Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

So this blog was started AFTER the end of my college years to rationalize where my life will go now that the days of being a student are completely (well, at least temporarily) over...and perhaps now, that months-long exploration of directions may finally come to something useful in the next week or so as we the new graduates of Rakuten are put to the spot of choosing our career paths within the company. While the choice does not really determine our lives (people get next assignments in a few years at most after getting into one department), a short conversation with the head of HR department does sort of determine which direction each one of us will head toward, as the first choice will certainly throw at least some limitations on where the individual CAN go based on the skills he or she can learn in that very first assignment. So, gauging the intents of my colleagues, a few trends are already very clear. First, almost everyone is determined to head somewhere where international wo

As hard as people work here in Japan, there is always a need for holidays and vacations for the average salary-man like me just like white collar workers in any other part of the world. The "getting away from it all" sort of feeling is especially necessary in a city like Tokyo, where the endless concrete jungle simply let her residents feel a complete segregation from nature. But big words and feelings of adventure aside, people sometimes just need a reason to congregate and socialize, even in an environment where they seem to see each practically everyday for some serious matter. As I stated before , the separation of meeting for work and meeting for fun is so completely possible without a slightest hint of awkwardness. I thought that "meeting for fun" with your coworkers somehow stayed in the vicinity of the local drinking spot to complain about how difficult work is, but the past weekend was a real eye-opener for understanding how intimate a bunch of young profes

Another Saturday, another meet up with some coworkers for some English "lessons" and lunch. The topic somehow (and quite logically) came to the issue of how Japanese salary-men and Office Ladies spend their weekends. Not surprisingly, the typical answers were "taking it easy, hanging out with friends, and having a few drinks," but extent to which all of these mix in with work-related stuff is absolutely shocking for a foreigners used to a complete division between work and life. Sure, being good friends with your similar-aged coworkers and hanging out with them outside of office is of course possible and understandable (same reason why I am there every Saturday). But lets take a closer look at what we were doing: the lunch conversations frequently merged into classified technical fields of the company, interlaced with insider information each departments and their heads. This was happening all the while anything about the company is off-limits for everyday convers

There was a particular example often raised when people talk about how picky Japanese people can be regarding, well, everything they buy. The Kit-Kat chocolate bar, started in the US with one original flavor (um, chocolate) somehow morphed into 27+ different varieties over its decades of development in Japan. While the Kit-Kat bar remains the same and popular in the States, in Japan, flavors come and go as consumers magically get tired of them a few months after introduction. And Kit-Kat bars certainly isn't an exception. Everything from soft drinks to sausages always seemed to carry some extra ingredient that is not thought of even in their countries of origin. Food flavors comes in and goes out faster than fashion trends, leaving companies forced to constantly innovate their products. Now, if food flavors in Japan are like fashion trends elsewhere, you can bet that actual fashion trends have pretty much no comparison. Well, everyone is a fan of innovation. Better designed p

Company employees going out to drink after work and on weekends is pretty common phenomenon. (I did last night...and I am still feeling a little, um, unnatural in my stomach as I write this post) Even bosses and senior colleagues would likely to join for a few. The atmosphere is generally pretty rowdy as people's characters start to reshape toward a more spontaneous side after few. To such a biological certainty, one colleague said it well after a couple of beers, "I may get drunk,but I will not lose my consciousness." To someone from the West, that may just sound like the guy bragging about how much control he has over his alcohol-infused mentality, but the phrase, I realized, sort of takes on a double meaning in the Japanese context. As with anything else in Japan, the hierarchic power structure of any group environment can clearly be felt and is expected to be maintained even as rowdiness takes over. Even as alcohol renders the body incapable of performing prohibitiv