robbieinjapan.com

Tomorrow is June 1 and my flight back to Philadelphia is on June 30 which means I have about one month left in Yokohama, Japan.

My ten month Japanese program is ending this week with the graduation ceremony and party this coming Friday.

All in all it was a pretty good program. Thanks to my studies there and my own efforts, I improved my Japanese a lot.

This year, I have been making the effort to read full novels and other books written entirely in Japanese. It is definitely a challenge, however, I finished my first book sometime last October and since then I think I have read 5 books in Japanese. It was somewhat difficult at first to get through the first book but has become easier and easier. Even more recently, I have made the habit of highlighting the unknown words I come across in the book and then looking them up later and adding the unknown word and the sentence in which it appears to a computer notecard program I keep so that I will be able to learn the words later and have a way of reviewing them so I will never forget them.

I think I want to continue this practice for all the languages I study as well as for English since there are quite a few words in English that I don’t understand when I open some books.

So, what are my plans for the future? They are not completely clear yet.

After I return to America June 30, I will be free to do what I want pretty much. Recently I have been having some success with some online business so I am not currently looking for a job. I think I would like to return to Japan perhaps for a while during the next year. I can get two or three successive tourist visas which would allow me a maximum stay of 6-9 months.

My language goals for the future are to start learning Mandarin Chinese sometime within the coming year. First, I want to get a little bit better in Japanese. So, my goal is to learn 5,000 new words in Japanese that I get from reading Japanese novels before I begin my studies in Chinese. 

The reason I want to learn a little more Japanese is because I want to get to a level where I can read and understand novels at a high rate. Right now when I read a novel, I usually have to look up on average two or three words every page. Of course, even at this level, I can understand what I’m reading fairly well and it’s not necessary to look up those unknown words but I want to improve my Japanese to a very high level.

Additionally, I am very much for improving my languages to a high level before moving on to studying another language. This way I do not have to worry about having “unfinished” languages that I can sort of understand and use but cannot fully comprehend and feel comfortable in.

For these reasons, I want to learn 5,000 new words in Japanese and then move on to my next challenge of learning Mandarin Chinese.

Now that I am older, it is a lot easier to study languages because it is easier to get myself to sit down and actually study them day after day. Now that I am no longer in high school or college, I don’t have the same kind of work load that I once had, so I have a lot of free time, as well.

Ideally I would like to learn a lot of Mandarin Chinese and then spend half a year or a full year living in Taiwan. Some of you may remember that I visited Taiwan for a month after my high school graduation since my friend in high school who is from Taiwan (Jimmy) was kind enough to invite me and some of our other high school friends to his home there.

I really enjoyed that trip and I have also always been interested in learning Chinese. Additionally, because I have learned Japanese to a high level, I have a real advantage in learning the written part of Chinese since many of the characters are the same or are similar. At the very least, my mind is already used to reading these kinds of characters and so the various elements that come up in them will be easier to remember and hold in my mind.

As a side note, I read an interesting study a while ago that said that people who learn to read European languages and people who learn to read languages like Chinese and Japanese where each character represents a different word or concept actually use different parts of their brains when reading.

I think for this reason, it is harder for Westerners to get the hang of reading Chinese and Japanese because they are probably not used to using this part of the brain to read. I remember when I first started trying to learn Japanese, it was extremely difficult to remember the characters and differentiate them. Now, however, it feels almost as if a block has been removed since I find it much, much easier to hold the characters in my mind when I see them and also to recall them. Nowadays I can see a new character and learn it almost immediately whereas in the past I would have likely forgotten it and would have had to review it many times over before I properly learned it.

For this reason, I almost want to take a Chinese class with other Americans because I would have such an advantage over them! Not only would I already know a lot of the characters but my mind in general would be used to them.

In any case, for future language goals, if I successfully learn Chinese, I think I will move on to learning German after that. I’ve always been interested in German, as well, so it’s definitely on my list of languages to learn.

Now that I am about to graduate from my Japanese program here and now that I do not have to worry so much about a job for the near future, I am thinking about structuring a lot of language study time into my day. If I can learn 33 new words per day in Japanese and then Chinese, I think I will be doing very well. This is, of course, a pretty big challengeto learn 33 new words per day but I know it is possible if I really apply and dedicate myself.

Anyway, now that I have a month left and I have begun updating this blog again, I will write up some posts about my experiences over the past year in Yokohama as I remember them. I’ll also try to put up some photos I’ve taken, too!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in this blog.

I’ve come back to Japan to study for ten months at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies located in Yokohama.

For those of you who don’t know, Yokohama is Japan’s fourth largest city located right next to Tokyo. I can actually get to Shibuya (a popular spot in Tokyo) which was two stops from where I lived two years ago within 25 minutes from my station here in Yokohama.

Thanks to my parents, the apartment I’m living in this time is nicer than the dorm room I was in last time in Tokyo. I’ll take some pictures and put them up later. The apartment is a 20 minute walk from the school which is nice because it means I won’t have to deal with rush hour train crowds anymore.

As for food, there are a lot of restaurants around the train station near my apartment which is about 10 minutes away. So, I’ve been eating a lot of my old favorites including ramen, gyoza, katsudon, katsukare, tonkatsu, etc.

This area is actually pretty popular for tourists and I think for that reason there are a lot of American restaurants around here, as well. There is a Friday’s, Denny’s, Hard Rock Cafe and some others. So, if I ever feel like getting a hamburger, I don’t have to go very far.

I’ll have to take some pictures of the surrounding area because it is really nice. There is a giant ferris wheel, as well as an amusement park and a huge shopping area. My school is right next to the water.

Today was the first day of school and all we did was orientation and a class picture. In the afternoon, I had an oral test where they filmed me as I was being interviewed. Tomorrow I have a placement test and then real classes will begin next week.

Another nice thing about my apartment is that it came with a TV, so I’ve been leaving the TV on as I use the computer in order to get used to hearing Japanese again. Interestingly, quite a few thigns on America are reported. Right now, they’ve been showing pieces on the upcoming election and also on hurricane Gustav which is supposed to land soon.

For now, I’ve got to study a little for the test tomorrow and then get to sleep but I’ll be sure to write more later and hopefully get some pictures up!

I haven’t updated in a while so I thought I would let everyone know what’s going on in my life now…

I’m back at Middlebury College for my senior year. I’m supposed to graduate in May and my current dream is to be able to move back to Tokyo for a while. I’m not quite sure how I will achieve this because I don’t have a job and I haven’t applied to any jobs. I am, however, working on some projects.

I wrote a book about learning languages which you can find more information about here: http://www.learnthatlanguagenow.com/ — if you want to buy a copy, just send me an e-mail and mention my blog here and I can give you a discount or something.

I’m in the process of getting the ebook promoted so if you have a website, you can help me out by linking to http://www.learnthatlanguagenow.com ! It will help my site in the search engine rankings, I believe.

In any case, if things work out, who knows… I may be able to continue writing in this blog again about my adventures in Japan.

When I stepped on to the Yamanote line yesterday to take the train from Shibuya to Mita where Keio University’s Mita campus is, I noticed something strange about the commercials being played on the TV monitors after a while.

They were only playing two ads or so and they were both for the same company, Docomo, a cell phone service provider. So, after getting bored with seeing these ads, I started to look around the train car and I realized that it was pretty red and white inside. In fact, all the paper ads, which cover the inside of every car, were red/white, the ads used by Docomo!

I looked down my car and into the next car and noticed that that car, too, had only Docomo ads. I don’t know if every car on that particular train was Docomo or if just the ads for those two particular cars were Docomo.

Usually, the close to a hundred paper ads in each car are taken by many, many different companies. At most, you might see one company take two spots. As for the commercials on the TV monitor, there are so many that I don’t think I see any repeats during the 15-20 minute ride I have to take.

Docomo must be doing some pretty heavy promotion to take every ad space in the car and also limit the TV monitor commercials to itself. I wonder how much that costs… probably a ridiculous amount.

Today, in class, I had trouble keeping my eyes open. Unfortunately, the class relies a lot on participation so I have to fight to keep aware of everything that’s going on lest the teacher call on me unprepared.

I’ve been increasingly busy not just with school work but also with enjoying my life here in Tokyo. As a result, I don’t get as much of a chance to sleep. You’ll notice that my blog entries recently have become shorter! This is usually because at around 1:30 or 2:00 when I’m ready to go to sleep, I realize that I haven’t updated my blog yet. Since I try to write a blog entry every day, this means I have to get on the computer and write something quickly that qualifies in order to get to bed. As it is 1:39am now, tonight is one of those nights!

Recently, I’ve noticed that my Japanese is becoming more fluid and less troublesome to speak. I started to notice this after some Japanese friends of mine commented about how natural my Japanese sounded and began to continually ask how I studied Japanese (in order to learn my secret?)

Of course, since learning to speak a language is a continuous, gradual process, it never really struck me at once that I had gotten better. The change is so small everyday that it is unnoticeable to me. However, when I think about recent events now and compare them to what I was doing and how I felt speaking a year ago, I can see the difference.

These days, I don’t really have trouble holding a conversation in Japanese. The words flow naturally and it is no longer mentally taxing like it was in my earlier days. As far as I can tell, I’ve held conversations with Japanese people for hours at a time and haven’t really run into any serious problems or any misunderstandings.

The places where I still have trouble are reading text since I still am learning the characters (yes, all 2000+ of them) and also, uncommon words are used more frequently in text than in speech. So, not only do I need a wider vocabulary but I need to know many words which I may see only once and then not see again for a very long time. This makes it more difficult to remember them.

I also have difficultly sometimes watching TV. Most of the time I can understand it, but occasionally I don’t. I think this might be because the context is sometimes difficult to tell. Knowing the context facilitates understanding immensely. When I have conversations with Japanese people, the context is always relateable and almost immediately known. When I’m flipping through TV channels and stop on one, I’m not always aware of the topic.

Additionally, TV programs usually focus on non-daily activities (since we get enough of that sort of thing in our daily lives, why watch it again on TV?). So, if there’s a program about a giant squid living deep in the ocean, I’m in a bit of trouble because I’m not really familiar with boat, ocean or squid vocabulary like mast, crest or tentacle. This type of vocabulary is the sort of specialized vocabulary that I learn just by continuing to come across varied and unfamiliar situations.

Anyway, it’s getting closer and closer to 2am so I will go to sleep now and give myself a break! At least I don’t have class on Thursday so I can sleep in the day after tomorrow!

Things are starting to get busier at school. We’re going to have tests more frequently it seems and we also have an essay/speech coming up. We have to write a 1500 character essay and then do a 10 minute presentation based on that paper.

We’re allowed to choose our topic as long as it relates to either history or literature. I decided to write about the history of Okinawa, Japan’s islands to the south. Last year in my Japanese class at Middlebury College, I did a presentation on the native language spoken in Okinawa: Ryuukyuugo. Okinawa was actually it’s only kingdom for quite a long time and had a different culture and history from Japan. The language is somewhat similar to Japanese but is unintelligible to native Japanese speakers.

Since I did a presentation on the language, I didn’t get much of a chance to study the history so I figured this would be a good chance to do that. Well, in any case, tomorrow is Tuesday so this begins another week of classes!

Today, I went with my friend Alex to Shibuya to eat at Shakey’s, the pizza place. As you know, pizza is my favorite food, so it was a good time. It was actually all-you-can-eat (tabehodai) pizza so I was able to eat quite a bit.

My friend Alex is going back to America to visit his friends for a month so this was our departing dinner for now… he’ll be back in Tokyo before I leave though so it’s only goodbye for the month.

Well, I have to wake up tomorrow sometime to go out with my friends so I’m going to sleep.

After class today, which ended at 6pm, I went to dinner with a bunch of my friends. One of the girls who had been in my class last semester but had returned to Australia afterwards had come back to Japan for a short visit. So, we all went to a restaurant on top of Shinjuku station to celebrate.

The restaurant was Taiwanese food and it reminded me of the night markets that I had witnessed when I went to Taiwan a few summers ago with my friends. We went to Taiwan because one of my good friends in high school, Jimmy, is Taiwanese and was gracious enough to invite us to his home in Taiwan for a month. This turned into our graduation gift and was an experience I’ll never forget. I also have to thank my grandparents and parents for providing the money for my plane ticket and the various other costs I incurred while there.

In any case, this restaurant was Taiwanese food and it reminded me of the night markets in Taiwan because of the lights they had strung up everywhere and the music they were playing. Also, the food was reminiscent of the kind one might find in a night market in Taiwan. Additionally, the restaurant was on the roof of the station so it was out in the open with the wind blowing. The warm temperature interrupted by the wind was something that occurred frequently while I was out and about in the night markets of Taiwan. I very much would like to return to Taiwan sometime and I’m sure I’ll find myself there again somehow.

In any case, I returned home pretty late due to going to dinner right after class. I think I got back around 11. Since today is Friday, that means I have class tomorrow morning, so I should get to sleep!

So I walked into my local convenience store (called “conbini” in Japanese) to buy some breakfast for tomorrow when I happened to look into the drink section and saw something called “Pepsi Ice Cucumber”. When I saw it, I thought, “only in Japan…”

Ten minutes later, after I had returned to my room from the convenience store, I turned on my computer. I opened up my web browser and my home page, yahoo.com, came up, showing some headline news articles that included this one: Cucumber-flavored soda sold in Japan – now, how exactly cucumber-flavored soda makes front page news, I’m not sure, but I suppose it is pretty crazy. Take a look at the link, there’s even a picture of the soda.

It seems Pepsi has recently been trying pretty hard to break into the Japanese market. Recently, they released “Pepsi NEX”, a “zero calorie” soda. The ads for this thing are on TV all the time and I often see poster ads on the walls in the train station. As a result, I think Coke recently released “Coca-Cola zero” which is their “zero calorie” soda. I’m pretty sure they released this in response to Pepsi NEX because the label looks almost exactly the same… they use the all black label which Pepsi NEX was the first to use.  Additionally, the label for “Coca-Cola zero” features the word “zero” in big letters under the name “Coca Cola” which is exactly what Pepsi does on their label.

Additionally, I’m not really sure how “Coca-Cola zero” differs from “No Calorie Coca-Cola” which has been sold for quite a while here. The “No Calorie Coca-Cola” is essentially Diet Coke since the label is exactly the same as the diet version of Coke back in the US, that is, the gray background with the red lettering.

Actually, I just looked at the ingredients list for “Coca-Cola zero” and “No Calorie Coca-Cola”. They are exactly the same. The only difference is that “No Calorie Coca-Cola” has 7mg of sodium while “Coca-Cola zero” has 8mg of sodium. I’m not exactly sure how much this changes the taste. Interestingly enough, Pepsi NEX has a little more than double the sodium at 17mg.

In any case, the difference between “No Calorie Coca-Cola” and “Coca-Cola zero” seems to be pretty small and perhaps clearly Coca-Cola’s response to Pepsi NEX since Coke’s new label clearly mimics Pepsi’s. I suppose in this case, marketing is just as, if not more, important than the actual product.

Given that, it seems that Pepsi’s new move into the Japanese market is the cucumber soda. This would never work in America… but who knows, maybe it’ll do well in Japan. I doubt it though, but I guess I’ll have to buy it once just to see what it tastes like.

As you know, my boss and co-worker have come to Tokyo recently. I don’t think I’ve actually explained on this blog what job it is that I do. Over the last summer, my friend Mike, who is a student at MIT forwarded me a job offer of a research project in MIT’s Sloan School of Business that was looking for someone with an economics background who could also speak/read/write Japanese, as well.

So, since I’m an economics major, have studied Japanese for a while and was looking for something to do during the summer, I naturally applied and they later accepted me. Last summer, I went and lived with Mike at his fraternity in Boston which was really fun. I ended up working on a couple of projects, but the main one was the one whose boss is here now.

There’s a hospital in a Shinjuku ward that implemented a system which records electronically a whole lot of data. For example, there are records of when an injection is ordered, when the injection is mixed in the pharmacy, when it is transferred to the nurse’s station, when it is injected, etc. There are also records for if this injection order is cancelled or if it is re-ordered, and whether or not it is thrown away or returned to the pharmacy.

Since we had all this data, our project analyzed it and also analyzed work flow using something called System Dynamics to analyze how nurses mixed injections, etc. This is the first time that my boss and co-worker have actually come to Tokyo and seen the hospital. So, they’re doing that and also continuing to work on the project.

My job mainly involved translation of documents from English to Japanese, Japanese to English and some analysis of the data. When I first started working, I had to translate a lot of documents about the data from Japanese to English and I had to do a lot of work translating column headings for the data. After that, I worked on analyzing the data including figuring out a way to calculate the top five most costly drugs for the hospital that were wasted due to cancelled orders.

Recently, which I’ve been working on now, is translation from English to Japanese which is pretty difficult. I translated my boss’s presentation which he gave and I have begun to translate some article which he wrote on the work we’re doing. Going from Japanese to English is easy enough since I can write natural English and don’t have to worry about that. Going from English to Japanese, however, poses that problem of not just only understanding the language but also being able to write it naturally in the target language. I, of course, get my Japanese friend to help correct me after I’ve written it all, lol.

So, some of the results of the project so far have been to suggest a way to mix the top 5 most costly drugs separately from the others. Because these top 5 most costly drugs are most likely to be cancelled resulting in waste, they should be mixed later, thus increasing the chance that they could be saved if they are cancelled since mixed drugs have to be thrown out but unmixed drugs can be returned to the pharmacy. From our simulations, if our changes were carried out, we could save the hospital millions of dollars per year.

The purpose of my boss and co-worker’s trip, then, is to establish a bit of a relationship with the hospital (since they only know a few guys who have come to Boston), to see a bit better for themselves how things work at the hospital, and to possibly set up a test run of their proposed changes in one of the hospital’s wards, perhaps.

As Japan’s population continues to age, it’s increasingly important that costs and time are saved in places like hospitals. My boss and co-worker actually gave a presentation to Japan’s Ministry of Health yesterday, one of the Japanese government’s most important ministries.

It’s pretty exciting to see the project and be apart of it. But, let’s see if I can get this translation done…