Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

"What you guys are lacking is Gratitude," the sales manager lectured on, almost religiously, at the somber new grads keeping their eyes on the floor. "The company pays you and feeds you even though you have not made any sales...your revenue-generating elder colleagues are eating sandwiches at their desks while you guys are lounging around the cafeteria for like an hour every day!" The manager continued at a mild, calm pace, sinking the new grads further into a bit of mild depression ... Just another daily evening meeting here at Sales Development, the guys responsible for getting more shops to join the massive online shopping mall here at Rakuten. Never mind the fact that a promised one-hour lunch break is coded in company regulations...and also never mind the fact that the Dept is openly violating the company regulations by refusing to pay overtime and weekends (even though most Sales Development personnel work longer and harder than the vast majority of employees ...

So, as I was continuing my graduate school applications (seriously this time, for my career beyond Rakuten and Japan ), I was looking for a scanner around my neighborhood to turn some documents into PDF. Asking around no less than a dozen internet cafes ( they are supposed to be convenient , no?), convenience stores, photo shops, bookstores...basically anywhere that I can imagine having a scanner of some sort for business use. In the end, I had to give up and wait for discreetly using the one in my company.... I suppose this is another episode of convenient Japan being inconvenient . It is these times that I miss the underground economy in China where services and products of every sort can be found literally anywhere. But probably the key difference between the Chinese shop owners and the Japanese ones I visited today may be that the Chinese ones would do anything to come up something (whether be to buy a scanner, think of alternative ways of getting the PDF, introduce the nea...

"Wow, this Kakegawa Noodles is really good!" "Thanks..." "Kakegawa is famous for tea right?" "Yeah..." "So does Kakegawa Noodles somehow related to the tea?" "Nah, nothing special about these noodles..." "I really hope Kakegawa Noodles can become a national brand name like Hakodate or Sapporo Noodles!" "...." As the chef/owner fell silent, no more can be heard from the little eatery with seven counter-seats besides the slurping noises of the serious-looking couple attacking away at their noodle bowls with great concentration. Slowly, the awkward yet intentionally excited-looking smile on my face slowly gave away to blankness. Failure. No more can be said of the situation. The chef stoically started washing the dishes of previous customers as the strangely energetic pop songs exaggerated the lack of any feelings in the little room. It was cold-hard trade of cash-for-grub. No ambitions, no extra services...

Ok, perhaps a bit exaggerated to say that my career will completely change from this, but it was announced last Sunday morning that I will end my post at the CEO Office and move to Sales Development starting the coming Tuesday (making this the last weekend I got before I will have to start introducing myself a bit differently). Despite my continued speculation of where I work in the future , the sudden shift to a sales position still surprised me (not to mention flabbergasting the others who heard the story) to quite a shocking degree.

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...