refused to listen to me. Only after I asked for her boss and explain it to him once again was I allowed to board the plane.

I believe I still haven't written about that here but soon after starting my work in January I bought myself a (used) bicycle. Then I needed to register my bicycle and I got a registration number, which I needed to stick on the frame. Interesting enough, as we don't have that in Slovenia. To be honest, I would never ride a bicycle like that back at home. Only old women ride bicycles like that, with big basket in front and all, but here it seems everybody owns one just like that. All Japanese bicycles also come equipped with metal lock on the front wheel. I've become very fond of it and I use it to go practically anywhere: work, shopping, gym ...

In the meantime, my sunshine Katja came to visit me and we have travelled around Japan for 16 days. We went to island Kyushu (southernmost of the 4 main islands), we visited a magnificent flower garden on a small island, called Nokonoshima (close to Kyushu's biggest city Fukuoka),

we stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel ryokan and enjoyed its superb onsen in a small mountain village called Kurokawa Onsen (direct translation would be onsen of the black river),

we continued our road to the peak of still active volcano Aso.

We also went to magical Beppu and viewed its 7 "Hells", hot springs for viewing rather than bathing, remains of an volcano eruption 1200 years ago with smoke and fumes with unexpected effects.We even cooked our dinner on hot spring steam, coming from beneath.

We took Japan's famous bullet train shinkansen to arrive at Hiroshima,

a city where the first atomic bomb fell at the end of the Second World War,

where we tried local specialties kaki (oysters), takoyaki and okonomiyaki. I must say that Hiroshima's okonomiyaki tasted so much better than Osaka's okonomiyaki! If you're ever in Hiroshima, give it a try!

We also went to see Miyajima with famous floating orange torii gate. Miyajima is a pearl! If you're ever in Hiroshima you should take half a day off and go to Miyajima. You won't regret it!

Of course we visited some Japanese gardens, of which the most beautiful one remains Shukkeien in Hiroshima.

The last day in Hiroshima there was a yearly festival called "Flower Festival" with all kinds of shows and performances going on and a lot of local food to try.

Of course we didn't miss seeing Kansai, with Osaka, Nara and Kyoto all being less than hour by train from my place. We went to see temples like The Golden Pavillion (kinkakuji) and Ryoanji temple, a famous Zen temple with a rock garden, of Kyoto, Todaiji temple (which is world's largest wooden building) with the biggest statue of bronze Buddha in Nara, soaked in an onsen at the top floor of an skyscraper in Osaka and went to impressive Osaka aquarium.

Until next time! :)

This post will be short. Because of recents unfolding events in Japan, that is, devastating Friday earthquakes, tsunamis that followed and the problems at several nuclear reactors at Daiichi and Daini nuclear plants in Fukushima, I decided to temporarily leave Japan. In time of writing this post I am sitting at the Hong Kong International Airport and waiting for my flight to London. I know I am not able to assess the situation accurately and objectively at this time, but in order to do that, I first need to reassure myself and my family, see how the events unfold and then analyze my options. Something I most definitely want to do at home and not in Japan, even if from Osaka, which is quite far away. At this point I would like to thank SANYO, who have been nothing but helpful and understanding and made everything in their power to make it easier for the interns.

The situation is getting very serious. I am copy/pasting the latest news below.
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Japanese officials confirmed on March 12 that radioactive materials were indeed released in a plume that emerged from the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant. An explosion at the plant 160 miles from Tokyo destroyed walls protecting the radioactive core, spurring fears of a possible meltdown of the fissile materials held in metal rods that require cooling in order to prevent overheating. A fire at the reactor following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami apparently caused a failure of the failsafe cooling system.

Television coverage showed a large cloud of smoke billowing out of the plant as large bits of debris were also flung hundreds of feet away from the building. Japan's NHK TV showed before and after pictures of the plant. They appeared to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant had collapsed after the explosion. The Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said four workers had been injured. It is not yet clear in exactly what part of the plant the explosion occurred or what caused it.

Japanese authorities have now ordered the evacuation zone around the plant be expanded from a 10km radius to 20km, while vehicles are being stopped 60km from the Fukushima-Daiichi plant. While Japan's nuclear agency said following the explosion that deadly radioactive cesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the power station, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan gave assurances the amount was "tiny." NHK TV showed before and after images of the Fukushima plant and theorized that this was evidence that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.

Air and steam, with some level of radioactivity, was earlier released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside. There were reports following the March 11 quake that pressure inside the plant had exceeded 1,000 times the pressure for which it was designed.

Nuclear power plants require water to circulate around the rods containing the radioactive rods in order to dissipate excess heat and also drive the turbines that produce electricity. In this instance, there was a failure in the circulatory system followed by a failure of the back-up diesel generators and batteries to power the pumps circulating the vital water.

Nuclear reactors at four power plants in the earthquake-struck zone automatically shut down on after the devastating 8.9 Richter-scale tremor on March 11. In several of the reactors at the two Fukushima plants the cooling systems, which should keep operating on emergency power supplies, failed. Without cooling, the temperature in the reactor core builds, with the risk that it could melt through its container into the building housing the system. The reactors at the plant are Boiling Water Reactors (BWR), one of the most commonly used designs, and widely used throughout Japan's array of nuclear power stations.

Japanese officials said initially that the amount of radioactive elements leaking from the plant would be "very small" and would not affect the environment or human health, if the leak is kept under control. If cooling cannot be restored to the plant, fallout would only spread and pose a danger to people living nearby. If the reactor does indeed melt down, the results could be similar to—if not worse than—that of the iconic Chernobyl disaster in the waning days of the Soviet Union.

When a reactor at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine went out of control in April 1986, it led to an explosion and meltdown, contaminating 58,000 square miles of land between Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, 600,000 residents were evacuated and their homes left permanently abandoned, while 4,000 died of radiation-related causes. The meltdown released a hundred radioactive elements into the atmosphere including dangerous iodine, strontium, and cesium, which are the most dangerous, and can still be found in the affected areas today.  In the years since this devastating accident, studies on groups of emergency workers and individuals with the highest exposure rates have linked the radioactive fallout to several health consequences like certain cancers, cardiovascular disease and death.

The effects of radiation are predicated on three factors: total exposure, how close you were to the accident and how much time you were exposed to it. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, "The potential danger from an accident at a nuclear power plant is exposure to radiation. This exposure could come from the release of radioactive material from the plant into the environment, usually characterized by a plume (cloud-like formation) of radioactive gases and particles. The major hazards to people in the vicinity of the plume are radiation exposure to the body from the cloud and particles deposited on the ground, inhalation of radioactive materials, and ingestion of radioactive materials." Symptoms, according to FEMA, "can arise at any point after exposure. It can be immediate or occur over days, weeks or months. Early exposure symptoms can include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache and fever. Signs that may appear in the days following exposure include: dizziness, disorientation, weakness, fatigue, hair loss, bloody vomit and stools, infections, poor wound healing and low blood pressure."

But radioactive fallout traveling through the environment can pose long-term health consequences depending on the amount of exposure—and chronic exposure to these high levels of radiation can cause more serious conditions like cancer and premature aging. Japan, which witnessed two atomic bomb attacks by the US, had thousands of victims not only from the initial blasts in 1945, but also afterwards as a result of radiation sickness and cancer.

More than 1,000 people are feared dead in the worst earthquake and tsunami incident in Japan’s long history of seismic activity. The March 11 tremor caused panic as buildings, roads and transportation infrastructure crumbled on the island nation. Tokyo's metro has ceased operations, as has Japan's famed Shinkansen bullet train service. Thousands of travellers have been left stranded throughout the country. The military is providing assistance to the stricken, while emergency services are coping with widespread fires caused by ruptured gas pipelines in addition to attending to the dead and injured. Whole sections of the country are now without power, since several nuclear power plants are now off-line and power lines are down. Telephone service, and television, has also been affected. Thousands are without shelter and afraid to return home.

The country is also facing the consequences of damage to its nuclear power plants. Japan’s Prime Minister Kan issued a statement on March 11 declaring an emergency, as required by law, saying that it was "in case prompt action" had to be taken, adding that "no release of radioactive material" had been detected. Yukio Edano, Japan's chief cabinet secretary added that the country is taking precautions. "We launched the measure so we can be fully prepared for the worst scenario. We are using all our might to deal with the situation."

A fire emerged at the reactor located in the Fukushima prefecture following the quake, affecting the power plant’s crucially important cooling system. Without adequate cooling, the core of a nuclear reactor may overheat and cause a leakage of radioactive gas or other material. According to officials, there was a mechanical failure in the cooling system. The Fukushima facility and ten other reactors operated by Japan Atomic Power Co, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tohoku Electric Power Co., have been shut down as a preventative measure.

President Barack Obama offered assistance to Japan, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said following the quake that the US had leapt into action. "We just had our Air Force assets in Japan transport some really important coolant to one of the nuclear plants," Clinton said at a meeting of the President's Export Council on March 11. "You know Japan is very reliant on nuclear power and they have very high engineering standards but one of their plants came under a lot of stress with the earthquake and didn't have enough coolant," Clinton said.

Japan declared an “atomic power emergency” and proceeded to evacuate thousands of residents living close to a nuclear plant in northern Japan after the quake. Some 6,000 people were ordered to leave a 2-mile radius around the Fukushima No. 1 plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power, on March 11. The evacuation was described as precautionary, but since then more than 50,000 people have been evacuated. Near midnight local time, officials said that the cooling system would be reactivated and resume normal operations. Japan depends heavily on nuclear power for its electricity generation. The facilities are designed to withstand earthquakes, which are not uncommon in Japan, but experts have long worried about the impact a major quake could have if it hit close to a reactor and impacted its safety systems. A major quake in 1997 was considered a "wake-up call" for the government to consider the possibility of a nuclear disaster following seismic activity.

Fukushima 1 is one of the oldest nuclear power plants in Japan. It was designed by General Electric and went on line in 1971, and believed to be equipped to function for some hours without emergency diesel generators. These stopgaps failed in as yet unknown circumstances. While operators can quickly shut down a nuclear reactor in an emergency, they cannot allow the cooling systems to stop. Even after the plant’s chain reaction is stopped, its nuclear fuel rods produce heat. Heat from the fuel rods must be removed by water in a cooling system, but that requires power. The plant requires a continuous supply of electricity even after the reactor stops generating its own power. The Fukushima cooling system was being supplied with fresh water until the coolant from the US could arrive.

If the cooling system remains inoperative for long, the water will eventually boil away and the fuel will begin to melt. That is what happened in 1979 at Three Mile Island, the reactor in Pennsylvania that suffered a partial core meltdown. In that case, but mechanical failure, operator error and poor design were to blame.

Japan, besides being one of the countries most dependent on nuclear power, is also the third greatest consumer of petroleum. Reports are emerging of a fire raging at a Cosmo Oil Company refinery near Tokyo, causing widespread damage and destruction. A number of crude oil processing plants have been shut to avoid further mishaps. This includes 11 reactors from Japan Atomic Power Co, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tohoku Electric Power Co. The 220,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Chiba is burning after a fire started at the plant's storage tanks following the quake.

The 8.9 Richter scale temblor is the second biggest in Japanese history and is in the top 5 worst earthquakes in history. Following the morning seismic incident, a tsunami emerged from the sea that rose to some 30 feet in height, devastating a swathe of the Japanese coastline and sweeping homes, vehicles, fishing vessels, and debris a kilometer from the shore in some instances. The iconic Tokyo Tower in the capital city was also damaged as skyscrapers were seen to sway during the quake as they were designed to do. People fled into the streets as some buildings and other structures collapsed or were engulfed in flames.

Yesterday I came to Tokyo for mid-term reporting session held by EU-Japan Centre. Today at 10am we all gathered in EU-Japan centre in Hanzomon after spending the night in Asia Hotel Japan. We came from different parts of Japan, since after finishing with the language course of the Vulcanus in Japan Programme we started our internships in different companies all over Japan. We started with our reports after lunch. I was the first to start with the presentation with my coleague Roberto from Italy, who is working at NTT Basic Research Laboratories. I think it went very well and after the report I was looking forward hear other people's experience of working in various Japanese companies.

We were half through the reports when the building started shaking. Ricardo and Flavio just finished with their presentation so there were a few jokes that they are the ones responsible for this earthquake. But the earthquake didn't die off as it should and as we had been expecting, it just started to become stronger and stronger. And after about 20 seconds the room became quiet all of the sudden, the jokes stopped and somebody proposed that we should go under the tables. While staying under the table, I looked through the window at the two buildings next to us. The buildings were shaking really badly, swinging from left to right, at some moment almost hitting each other. At that moment I looked at the back of the conference room and when I saw in the eyes of our Japanese manager and his colleagues that they were afraid, and at that moment I became really afraid myself as well. Apparently it was not a normal earthquake. When I was under the table, just waiting for what happens next, I became really afraid. It was a feeling I didn't understand before. It is a feeling when you are in a situation and you know you can't do anything and don't know what to expect. It's the worst feeling on earth. I don't want to be in a situation like that ever again. You just stand there and wait if the building will collapse and don't know what will happen to you. Without control, without any effect on the progress of things.

The earthquake lasted about 2 minutes and it was a huge one. Reports say it was Richter magnitude of 8.9 and the epicenter was some 200 km away from Tokyo, to the north. After that we were all quite shocked and had a break of half an hour. During that half hour the building was still shaking from before. We just started to continue with reports when the second earthquake hit us. This one didn't start slowly like the one before. We were rushing under tables again and this time I was even more afraid since I remember from somewhere that the second hit can be even more damaging. Luckily this was not the case this time, as the second one was just around Richter magnitude of 6 and lasted around 1 minute. After the second hit, the whole mid-term reporting session just broke down, as nobody was in the state to do or hear any more reports, as we were all horribly shocked. Later I talked to one of the representatives of EU-Japan Centre and he told me that in 15 years of living and working in Japan, he had never experienced an earthquake as strong as this one. The reports actually tell that it can be that this earthquake was the biggest in the last 140 years. After the two strong hits we are still experiencing smaller and moderately small hits that last of about 5-15 seconds. There are some even as I am writing this. There are already reports of deaths in Tokyo. In the north Japan, 10 meter tsunamis followed the earthquakes and devastated the shore, turned ships upside down, flooded the houses and airports... you get the picture. Also, nuclear plants in Japan were stopped and the public transport in Tokyo is still stopped at this moment, so we are just waiting in the EU-Japan Centre for now.

However, thanks god, we are all okay, sound and safe. I just don't know how well I am going to be able to sleep today. But tomorrow is a new day, a bright, sunny day. The underground and trains are going to work again, the ships will be repaired, the nuclear plants will start again and I will return to Kyoto with Shinkansen in the evening. And we will soon forget this and begin to live our life as we have lived it before. We will feel important again, we will have big everyday problems again... in other words everything will return to normal :).

A few days ago, the EU-Japan Centre published short-listed candidates for Vulcanus in Japan 2011/12. Congratulations to all of you, who were short-listed! You are one step closer to an unbelievable experience. Quite a few of you have written to me (thanks) asking me all sorts of questions. Is it worth it? YES! By all means, yes. Don't get cold feet now, that you are so close! What shouldn't miss in applicant's curriculum? Well of course, you need to have very good grades, usually some working experience, you need to be able to speak English. But this are just the prerequisites. You already have that, otherwise you wouldn't have been short-listed. Looking at this year's Vulcanus generation, looking at my friends, I can't honestly tell you what is THE key factor each of us has to have been accepted. We are all just so very different. At the end of the day, the person at the other side of the desk, who is looking at your application, must choose you and not the other excellent candidate. If you don't have some kind of international experience already, your chances go down considerably (almost all of us this year have had some before entering VIJ). But after all this criteria considered, you just have to be a bit lucky I guess :-).

Recently, EU-Japan Centre made a promotional video about its activities, among which is also Vulcanus in Japan.
You can also see a bit of me in it, near the end :-).

 

Well more than a month has passed since I started with my internship at SANYO Electric and I have both gathered enough impressions and had the time to gather my thoughts to write about it. Working in a Japanese company is quite different from working in a European company. I will give you only bits and pieces, so you will have to put it together yourselves.

The first surprise is at the entrance gate. Every morning, when I come to the entrance gate, there is a man standing in the open. His job is to greet people, who come to work. "Ohayo gozaimasu!" (Good morning) he shouts, salutes and bows. When coming and going from work, I always need to show my employee card. That means I park the bicycle, go off, step to the receptionist and show him my card. There are three of us doing internship at SANYO Electric right now and we are the only foreigners in the company. But even though we are the only non-Japanese people in the Hirakata branch, we still need to show our cards every time. Once I forgot it in the office and I needed to go all the way back up to the third floor to get it. I came back and showed the card. "Otsukaresama deshita" (You are tired, a Japanese expression to tell to the person leaving work) and I could leave. They are very strict about that.

Work starts at 9, so I usually come about 10 minutes earlier. Usually, everyone is already in the office. At 8:55 the speakers turn on and a sweet woman's voice greets us good morning and sort of motivational music starts to play. Soon the same voice starts to tell the routine: move your head left, right, move your body, touch your toes etc. Sort of like those TV programs where they do aerobics and you can follow in front of a television set. Everyone in the office does this morning group exercise. After we repeat the routine for 3 times, the morning greeting from department head occurs. During that time we always stand. The department chief greets us and tells a few words about the current developments, what is currently going on, if there is anyone absent that day and some other things that I don't understand. After that, the work starts.

At 12:00 the bell rings and we go all together to lunch in the canteen downstairs. During that time, they turn off the lights in the office to preserve energy.

After lunch break is finished, a bell rings again and we gather once more in the office. Every day, there one of the employees must do a short presentation. They usually talk about themselves, their past, their kids, the things that interest them, the project they are working on and so on. During that time, we also stand. Again, the department head tells a few sentences.

Mondays are days when we repeat company principles.

"You should put your whole heart and soul into your assigned duties. Regardless of whether you work in production or sales, you should always employ the most efficient method available and proceed with work in a scientific manner. Work accurately, paying the closest attention to the smallest details."

The first this happened to me I had no idea what was going on. A coworker stepped forward with a small paper, folded to make it look like a little book or notebook and everyone else took the same kind of little folded paper from their drawers. It reminded me of a chant. The one in front read from the paper, and others repeated after him, simultaneously, as if they were talking with the same voice. These are the company principles that we repeat:

1. Integrity: We work with integrity.
2. Customer Oriented: We anticipate what will satisfy our customers.
3. Creativity: We single-handedly open up new eras.
4. Mutual Trust: We create a workplace imbued with the aura of freedom and the candid exchange of
views.
5. Social Commitment: We maximize efficiency in business management and distribute profits on the
basis of fairness and equity.

I asked what the purpose of this was. Apparently, by repeating the principles over and over again, one gets them in the sub consciousness and because of that acts in accordance to it. It's very interesting and it's not something we usually do in Europe. I can't tell you if it's working or not, but I can tell you that every employee knows these principles by heart and could probably recite them also after being waken up in the middle of the night.

Company uniform is not obligatory, but almost everyone wears it. I wear just the jacket from time to time, if I didn't iron a shirt in advance, but I don't wear the pants. Most of the time I wear a shirt, sometimes a dress jacket, but never sweater or a t-shirt, which they told me not to wear. Also, one should not wear jeans.

I work 8 hours a day. Once I wanted to stay longer but my boss came and asked me to go home. So I am in a somewhat different position than regular employees, since I am a trainee and a foreigner. Everyone else stays in the office, so they work more hours, from 10 to 14.

My coworkers are very friendly and most of them try very hard to please and be friends. During lunch, we sit together and talk about different things, usually not about work. I try to talk to them in Japanese and they try to talk to me in English.

A week or two after starting work, my coworkers organised a welcome party for me and Flavio (a friend who is also doing internship at SANYO), since we are working in the same department. We went to an izakaya and ate and drank a lot and the atmosphere was really nice. It was definitely something I didn't expect and they even paid everything for us and we even went for an "after party" in another izakaya. The food was delicious and I got to know them a bit better. I also needed to make a short speech, more or less something like the first day. The first day of work I needed to make a speech in front of everyone. But since they prepared us for this in Naganuma school of Tokyo, it was not a big surprise to me and it went well.

I even went snowboarding with coworkers of my other friend Jarek last week. Noda-san and Tokumaru-san, who work in another department organised this trip for the two of us. We went by car to a ski resort Dynaland, which is some 250 km from here. Once during snowboarding my camera fell from my pocket and I didn't realise it until it was already 5 and we were changing at the parking place. Luckily, I went back with the mini-bus to the information booth and tried my 1 in million chance to get it back. I wouldn't have thought it, but I really got it back. Apparently, someone found it and brought it to the other information booth. They even appologised to me because I had to wait a little bit for them to bring my camera from the other information booth to this one. It was one of the best Saturdays so far.

One thing that struck me as very different from European companies is that there are almost no women at the company. In our department we have about 30 people and only one of them is a woman. She is probably a secretary, but I am not completely sure. It is very interesting to watch the people during lunch time. The secretary from our department never eats with us. Men sit together and you don't see a table where men and women would mix. Usually women sit at the table at the back and they eat together, even though they belong to different departments.

After snowboarding I caught a bit of cold, so I was going to the small kitchen to heat water. I met Mira-san there and we talked just for a minute or two while I was waiting for my water to boil. I asked her if they have vitamin tablets in Japan also, since I have brought mine from Slovenia and they were going to an end. Then I went back to work and forgot about her. After the lunch, surprisingly, she appeared in the office and came to me. She brought me some kind of vitamin bonbons (candy) for throat and held a paper with written Slovenian words "medication" and "throat". She had also some other phrases written on it, like "Hello", "Good morning" and "Good afternoon". She tried to pronounce them and I corrected her a few times. I was very surprised at the kind of friendliness she showed towards me. After all, we just met the same day and exchanged a few words, that's all.

After being in Japan for almost half a year I strongly believe that Japanese are very kind and tender people, but I am surprised by it over and over again. After all, the moment that I will take the kindness and given help as granted, I will take something very special from them.

Yesterday in the evening, my friends and I went central Osaka to watch football and enjoy the atmosphere. Not just any match, it was the finals of the Asian Cup and Japan was playing Australia for the title of asian champion. (Don't ask me what Australia was doing in an Asian Cup, though). We had some trouble finding a place, but after some time we found a bar that was not empty and had a television set with the match on -- on the 10th floor of some building in Namba.

Once there, I was a bit disappointed. Atmosphere was not as I expected it; people were cheering very mildly and there was just not enough passion in the air. Not like football matches in my country, I thought to myself. People are usually going wild there, cheering, laughing, crying; they are angry, sad, disappointed, happy... all those emotions come out in a big way.

Japan defeated Australia 1-0 and became the champion of the Asian Cup. After about 5 minutes we noticed a group of people gathering on a bridge so we hurried down to check what is going on. It was freezing cold, the wind was blowing and it was around 0 degrees, but that didn't stop the fans from jumping to Dotonbori river. Wow! It was not something I expected 10 minutes ago. That was fun! Apparently, they have a long tradition to jump from that bridge whenever Japan wins an important match.

I don't think Japanese are very unpredictable. Actually, I think they are much more predictable than any other nation I know. However, they still surprise me all the time. But it's not because they were unpredictable, it's only because I don't understand the conditions and rules that led to the situation. So every day, I learn a bit about them and understand situations a bit better.