Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

As the news of my imminent departure from Japan and Rakuten continues to spread like a wildfire within the company, the compilation of reactions is certainly becoming a tool for me to further understand what it means to be a salary-men. The stability-seeking middle class backbone of Japanese corporate world, so loyal to their companies and so diligent in fulfilling top-down orders day in and day out , becomes something very interesting when even they become disillusioned with reality within the current work environment. But before talking about disillusion and all, it is important to note just how "stability-oriented" Japanese education and job-search processes really are. Because of continued tendency for mass hiring, job posts are generally specified for new grads, nor are job posts really open to selection by the new grads themselves. Unless the new grad in question have seriously strong skill in one aspect, he or she will simply be placed, along with most others, in ...

With the end of the last call yesterday, my sales experience in Japan has officially topped two and a half months. Even though I am still without a single success to my belt, it feels as if, at least from a socio-cultural standpoint, I am starting to see what exactly is the role of a salesman here in Japan. In an IT company whose success is largely defined by aggressive sales rather than technical innovation, understanding the place of sales and its practitioners in Japanese society would be not only necessary but fundamental. In a previous post , I already established that sales skills are obviously not a cookie-cutter ability applicable in the same way to every country out there. But I am coming to realize that what is more important for the difference in sales across countries is social status and function rather than sheer approach and methodology. People would tend to listen to salesmen if the salesmen are perceived to carry more of a social significance, rather than just so...

"I have decided to graduate from Rakuten and go become a teacher in Uganda!" The tone from an outgoing coworker cannot have sounded more optimistic and forward-looking to a globetrotter like me. A sudden message indeed, and no doubt caught most of the people on the recipient mailing list with great surprise. While I am reading and feeling absolutely jealous and in complete respect for the courage of making such a risky move, I at the same time wonder how others are feeling about the same announcement.

Waking up in an Internet café in Nagano after a hasty overnight stay to avoid the downpours, I was refreshed in excitement as I went back onto the streets at 6am. The clear blue sky offered not a trace of clouds, and the empty morning streets were completely devoid of any moistness. Breathing in the crisp (and cold…I can see my breath!) morning air, the traveler would not have known that incessant rain made the town as bleak as it can possibly be just a few hours ago. An adventurous traveler can be offered nothing more exciting than fine weather. As long as the weather does not slow him down, the traveler seems to have the entire world to his own . As the sun introduced a bit of warmness to the chilly morning air, passions and energy are reignited, and the traveler just cannot wait to run through the streets, putting his full-packed day of travel planning into execution mode. It is just too unfortunate that everyone who wants to travel has to suppress the urge to do so during weekd...

Night has fallen as the slow train pulled into its final destination in Nagano . Even though it is a prefectural capital and host of the 1998 Winter Olympics, amid the unending heavy rain, its bleak darkness could not have been less welcoming. Watching people rush past to avoid the downpours, I chewed on a burger in the MacDonald's in front of the main train station. "But I ask, what really is good about the democratic system?" I suddenly heard a young but confident voice amid the noisy banters in the fast food joint. The determined (and highly uncharacteristic and out-of-place) conversation continued, "before Pearl Harbor, America was anti-war in its entirety, so the presidential candidates, knowing that war was about to happen, still played the pro-peace card!" No doubt, I was thoroughly surprised. Nowhere in Japan have I ever heard such confident and bold talks of politics, and nowhere in the world have I heard such talks in a fast food joint. In a population...

I have always believed (and probably always will) believe that language is a tool of expressing culture . Language detached from culture can never be truly considered a true language as it is then effectively detached from all cultural nuances essential for generating deep conversations. Thus, a person without cultural knowledge associated with a particular language can never be considered fluent in that particular language no matter how effortlessly the person can speak it. The above logic is the fundamental reason I am against all efforts to introduce English ( or any other language, for that matter ) as the working language for a non-English-speaking environment. Because English, as known by her native speakers, ignores all socio-cultural customs of the non-English-speaking locality…this is especially true in Japan, where the various unwritten social rules of embarrassment and isolation so commonly used is practically unknown in the Western world where English originates. However...

The rain gets stronger, the wooded mountains more isolating, and the journey on the slow local train continues into the rural areas as night falls on the flatlands of central Japan. Every time the train stops and temporarily shuts down her engine, the only noise that can be heard is the sound of the rain showering the ground. There are no longer any malls, or even any stores and houses, outside the passing landscape, and seeing pedestrians of any sort is quickly becoming more and more of a rarity.

Outside the windows, the mountains seemed to rise out of nowhere. Heading out of each tunnel, the traveler is suddenly blinded by the bright colors on the slopes. With not a single piece of dirt, the golden yellow and the bight green leaves of well-preserved old growth is dotted by the occasional pink blossoms and uncharacteristically fiery red. The concentrated eyes of the traveler are forced to refocus to find these dissidents of nature amid the equally beautiful majority. And as the traveler continues to glance through the rising landscape, the insignificantly little yet respectably resilient human habitation comes into his eyes. The old wooden houses with black tiles are seemingly decorated by the movements of the hardy (aging) farmers picking through the nearby fields. If it were not for the well-worn little trucks taking the produce to the faraway markets, no one would be able to tell that this is no longer feudal Japan… Inside the warm and nearly empty trains, children spok...

Recently, I watched a lecture on increasing realization of civil rights in China and the media's role in the realization. The lecturer made a strong point that the increasingly unstoppable dissent by journalists in officially sanctioned press, combined with spread of the info through SNS , is forcefully breaking down the propaganda apparatus maintained by the Communist Party (cited by the lecturer as "the most sophisticated in human history"). He notes with optimism that the media, backed by intellectuals, is institutionalizing dissent and slowly eroding the established cultural attitudes of the Chinese people. Foreign ideas, passed on through the media and SNS, is infusing foreign ideas rapidly into the Chinese mind...All very clichéd arguments that have been made by "Chinese experts" for years now. But a little side-note I picked up in his argument (and I want to discuss a bit) is that he notes the same thing did not happen with Japan's "free pres...

In a previous post , I argued that the lack of social openness in Japanese society nullifies many of the redeeming qualities associated with her abundant political freedoms as a relatively mature democracy. As a continuation of that thought, I have to further examine the underlying social force that results in that lack of social openness. I ask: what exactly causes a nation so full of technical innovation to not show a slightest hint of it on the socio-political aspect? Why is the country so conservatively exclusive in social behavior despite having been interacting with the most modern philosophies for the past couple of centuries? The answer, I believe, lies within the steadfast hold on a sense of stability through hierarchy so central to any Confucian society. Those with seniority are supposed to supply the young ones with wisdom and money, while the youth will pay back by absolute obedience to the orders from the elders. Rebellion by the youth is considered the main cause of ...

As my planned departure from Japan getting final approval from the company, the last days of my (current period of) working life in Japan has truly become a matter of question. Amid my lack of motivation and the company's lack of incentive to give me any significant work, I wonder if staying here until I truly must depart for England is in any way a wise decision....unfortunately, so far, the answer to the question has been mostly a big, absolute "No." Here is the current situation. After informing my superiors that LSE will start for at the end of September, I was frankly told that my stay in sales position will last until the day I physically leave the company. The rationale is that, rather than transferring me to another department ( even if one where I can immediately be put to use ), I should master the "art of sales" so that next time I look for a job anywhere in the world, I can immediately put my "negotiation and speaking" skills to effecti...

Only a few years ago, people speculated the possibility of Facebook and Twitter succeeding in Japan. With strong domestic competitors such as Mixi and other social platforms (such as online forums) in a country already highly literate and connected to the cyberspace, people doubted that “Western” SNS can take roots here. Additionally, the strong Japanese, and indeed East Asian, obsession with “cyber-anonymity” largely conflicts with an equally strong obsession for the opposite shown by the likes of Facebook. Then, in what seems like a quick flash of time, the potential dominance of both Facebook and Twitter has become a foregone conclusion. While domestic social platforms still lead in absolute numbers of visitors, the what-used-to-be “foreign novelties” from Silicon Valley have become household names. Their growth rates in the country have become the envy of all other dot-com firms in Japan, both foreign and Japanese in origin. Yet, a closer observation shows that the increasingly...

"Freedom," now more than ever, has become the standard buzzword in the political literature of all countries. Whether it be promoting pro-Western democratic revolutions in the Middle East , or subverted rebellion against established regimes , the single word "freedom" somehow represents all concentrated anger of dissatisfied populations and suppressed ambitions of disenfranchised activists. It is a word that arose passions of millions and fears of all political censors. Generally when the word "freedom" is touched upon in the media and government announcement, it is almost always representative of political freedom, an ability of individuals to express their opinions and views without fear of persecution. Certainly, all democratic regimes (and several non-democratic ones) have actually enforced laws to guarantee freedom of expressions. No matter how marginal and violent the views are, as long as the views are not hurtful to other segments of society, ...

These days, I just cannot stop thinking about all the factors that go into a successful departure for England. Continuing to worry about the money to pay for LSE and the career afterwards , my weekend "to-do" list is filled with determined thoughts of looking for scholarships, grants, jobs (part-time at school and full-time after graduation)...yet, somehow, my mind keeps getting distracted by other things (such as, well, writing this blog post). A friend and coworker with previous degree recently informed of the difficulties she confronted as she wrote up her dissertation for honors in her political science degree. This 163-page monster, filled with well-researched data and citations , was indeed well-written, and no doubt time-consuming...and scary enough, this was for an UNDERGRAD political science degree. Now, a masters student has to surpass this, right? Deeper in research and more in volume is probably something for which I should be mentally prepared. Funny thing ho...

"We are going to see the cherry blossoms!" My Chinese coworker told me rather joyfully as we randomly met up on the road back home. Now that is one sentence I have not heard for a look time. April is here and the cherry blossoms ("sakura") are in full bloom. Every year, these symbolic flowers of Japan attract millions of people to head out to the parks, picnicking after the endless pink trees in annual tradition of "flower-watching" ("hanami" or 花見). Yet, this year, the parks were empty. Even as the cherry blossoms lining the streets create tunnels of natural pink, there are only a few people sitting under them, their conversations without any of the drunkenness and boisterousness of the past years, and their whole "picnic" seeming to last no more than a casual business lunch of a Japanese salary-man. Pedestrians passing by the picnickers can even sense embarrassment, and even guilt, in their eyes, even as they cautiously sip away ...

"I found this place is more Japanese than global." Meeting around 40-50 new employees in my company, doubtful comments such as this was sprinkled throughout the otherwise joyful conversations. Unfortunately, they were not joking. The smell of exaggerated promises seeping through the Tower has already been scented and picked up by many a few too many noses. Predictions are already abound about what percentage of the Class will remain in a few months time. "What do they know? They have only been here for one day!" Our 10-year veterans can surely dismiss the sentiments as "inexperienced sentiments of juvenile energy," bound to be extinguished as the new graduates mature into professionals. Perhaps so, some of the group will definitely grow into their jobs (as have some of my own class), but if their independent thoughts stay vigilant , the odds are that their growing "quietness" sources itself from self-suppression rather than satisfaction. Le...

Turn on any Japanese morning news show, the horoscopes of the day is just as routinely reported as the weather. Just as knowing the weather gives the audience ideas on what to wear and bring physically, the horoscopes play exactly the same role "mentally." That is, knowing one's "fortunes" before the day starts may somehow give one the ability to avoid the social "traps" that may bring the person very much socially-based and highly personal "disasters," whether it be demotion, break-ups, or public embarrassment. The nature of the negative consequences of "bad luck" reported on these televised horoscopes goes a long way to imply just how much Japanese people care about their "public images." In a country where for women going to local convenience store without make-up on is widely considered not socially acceptable (and Go forbid, if women actually try that one at work ...), hearing "today, you have high possibility...