Japan on Nick Wang

HK International Design and Innovation Forum

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:41:09 +0000

香港國際設計創意研討會 HK International Design and Innovation Forum 你都可以設計俾住好D，無印良品，LEGO You can design for GOD, MUJI and LEGO too!

Thank you for coming and making this a great event!

Please share your photos on Flickr tagged with “hkdesigninnovationforum” before Sunday night. Wacom is giving away 3 Bamboo Fun S drawing tablets and we will announce the winners here on Monday. And the winner is…..

So what was the process I used and what was I looking for? I looked through the photos with Flickr Slideshow on all photos tagged with “hkdesigninnovationforum”. What I was looking for was not just beautiful portraits of the speakers, but a sense of “users participation”. After all, this was a “User Generated” event - so it is about “the people”, and that’s what I looked for in the winning photo. So, congratulations to se_ea, you’ll be contacted through Flickr mail about the prize. Thanks to everyone who share photos on Flickr. It is the best platform to share information from a photo to the world. (Facebook is only good for sharing photos with your “friends”, so it is not ideal to pool together photos for public events.) Finally, I’ve just created a cuusoo.com 空想生活 Hong Kong Group for those of you interested in design, user innovation and user generated products to stay connected with Kohei and cuusoo.com in Japan! Any other suggestions?? Let me know! Date: May 2nd, 2009 Time: 2:00pm - 5:00pm (Discussions begin at 2:30pm) **Address:**Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre 30 pak tin street, shek kip mei kowloon, hong kong

HKDUG’s Nicholas Wang is proud to have the opportunity to gather two leading luminaries of Asian design to share their experiences with you. Kohei Nishiyama, founder of the Tokyo-based online design company cuusoo.com and Douglas Young, founder of Hong Kong design-based retailer G.O.D. Both Mr. Nishiyama and Mr. Young have been hard at work pushing the design and innovation envelope for over 10 years, you will be able to hear about their experiences and what drives them to success. HKDUG的Nicholas Wang有幸邀請到亞洲設計界兩位傑出權威者將其經歷與大家分享。第一位是日本東京網上設計公司cuusoo.com的創辦人, 西山浩平先生。第二位是香港本土生活品味店「住好D」的創辦人, 楊志超先生。兩位大師致力推動並革新創意設計的界限已有逾十年經驗, 大家將可諦聽兩位的歷程及成功心得。 RSVP here! Kohei Nishiyama

Since 1997, long before the Web 2.0 trend toward co-creation, Kohei Nishiyama has been running an innovative online product development community. The system, used by the design-centric Japanese retailer MUJI and soon to be rolled out globally by LEGO, has manufacturers working with consumers to design products - from inception to manufacturing. Started off as an ideal to make “people’s wishes come true”, cuusoo.com is now synonymous with crowdsourcing. Mr. Nishiyama will be sharing with us how massive online collaboration can create sophisticated design products. 西山浩平 遠於Web 2.0成為”共同創造”概念大趨勢前的1997年起, 西山浩平早已引入一個極具創意的網上產品發展社群平台。以設計為核心的日本零售店「無印良品」以及即將全球性推行採用此方式的LEGO集團, 讓製造商從始到末與消費者共同設計產品。由最初「想令每一個人也能實現所想」的理念, 至現今的cuusoo.com已成了「群眾外包」設計的俵俵者。西山先生將與大家分享如何透過網上協作創出精緻產品。 Douglas Young

Douglas Young launched the Hong Kong-based homeware and accessories company Goods of Desire (GOD) in 1996 with a mission to bring better homegrown design into people’s lives. G.O.D., the acronym which sounds like “to live better” in Cantonese, started out by capturing Hong Kong’s icons and turning them into art forms and retail objects to be appreciated as affordable art. Mr. Young’s designs are inspired by Hong Kong’s unique cultural identity, they’re often iconic but with a twist, so people of Hong Kong can immediately identify with them, while putting a smile on their faces. Mr. Young has the foresight to begin collecting items of cultural significance more than 20 years ago, their G.O.D. Street Culture Museum is now a database for current and future designers to draw inspirations on. When Mr. Young learned of this meaningful event, he graciously accepted the invite and lend us a venue to make this happen. 楊志超 楊志超先生於1996年創辦本土生活品味店「G..O.D」的宗旨是要將優質本土設計引進港人的生活。G..O.D, 廣東話俚語即「住好啲」, 意思就是要提升生活質素, 最初將一些香港代表物融入產品, 變為讓大眾可欣賞的廉價藝術品。楊先生的設計靈感源於香港獨特的文化身份, 往往以一些大家熟悉, 而加進了鬼馬元素的設計為材, 讓港人能即時發出會心微笑。早有遠見的楊先生在20多年前已開始蒐集具文化價值的物品, 住好啲石硤HEA街頭文化館現已成為各設計師攝取靈感的資料庫。身為本地設計界權威, 楊先生得悉此活動後, 慷慨地接受邀請並騰出場地以舉行是次項目。 Thomas Crampton

One of Asia’s most influential bloggers and a career correspondent at New York Times and International Herald Tribune. Now Asia-Pacific director of Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Thomas draws deep experience from both the old and new media world. You can read his blog at http://www.thomascrampton.com. Thomas will lead Mr. Nishiyama and Mr. Young in panel discussion in the first half of the event. All attendees will be invited to join in on discussions in the second half. 亞洲其中一位最具影響力的網誌人兼國際先驅導報及紐約時報記者, 現任奧美公共關係國際集團360 Digital Influence的亞太總監。Thomas Crampton先生是新舊傳媒界的資深人士。大家可到www.thomascrampton.com細閱其網路日誌。Thomas Crampton先生將會於活動時間的首半節主持有西山先生及楊先生發表意見的專題討論, 然後於後半節邀請在場參加者一起投入討論。 Nicholas Wang

The organizer behind this event, Nick is an Internet and Social Media expert with experience at some of the largest Internet companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft MSN.com. Having spent half of his life living and working in the US, he envisions the loss of Hong Kong’s competitive edge if the people of Hong Kong continue to abandon long term investments in creative designs and I.T. expertise. Nick is now actively involved in the HKDUG - Hong Kong Drupal User Group, social media communities, and founded Sharingan Consulting as a mean to pursue his vision of a digital future of Hong Kong. 負責是次活動的節目統籌。Nicholas Wang是曾任職雅虎及微軟MSN.com等網絡鉅子的網絡科技與社會媒體專家。主要於美國生活的他預料香港人若繼續漠視創意設計和資訊科技這些長線投資便會失掉競爭優勢。Nicholas Wang現致力實現其對香港數碼未來的願景, 並活躍於香港Drupal User Group及其他社群媒體。 Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160525385437 Thomas Crampton’s Blog Entry: http://www.thomascrampton.com/hong-kong/meet-2-great-asian-designers-in-hong-kong/ Nick’s Blog Entry: http://cloneofsnake.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/hong-kong-international-design-and-innovation-forum

Twitter tag hkdesigninnovationforum

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遺失了的記事：2009年5月 | Daisy’s Digital Anthology — 2009-09-06 12:50:58

[…] Before I Die – 香港國際設計創意研討會 Hong Kong International Design and Innovation… Before I Die – HK Design Innovation Forum Photo Report HODUCKYEE DesignIdeas – Hong […]

香港國際設計創意研討會 Hong Kong International Design and Innovation Forum

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:44:45 +0000

香港國際設計創意研討會 Hong Kong International Design and Innovation Forum - Please visit the official site and RSVP here.

Picture of Kohei Nishiyama, founder of cuusoo.com and creator of the Design-to-Order process. (Taken by Joi Ito shared on Flickr) (This is actually an email I sent out to my comrades, posting it on this blog to help spread the word.) Dear all, A friend of mine, Mr. Kohei Nishiyama, is coming to HK in the last week of April and I’m trying to create a “Design and Innovation” event on Saturday, May 2nd, so that he can make a speech and share his experience with the people of HK. Kohei is the founder of cuusoo.com, where consumers, designers and manufacturers are pulled together to make “wishes come true”! Users submit their “wishes”, designers transform these “wishes” into concrete designs and manufactures turn the designs into real products! They have partnerships with internationally well known brands like MUJI and LEGO. Thomas Crampton is a former NY Times reporter and he had recently interviewed Kohei while in Switzerland. I met with Tom on Sunday and he told me he has been trying to get Kohei to come to HK too, so he’s happy about the news and has offered to help me with the event. Check out his interview: http://www.thomascrampton.com/internet/kohei-nishiyama-co-creation-at-muji-and-lego/

▶ YouTube video

For more info on Mr. Nishiyama, check out:

US - Japan Innovators network - Kohei Nishiyama (西山浩平) - CEO & Founder, elephant design co., ltd.
cuusoo.com Personally, I am disappointed to see that while Hong Kong does not lack design talents, the society itself and the business communities don’t seem to value these people very much. The same goes for technology and innovation. In creating an international Design and Innovation event, I hope to help change the mindset of HK people and businesses, to put more emphasis back in “Creativity and Innovation”, and open their eyes to see the long term benefits of having a healthy creative industry in HK. So, if you’re also passionate about design and innovation, please don’t hesitate to contact me at nicholas.wangyahoo{period or dot or full stop}com or simply leave a comment here. Be it sponsors or venue choices, speakers or promoters, I need all the help I need in order to successfully pull this off in such a short period of time! Thank you, -Nicholas Wang

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HK Design Innovation Forum Photo Report « Before I Die — 2009-05-06 11:13:05

[…] Preparation and Result of my Monbukagakusho ApplicationTravel Blog - 2006/03/28 - Hakone, Japan香港國際設計創意研討會 Hong Kong International Design and Innovation ForumManagement Problems in Hong Kong (and generally in Asian Companies)Monbukagakusho - the reason why I […]

Private: Tokyo U Studies is Fail, but Work in Tokyo is Go

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:36:34 +0000

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Denial Letter from Todai :(, originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

This is the letter I got back from the University of Tokyo. Yes, after months of research and preparation and writing that long ass research proposal, this simple 2 liners is what I got. “Sorry, you didn’t pass.” As I’ve noted before, I found out that they had removed the English info page for the foreign research student program in December. That already gave me a signal that they really are not ready to accept anyone… except may be the Monbusho scholarship receivers. So, I’m not too surprised. That was back in end of December. After that, I moved on to plan B, moved to Hong Kong to work with a couple of my college schoolmates on a web business. Also trying my hands on the local HK job market, but HK is a strange place… it values nothing other than Finance. My choices here are either work at an investment bank’s IT department and make tons of money but be bored to death, or go on my own starting a business. There is very little to choose from in between, there isn’t any large Internet companies that value high level IT folks and willing to pay a fair amount for them. (I guess everyone can easily get cheaper IT people in China.)

However, the good news for me is, back in February, I was contacted by one of friends whom I had met in New York, and whom had helped me tremendously with my applications to Monbusho and Todai. It turns out, his company is preparing to expand to the US / English market and he’s in the process of recruiting experienced IT professionals like myself. This is why networking is so important folks! Throughout the years, I’ve enjoying knowing and working with a lot of talented people. I am always interested in knowing what they do, what are their personalities, what are they good at? Because I know, one day, I’ll need their help or I’ll know someone that’s looking for someone with some specific skills, and I can hook them up. This is professional networking. For example, in this instance, my friend here found me, and I’m already looking at my list of professional friends… whose skills will I need? There’s an Associate Manager of Strategic Partner Development at Google, who used to be a Business Operations Analyst at Yahoo. She was extremely good at explaining to our customers how our business was helping them. (using data that I provided her.) She can really help out on communications. There’s an experienced Marketing Director who used to work for Microsoft and has since moved on to greener pastures. She can surely give us good advices in marketing. There’s an advertisement editor at Google/Youtube who could help on the ins and outs of advertising. A long time friend of mine who went to Cal Tech, and is now a Senior Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineer at General Motors. A manager of Corporate Social Responsibility at Burberry, who knows a lot of people and is definitely a good person to have in the current “environmentally conscious” corporate world. A multi talented designer from France. An I.T. security expert. Numerous talented developers and engineers…. etc. All of these people play a part in my plan for the future of the US expansion of this Japanese company! Really looking forward to this challenge! Next time, will update this blog on my recent studies on Drupal and web development.

Comments

admin — 2008-04-10 09:53:21

Azad!!! Whassup bro?!!! Congrats on the planned marriage! LOL… (wonder how lil’ bro is doing w/ his kid…) Man! Your biz is doing good enough for u to move to Hawaii huh?! That’s awesome! Dude, I have so much to talk to u about! I’ve lined up this opportunity in Tokyo, I’ll manage their expansion into the US market! May reach out to you if the owner is interested in the Latin America market. I’m really excited about this opportunity! His business is revolutionary! And my goal is to help it become a household name!!! Also been working with new web marketing firms in HK and Japan, I’ve been thinking how I can connect you to them… Let’s talk about the details over the phone! Jose IM’ed me last month, not sure how he’s doing though. Dude, how much tax u have to pay for last year? I paid that shit load for my Yahoo stock options, but could only get $7000 back from uncle Sam… Shit! LOL

AZ from Yahoo!NY — 2008-04-10 00:59:58

Hey there Nicky-James, wow, so this is what you have been up too, hiding in HK huh! Man, I miss you bro and all your old nintendo games. How’s life in HK? I still live in NY and business is doing great. Never went back to 9-5. Actually, my gf and I are looking into getting married and may be moving to Hawaii. I’m just waiting to settle a few biz stuff. Heard from Jose? How are your wife n family doing? Email me. Peace and Prosperity

Still waiting for the University of Tokyo

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 02:47:28 +0000

I’ve written about applying to the University of Tokyo in a previous post. The submission period for that “Foreign Research Student” program at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies was back in October, and I had my application FedEx’ed over in mid-October. The University of Tokyo didn’t send me any acknowledgment notice of having received my application, all I know is from my FedEx tracking number, someone had signed for my package. I knew that they would release the results in December, but it’s now December 29th and I still haven’t received any news yet. :( A couple of weeks back, I went back to look at the info page for the “Foreign Research Student” program, to my horror, the English page has been taken off their website!! The Japanese version is still there, and from it I verified that the results will be sent out in late December. I know the English version was a little out of date, but why had they taken it offline completely rather than updating it? Are they not welcoming “foreigners” in their “Foreign Research Students” program? (Why call it “Foreign Research Students” then??) This week though, I missed a delivery from the Post Office. They left me a slip in the mailbox, I’m not sure what it is but this may be a certified letter from the University of Tokyo… Oh God, I’m so nervous. I’ve done my best in gathering all the requirements and written a pretty damn good research proposal (as seen here in Japanese). I keep telling myself to prepare for the worst, but I know that if I get a rejection letter, I’m still going to be devastated! Meanwhile, it’s more waiting until I go to the Post Office to pick up the mysterious letter / parcel on Monday. If there is a God, I need your blessing now!

ニュースメディアに関するクラウドソーシング

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:30:16 +0000

Here’s my research proposal for the Graduate School Application for International Research Students at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies. It’s translated into Japanese by my friend Satoko. After spending more than 3 months writing and revising my proposal in English, I had to look for a translator to put it into Japanese. Since I was in Hong Kong at the time, I thought I’d find a local translator to help me. Unfortunately, the only thing I could find was a company that doesn’t have anyone who has a good command of English. I spent HKD $1300 but after receiving the end product, I had to schedule a meeting with the owner of the company and sat down with her for an entire afternoon to redo the whole thing. Still, that wasn’t good enough and my friend Satoko took time out of her busy school schedule to help me polish the paper to this final version. So, here it is!

研究計画書（表紙）研究テーマについて、過去の研究業績の詳しい説明、問題意識、今後の研究の具体的計画などを論文形式にまとめること。本紙を表紙として、4000字程度（A4版任意用紙３枚程度）にまとめた研究計画書を添付して提出すること。研究テーマニュースメディアに関するクラウドソーシング研究要旨（日本語で200字程度）この研究の目的はクラウドソーシング及びインターネット上でユーザーが配信する情報の歴史を詳しく研究報告することです。ウィキペディアに代表されるクラウドソーシング・ウェブサイトが人気を獲得し、成功した要因を追求し、クラウドソーシングを活用したジャーナリズムニュースサイトのスピード性、精密性、正確性、ディテール性、信頼性、スコープ性を伝統的メディアニュースと比較検討します。また、将来のモバイルインターネット使用に伴いクラウドソーシングによるニュースメディアがどのように成長するかを予測します。

– アメリカでは、大企業による消費者に対する理不尽な対応が相次ぐ中、消費者がconsumerist.com やyoutube.comなどのウェブサイトで意見交換を行い団結し、企業に対して訴訟を起こし、勝訴する事態が起きています。 2005年７月の、テロリストによって地下鉄とバスが爆破されたロンドンテロ事件では、出勤途中のバスの乗客が撮った事件現場の写真がフリッカー（flickr）にアップロードされ、それに対してのコメントが多数寄せられました。また、2001年には、ウィキペディア"フリー百科事典"が登場し、現在200万件にのぼる記事がユーザーによって作成、編集されています。一般の人々が専門家に代わり、他の消費者の為にコンテンツ作成を行うこの大衆の貢献（crowd contribution) は、クラウドソーシングと呼ばれています。私の研究はどのようにしてクラウドソーシングがニュースメディアに適用されるのかという点に焦点を置いています。過去の研究業績 1994年ワシントン大学に入学し、初めてインターネットを使用しました。それをきっかけにインターネットに興味を持ち、それからの4年間、私はＣ、ＶＢ、Javaなどのプログラム、及びデータベース製作やネットワークの立ち上げを学びました。私の専攻は運営管理と情報システムでした。卒業課題の一つではアメリカの一般家庭でのブロードバンドによるインターネット接続の実現可能性を調査しました。具体的にはケーブルと電話会社の出版物から情報を収集し、雑誌やオンラインで出版されていた最新情報を調査、また電話会社の代表者と直接コンタクトをとり、サービスの値段や私の住む地域で入手可能なサービスについて聞き取り調査をしました。この調査の結果、電話回線交換所から家庭まで電話線を延長する作業が高コストになるという"ラストマイル"と呼ばれる問題点を報告しました。結論としてアメリカに普及している古い電話回線の構造が、電話会社が低コストの高速インターネット接続サービスを提供する妨げになっていることを指摘し、将来はケーブルテレビ・ネットワークが電話会社に代わって比較的高速なインターネット接続サービスを提供することで、この市場を獲得することを予測しました。マイクロソフト社での勤務時、新規に開設された運営部門で、MSN.comに関連する1500の企業レベルのサーバーのウェブファーム管理を行いました。数百人のエンジニアが共同で問題を探り、解決できる方法を研究しました。また、知識銀行（knowledge bank)に知識を集中させることができないかと考え、その解決策として、SQLサーバデーターベースを基礎にし、ASPを使用したウェブ・チケティング・システムを社内開発しました。次の勤務先であるYahooでは、別々に作成された二つのウェブと財務システムのデータを統合する問題を解決する為に採用されました。データ統合とデータ移行のプロジェクトを始動させ、それに関して複数の開発チームの運営管理を担当しました。私は大量データの保存と情報回収の方法を集中的に学び、PHPやMySQLを使用したトラッキング・システムの開発を助力しました。Yahooで勤務した５年間の間に、“Web 2.0"が展開し始めていました。その中で私が一番感銘を受けたのは、フリッカー(flickr)というウェブサイトで使用されていた、ユーザーが自分の写真を見つけられるよう、個々のユーザーに合わせた"タグ"を配信する精巧なタグシステムでした。このシステムは容易にデータを保存、検索、回収する方法に革命を起こしました。Flickrが後にYahooに買収された後、私はタグシステムを自分のプロジェクトに積極的に採用しました。問題意識私のこれまでの経験はデータベースを基礎とした問題と知識を集中させる方法に集中した、主に技術的なものでした。この経験は現行のクラウドソーシングウェブサイトと技術的に近似性があり、相違点としては、私の過去の業績は一般に公開されたシステムではなく、社内の従業員にのみ提供されていたという点です。この経験はウェブにおけるクラウドソーイングに関する見識を与えてくれました。大切な点は、技術はコンテンツの保存、探索を容易にする鍵にすぎないということです。これらの職務経験を通して、コンテンツの質やユーザーの参加度によって、使用されている技術が成功しているかどうかを測ることを学びました。私は技術的な面でクラウドソーシングに精通しているだけでなく、個人的にもクラウドソーシングを使用、参加しています。アメリカのテレビはテレビ局側が視聴者に見せたい番組しか作らず、視聴者にアナリストの意見を押し付ける傾向があるので、私はアメリカのテレビニュースは好きではありません。nowpublic.comやohmynews.co.jp（オーマイニュース）のようなクラウドソーシングニュースサイトで事実のみを得る方を好みます。今年 3月に私の祖父が癌と宣告されましたが、ウィキペディアやヤフーのヘルスグループで医者や患者らが医学書からの情報だけでなく、自身の治療状況や体験などを掲載しているのを参考にすることができました。このような一般大衆から発信されたニュースや情報は、着実と人気を得、将来的にはこれまでの専門的なソースに代わって、より信頼されるニュースソースとなり得ると予測しています。私はクラウドソーシングの権威であるWired magazineのジェフ・ハウや、実際にお会いしたことのあるハーバード･ビジネススクール教授のカーリム・ラカニ氏のブログを常にチェックし、クラウドソーシングに関する最新ニュースを常に追っています。今後の研究の具体的計画クラウドソーシングという用語は2006年に作り出されたばかりの造語ですが、この分野に関する技術革新は驚異的なスピードで進んでいます。近年、少なくとも２５チームものクラウドソーシングについての研究プロジェクトチームが世界中に存在しています。これらのプロジェクトチームは、the University of Vienna, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm Sweden, Abo Akademi University of Finland, Harvard Business School, MIT, Stanford University, NYU, New York Law School, University of Utah, UT Austin, University of Haifa in Israel その他オランダ、カナダ、イギリス、ペルーの大学などの大学を含んでいます。私の研究の一環として、私の研究をクラウドソーシングし、世界中の研究者と分ち合うことを考えています。それにより、個々の研究課題を投稿し、意見交換や、相互評価を行うことができます。私の研究目標はまず、クラウドソーシングの歴史とユーザーによるウェブコンテンツ一般を調査報告することです。歴史的事実を確認した後、 wikipedia, ohmynews, nowpublic, flickrなどの最も普及しているクラウドソーシング・ウェブサイトの成功の要因を確定したいと思います。そして、クラウドソーシング・ジャーナリズムに焦点をあて、クラウドソーシング･ニュースサイトのスピード性、真実性、ディテール性、信頼性、範囲、重複、盗作などの見地から、従来のニュースメディアと比較検討していきます。上記の研究でプランクラウドソーシング・ウェブサイトの過去･現在に関する記録作業が完成します。その次のステップとしてはウェブサイトの将来的、連続的成功に関する問題を提起していきます。私の推測では、クラウドソーシング・ウェッブサイトはモバイル・インターネットの機能として普及していくと思われ、これは3.5G高速度モバイル・ネットワークとiPhoneのようのMID (Mobile Internet Device)の普及から見ても明らかです。現代産業のリーダーが将来に備えどのような研究開発を行っているかについて研究調査を行い、また、現在モバイル・ネットの日本での利用状況を考察します。私の研究目的はジャーナリズムに重点を置いたクラウドソーシングの使用について綿密な歴史的調査を行うことです。貴大学の学際情報学府の大学院生としてこの研究プロジェクトを続けられることを心から希望しています。また、この研究プロジェクトが林先生の講義で利用していただけるとすれば、学際情報学府の他の学生にもクラウドソーシングジャーナリズムに関して興味を持ってもらえるのではないかと思っています。個人的な視点では、人生のこの時点で何をすべきなのかを熟考しているところです。一般企業での職務で私の人生を終らせるべきではないと考えています。自分に出来る社会に貢献できる有意義な事は出来ないかと考えたところ、クラウドソーシングコミュニティーが私の最優先事項であることに気づきました。クラウドソーシング産業に従事する友人に助言を求めたところ、東京大学の卒業生であるcuusoo.comの西山浩平氏が東京大学で研究を続けるよう助言してくださいました。こうして東京大学大学院学際情報学府と出会う事ができました。私の経験と研究が貴大学に貢献でき、また貴大学で私の学問的、また専門的知識をさらに深めることが出来ればと願っています。

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Still waiting for the University of Tokyo | My Journey to Japan — 2008-04-16 11:28:25

[…] « ニュースメディアに関するクラウドソーシング Yoyo Boy, I’d rather have you be your naughty self […]

Sold our house in Seattle, bought a new condo in New York

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:18:45 +0000

I’ve meant to come back and post about all the things that I’ve been doing, but I’m not too good with multi-tasking… Whenever I’m too concentrated on one thing, I don’t want to spread myself out to do other things. Anyway, after my last post and my last day at Yahoo!, I flew back to Seattle and stayed for a couple of months. Our family house was still there with no one living in it, so my mom and I went back to pack everything up and put it on the market. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to move from a home of more than 15 years, but I can tell you it’s no fun at all! How I wished DragonBall’s Capsule Corp. was real… LOL. While I was in Seattle, I continued to communicate with my friends at cuusoo.com and refine my research plan. (I’ll post it on here later.) I also emailed the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo to clarify about the research plan and the “Supervising Faculty of Choice”. You have to fill out that field on your research plan, but it seems that you don’t have to contact the professor beforehand. I sent 3 emails to 3 different faculty members, only the 1st one returned my email, the rests simply ignored me. (I sent the email in Japanese too! I’ll also post that here later.) Another requirement was the “Japanese Language Proficiency Level” form, which I needed to find a teacher to administer some sort of test to me. This turned out to be a lot harder than I originally thought! No one at the University of Washington’s Japanese department could do that for me. In the end, I went back and contacted Yamada Keiko in New York, whom I had gotten a last minute crash course from back then for the interview of the position at Yahoo Japan. She gave me the sample JLPT Level 2 test, which was pretty tough!

There are 4 levels, with level 1 being the toughest. I haven’t been doing any studying at all for the past 2 months in Seattle, so I was really surprised that I still almost passed the test! Back in New York, my mom came and stayed at my sister’s place for about a month… during that time, she looked at a few condo’s with my sister. Admittedly, the housing market is on shaky grounds in the US right now… but it seems like it’s not affecting New York City at all! In the end, I showed my mom the condo that Queenie and I were going to buy… it’s a brand new 600 sq. ft. 1 bed 1 bath with a fairly large private basement storage with washer and dryer, conveniently located on 32nd Street near 30th Ave in Astoria. There are only 8 units in the 4 stories building, and we already put a deposit on the unit on the 3rd floor facing the back. My mom ended up paying the same price as us and got the unit facing the front, so together we now own the entire 3rd floor. Buying real estates in NYC have so many hidden costs! May be I should write about that too another time. Then, in less than a month’s time, we had to pack up and move everything in our apartment into storage, coz we had to fly to Hong Kong to prepare for our wedding. I’m in Hong Kong now, just finished my final research plan and had my sister send the package for me to Tokyo U. I won’t know the results until December. In the meantime, I’ll start my next project while I’m in Hong Kong.

The Best way to get into University of Tokyo as a foreign student

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 02:51:48 +0000

If you’ve read my previous post, you know I said it’s best to first apply as a “foreign trainee / research student” (外国人研究生) to the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo (東京大学大学院情報学環・学際情報学府). The truth is, unless you got the monbukagakusho scholarship, or you’re willing to fly to Japan in July and August for the entrance exam and interviews, it’s almost impossible for a foreigner to be admitted into Todai (東大 - short for Tokyo Daigaku 東京大学). Once I knew I didn’t get the Monbusho, I started looking into how to go study in Japan as a privately financed student. Apparently, there is a standardized test that you can take to gain admission as an undergraduate. It’s called the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU), it is a test carried out by the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) since 2002. It serves to evaluate whether foreign students who wish to enroll at the undergraduate level at a Japanese university possess the necessary Japanese language skills and basic academic abilities to study at such institutions.

However, this test is only administered in Japan and in a few other Asian countries and in Russia. If you live anywhere else, you’re screwed. Also, there’s no such standardized test for graduate schools. So, that means I cannot be admitted into a Japanese grad school from overseas. After doing more research, I found out that the general case of studying in Japan begins with a student first enrolling in a Japanese-language institute. (Read this link!) You can either 1) sign up for special courses for foreign students held by private universities (valid pdf link), or 2) attend a Japanese-language institutes certified by the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education. Now I don’t know about you, but it looks to me those Japanese-language institutes are not on the same level as a real university. I would definitely aim for 1 rather than 2. Check out the pdf link above for a list of universities offering Japanese Language programs for foreign students. Still, having to attend a Japanese Language course at another university means that I am still quite far away from my intended grad school in Todai. I decided to use this option as a backup, and I kept digging for info at the University of Tokyo for International Students website. I looked up admission information for international students (pdf), their International Center and Japanese Language Education, after a few emails to clarify how things work, I believe I’ve found the perfect way for me to get into Todai right away - the “foreign trainee / research student” at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies. Being a research student at Todai grants you the rights to study at their International Center’s Japanese Language school. Aside from the fact that I will be getting access to at least one faculty member at the grad school, which hopefully will translate to an advantage when I apply for a graudate student, I also find that the tuition fee is considerably lower than attending other Japanese Language schools! In the next few posts, I’ll write about what kind of research project I’ll propose. I’ll also look deeper into my backup - the Japanese courses held by private universities and report my findings here.

Comments

Wakarimasen — 2007-07-26 14:47:30

I am in a similar situation as you. I just found out that my girlfriend (a Japanese citizen studying in the U.S.) will have to return to Japan next year after we graduate in May. She already has a job lined up in Japan and now I’m struggling to find a way for us to stay together. The biggest problem is that I can’t speak japanese. I have been studying it on my own since last summer, but without any real urgency. Suddenly the realization hit me that I only have one more year to take the necessary steps for the next major stage in my life. At first I thought the only question was ‘should I go to grad school or find a job?’ But now it’s become ‘do I want to live in the U.S. or Japan?’ And if the answer is Japan, how can I realistically make that happen? I have been looking into graduate schools in Japan and found several with international programs taught in English that relate to my field (University of Tokyo, Hokkaido University, Keio University, Toyohashi University of Technology, and Tokyo Institute of Technology). However, I question whether or not I should realistically expect to get accepted into any one of these. It seems like, in general, these English language programs are actually intended for international students from developing countries in Asia. And looking at the bigger picture, I wonder if an English language masters program would even be a good idea in the long run if my intention is to live in Japan. It would give me two more years to study Japanese, but I would be constantly working in English without much free time. To hold an engineering job in Japan I would need not only conversational fluency in Japanese, but I would need to be able to read and write technical papers in Japanese. With that in mind, I would probably be better served by a Japanese language masters program, but then I am faced with the same problem of having to learn Japanese first. In this entry you mention starting by enrolling in a Japanese Language Institute. That sounds like a good way to learn Japanese faster, but these seem to be short programs, some only a few weeks or months, the longest are one year. That just doesn’t seem like enough time to become fluent and jump right into a masters program. Is it really that effective? Or are these intended for people who already have a decent grasp of Japanese language? If none of the above options are possible, I am left with less appealing choices. I can stay in the U.S., try to maintain a long distance relationship with my girlfriend, study Japanese on my own until fluent, and hopefully “someday” move to Japan and get a job there. Sounds pretty unlikely to me. If I did this it would probably mean the eventual end of my relationship, and I would likely end up in the U.S. for the rest of my life. That’s the “safe” option where I follow the beaten path. The risky option would be to put grad school and an engineering job on hold and try to get into Japan as an English teacher. I haven’t really looked into this yet, but I have heard that there is some demand for this and that there is no formal teaching degree needed. I can’t imagine that the pay would be great, but it might be a way for me to get my foot in the door. Good luck with your own efforts and if you have advice for my situation, I would love to hear it. By the way, my interest in Japan is not just due to my girlfriend; I have had the desire to live there someday since before I met her. It has just become more urgent now that our relationship is a factor.

Still waiting for the University of Tokyo | My Journey to Japan — 2007-12-30 02:56:34

[…] written about applying to the University of Tokyo in a previous post. The submission period for that “Foreign Research Student” program at the Graduate […]

Todai — 2007-12-25 07:42:57

Good for you! I have been looking up about how to get into universities in Japan as well, without much success. It seems that there are a few facilities, but they are often awkwardly unaccessible for Americans and especially Europeans. I think that teaching English would be the back up option, as it is going straight into a job without needing any kind of major qualifications. I was considering perhaps flying over there and going to prep school (which I assume costs a lot of money) for a year or so and then taking the university tests. If I fail them, there is always a chance to take it again the next year. The teaching of English at a local school can hopefully provide enough for me to live there that long, if not, there must be some place somewhere that requires a fluent English speaker (but you would probably need to be fluent in Japanese too). So, overall, I will do some more research but it seems that universities have enough applicants that can already speak Japanese and therefore are in little need for foreign students, no matter their fluency in English (and Japanese). However, there is hope, and I will be taking my JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) next December, and that might help things a little. Well, anyways, I’ll try to let you guys know, and I’ll keep looking! Gambatte kudasai!

Designing the Future: Japan’s Tech Revolution - A Customer-Driven Corporate Perspective

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:12:59 +0000

0608 02 Karim Lakhani at Japan Society Tech Epoch, originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

“It’s not about what you know, but who you know.” Networking is important in almost all aspects of life, not just when you’re job hunting.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister told me about a U.S.-Japan Innovators Project Symposium event at the Japan Society in New York. You can read about my thoughts on the event from the link above, but on this blog, I want to concentrate on “going to grad school in Japan”, and one of the most important factor is networking. The event turned out to be very enjoyable, and most importantly, I got to meet the lovely Fumiko-san at Japan Society. The next week, I sent an email to her telling her that I’m looking for info on going to grad school in Japan, and she helped me by forwarding my email to one of her contacts who went to the University of Tokyo from France. She also invited me to come back to their “2-DAY SYMPOSIUM Designing the Future: Japan’s Tech Revolution” event.

I decided to go to Friday’s Corporate Luncheon - Designing the Future: A Customer-Driven Corporate Perspective, unfortunately, it would seem that big companies such as Toyota and Panasonic are just not as “customer-driven” as I would like to see. Their speeches were all about their design ideology. I would say they are more “traditionally customer focused” than “customer driven”.

The event started with moderator Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business School giving a short intro. Karim is an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in the management of technological innovation and product development. He spoke of the blurring of the line between consumer and producers and gave youtube.com as an example in which a company shifted the production of “products” to the hands of the consumers. As a result, companies need to re-think how to adjust to the changing market where users are now active producers.

The rest of the speeches from Naoaki Nunogaki of Toyota, Naomi Hirose of Tokyo Electric Company and Toyoyuki Uematsu of Panasonic were, like I said, heavily self-centered on their company’s design ideology and had very little to do with being “customer-driven”. The meat came at the end during the Q&A session. Some of the key points that were raised during the Q&A were:

A major part of customer driven design is “understanding you customer”, gathering “customer feedback”.
“Extreme Users” now appear online to share user information that are not released by the corporations. These users collaborate to share knowledge in order to achieve their goals. e.g. to save money by sharing spending details.
From Mr. Uematsu: “It’s important for designers to protect their intellectual property”. (This is a major concern for any designers.)
From Mr. Nunogaki: “Customers cannot foresee the future needs for themselves.”
Users cannot be Designers. A designer must be a participant of the society, and be inspired and possess that special talent to design “what’s next”.

Afterwards, we were treated to a free lunch. I chatted with an industrial designer and then I met Ray Hatoyama, fellow student of Karim Lakhani at Harvard Business School and Vice President of elephant-design, US Operations. elephant-design and 空想生活 cuusoo.com are truly inspirational companies with a revolutionary idea made into a business. I learned that the founder - Mr. Kohei Nishiyama, was having a speech at the Panel Discussions the next day, so I decided to come back again to learn more about his companies. I’ll write about that in the next post.

U.S.-Japan Innovators Project Symposium

Fri, 25 May 2007 01:19:10 +0000

Last night, my sister got us free tickets to Japan Society’s “U.S.-Japan Innovators Project Symposium: Improvisation, Creativity, Collaboration: Fueling Innovation in the 21st Century”. The first speaker, Daniel Pink, is actually on a fellowship from Japan Society, and he talked to us via high-speed video link from Keio University in Tokyo. I was really impressed with the quality of both the video and audio quality. (And the quality of the actual speech itself too.) The video was projected onto a huge screen and the resolution is very high, there was no lag in neither the video nor audio feed. Anyway, his speech was about his new book - A Whole New Mind. Basically, it’s about how our left brain, which does logical things, is becoming less important than our creative right brain. I couldn’t agree with him more… especially on the issue of current education systems and standardized testing. Those stuff absolutely kills the children’s creativities. Then, we get to hear jazz musicain Marty Ashby play. Good stuff. One thing he mentioned was that children are born innovative and we adults keep taking it away. Finally, Hiroshi Tasaka, Professor at Tama University, talked about … Adult Joy… LOL! Sounds dirty. But actually, it was pretty meaningful. The things that I took away from his speech was 1) it’s hardship that makes a person grow. 2) Life is happening while you make your plans. 3) once again, it’s hardship that shapes your path in life. 4) The person who gives you a lot of pain and sadness is your Buddha. 5) The Japanese verb “to work” 働く can be interpreted as はた + らく ~ neighbour + happy. So, to work is to make your neighbours happy.(?) 6) and finally, never put your speech notes onto powerpoint and show them your audience while reading off of them. Seriously though, I enjoyed it very much, especially given my current state of “hardship”. LOL… So, my bitch-ass boss is actually my Buddha and she’s shaping my path. LOL. Enlightening!

Comments

Designing the Future: Japan’s Tech Revolution - A Customer-Driven Corporate Perspective at My Journey to Japan — 2007-06-12 11:13:20

[…] couple of weeks ago, my sister told me about a U.S.-Japan Innovators Project Symposium event at the Japan Society in New York. You can read about my thoughts on the event from the link […]

Designing the Future: Japan’s Tech Revolution - A Customer-Driven Corporate Perspective « Before I Die — 2008-12-14 09:37:30

[…] couple of weeks ago, my sister told me about a U.S.-Japan Innovators Project Symposium event at the Japan Society in New York. You can read about my thoughts on the event from the link […]

monbukagakusho

Tue, 15 May 2007 10:31:31 +0000

On the sheet titled “Field of Study and Study Program,” first write a brief, bulleted outline of your proposed field of study in Japan, and then write a detailed program of what you intend to study.

There is the possibility of extending your scholarship to pursue a master’s degree or Ph.D as a regular student at your university if your grades are high and you pass the entrance exam given by the university, but scholarship extensions are by no means automatic. You should go to Japan with the understanding that you are a research student only.

The general timetable for the scholarship application process is as follows: * May 25, 2007: Applications due at the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta. * Mid-June 2007: Interviews and exams at the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta. * End of June: Preliminary acceptances announced by Consulate. Successful applicants are instructed to contact universities for letter of acceptance. * August 20, 2007: Letter of acceptance submission deadline. * Mid- December: Tentative acceptances announced by Tokyo. * Mid- February 2008: Final response and university assignment (April departures) * April 1-7, 2008: April departures leave for Japan * July 2008: Final response and university assignment (October departures) * October 1-7, 2008: October departures leave for Japan /***** Field of Study *****/ ****** 専攻分野 ****** Proposed study program in Japan - State the outline of your major field of study on this side and the details of your study program on the back. 日本での研究計画　－　この研究計画は、選考及び大学配置の重要な参考となるので，表面に専攻分野の概要を，裏面に研究計画の詳細を具体に記入すること。 ****** 相当の日本語能力を有する者は，日本語により記入すること｡ My proposed field of study is “Information Science” - 情報科学. Through these studies, I hope to attain a high level of Japanese language skills related to technical communications, which will in turn allow me to continue on my career path to become a senior technology analyst. I intend to convert to become a regular graduate student and pursue a master’s degree after the first year. The reason for choosing “Information Science” came from my work experience at Yahoo!, which I will explain in the detailed section. The following are subjects in my intended studies: • Japanese Language • Language and Information Science • Visual Cognition • Media and Culture • Media and Semiotics • Socio-psychology Communication Studies • Search and data storage in Japanese ***** Study program in Japan in detail and concreteness（研究計画：詳細かつ具体に記入すること｡） First, upon arrival in Japan, I plan to participate in the six-month Japanese language training. I have intermediate Japanese language skills but in order to become a regular graduate student in Japan, I’ll need close to fluent level. In case I cannot reach fluent level even after my first six months in Japan, I have chosen “Information Science” as my field of studies with this in consideration. The courses in the “Information Science” major allow the students to acquire basic interdisciplinary knowledge in the various fields concerned with social and cultural phenomena related to media, communication and information. These subjects will allow me to continue to learn Japanese, while being highly relevant to my career at the same time. As I’ve said in the outline section, the reason why I chose “Information Science” is partly due to my work experience at Yahoo!. After spending more than 6 years at internet companies like Microsoft MSN.com and Yahoo! Inc., I have become an expert in database analysis. My career goal is to become a Database Architect in the Business Intelligence field. (Business Intelligence is a specialized database strategy that gathers and extracts information from historical data.) In November of 2006, a “Business Intelligence Analyst” position opened up at Yahoo! Japan. The position requires Japanese Language skills, and the qualified candidate will work closely with both Japan and the US. He/she will be responsible for bringing the US’s “Business Intelligence” technologies to Japan. This job is extremely challenging and I felt that it was the ideal position for me. I possess the technical skills and I have always wanted to work in Japan. I applied and passed the technical exams. However, on my 3rd interview with a Japanese developer, I had a difficult time with his technical questions in Japanese and so, I failed to qualify for the position. As this field is highly specialized, they have yet to find a suitable person to fill the position as of May 16th, 2007. This tells me that there’s a lack of talent in this field. After my attempt at that position, I have come to realize that, a job that works to bridge technologies between Japan and the US, is the only job that I want! In order to qualify for such a position, I will need to improve my Japanese. I started looking into graduate programs in Japan, and that was how I discovered the Monbukagakusho Scholarship. As I researched into suitable graduate courses, I kept my career goal in mind. I need a program that will allow me to be in touch with the Japanese language. It will also be beneficial if I can learn about Japanese in the current age media such as the internet and mobile phones. These are the type of data that are used in an internet company’s Business Intelligence department. After researching into some of the top universities’ graduate programs, I found “Information Science” to be an ideal match for me. Two of the universities that offer the “Information Science” graduate program are the University of Tokyo and Tohoku University. At the University of Tokyo, I found the “Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies / Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies” department. The graduate school is comprised of three courses: Cultural and Human Information Studies, Socio-information and Communication Studies and Interdisciplinary Information Sciences. The Cultural and Human Information Studies course is concerned directly with the task of constructing a new interdisciplinary field of information studies fusing aspects of the humanities and social sciences with elements of the natural sciences. Faculty members associated with this course are engaged in research on diverse topics, including information theory, evolution, ecological psychology, perception, semiotics, visual images, cultural studies, historical informatics, archiving, media literacy, media expression, education systems and design of the learning environment. The four main areas of study in this course are: (1) Life, body and environment, (2) Culture, representation and image, (3) Media expression, learning and literacy, (4) Archiving and historical informatics. Number 3 and 4 are of special interest to me as they are directly related to my career. In the Socio-information and Communication Studies Course, students acquire basic interdisciplinary knowledge in the various fields concerned with social and cultural phenomena related to media, communication and information, and carry out research and other practical applications based on this knowledge. There are six main areas of study in this course: (1) Media and journalism studies, (2) Socio-psychology and information behavior, (3) Law and policy, (4) Economics and industrial studies, (5) Sociology and history, (6) Asian regional studies. Specific examples of the kind of topics covered in lectures and seminars are electronic money, the freedom of information, and the social and behavioral effects of cellular phone usage. This course is most relevant for internet professionals like me. The last course, Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, is less relevant to me as it deals principally with mathematical and natural-science approaches to information studies, hence I won’t be going into it in details. At Tohoku University, I found the “Graduate School of Information Sciences”. It consists of four departments: Computer and Mathematical Sciences, System Information Sciences, Human-Social Information Sciences, and Applied Information Sciences. The Department of Human-Social Information Sciences has the most relevant courses for me. The staff and students of this Department aim at solving important and urgent problems that confront present and future societies from the environment, cities, population, resources, and energy. The following research topics are particularly emphasized: concepts and theories of information and communication; individual, social, political and economic functions and impacts of information and communication. The specific courses within the Department of Human-Social Information Sciences that I’ve listed in the outline includes “Language and Information Science”, which aims to elucidate the nature of the system of knowledge that enables us to use natural languages. “Visual Cognition”, which researches into areas of spatial attention, visual consciousness, human factors involved in accident proneness and cross-modal perception. These topics are highly relevant in web design in terms of placement of information. “Media and Culture”, which delves into present days’ communication medium like photographs, movies, television and the internet. This course aims to examine the media society and culture, and experimentally create a new “public sphere” communication system. Once again, highly relevant to the internet industry. “Media and Semiotics”, which aims to analyze and explain all kinds of media contents with various theories and semiotics. Various media are surveyed and researched as sign systems and cognitive schemata for social communication. In order to demonstrate the thoughts I put into choosing my field of studies, I chose to take up a large portion of the detailed section to write about my work experiences. I understand that the instruction asked for my proposed study program in detail and concreteness, but since the graduate courses’ names are quite self-explanatory, I hope that by explaining why I chose these courses, you can have a better idea of my serious attitude toward this scholarship and graduate studies in Japan. I am eager to devote my time and energy into studying in beautiful Japan. Thank you very much for your consideration. Nicholas Wang

情報工学研究者 - computer science 研究者技術者システムアナリストシステムエンジニア生産システムや企業の経営システムなどのあらゆる場面で応用していく Tohoku University 東北大学 http://www.tohoku.ac.jp/english/graduate/index.html 東北大学大学院情報科学研究科 - The Graduate School of Information Sciences (GSIS) http://www.is.tohoku.ac.jp/index.html

Human Social Information Sciences Major - 人間社会情報科学専攻
Human Information Science 人間情報学講座
Language and Information Science 言語情報学
Human Learning and Memory 学習心理情報学
Visual Cognition 認知心理情報学
Philosophy of Human Information 人間情報哲学
Text Structure and Linguistic Information 言語テキスト解析論
Media and Information Science メディア情報学講座
Media and Culture メディア文化論
Media and Semiotics メディア記号論
Applied Information Sciences Department - 応用情報科学専攻
Information and Applied Technology 応用情報技術論講座
Information Technology 情報通信技術論
Applied Informatics for Human and Life Sciences 応用生命情報学講座
Cognitive Psychology 認知情報学
Associated Laboratory 連携講座
Statistical Science of Complex Systems 複雑系統計科学 [統計数理研究所]

University of Tokyo 東京大学 http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index_e.html

School of Engineer
Department of Technology Mangement for Innovation 技術経営戦略学
イノベーション　マネジメント
プログラム・プロジェクト・マネジメント
技術ロードマッピング
イノベーションのための情報技術
リスクマネジメント
Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies / Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies　東京大学大学院情報学環・学際情報学府
Socio-information and Communication Studies

Comments

Alias — 2007-05-22 09:29:50

So how did it go? Am in one of the courses your mentioned above : )

cloneofsnake — 2007-05-22 14:36:46

I don’t know, I got all the required documents except a school adviser recommendation b’coz it has been so long ago… I got 2 recs from my managers here at Yahoo though. Really? Which course? Which university? Once I finish the interview and the Japanese test, I’ll need to contact the universities and “obtain admission as a graduate student or research student, or a letter of acceptance as a research student”. So, I need to continue doing research…

Атабек — 2008-02-18 09:24:14

Hello! So, your “field of study” and “study program” essays - How did they work? Have you got in?

cloneofsnake — 2008-02-18 22:42:01

Monbusho was denied ages ago! I didn’t give up on my plan to go to Japan though, and I applied for an independent “Foreign Research Student” program at U of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies (東京大学大学院情報学環・学際情報学府). Unfortunately, that was denied too! :( I haven’t updated my blogs lately, but there is slightly more info on my journey to Japan.

zineb — 2008-04-23 16:51:34

hello pleas can you helpe mie I am stedente in algéria and I like to sent my APPLICATION FOR JAPANESE GOVERNMENT but i have a boor english language and i can’t write my " Field of Study and Study Program" please helpe mie speciality is genetics thank you

cloneofsnake — 2008-04-24 00:37:56

Hi zineb, the “Field of Study” essay is actually the main criteria! If your speciality is in genetics, then it is important that you write, in your own language (French?), your expertise in the field and what you plan on researching. My proposal to Monbusho was made in a hurry and looking back, I realize it wasn’t enough to just state my technical expertise at work! Later on, I actually tried to apply to the University of Tokyo directly as a “foreign research student”, my research proposal was much more detailed, (and even that wasn’t enough!) So, bottomline is, write it in your own language and then have someone translate it into English or Japanese for you. Good luck!

zineb — 2008-04-24 16:32:20

thank you very much

marcela — 2009-06-10 16:07:04

help i can’t fill the “Educational background” pleaseee help meee :O

Julian — 2009-12-31 13:03:01

I just want to say to all the people that are looking for studying at Japan that this kind of proposal for me is too poor; as you can see our friend here has made a proposal based on his own personal desires. I think that Japan offers this kind of scholarships to people that has a deeply commitment with the development of their country…. If I wish to apply to a Monbukagakusho scholarship program with such a weak research proposal (at least here in Guatemala) is surely that I wouldn´t pass the first stage of the process…..

Nati — 2009-05-10 01:26:22

Hello! I need help! I dont know how I can fill Field of Study and Study Program, i Am Civil Engineer, and also another qestion is how are the test and te interview for researchers?

Had "Okinawan" food last night

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:22:06 +0000

At a place called “Suibi Japanese Restaurant” at 53rd St in Upper East Side. It’s Japanese Restaurant Week this week and I found this place on the list. At JapanesePod101, I had learned about Okinawa food like ゴーヤチャンプル and タコライス and their unique alcohol 泡盛. They didn’t have “Taco Rice”, the Goya Champuru was ok but I don’t really like that bitter plant… We ordered something that looked pretty good on the menu, it’s called 豆腐よーうー and it’s described as Tofu added with 泡盛なっとう to become a cheese like texture… well, it turns out to be the same as a Chinese 腐乳 (is that how it’s written?) A tiny block of it cost me $8.75! I felt seriously ripped off! What are some other suggested food from Okinawa? I was disappointed last night, but I’ll definitely try again if I can find another place that serves Okinawan food. :)

Why hadn't I study Japanese more seriously?

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:24:18 +0000

Just spoke with the manager for a Business Intelligence Analyst position I found on Yahoo!’s internal job board. This job is perfect for me! I’ve been working steadily toward Data Warehousing / Business Intelligence as my career path, this position requires Oracle skills (which I have, though not extremely efficient as I don’t work with Oracle databases everyday), DataStage (and ETL tool) and Japanese language skills.

I haven’t used DataStage, but I understand the ETL processes and I have been doing similar “Extract, Transform & Load” process RAW, by writing the queries in Oracle, spooling the results to text files, FTP’ing the files to another database server, loading the data into one central database and make the necessary transformation so all the data are uniform and can be queried together. Finally, setting it all up in a cron job to be run automatically. So basically, to learn to use DataStage is NOT a problem for me. It’ll be easy. The problem is the Japanese part. This position is required to communicate with Yahoo! Japan, get the right data from their web log files, ETL them into a data warehouse and create reports for them. And although I am pretty confident about my reading & listening comprehension level, the manager stated that it will basically require a native speaker… Sigh… and I thought I would have an edge here since I have the tech skills and know pretty good Japanese. This makes me regret why I hadn’t taken Japanese studies more seriously and take the JLPT exam. I’m pretty sure that if Yahoo! Japan calls me for an interview, I would do OK even now. But I’m definitely going to take the JLPT Level 2 exam this year!!! I will achieve official “native level” within this year! Now… if I can just get my hands on some DataStage skills… …

Comments

Oracle, DataStage, Japanese - What I’ll do so I can get the job next time! « Before I Die — 2007-01-24 22:56:07

[…] and Thoughts cloneofsnake 10:56 pm Since yesterday’s disastrous interview, I seriously thought about what happened, and came up with a plan to address the problems. […]

Travel Blog - 2006/03/28 - Hakone, Japan

Mon, 01 May 2006 18:03:55 +0000

P1000618 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Woke up 5:30, check out 6:15, (phone charge ¥90), Oedo-sen opens at 6:30, we had to wait for gate to open. To Shinjuku (¥170 x 2), found Odakyu-sen (at South Gate) but needed lockers for our luggages. Asked Odakyu’s staff and he said their lockers are inside but couldn’t fit our luggages, told us to go to JR next door. Asked JR dude if I can go in to use the lockers, got in, bought milk (¥110) at conbini to get ¥1000 change for lockers (¥500 x 2). 7:00am, we still have time for breakfast, went out Southwest exit to Yoshinoya 吉野家, got 2 納豆定食 (natto ¥340 x 2), surprisingly, it was pretty good! Perhaps I’ve finally gotten used to the taste. (Compare this to the packaged natto we get from Family Mart in NYC, this was pretty good!)

Rode 7:30 Romance car to Hakone, a Taiwanese family sat behind us, Taiwanese are so much better than tourists from mainland China… they didn’t talk loud or make a scene. Arrived at 9:02, switched to Gora tozan densha 強羅登山電車 platform 4, up to Miyanoshita 宮ノ下, out and took a small walk (早川(堂ヶ島)遊歩道) down to the river. Nice and quiet, no one else came down here, strange thing about the traffic on the main street though, nobody would stop to let u cross the street! Took the next train up to gora 強羅, soooo many people! It’s a lot different from the last time we came… (5 pm in mid Feb., dark and foggy, it was like Silent Hill!) I saw Onsen Manjuu at the shop right outside the gates and I bought 1 for ¥105, turns out if we had walked outside first, other shops were selling them at ¥105 for 2!! That bitch! Queenie wanted to go to the Little Prince museum (Museum of SaintｰExupery and The Little Prince), so we took a really cramped #2 Hakone tozan bus toward Sengokuhara 仙石原. The curves were wild and I don’t know what the fuck the old lady behind me was thinking, but she really stuck herself to my ass! (She was like about 4'8"). Cute place, this Little Prince Museum… (Lockers ¥100, entrance ¥1350 x 2), miniature European buildings, like a fake Disneyland,except this is Japan and they have full copyrights! (The merchandise stated you can only sell these in Japan.) Afterwards, took bus toward kowakidani 小涌谷 back to Gora. Hakone tozan cablecar up to Sounzan 早雲山, nothing to see or do here except for the stamp. Hakone ropeway to Owakudani 大涌谷, famous for their ﾞBlack eggs" 黒たまご, it was about 3pm and we were hungry, bought sweet bun, こんにゃく, milk (¥640) and 6 black eggs (¥500). We were lucky enough to run into 5 tourbus of mainland Chinese tours, what a plague! I doubt any of my pictures came out good b’coz there were so many of them. I asked a Japanese Dad to take a picture of Queenie and me in broken Japanese, and he was clearly annoyed at it! This was the first time I had encountered such a reaction, normally they are really friendly and curtious, they would take your picture and then ask you if the picture was OK! Sigh… that’s why I hate those mainland Chinese, I’m proud of my Hong Kong Chinese culture, but I hate to be associated with those Chinese from the mainland. Rode ropeway gondola down to Togendai 桃源台, then pirate ship to Hakone machi. One weird thing about today, I saw at least 3 pairs of Japanese men with white girls… normally it’s the other way around. Is Hakone a center for “reverse inter-racial couples”? Walked left and saw the sign for our ryokan - Yugiriso, walked in and was slightly surprised by the extremely curtious service! The old lady explained everything from onsen time and family bath to Karaoke room and food. She took 6 yukata for Queenie to choose from, then helped her dress up. Dinner was at 6 but she had to come in 1/2 hr early to prepare. We had an hour before dinner time so we went for a quick onsen as we were both very tired. Fell asleep afterwards, woke up at 9:30, the TV was playing a scary program, which reminded me of that kid from Juon, I was expecting to see some dead white faced kid to come out and scare me. More onsen at 11pm, then write diary and sleep. (Just saw a Suica commercial with penguin and cell phone, really cute, reminding myself to try to find it online when I get back.)\

Comments

nahikari — 2007-03-07 11:41:16

Hi! we are a spanish couple travelling to japan and we would like to stay 2 days on a tipical ryokan…we have been looking a lot and we finally decided about yugiriso but we dont know how to book the room :( can u please help us telling how did u reserve ? tx a lot

cloneofsnake — 2007-03-09 11:47:21

Hi Nahikari, I actually booked from the Japanese website jalan.net ~ http://www.jalan.net/jalan/jweb/yado/YADS_331833.HTML Details of Yugiriso here. The reservation was done in Japanese, it includes choices of rooms and dinners! There’s an English site that can do reservation for you, I’ve heard that they’re really friendly, so may be you can ask them about those choices ~ http://japaneseguesthouses.com/db/hakone/yugiriso.htm You can see my planned itinerary here. When are you going? Japan is have a warm winter this year, so their cherry blossoms are blooming early. In Tokyo, the predicted full bloom date is Mar.18th!! Hope you guys can make it. http://gojapan.about.com/cs/cherryblossoms/a/sakurafestival.htm

Donna — 2007-12-19 16:08:43

hello. I will be going to Hakone March 26-27th. I am trying to find a good Ryokan to stay in that is good for exploring Hakone. Did you go to the open air museum? How did you like your stay at Yugiriso, how were the baths and food. Thank you so much for your help. There are so many Ryokans to choose from hard to know which one would be best. Thanks heaps. Donna

cloneofsnake — 2007-12-19 21:00:12

No, I didn’t get to go to the Open Air museum because we girlfriend wanted to go to “The Little Prince Museum” instead. :P Yugiriso was nice, it was priced reasonably, easy to get to, had a small outdoor onsen / hotspring but at least it looked pretty natural unlike one of those big indoor pool. The food was good, albeit the portion is a little small, but that’s the case with most Japanese food. You might want to bring some extra snacks for the night. We were about 3 blocks away from the shore of the lake and the view was blocked by a hotel right at the shore… OK, I just looked up Google maps, it’s called the Hakone Hotel - http://www.hakonehotel.jp/en/index.html. If you would consider hotels instead of ryokans, this would be a great choice!! Remember to get the lakeview suite room, you’ll wake up to the glorious view of Mt. Fuji!!! Hope you’ll have a great time in Hakone.

Travel Blog - 2006/03/27 - Tokyo, Japan

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 13:59:00 +0000

P1000592 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Woke at 8, that sleeping pill was so strong! Called Jackie at 9, will meet in Akiba at 10. Out and bought bread and yogurt at ampm [¥252]. Ginza sen to Suehirocho [末広町] [¥190 x 2]. Wait for Jackie into front Sega world. Called him to confirm location [¥20]. Ate at 松屋 ¥390, walked behind Sega world to try to find the 2nd hand PDA store that Danny Choo talked about. Failed. Checked out the Softmap 2nd hand PDA store, which I had been last year (2005) Feb. They only have 2 SL-c3100 and they cost ¥54800!! Good thing I continue to search, went to e-trend and then PC-Bomber. Bought at PC-Bomber for ¥59800.

P1000596 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

銀座線 to 渋谷 [¥570], 東横線 2 stations to Nakameguro (中目黒), I originally thought we’d be shopping there, but instead of shops, we found beautiful Cherry Blossoms along meguro river.

P1000607 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Took out my new Zaurus and used its Tokyo map software, walked up North through 代官山 to 渋谷. Walked to Bic Camera. Jackie left for work, we went to Citibank to get cash [¥35000], sat down at Segafredo to rest our legs. . Went to ドン。キホーテ, bought DS cover film [¥649], Book 1st, couldnt find good illustration books. QQ bought Animal Crossing stickers. Walked thru Center Gai to Loft. Bought 温泉たまご　maker [¥1029]. Decided to go home early. Stopped by Sakuraya on the way, bought sreen cover for my Zaurus [¥367].

P1000623 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

半蔵門線 to 青山一丁目 ¥160 x 2. Ampm bought instant noodle for dinner [¥295]. Back to hotel, eat, rest, watch TV (though not the paid channel even though “it sticks in 1 night, and it is ¥1,000 yen.) :D\

Travel Blog - 2006/03/26 - Tokyo, Japan

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:27:00 +0000

P1000581 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Arrived 16:15, watched a JPN movie - Always 三丁目の夕日 (Sunset on 3rd Street), about life in post war Tokyo in the 50’s or 60’s, during which time the Tokyo tower was built. It’s typical Japanese - slow paced, funny, sweet and touching. Got ¥80,000 from Citibank ATM, Queenie had motion sickness (乗物酔い), bought vitamin drink at conbini ¥147 for her to take medicine. Keisei Skyliner 17:14 to 上野 (18:15) ¥3960.

P1000580 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

銀座線 to 青山一丁目 ¥190 x 2, The area was really quiet, it was hard to imagine seeing such a quiet area in the midst of Tokyo… the only thing was the exits of this station were quite confusing. Once we found a point of reference, we followed the map and walked to Hotel Asia Center. Lots of gaijin staying here, the staffs all spoke good English. Checked in and called Jackie, 銀座線 to 渋谷 ¥160 x 2, met Jackie in front of Hachiko at 8:30.

P1000591 Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Shibuya has so many gaijins now, 50 million of them standing right in front of Hachiko! Jackie doesn’t look like a gaijin ABC no more, he was full on Japanese!! :) He was too camera shy though… Dude! U need to take mo pics of yourself! Your sisters would love to see you in Jap mode. LOL. Ate at にんにく屋, afterwards went to buy motion sickness medicine and cosmetics at マツモトキヨミ薬 ¥6257. Walked around in Center Gai, bought drink at ドン。キホーテ (Don Quijote, or Don Quixote) ¥92, then stood in Excelsior cafe to chat (no seats, everywhere was full!), left at 11:00, 半蔵門線 home ¥160 x 2. Took sleeping pills and Zzzzzz.

6 Days 5 Nights Tokyo Hakone Detailed Itinerary ^_^

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:34:00 +0000

0218_03_Ghibli Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

Copied from: (also listed on my Yahoo! Trip Planner - http://travel.yahoo.com/trip?pid=479780&action=view ) (TripAdvisor.com Japan forum - http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g298156-i860-k488783-6_Days_5_Nights_Tokyo_Hakone_Detailed_Itinerary_-Kanto.html ) OK folks, thank you so much for all the info by everybody, especailly edokko and Route246! Here’s my detailed itinerary: Mar. 26th, arrive Narita at 6pm, Keisei Skyliner to Ueno, Ginza-sen to Aoyama Icchome, check in at Asia Center Hotel. ( http://www.asiacenter.or.jp/ ) Meet up with Jackie, Oedo-sen to Roppongi for food and drinks. ( http://www.roppongihills.com/en/access/ )

Mar. 27th, morning - rush to Akihabara to get DS Lite (if they’re in stock, but most likely they won’t) and a Sharp Zaurus C3100 PDA. Eat lunch at a maid cafe? :P (Which one is good/famous?) Afternoon, Shopping in Shimokitazawa / Daikanyama / Nakameguro. ( http://metropolis.japantoday.com/tokyo/421/feature.asp , http://www.shimokitazawa.org/ ) Dinner w/ friend(s) in Shibuya? ( http://www.bento.com/ra-shib.html ) Mar. 28th, Odakyu railway from Shinjuku to Hakone. (Need to buy tickets earlier to reserve seats, also may need to store luggages in lockers at Shinjuku) Odakyu Hakone Free Pass ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2358_008.html ) Hakone classic round course ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5210.html ) Check in at Yugiriso Ryokan (夕霧荘) at 3 pm. Relax, Onsen, Eat, Relax, Onsen, Sleep… Onsen ( http://www.jalan.net/jalan/jweb/yado/YADS_331833.HTML ) Mar. 29th, Check out at 10 am. Visit Ancient Cedar Avenue (major checkpoint along Tokaido, the highway which connects Edo and Kyoto during the Edo period.) ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5205.html ) Odakyu train back to Shinjuku. Option to walk around Shinjuku, else can go to Harajuku. (Meet with Ariko, Tina and Kaori?) Check in at Yoyogi Youth Hostel at 5 pm ( http://www.jyh.or.jp/english/kanto/yoyogi/index.html ) Meet up with Ariko, Tina and Kaori for dinner in… anywhere. Mar. 30th, Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing) at Shinjuku Gyoen, then shopping again (Harajuku, Aoyama, Shibuya? Queenie’s choice.) Mar. 31st, Check out early, Hanami at Ueno Park. Then visit the Ameyoko market. ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3012.html) Keisei Skyliner to Narita at err… 2 pm? Whatever. Done! Shopping related links: http://www.japanesestreets.com/jsnews/article/49/ - Great Tokyo shops for used clothing http://www.tokyoessentials.com/shopping.html http://www.tokyoessentials.com/ - This site has good maps for most popular areas like Shibuya & Shinjuku.

The View from Taiwan: Taro Aso: Japan's Answer to Pasuya Yao?

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 15:20:49 +0000

The View from Taiwan: Taro Aso: Japan’s Answer to Pasuya Yao? Japan’s Foreign Minister, Taro Aso’s offensive remarks on Taiwan Actually read this on Japundit first and got linked here. Interesting read on both sites. I think what needs to be said are already said in all the comments in those 2 sites. I am just going to write down a little of my own family history. (This is an online record of my memory afterall.) My mom’s father is Cantonese, but was born in Shanghai and for some reason, studied in American school. Hence he doesn’t read/write Chinese! During the 2nd world war, he worked for the US Navy as a airplane mechanic on board of US’s carriers! Pretty cool huh?! After the 2nd WW, there was the civil war (I think… Hey, I suck at Chinese history) and the fucking communist party won. My grandpa was offered 2 relocation choices by the US government. 1) Japan 2) Taiwan. He chose Taiwan obviously, because he was fighting the Japanese and he hated them. I guess this can particially explain why when the KWT(?) invaded Taiwan, they uprooted many Japanese establishments… (did they?) They fought agianst the Japanese for 8 yrs in China, and then lost their home to the fucking communists. Of course they’re pissed! XD LOL (So, my mom grew up in Taiwan during the 1950’s & 60’s, and doesn’t hold any grudge toward Japan.) I hold great respect for my grandpa. :)

My father is Shanghai-an (? No such word as Shanghai-nese?) His father and mother were both from wealthy Shanghai families. Grandpa even went to study abroad in Germany when he was young, and so did my father’s eldest brother. Their entire family had to flee from Shanghai when the fucking communists started taking away everyone’s money & possessions and beating / killing the wealthy and educated. They moved to Hong Kong, where my grandpa opened an unsuccessful stationary shop business and slowly depleted all of his family’s fortune. :( Naturally, my grandpa hated the fucking communists… but he also hated the Japanese. His reasoning was that, if it wasn’t for the Japanese, the communists party wouldn’t have been born. My father doesn’t admit that he “dislikes” the Japanese, I don’t really know what his reasons are… but he likes to buy China made electronics. He often say that “Nowadays, China made electronics are pretty well made, they can compete with Japanese made electronics.” (My Dad is also a mechanic and an electrician, so whenever things broke, he goes and fix it himself!) :P Isn’t my family sweet? :P I think on everyone’s personal level, there’s no point to hold grudges against a certain race or country for what their ancestors did in the past. These things are only used on a political level to manipulate people. There are too much beauty and love all over the world to stop one from travelling and meeting new people. Enlightened, ain’t I? I still fucking hate communists Chinese though! :D LOL

Cosplay hierarchy (I'll be the hero, you'll be the dog.)

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:25:33 +0000

Jackie’s TGS 2005 shots Originally uploaded by cloneofsnake.

This pic really cracked me up… I wonder how they decided who is going to be whom. It could be just a simple game “Stone, paper and scissors”, or perhaps the “Senpai / Kouhai” hierarchy also exists in the cosplay community. Yes, a useless blog entry, I know… I’m just trying to link up my flickr to here so Google can pick it up. Cloneofsnake cloneofsnake CloneOfSnake!! :D\

Comments

Jackie — 2005-10-16 22:35:00

HAHAHA, you got SPAM COMMENTS too. I don’t think this is a worthless post, well, considering you don’t post much, this is better than nothing.–>

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The View from Taiwan: Taro Aso: Japan's Answer to Pasuya Yao?

Cosplay hierarchy (I'll be the hero, you'll be the dog.)

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