Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Last Monday saw a sudden announcement of a brand-new corporate tradition here at Rakuten: the forced adoption of nicknames. Yes, everyone was ORDERED to register a 7-letter maximum UNCHANGEABLE official nickname by this past Thursday. The nickname was to be searchable in official records (emails and any sort of employee list) and will become past of the name badges that the company requires ever employee to wear during their entire time on company premises. The reason: more equal communication among all employees. Supposedly, even the higher-ups (Executive Officers and the Boss himself) have selected nicknames and are expecting their subordinates to call them by those nicknames in public. I really do applaud the sincere effort by the Boss to reduce distances among different ranks of the corporate ladder, but such a measure does nothing beyond generating a bit of over-the-lunch conversation for a couple of reasons. (1) The implementation and execution of the nickname-calling system

After 18 days of street protests involving millions of common people, the secular authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak has been abruptly brought down in Egypt. The fact that Egypt of Mubarak, as one of the only major Arab powers to recognize Israeli existence and American power in the region, can be so suddenly brought down with street protest can only be taken a chilling sign of how much doubts the common people have assigned regional stability based on American political controls. Washington has to be feeling uneasy even as it "chose the people over Mubarak." The disappearance of pro-American political control creates a power vacuum open for irrational Egyptian nationalists and even worse, anti-American, anti-Israeli "Islamic fundamentalists" of the Muslim Brotherhood to fill. America, while preparing further aid to help keep the newly born Egyptian democracy stable, must at the same time be fully aware of the possibility for "undesired elements" t

Amidst the continuing doubts of whether English is even necessary in a completely Japanese environment, the English-nization Project in Rakuten is continuing to move forward (albeit with slow speed and high controversy in implementing practically every step). And with even greater difficulty, plenty of individual frustrations, (hidden) resistance , the mental portion of English-nization, i.e. "thinking not exclusively like a Japanese person," is also somehow being pushed forward in small isolated patches. However, while everyone has been focusing on defining this so-called "globalization" in Rakuten and arguing how it is practically implemented in an already established and rather conservative company structure, all are seeming to how divisive even labeling "globalization=good" can be. Just as the company is all the sudden divided into camps of those who can and cannot speak English due to English-nization, "globalization" is bound to put

For a foreigner to live in Japan for many many years as a productive, "regular" (in terms of what he does, a salary-man or Office Lady, for that matter) member of society requires the person to be REALLY emotionally attached to Japan as a society. Just liking "Japanese culture" (as many professes BEFORE they come to Japan, based on their knowledge of Japanese pop culture-based stereotypes) is really not enough for more than few months when that "newness" of being Japan wears off. What is required is a deep bond of friendship with the local people that act as a honest and unobstructed channel of understanding the individual Japanese persons intimately. It is about breaking the "personal barriers" the Japanese put around them against foreigners (and other Japanese as well) to "be nice" toward the others yet prevent others from acquiring too much of a position in their personal lives. All in all, it is about making unconstrained emoti