This issue features a really promising Japanese start-up – Inferret – who are doing some really interesting work in the field of natural language recognition for both text and spoken language. And we introduce a great little hotel IP phone made by Japanese manufacturer Nakayo (pictured above). While a lot of people still have a negative image of VoIP (due to cheap calling networks) this phone has top-notch sound quality and is a wonderful device. There is also a howto I wrote explaining how to get twitter feeds to display on Polycom phones (although it will also work on Cisco IP phones with a bit of tinkering).

Also, I should mention that we will be exhibiting at our first tradeshow –

Denphone to exhibit at Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo

Denphone is proud to announce that they will be exhibiting at this years Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo to be held November 12th and 13th at Sunshine City in Ikebukero.

The Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo is Japan’s leading tradeshow for Call Center and CRM solutions with vendors exhibiting a wide range of hardware, software and services for the call center and customer center industries.

Denphone will be focusing their SIP and IAX2 trunking solutions, as well as managed voice services. This is a good chance to meet up with a representative from Denphone to find out how telephony related technology is moving forward and what new solutions there are now available to both reduce your company’s expenditure while increasing employee effectiveness.

Denphone will be giving away 2 IP phones to people who visit their booth – so visit us to be in to win!

The event will be held at Sunshine City Ikebukuro: (http://www.sunshinecity.co.jp/ (Japanese language only).)

For more information (Japanese only) please see http://www.callcenter-japan.com/.

Look forward to seeing you there, and I hope you enjoy Denphone’s magazine.

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2008 was a busy year. Not quite as much travelling as the year before, but alongside getting settled back into life in Tokyo, we made it to a few places. Highlights being a trip to Wakayama and Hiroshima on the Seishin-18-Kippu – Japan’s version of the student rail pass. I got to see Pierre’s master Kiyota Jirokunetsu at work in his forge which was quite a pleasure, then down to Hiroshima to do all the touristy things. Hiroshima was lovely, especially the near-by island of Miyakojima with its’ frisky deer and monkeys. Then a mammoth trip back to Tokyo leaving Hiroshima before 6 in the morning and getting in to Meguro around 8 in the evening.

Another couple of highlights were visiting the Shimokita Peninsula at the tip of Japan’s main island of Honshuu in Aomori Prefecture. Some spectacular views and hot springs up there. Tokyo’s Hachijojima was another special trip. Despite being officially under the administrative cloud of the earwigs in Shinjuku – Hachijojima was wonderfully relaxed and is a great little getaway from the big smoke. One of these days I may just put up some photos of those places.

Work also saw some large changes. In August I changed career paths, and am now working for a company called Denphone. From its’ name one might be able to ken the scope of what we do – phone systems! Well there is a bit more to it than that of course, but mostly we implement office phone system solutions. For me it was a welcome move – while I enjoy teaching I had come to the limit of what I could do in that field, and so when offered a job that allowed me to work with open source software, and use Linux on a regular basis I was thrilled. The new job has given me the opportunity to learn a whole range of new things – mostly quite geeky things:) I passed both the CCENT and CCNA exams this year for example.

Here is a little Christmas video celebrating the season Japanese style. Enjoy:

Anyway, enough rambling! I know some of you want to go out and enjoy the season!

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From the British Times website: Ochone! Japanese whisky is voted the best in world. I find that a bit hard to believe, but then I have never really been a big fan of whiskey. I remember on the ferry to China that a couple of Japanese backpackers, long-haired and already a little smelly had a large bottle of Nikka whiskey which they were sharing. Very kind of them. Anyway the Californian photographer who had the bed next to mine had a few too many and ended up passing out on the ferry’s helipad. It was a little disturbing when the ships stewards carried him in around 3 am. He wasn’t in good shape, but luckily he kept it all down.

The BBC news website has a story Japan PM’s party in poll defeat.

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party has been defeated in a key by-election, dealing a fresh blow to the leadership of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

LDP candidate Shigetaro Yamamoto was easily defeated in the vote in Yamaguchi prefecture.

Senior opposition MP Kenji Yamaoka told Japanese media the result was “the beginning of the end of LDP rule”.

Hopefully this will mean a return to a Japan lead by people with interesting haircuts.

Japan detects bird flu in four wild swans from Reuters. I think I can discern the beginning of a newly revised Tchaikovsky ballet in this story. The swans were discovered near Lake Towadako which is in Akita, closish to where I used to live. Quite sad really.

Lastly the most disturbing of the stories: Japan: Where has all the butter gone?

No butter = no toast = no breakfast….

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With food prices increasingly global, particularly as a result of increases in American ethanol production targets, Japan is seeing the first price rises for many years across a broad range of products, including bread, beer, noodles and other staples.

I doubt we are going to see a corresponding increase in pay for foreigners working here in Japan in the near future though.

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As a little aside, when we were in Akita late last year we saw some properties being advertised for sale there. The cheapest houses were 1,200,000 yen – and that is for a house! In the middle of nowhere, and pretty run down, but insanely cheap! More normal and livable house started at around 3 times that.

Here is a list of the latest properties listed on the Japan Keibai website:

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The major reason for the closures cited by Hanamasa President Mr. Onno is the perceived safety risks associated with the chains predominantly Chinese sourced products. Increased transport costs have also been given as a reason for the closures. Although not mentioned, the gradually rising costs of products from China, coupled with the weak yen must also have been factors in the decision.

Hanamasa was a supermarket we used quite frequently, and its closure will be a loss for our area, as the remainder of supermarkets in the Azabujuban area tend to cater to the more wealthier ends of the market. I don’t mind buying products from brands such as Hanamasa when all that differs from comparable products is the packaging.

The president of Hanamasa also stated that this wasn’t related to the food poisoning caused by imported gyouza, how ever that incident would have reinforced the necessity for the closures.

In some ways this is a promising sign for the Japanese economy – the current distrust of Chinese products should see more consumers purchasing locally produced products and thus infusing local markets with higher cash inputs. This coupled with rising prices in many product lines should also see improvements in profit margins for Japanese producers in the mid-term which in turn will have more of a stimulating effect on the economy than Japan’s low interest rate mania has proved to.

But I will miss cheap raspberry jam!

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Hit by scandals repeatedly, Nova has recently been punished by the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for dubious business practices which involved misleading advertising and unfair treatment of their customers.

In a Mainichi article today they are criticized for this, as well as for the way that instead of focusing on improving the English ability of their customers (which surely should be their core business goal) they have focused on expansion at the expense of all else, with understandable resulting cash flow problems. The article – Business pundit: ‘Blame it on the boss of NOVA’ is well worth a read.

Questioning why Japanese people seem unable to learn English, and why companies such as Nova fail to deliver in most cases is something I feel that
MEXT : The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology needs to seriously investigate.

Of course most Japanese people willl continue their love affair with Nova: the rabbit is just too cute not too!

(Nova Usagi picture is from this site: Grassroot Design which has a useful Nova FAQ page).

Business pundit: ‘Blame it on the boss of NOVA’

Sapio (7/21)

The NOVA chain of conversation schools — whose slogan is “ekimae ryugaku” (study abroad in front of the train station) — operates roughly half the English conversation schools in Japan. Earlier this year, in response to a stream of bitter customer complaints, the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government investigated the company and confirmed that some of NOVA’s 800 schools had indeed engaged in a number of dubious practices, such as refusing to refund tuition fees to students canceling lessons.

As a result, on June 13 the chain was ordered to partially suspend business for six months — a draconian penalty by Japanese standards, and one that threatens the company’s very existence.

Writing in Sapio (7/25), a biweekly self-described “international intelligence magazine,” business pundit Ken’ichi Ohmae asks why these problems occurred. And more to the point, he ponders, with so many Japanese enrolled in conversation schools, why does the nation’s level of spoken English remain so poor?

For a time NOVA grew, and founder and CEO Nozomu Saruhashi was praised as a dynamic and charismatic businessman. But like so many success stories these days, Ohmae notes, it was an illusion, analogous to the tale of the emperor’s new clothes. NOVA began running out of steam and has finished in the red for the last two fiscal years.

How did this mess come about? The first problem, Ohmae points out, is inherent in the English-teaching trade itself. For the past decade, while demand for English has been booming in other countries, from South Korea and China to Germany and France, the Japanese have been spinning their wheels. Japan’s average TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score results are the lowest among all advanced economies, around the level of North Korea.

This situation, Ohmae writes, has fostered a “loser mentality,” where learners feel that there is no benefit to continuing their studies. Of course the conversation schools are not entirely to blame: It’s students’ lack of persistence, which leads to their piecemeal, on-again, off-again approach, that stands in the way of language mastery.

A second problem relates to NOVA’s management. In recent years, the media has loved to lavish attention on flamboyant, high-profile entrepreneurs. These so-called “shogun-sama” businessmen typically set unreasonably high objectives for their companies, and while achieving initial rapid growth, they often begin to overlook the key source of their success — which, in the case of English schools, are the students who constitute the source of revenues.

NOVA’s high growth trajectory was achieved on the basis of aggressive marketing, such as its management’s boast that it would “open 1,000 schools,” — when what it should really have been doing was vowing to raise the level of its students’ English ability.

Of course, Ohmae points out, problems are by no means confined to conversation schools, but are rampant throughout the Japanese business world.

A common factor in recent scandals involving the Goodwill Group (C0MSN nursing homes), Katoyoshi (frozen foods), Reins International (food retailing) and others, says Ohmae, is the presence of charismatic and energetic founders who, at some point in their companies’ meteoric growth lost sight of their customer base and forged ahead with their eyes focused only on the bottom line. Because of the personalized, do-it-alone style of top-down management, such companies typically fail to benefit from frank advice offered by directors or advisors from outside the organization. And if the regular directors fail to speak out at policy meetings, then no devil’s advocate is in a position to restrain the cocky leader’s impulses.

Ultimately, the main cause of NOVA’s problems can be attributed to slumping demand at English conversation schools. To some degree, the media has reported that English-related business has become saturated and that schools have become overly aggressive in soliciting students, but this doesn’t reflect the actual situation. The prolonged decline of conversation schools can be laid at the door of their failure to show concrete results: I.e. the ability of their students to speak the language hasn’t improved.

Despite the expanding status of English as the de facto standard for international business communications — as evidenced by the learning boom it enjoys in many other countries at present — it strikes Ohmae as exceedingly strange for demand to be on the decline only in Japan.

“I get the impression that over the past 10 years or so, Japanese have become resigned that their English won’t get any better, and that their desire to master the language is presently on the decline. If that’s the case, then it’s natural that a company like NOVA, which is going against the prevailing trends by attempting to expand, would become so bent out of shape.

“That said,” Ohmae concludes in Sapio, “The apparent decline in the desire for self improvement may spell even bigger problems for Japanese.” (By Masuo Kamiyama, People’s Pick contributor)

July 21, 2007

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There is a saying about travelling to China – the Chinese will eat anything with legs except for tables and anything with wings except for airplanes – and this story… well, lets just say read the article and find out for yourself.

It makes me glad I am a vegetarian:

I remember the host on a program about animal rights saying, “Please take care of our animals. It will be good for everyone.” However, some Chinese don’t think about the animals when eating meat. They dare to eat anything but aren’t aware that what they are eating may actually be harmful to them.

Ah Chang, who has worked in the restaurant industry for many years in China, has witnessed the use of all kinds of tricks used to fool the public into buying inferior meat. The following is his experience as a kitchen helper in a restaurant in Guangdong Province.

Five years ago, I left Guangxi Province for the modernized Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province. With the help of a friend from my hometown, I was interviewed by restaurant owner Peng Da, and eventually hired as a kitchen helper. When the boss introduced me to the “Big Guy” – a popular name for a chef, I was shocked to see that the “Big Guy” was a female. Everyone called her Sister Rong. Sister Rong was in her 30s and was quite attractive. She told me that my responsibilities included killing animals, cutting and chopping various meats and bones, and preparing the meat before it was cooked.

On my second day at the restaurant, Rong pulled me over and said, “Ah Chang, since you are new to this field I will teach you a lesson: How to “use” the weigh scale. Our scale is accurate, but the displayed weights are not. Four hundred grams will show as 500 grams. This is not trickery but rather a common practice in this profession. All restaurants are doing this.”

Under Rong’s guidance, I quickly learned to use the scale. According to Wu Tian, when there were customers watching us, we should be careful not to let them see us exchanging bigger pieces of meat with smaller ones; or after killing a fish, cutting a section from it. Generally speaking, it was an open secret in this profession. Only when serving our friends would we not cheat, as our conscience’s wouldn’t allow it.

The Peng Da Restaurant was flourishing during the time I worked there. Every morning I had to kill many cats, sometimes five or six, and sometimes as many as ten. However, I didn’t see the cat meat sold in the restaurant. What happened to the meat? After thinking about it for a long time, I still couldn’t figure it out. Later, I paid more attention and found that some of the cat meat was stewed with medicinal herbs, and sold as stewed leopard meat with medicinal herbs for 198 yuan (approximately US$24.25) per dish. When Rong saw that I was confused, she said, “Leopard meat stewed with medicinal herbs is the signature soup of our restaurant. Cats are very common, so only by advertising the meat as being from a wild animal would it be attractive to diners. After removing the heads and claws and soaking the cat bodies in the herbs, even the smartest diner can’t discern that what they are eating is cat meat. Cat meat cost us 20 yuan (approximately US$2.50) for each carcass, but leopard meat cost 138 yuan (approximately US$17.25) per kilogram.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

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He posted about his experiences setting up an English school in Japan, and compares this with working for the “big” four – the main english teaching companies. His experience was that it took four months to achieve income parity with an instructor at one of those companies which is an excellent achievement . Well worth checking out if you are thinking of doing something similar.

If you are looking for a general directory covering businesses throughout Japan the Japan Telephone Directory – iTownPage is a good place to start, although the interface is not particularly well designed.

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“つくば飲食店メモ　Eatout Tsukuba

Memo for daily eating out in Tsukuba. Classified by areas.

Eatout Tsukuba is a blog with mini reviews and information about restaurants around the Tsukuba area. Seems to be updated on a reasonably regular basis.

The reviews include the type of food on offer as well as the price range, with notes in both English and Japanese.

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