It's been a while...

[Sven 0]

... but I'm back, at least long enough to send this post out.

 

Things are pretty hectic at the moment with a new job and all the hassle that comes with it, but I'm still up for the next SJ get together

 

As promised in the Snow Talk section, I'll include an email sent out to friends back home which gives some more info on the job that I got... it's a long read (and excuse the exaggerations in the about japan part at the top), but it's easier than writing similar things again, so for anyone interested, "hai, douzo!"

 

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Ladies and Gentlemen: welcome to another rambling email from your

correspondent in Japan.

 

I'm gonna start this one off a bit differently, and give you a short

intro into some 'differences' between Oz and Nihon. Keep in mind that

these are pretty random topics chosen, but here goes:

 

-- Trucks --

Australia -> All truck drivers have the mandatory summer and winter

attire (wife-beater and flannels accordingly)

Japan -> There's no uniform that I can make out, but there are seating

position regulations in place. It's mandatory to have the left leg up

on the dashboard next to the steering wheel, and the right leg either

next to it (for that "reclined driver" look), or on the actual

steering wheel (for that "my car's bigger than yours and I don't care

if we crash" look.

Australia -> The truck makes that annoying beeping sound when reversing

Japan -> While reversing, a looping female voice recording is played,

that I think translates to something like "look out, I'm alive!".

 

-- Trains --

Australia -> What are trains?

Japan -> There's nothing like the disorientation experienced when you

wake up and look out of the train and think that you're going in one

direction, only to find that you were looking at an adjacent train

going faster than you. For the nerds.... it's all about reference

frames.

 

-- Toilets --

Australia -> It's a toilet... there's not much more to say.

Japan -> The toilet seat is heated, with a thermostat thingy you can

adjust on what can only be called the toilet 'control panel'.

Japan -> On the control panel is also a little button with a label (in

Kanji) and a quaint little stick figure icon that looks like a guy

sitting on top of a water fountain. Press this to get your arse

sprayed with water.

Japan -> There's a similar button, this time the stick figure in the

icon is wearing a skirt (which I find a bit strange… at this point I

think the skirt should really be off). Guys, don't press this button.

Japan -> There's sometimes an actual panic button. True to its name,

it made me panic after I pressed it, what with all the loud beeping

and stuff. Apparently it's for the elderly and those stupid enough to

press buttons they don't understand.

 

-- Work --

Japan -> At precisely 8.55am each work morning, there's this crazy

'song' that comes on the loudspeakers where the main lyric is 'hup'.

It's sort of a reminder that work starts soon, so you'd better 'hup'

to it.

 

-- Television --

Japan -> The daily news is accompanied by a dramatic soundtrack

Australia -> Documentaries are preceded with an introduction by Ernie Dingo

Japan -> Documentaries are introduced by some current tv 'talents'.

During the whole show, the corner of the tv screen just pans over the

faces of each of these people, as they make surprised, quizzical, and

humoured faces as they watch the show themselves. Once again for the

nerds… the recursion here kills me.

Australia -> You sometimes see shows which feature something showing

how crazy japanese tv is.

Japan -> You see how crazy japanese tv is

 

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Ok, that will do for the differences bit just now… let's move on…

 

Right now I'm living in the JARI dormitories temporarily (JARI is the

company I've just started working for…). Interestingly enough, they

didn't have any space available for me, so my room is normally one

reserved for an executive director or similar. I've got 2 rooms plus

a little bathroom/shower deal. Breakfast, dinner, a 20 meter walk to

work… nice scam, really. Speaking of scams, the place that I'll be

moving in to in the middle of the month is called Ninomiya House, a

set of apartments reserved for 'foreign researchers'. I called up and

asked if they had an apartment available, they said that I'm working

as an engineer not a uni researcher so it's against the rules, I said

please, they said sure no worries. Despite being slightly expensive,

it's a very, very nice place, and the best part about it is that it's

fully furnished and there's no 'initial fee'. This initial fee is a

killer here… imagine paying 2-5 months rent before even moving in as a

gift to the landlord for being so generous as to rent the place to

you, and then walking into a completely empty space (even no light

bulbs in the fittings). That's well beyond my budget, so this

Ninomiya House looks great.

 

Ah, so now on to work. I guess you wouldn't be surprised to find that

my first day of proper work in Japan was steeped in formality. I'm

one of 21 newbies at JARI (the business year always starts on April

1), and first of all we were ushered into a meeting space, and seated

in a grid. Each of the directors and such of the company came in and

so started a long day of bowing. Each of our names were read out and

we had to walk to the front, bow, take three steps forward, take a

piece of paper, bow, take three steps back, bow, walk back to our

seat, and then wonder what the hell was written on this piece of

paper. Maybe that last bit was just me. After all that we did some

recreational bowing, and then went to some kind of JARI assembly.

Bear in mind that there's something like 380 employees, and at this

point I was assured that yes, I'm the only foreigner. So at this

assembly some high up old dude spoke for f$#%@ ages, very little of

which I understood. After he finished, all us newbies were lined up

in front of everyone, and when our names were read out, we'd take 3

steps forward, bow and say "domo yoroshiku onegaishimasu" (kind of

like "g'day everyone, nice to meet ya", but 34 times more formal).

 

Most of the rest of the day was spent 'hanko'ing forms (a hanko is a

little red personal stamp that acts as a signature), and severely not

understanding the 'survival guide' speeches about what to do in an

earthquake/fire etc.

 

After work, most of us new kids went out for celebratory dinner and

drinks at an izakaya (pub equivalent), and that was good fun night,

much helped by the fact that it was a Friday so no work the next day.

 

Today was a bit more like regular work (although I still spent half of

it on our orientation tour of all the other JARI facilities we won't

be working at), and I found out quite a bit about what I'll be doing.

It looks like my first task will be to work with a human computer

model (very detailed, model is built from layers of muscles, not just

limbs) and incorporate it into a crash simulation that's already been

done using a dummy model. It looks pretty cool, but the best parts

are that it's using LS-Dyna and Hypermesh (so I've got a bit of

background work under my belt), and they really just want something

that looks cool for presentation reasons rather than want me to

analyse anything in particular. My second task will be to help

organize and run some 'volunteer tests' (a substitute for cadaver

tests, which are against the law here in japan (cadaver tests are,

well, where you use, er, expired humans instead of dummies)). The

volunteer tests are of course not full scale crash tests and just

involve very low forces. I think there's another task that's planned

for me, and it's something to do with modeling the way that humans

activate their muscles just before a crash. Dummies just sit in the

standard position until the crash, but humans of course tense up and

move just before an impact. Since we'll be using a human model, we

should make it move and activate muscles before impact like a human

would. Basically, this work sounds pretty cool to me at the moment,

and hopefully it'll stay that way for a while longer.

 

Hmmm… what else can I tell you about? The city I'm in? Well, after 3

months in Tokyo, Tsukuba has reminded me as much of Canberra as I

think any place in Japan could. It's a city designed rather than one

that's built itself on top of itself. Completely unlike Tokyo, the

roads are wide and many-laned, there are wide bike paths everywhere,

and there's no real metropolis going on. People have said that I will

need a car while living in this city because it's so spaced out, but

then they were incredulous when I said I'd walk an entire 1km to some

other shops… Best thing of all is that there are sports grounds in

abundance, so I had a good solid afternoon of tennis against some good

players at the university (Japan's ex-top ranking female player was

there (she was about 30 in the world a few years ago)). I guess the

worst part of the city is that it doesn't have the same crazy

traditional-meets-modern chaos of Tokyo, but sometimes that's not such

a bad thing. So far I'm liking the city, and once again, hopefully

things will stay that way.

 

Ok, I think it's about time I stopped staring at this empty paragraph

wondering what to write about next (there are many options, both good

and bad times), but I've decided bugger it, I'm just gonna send this

thing off finally and therein end this rambling. If there are

questions, go for it – I'll answer back…. Eventually 

 

Alright, be good people,

Sven.

[gamera 0]

Haha Sven,

nice experience, wasn't it?

Or just boring?

I think your Japanese is getting better.

Yeah, easy to guess how often you bowed to everyone if it's your first day.

 

Is 'washlet (toilet with spray)' spacial thing in Japan? Don't you have it in Oz?

[TheOrange 0]

I might have missed that but what does JARI do?