Pliny the elder of Russian river brewery : Flavor is gone ...

The flavor is gone a little bit sadly.... That's my fault.

What I want to say to enthusiasts of Pliny the elder is that don't keep its bottle longer in your refrigerator, otherwise its great flavor is gone. Today is the last day of the year of 2013, but this is one of what I have regretted this year. I bought many bottles of Pliny the elder when I went to the Russian river brewery to enjoy its brother, Pliny the younger, last February. Since that time, I opened the bottle one by one at the time when I felt great. Finally I kept it by the end of the year, and I opened it today and tasted it a little bit, but its flavor is gone sadly. I mean that it is gone completely, but it is as much as I can tell the difference. This was what I did not hope. Actually I knew that I should have kept IPA longer because hop flavor is gone gradually with a bottle. That's one of the reasons why the Russian river brewery seems not to bottle the triple IPA, Pliny the younger. This is what I knew from a YouTube video featuring Pliny the younger. 

BTW, Pliny the younger I had last February was the greatest I have ever had among the IPA. I went on weekdays last February, but It took 1 hour to go inside and additional 1 hour to get a table. It was the greatest moment to stay there because everyone there came to enjoy Pliny the younger, and it was really fun to talk with enthusiasts with the same mind about beer. As you might know, it seems to take more than 5 hours on the weekend, but I think that it absolutely deserves it for IPA lover. 

Semiconductor Job market ; Job hunting is negative

First of all, the Japanese semiconductor situation is worst as far as I feel and it would be worse in the future. Japanese big electronic companies used to lead this industry to make many reliable, useful, and cost effective products and sell them in the world, and those companies definitely are companies which made "made-in-Japan" one phrase meaning great quality of products. As many people know, it is the old story of good times. Now such companies are not doing good totally. There are however many departments even in such companies which are making money well, but there are more departments which are losing money, so totally companies' profit is in the red. Managing people in such companies originally used to be good engineers and are not used to run companies and make decisions of a business properly, so they are not able to cut non-profitable departments by hoping something miracle and keep them until it's too late. Such companies are almost going bankrupt and are now struggling to cut such groups, cut people, and reorganize companies, otherwise they will be gone, which cause temporal collapse of Japanese economics. It is easier to attribute this to external factors, but internal factors are also cause of this. I do not mean to analyze the reason why this has happened and how Japanese electronic companies lose their competitiveness here, but I would like to mention what I felt these days about job hunting of the semiconductor industry in Japan as far as I can know.

Two months ago, I had opportunities to be an interviewer of a young engineer position because a group which I'm in now had to employ one engineer to compensate one engineer who left the company. When I got a list of candidates from HR, I was surprised and shocked to know current job hunting situation. Our company is small and unknown, but almost all peoples in the list are working or worked at well known big companies and their age is around 40s and 50s. (It's common to show age in Japan job hunting market, although it's uncommon outside Japan.) I thought that they would not apply for the job in this small company. I, of course, asked HR if there were young engineer candidates because they would be overqualified and we looked for young one, but it looked like that there were not actually according to HR. Our group did interviews for a few persons and I attended as an interviewer of technical discussion. However what I felt was that interviewed people looked having huge pride of working at big companies and they did not look like desperate for job hunting. I guess that they would be just asked an early retirement which is soft layoff with benefit, and jobs hunting itself coming from negative motivation, so  they did that reluctantly. One guy said proudly that he has been involved in XX module products last ten years, but he did not know inside the module when I asked how it consists of inside and draw brief figures like how signal is processed. I was wondering what he has been doing so far, and what people have been doing in big companies. What I heard is that each person's job is so focused on one thing that people don't know whole view and how what they do contributes to final products.

Two weeks ago I met one of my friends whose works for a recruitment agency, and asked him what's going on the semiconductor industry market. He did not specify names, but foreign companies in Japan have already closed their design department in Japan and kept only support and sale departments. His jobs is busy by nature regardless of business condition. What he said was that situation in the semiconductor is negative right now because people look for jobs with negative reason like I mentioned above. People with negative reason is definitely more than people with positive reason like career up. He said that his job is great because he is able to support people get jobs regardless of reasons, but today's market is too tough for engineers who have not improve own value and done what they are asked to do and stick to companies which they thought are too big to fail.

This situation is so sad, but only feeling sad makes nothing at all. Positively I try to think that I'm lucky to know this serious situation at a relatively young age before the age when it becomes too late. The most important thing which I can do is to have crisis awareness and to improve my value in the market anytime.


The picture is from
http://higheredstrategy.com/recession-not-going-as-planned/

Japanese credit card at U.S.

I have heard of the news that Japanese people was arrested due to be suspected of using fake credit card in U.S. The credit card is this.

Many people in the U.S would think that a card like this must not be a credit card and could be probably a fake like toy cards for children. This makes a little bit sense to me because the design of Japanese credit card looks cheap and does not look like an issued credit card in U.S. If you go to the link below which is google image search of "Japanese credit card", then you will be able to figure out how Japanese cards look like.

google image search results

I have used Japanese credit card at the U.S many times, and I have many experiences that cashiers looked at my credit card for a little bit longer time and asked me to show my ID card like my car license card or my passport. This would be because of a similar reason like the new. Nobody is asked to do like this when I hang out with my fiends.

One of the reason of this is coming from a fact that many Japanese companies collaborate with credit card companies and make own credit card which has companies' logo printed on credit cards. Therefore, such logos are not familiar to people in the U.S. As far as I can remember, this trend does not exist from long time ago but became popular last 15 years. Before that, using credit card itself was not popular in Japan by culture, rather people used to prefer to use cash. However, people became aware of convenience of credit cards and at the same time many companies also began to make own logo credit card so that user can get benefit by using that card at that place. This positive feedback has made credit card become popular in Japan. For example, a supermarket has issued their card and people use that card at that supermarket, then people can get points and use points to buy something foods. 

Language exchange ; my experience

I have had a language exchange partner since almost two years ago to improve my English and to learn practical English which can be used in daily conversation. And he has learned practical Japanese from me instead. We were both at middle level of each learning language at that time. I was able to speak English a little bit and he was also able to speak Japanese a little bit. So it was easier for both to start our activity than to start from teaching basic grammar. I'm sure that this has been so successful language exchange for both and we have learned not only language itself but also history, culture, news about each country. Generally speaking, English and Japanese languages do not have exact translation relationship other than each word, so it is sometimes difficult to come up with appropriate sentence of what we really want to express in learning English, but we have been able to find nearly meaning each other everytime. That's what I think is most useful practice each other through language exchange and what can not be learned easily through text books.

So I would like to tell how we started and how we continue our activity without stopping.

How I found my partner

It was through a finding partner section of the Cragslist. At first, I was not able to find post which matched for me in terms of area and meeting time, but found his post finally and emailed him soon. In the following day, I got a response like "You already have a basic level of English and let's meet once". I did not ask, but having a basic knowledge looked like decision point.

When and where we met for our activity

We had done our activity at the Starbucks or Peats, but it was noisy, crowded, and they close early at our area. So we tried many places and finally got settled at Paner because it is quiet, and WiFi is available, and they close late. I do not say that Starbuck and Peats are not good place, but that it depends on people and area. We had basically met from 7pm to 9pm twice a week or once a week after work, but it is one hour phone call once a week now because I came back to my country. Finding good time zone is a little bit difficult due to time difference between U.S. and Japan.

Making sure motivation of language exchange

It's better to make sure what our motivation is for learning language at first in order to continue the activity efficiently. In my case, the motivation is to improve my daily conversation speaking skill. In my case, I have been using English so far for my work, so many people would say that I do not have to practice English. It's partly true regarding English in work, but not true partly as well regarding other situation. A problem which I was facing was that using English for work was a not problem but daily conversation was a problem for me. I think that there are many people who think so. Generally when we meet new people first time, it is usual to star general conversation at first to make situation relax. Nobody would begin to talk about detail of work in business situation. Topics would vary situation by situation. I was not able to do this well because I was not used to daily conversation so I did not know what to say and how to expand conversation even though I'm able to do that easily in my mother language. As is same with our daily communication in mother language, it is important to prepare and store stories in mind in advance to expand conversation. People do this unconsciously. That's why I started this blog to do that preparation consciously and I'm feeling it is paying off well. Second motivation is to watch movies without subtitles. Depending on movies, I'm able to hear and understand contents almost perfectly. Additionally, I'm able to catch and understand music lyrics more than I used to be able to.

Attitude for language exchange

Our time is limited, Our slogan which we think should be kept in mind is that we can make mistake to say something and don't feel embarrassed to say something wrong because this activity is an opportunity to be able to make mistakes without worrying about doing that and an opportunity that mistake is corrected by the partner in practical sense. So I have been trying to used what I learn through movies, musics, TVs.

The partner's personality

I have been a lucky man because my partner is really good person in terms of personality and mind set as much as I respect him as human being. He is an American, but he has begun to believe in the Buddhism at some time through his life, and his mind set is as beautiful as I sometimes feel embarrassed to realize that my thought is  a little bit rude. Even when I feel negative, I'm able to began to feel positive when I talk with him. He sometimes tell me a way of thinking toward something bad in daily life, based on the Buddhism idea. He always tells me that Japanese people say that they do not have religious but what they do, how we talk, and how they behave are exactly following the buddhism idea, and Japanese people do that unconsciously because it is integrated so naturally in daily life that people do not realize it.

Preparation for lesson ; what to talk ?

Time is limited for both, so preparation is important to make the activity efficiently. Topics to talk about is everywhere in daily life, so it's important to make a habit of looking for what we talk about in the activity. When I find something good, I always try to take a memo and make story of how I tell it in English. Keeping them in mind is not good enough because human being can forget them easily. I always prepare a few stories  to tell in English like preparing a presentation in work.

What is pointed out to me

My partner sometimes points out that my accent is flat because Japanese language itself is flat pronunciation. English needs strong and week points in terms of accent so it's better to say something in English consciously. I believe that this is most difficult part of learning English for Japanese people due to nature of mother language. Similarly we feel something wrong when people whose mother language is English speak Japanese because its accent has strong and week points like English. 

Win-Win relationship

It's important to consider balance between English time and Japanese time. I meet my partner for improving English mainly and my partner meets me for learning English, and our motivations look different and contradicted. It's better to be aware of it each other and say "please say it either in English or in Japanese". 
Additionally, it's important not to nod and show that you understand what a partner is saying even though you do not understand clearly because a partner is not able to express what a partner is trying to say. If you do not pass this moment and if you correct it seriously, then your partner feel good because a partner can know how to express that in learning language.

Power of the language exchange ; general talk before meeting of work

At business meetings either in face-to-face or phone conference, it is usual to begin to say hello and do general conversation before starting meetings. This is not essential in terms of meeting itself, but it would be important to know each other. It is significant at first time. I was not able to do this well because I was not used to it in English, but now I am able to do this much better that I used to. With comfortable conversation, it's easier to start meetings with relax mind. Without it, it is so monotonic and not so lively. 

Power of the language exchange ; be able to talk with anyone
When I was not good at daily conversation, I hesitated to talk with people who, for instance sit next to me, is next me in waiting line, but now I do not hesitate at all, rather I love to do talk with even somebody known. Now it's easy to expand conversation to sustain it and know what people are like.

Power of the language exchange ; Meditation

I sometimes open up my negative and irritated feeling when I felt so during work, so he recommended me to attend mediation class where a buddhist monk teach how to do meditation correctly and he has done volunteer there. Elemental coarse is for free and held once a week from 7pm to 9pm. First one hour is meditation time and another one hour is history of the buddhism. The monk who taught there at that time was good guy and has sense of humor, so his presentation of the history was so fun. It was just an elemental class, but I was able to learn how to do meditation and feel relaxed even when I would feel irritated before.

He got married and just started to live with his spouse, so I'm feeling guilty a little bit to have a his important one hour with his wife at Sunday night. I'm wondering if I should stop or continue this.