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Tokyo Tsuyu Trip
23-26 June 2001

A medical and research supply company in Japan was curious about what Medical Informatics is, and what it can do for them, so they invited me over to talk with some of their people. This was the first time for me to visit Japan during its annual rainy season, tsuyu.

  • Relax -- It's Just LAX
    Ever since Portland lost its last international flight, people flying to Japan have had to go first to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles. Routed this time through LAX, I experienced a bit of a culture shock. In the terminal, I saw all kinds of people seemingly talking to themselves. While I knew this was La-la Land, they didn't look obviously mentally disturbed. On closer inspection I realized they were using earphone attachments for their cell phones. Portland still hasn't gotten to this point yet, for which I am grateful!

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  • Flight Over
    As part of the refreshment service on my trans-Pacific flight out of LAX, a European American flight attendant came down the aisle offering, "Green tea ... ocha (Japanese for "green tea") ... green tea ... ocha ..." When I asked for "Ocha," she expressed surprise and said, "You don't look Japanese."

    I happen to be 100% genetically Japanese -- whatever that means. The ancestors of the modern Japanese came from Mongolia, China, Korea, and possibly other parts of Asia. Thus, Japanese people have a wide range of appearances. One would be hard pressed to define a "typical Japanese look" or to distinguish it from the so-called "typical look" of certain other Asian countries. This point was discussed recently in the "Asian Eyes" and "They all look the same" threads on the Ties Talk E-mail List

    With her seemingly innocent, throwaway comment, this flight attendant showed her inexperience -- clearly she hasn't met enough Japanese people yet. Living in America, I have become accustomed to mainstream society's relative ignorance and stereotypical views of Asians and Asian Americans (see the Ties Talk "Disturbing Survey" thread). However, I thought I could expect more awareness from a travel industry professional, especially one working a trans-Pacific route. This might be a point for the airline to address in any diversity training program for its cabin crew.

    To top it all off, the food wasn't that good, and I had either seen all of the in-flight movies before or didn't find them of (even morbid) interest.

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  • Groceries By "Gino"
    Arriving late on a Sunday afternoon, downtown Tokyo seemed like a ghost town. Where was everybody? The weather was humid, but not oppressively so, and the much-ballyhooed rain held off for the entire duration of my visit. Tsuyu 2001 was atypically dry.

    My brother-in-law "Gino" was waiting at my hotel with a suitcaseful of groceries Dorami-chan had ordered by telephone. Although she is very happy with the selection at Uwajimaya, the biggest Asian food store in Portland, there are still some things that you can only get in Japan.

    "Gino" very kindly took me out for supper. We were in a business district, so on a Sunday night most of the restaurants were closed, but in an underground mall we found a small yakitori-ya that was open. Also dining there were a couple on a date and a group of young women. To most North Americans, yakitori is small pieces of grilled deboned chicken meat on a skewer. But in Japan, it is much more than that -- a yakitori-ya uses almost every part of a chicken. "Gino" and I had many of the different kinds of yakitori: nankotsu (chicken pieces with bone), tsukune (chicken meatballs), and something I had for the first time, deep-fried sternal cartilage -- crunchy!

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  • An American Company in Japan
    In the morning, I went to the company to meet with the people who wanted to learn more about medical informatics. The company is the Japanese subsidiary of a major American manufacturer of medical and research supplies, and so has a culture and policies just like a modern American business: flat organizational structure, merit-based promotion, employee empowerment. The president is an American who has lived in Japan for over a decade, and the upper managers are Japanese women and men who are fluent in English and have done business school in the United States. Below that level, the employees are Japan-schooled Japanese, with a mindset that the president told me he finds frustrating.

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  • Wired At Last
    I had some leftover time at the end of my visit, so I went to see Obaa-san, my maternal grandmother. She lives with her eldest son, my Hisao Oji-san (Uncle), and his wife, my Yoneko Oba-san (Aunt). Everyone was genki (in good health). We enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by Yoneko Oba-san. Later, Hisao Oji-san proudly showed me their new personal computer, which was on a computer table especially made for Japanese houses -- about one foot high, so that one can type while seated on the floor! They got a special deal on an Internet connection when a cable company came through recently to wire the neighbourhood. In doing so, they joined a growing number of Japanese who are surfing the Web, now about 37% of the population (up from 21% last year, but still less than the US, where 58% of people are online).

  • Life in a Japanese Company
    Before my flight back to Portland, I was able to meet with my cousin Taku at Narita International Airport, where he works for Nippon Cargo Airlines. Over lunch at one of the Terminal 2 resturants, we compared newlywed notes (I got married last summer and he tied the knot this past spring). We both concluded that we are (still) happy. He told me of a recent interesting assignment he had, figuring out how to ship racehorses by air. Otherwise, he was wistfully looking back on the time the company stationed him in England. The next opportunity for him to go overseas will be when he moves up in the company hierarchy. But it seems NCA is an old-style Japanese company, where promotions are a function of time, not merit. London may be calling him, but all Taku can do is wait.

    With what I learned on this visit, I left Japan feeling worried about its economic future.

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  • A Parting Treat
    I slumped into a booth at one of the Terminal 1 restaurants at Narita Airport prior to my flight. I wasn't feeling very good about Japan, and didn't feel much better as I perused the menu, only to see items like "deep fried praum", "flunkfult sausage", "prown", "becon", and "rise omelet with hushed beef". I remember being embarassed about seeing English gaffes like these at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum almost thirty years ago. But this was the year 2001, and at an international airport, no less!

    • Why can't Japanese speak English very well?
      Japanese study English for six years in junior high and high school, yet Japan's average score for the TOEIC test of English is the lowest in Asia. Japanese can read English but not converse.
    • Japanese Tackle English Language
      Japan is only now acknowledging that its people need to learn English. According to a report by a government advisory panel, Japan should make English its second language. (RealAudio)

    I ordered a dessert that sounded interesting: "black sesami ice cream parfruit". What came was a beautiful parfait made of walnuts, graham crackers, azuki, gelatin cubes, banana, vanilla ice cream, and -- the really unique ingredient -- black sesame ice cream. I bet you won't find that as one of the 31 flavours at your local Baskin Robbins! My delicious snack spoke louder than (misspelled) printed words: Japan may have its share of problems, but there are good things if you look for them.

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  • Flight Back
    Mission accomplished (sort of -- once I conveyed to the company what medical informatics is, they realized they don't quite have the infrastructure in place to do any informatics projects), I could let my mind relax. The in-flight entertainment wasn't very mentally taxing:

    • You Can Count On Me (USA 2000; Dir: Kenneth Lonergan) **
      A ne'er-do-well brother comes back into the life of a woman who, though religious, is a single mother and has a reckless romantic life, including an affair with her new boss. The acting is good, and Matthew Broderick's performance gives this movie value as a training film for managers on how not to behave.

    • Head Over Heels (USA 2001; Dir: Mark Waters) *1/21/2
      After she catches her live-in boyfriend being unfaithful, a young woman (Julia Roberts lookalike Monica Potter) moves in with four supermodels (really!). In a nod to Hitchcock's Rear Window, she thinks she witnesses a murder in the apartment across the street. She and her roommates investigate the suspect, who also happens to be her new love interest. This movie is pure juvenile fluff, but gets points for Potter's likeable, spunky performance. One of the supermodels is played by Tomiko Fraser [PHOTO], who actually is a Ford Agency model and a spokesperson for the Lupus Foundation of America. I wonder how she got her Japanese first name (her sister's name is Shneequa)?

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