Responsibility to Speak Out - Takanohana for Sumo and Japan for Peace

A few days ago, Takanohana, a former Yokozuna sumo wrestler and currently stable master, apologized to the Japan Sumo Association (Nihon Sumo Kyokai) and withdrew a complaint he had filed with the cabinet office. It was about the assault of a Mongolian wrestler of his stable by other Mongolian wrestlers of other stables, including Yokozuna Hakuho and Yokozuna Harumafuji, last year. As a result of the scandal, Harumafuji retired in November 2017. If you are unfamiliar with the scandal, go to: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/11/27/national/hakuho-says-will-tell-truth-fellow-wrestlers-assault-takanoiwa-rid-sumo-world-pus/#.WrwY5q8h1ok

Not only is the sumo community conservative and violent, but also he himself was raised in such circumstances. Fighting the association means fighting his late father and grandfather, also sumo wrestlers, and himself, too. So, many Japanese had known that it must have been hard for Takanohana to fight the association, but hoped him to keep fighting to reform this one of the most closed circles in Japan despite challenges he would face. But another assault between his own disciples suddenly put it to an end. He surrendered as if he had had no right to speak out about others' violent behaviors because he and his disciple were guilty for the same wrongdoing. But is that so? If someone does a wrongdoing, do they no longer have the right to talk about others doing the same and tell that they are wrong? Or once a country commits a crime, does the country lose the right to speak about another country making the same mistake and tell others that although it made a grave mistake, what the other is doing is also a crime? I don't think so. Even if you make a mistake, do a wrongdoing, commit a crime, you still have the right to say that those doing the same thing are wrong, but on one condition. You have first to apologize and keep apologizing until the apology is accepted and sometimes you have to do so forever, because it is what sinners and criminals are supposed to do. You also have to change words and behaviors to prevent recurrences. And this is what Japan needs to do to the neighboring countries. We have to keep apologizing to them and show that we have been changing our legal and educational systems to prevent us from committing the same crime, e.g., penalizing imperialistic and racist words and actions and discussing our ways of thinking and actions during the war in school classes. This also allows us to more objectively understand our position as the only victim of atomic bombs and gives us the right to say what is wrong is wrong to countries which have nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.

Apologizing for your stupid action on one hand while criticizing others for the same action on the other causes ambivalent feelings, but conniving by keeping quiet because of your own difficulty to deal with such feelings is abandoning responsibility. I want Takanohana to keep fighting for the sumo community. Also, Japan should fight to abolish nuclear and other weapons for peace while demonstrating that we have been reforming ourselves so that the same mistakes will never be made by not only us but also others.

Prime Minister Wife's Accountability and Sontaku 忖度に関する考察 No.2 - 昭恵夫人

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

It is not unusual that women are obsessed with looking young, but in Japan, acting young or even childish, too. They speak in a higher pitch and a little slowly. It makes me sick. But what makes me sicker is a woman who evades her accountability by hiding behind her powerful husband, i.e., Ms. Akie Abe, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife. We want her to explain in public what she did and did not and if or how she was involved in the Moritomo School scandal. But she has been quiet like a grounded baby girl since the scandal broke out. If you are not familiar with the incident, please go to this site or others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritomo Gakuen.

Memories of My Mom

(This is a fictional story based on real events.)

My dad found a white envelop in a trash can when searching for a key holder. He had been looking for the keepsake from his mother, for more than thirty minutes. Seconds later, he found a 10,000 yen note (i.e., about 100 US dollars) in it and was about to say something, but decided to avoid a futile argument. We both knew that my mom would have said she had been too busy to empty every envelop or plastic bag before throwing them away, the same statement as that made when I had found a small box containing my earring in the trash can.

There was another incident. It must have been a weekday because only I and my mom were at home. She went out to throw garbage away. When coming back, she rushed into the kitchen and started to make a rice ball. She had seen a man scavenging food from the bin and had to give him something to eat or, according to her, he would die. I didn't say anything as I knew nothing could stop her. She rushed out of the kitchen as she had entered in and out of the house. Some time later, I heard the door closed. She came to my room and said "He wasn't looking for food, but a rice cooker." The man was a Russian and looking for a rice cooker because he had found one, which had seemed still usable, in the bin the day before.

Another one started in the afternoon on a Saturday with her saying "it's boiled" in the kitchen. I went there and found her staring at a pack of eggs. "What's wrong, mom?," said I. "One of them is boiled," said she. The pack contained ten eggs. All the eggs were still in it and seemed fresh and raw at a glance. But as she had said, the surface of one of them had a crack on it. It was boiled. "Where did you buy them?," I asked her. "The convenience store yesterday afternoon." "So you must have put a boiled egg in it yesterday evening or this morning, right?" Case closed for me, but not for her. She still was staring at the egg and said "I am going." I realized instantly that she was going to the store to make a complaint. She bought most of the daily necessities at the store and often had a chat with the store manager. "Mom, please. You must have misplaced it." Several food scandals, such as expired foods or flies in canned foods, had been reported, but how could a boiled egg be mixed up with raw eggs? And even if someone had done so, how and for what? I persuaded her that it must have been her misunderstanding and begged her to not go. Doing a stupid thing to a family member didn't do harm, but to a nearby store? But she wouldn't listen and in the end shouted "You don't believe me, do you? But I'm not stupid," I gave up. Thirty minutes later, when seeing her smiling with a pack of eggs in her hand, I felt not only relieved, but also guilty about letting her go. She must have shouted and yelled in front of other customers and the store must have done something to calm her. She said that, after listening to her explanation, the store manager had apologized and given her not only a new pack of eggs, but also a 500 yen (five US dollars) coupon as a token of an apology. She was in a good mood and repeated that she had done the right thing as it would prevent the same thing from happening. I decided to go to the store to apologize to the manager and also thank him for treating her, an elderly woman, so kindly. A few days later, however, I was told by another staff of the store that he had quit. Did he quit because of the incident? I didn't know, but if I had gone with her, he might have been still there. But a day passed and another. And another. I had forgotten this incident completely until recently.
 
These are part of memories of my mother. She died of a heart attack one year ago. It was so sudden that I still can't believe that she's gone. I didn't trust her judgment, but loved her, including her foolishness. She was so strong-minded and wasn't afraid of how she was thought of by others. She was always herself and I admire such strength and self-confidence.

A few days ago, I saw a news article about the arrest of a convenience store employee in another prefecture for tampering with store products. That was him, the store manager. The article provided no details, such as which products he had tampered with. According to the police, he had grudges against the store for low wages. 

A Case Study of Sontaku 忖度に関する考察

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Sachiko, a friend of mine, used to work for a Japanese bank. One day, she was told by the division manager to come to his office. It was at around 5 p.m. Five p.m. was still early for Japanese bankers working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. or sometimes even to midnight.
Sachiko was told in his office to be in charge of the vault of the division from the following day and therefore would open and close it every day. She asked him who the other responsible person was because the company policy provided that two staff members must be responsible for a vault based on the maker-checker rule. Apparently, he did not expect her to retort so said that Sachiko, as the youngest staff member of that division, was the only responsible staff member and that there should be no problem as it had been like that for a long time.

Mr. Right

(The following story is a fiction.)

Mr. Right was an accountant. He worked for the financial department of a company and started to work at 7 a.m. everyday. He had a wife and two children.

One day, Ms. Water, one of his subordinates, came to his office to ask if she might submit a report to a client. She emailed it to him a few days earlier for his review. The report calculated a client’s revenue using a certain method. He asked why she had chosen the method. She answered that it would reduce the client's costs. He then asked if the method had been approved by the company. She couldn't answer it. She said that she would find a relevant company policy and come back. Thirty minutes later, she came back and said that the company had approved it five years earlier. She asked him if she could now send the report to the client. He asked if she had confirmed that the method had never been argued before court. She looked down and he started reading another document. She knew that when Mr. Right started to read, he was done talking. One hour later, when she returned to his office for another explanation, she found he was meeting with someone. It was 9 p.m. Ms. Water left a message that she would come at 10 a.m. on the following day.

In the morning of the following day, after listening to her explanation supporting that the method had never been a legal issue, he asked her then if it was mathematically correct. She was a junior staff member and had majored in French literature. She said that she had found it unnecessary, because it had been used at least for the last three years according to her predecessor. He was about to open his mouth, but closed it and started reading another document. Ms. Water rushed out of his office with tears in her eyes. She had done twenty-hour overtime previous week for the report. "I should have done it myself," Mr. Right murmured to himself. He verified mathematical correctness of the method in one hour due to his after-work self-study of mathematics for the last five years. Why didn't people use their time after work more to study even though they knew that their intelligence was too low to fulfill their work duties? He murmured again.

After finishing up Ms. Water's report, he took one of the documents on his desk. It was about a layoff of more than one third of the entire workplace scheduled for early following year and used an effectiveness measurement model. The model was based on sales and non-sales related indicators and other data, the accuracy of which he was uncertain. He had a reason to be cautious. One month earlier, he had found that data in an analysis report had been ten years old and it had been only two hours before the start of the board meeting in which the report had been supposed to be presented. This experience had given him an important lesson, “Never trust anybody when it comes to data. Data never lie. If they are wrong, it's not their fault but a fault of the person who uses."

Annual salary data in the lay-off plan were easy to verify. A set of wage data used for another report last year were still in his computer. A length of service and the salary range code also presented no problems. The weighting factor, which was calculated based on employees’ academic grades, three-year average sales, and sales and cost forecasts per employee, however, made him uneasy. He knew that these forecasts, in particular, sales forecast per employee, would interest the president. The data were sourced from an analysis done two years earlier by someone who was now working for a competitor, but did not use any public data on sales, wages, inflation rates issued by industrial or government bodies. It was dawn when he finished gathering all the necessary data and verifying their reliability. He emailed the report to the president with a note that he would like to explain it in person from 11:30 a.m. on the following morning. The thirty minutes between 11:30 and 12:00 was the only available slot in the president's schedule for the following 24 hours.

After two hours sleep, he came back to office at 10:00 a.m. and as soon as he sat at his desk turned on his computer to check if a reply from the president had come, but in vain. He called the president's secretary but was told that he was not available. "This is strange," Mr. Right thought. Such a thing had never happened before. The lay-off could cause a serious financial issue. Something more serious that had prevented him from even replying to him must have occurred. And at that time, a report which had lied on the desk for the previous three days entered his view.

It was a three-year budget under two scenarios that compared numbers before and after the lay-off. He knew Mr. Wind, the preparer of the plan, well, because he had hired him. Mr. Wind was not a certified accountant, but it was like he had been born to be an accountant. He came to office at 7:00 everyday and worked on weekends. He now was more knowledgeable about the company's financial and accounting matters than anyone but Mr. Right. His reports were clear, specific, precise and accurate. Mr. Right almost forwarded the report to the president with his approval, but stopped. He had recently felt uneasy about forwarding Mr. Wind’s emails without giving him credit for his quality output. He stared into space for a few seconds. But he resumed to hit the keyboard writing that “I reviewed Mr. Wind's report and found no problem. If you have any questions, please let me know” and pressed the submit button. He was his supervisor, not his parent or friend. Emotions must be controlled.

It was nearly 11 a.m., but neither response from the president nor callback from his secretary had come. He directed his attention to the then last remaining report, the first draft of termination policies and procedures. This had come three days earlier and its deadline was the following day. It wasn't like him to keep a report unread, even one page, for three days. He had known when seeing the preparer's name that he would have no clue about what was written in it. Ms. Plain was a PhD in psychology, specializing in dynamics of feelings in the workplace. She had joined the company about one year earlier and conducted a survey nine months earlier. The survey questions required respondents to enter free-form answers and her report, mostly written in texts, including these questions and answers to them, were incomprehensible to him. How could these non-quantified texts be interpreted scientifically? The report was over 100 page. But he made it a rule to read any reports word by word from the beginning through the end no matter how long they were.

It was almost 5 p.m. when he finished reading it. Although he usually wrote his comments while reviewing, he couldn't do so for it, as he had no quantified criteria to analyze such information. The report started with a compilation of responses, such that “I worked hard. I came to office almost at 7 a.m. and left office after 10 p.m. almost everyday. Why does someone working so hard like me has to be sacked?”; “The business environment changed due to a policy change in the government’s trade policy. It was not my fault.”; and “I have three kids and elderly parents…”

She classified all the answers into ten categories based on the degree of self-confidence and assertiveness and listed examples of attitudes and scripts for each category to prevent unnecessary provocations and antagonizations. She recommended the use of such phrases as “thank you,” “we appreciate your hard work,” “your contribution was significant,” "it was a difficult decision for the company, but..." She also recommended that when uttering these phrases, the speaker be calm, but not smile. Reading a report, like this, which didn't give any concrete information was a torture for him. It was beyond his imagination to imagine how these procedures would work or help the company reduce cost. But it was the president who had decided to hire her and get all her reports to go through Mr. Right. He commented that “I reviewed it and found no problem, although the subject matter was out of my area of expertise. As an accountant, I found no issues and therefore am forwarding it to you...”

It was about 6 p.m. He had to attend two meetings starting at 6:30 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. In addition, he had received three new reports while reading Ms. Plain's report and they needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. He went home at 3 a.m. in the morning. Everything had taken longer than he had expected.

On the following morning, Mr. Right came to office at 8 a.m. He had slept for only a few hours for the last couple of days. When entering the office, he found his computer gone. He had been so tired previous night that he had forgotten putting it in a drawer. It was until he reached for his cellphone to ask for a replacement computer that he realized that it was too early to expect someone to be in the office. A new company policy had been implemented previous year to prohibit IT staff from working before 9:30 a.m. He had often referred to it as one of his most successful cost adjustment schemes. It had reduced IT overtime costs by more than 30%. He always told other employees that people should not be afraid of changes, but should adapt themselves to them for further improvement.

He felt a little chilly and turned around when noticing the president standing behind him. “Good morning, sir.” “Good morning, Mr. Right.” “You're very early. Has something happened, sir?” He started to regret to not have called him before leaving the office previous night and was afraid if he might be angry about it. The president entered Mr. Right’s office without answering the question. “It was a very difficult decision. You have contributed significantly to the company. We all appreciate it. Thank you very much, but…...” The president was so calm, quiet and even peaceful, but did not smile at all.

Half or Double?

A friend of mine is called a "half" because his father is an American and his mother is a Japanese. I don’t get it because he is a "double." He understands both cultures. But the way of understanding by those with more than one culture, like him, is different from that by those with a single culture. They see things from neither the Japanese nor American perspective, but from a broader perspective, i.e., the results of an exposure to, and a merger of, these two cultures since their birth. However, they are sometimes marginalized because of such uniqueness.
 
A Japanese friend of mine with a judo black belt once said that the current judo was "not authentic" because the rules, wear, etc., had changed under the global standards. Also, many Japanese disagree with the start of English classes in the third grade because, according to them, "it will prevent Japanese children from becoming 'authentic' Japanese." Another example is English. It is now the "global language," but that used as a communication tool may also be considered "inauthentic" by some native English speakers. 

Today, everything is globalized under the so-called "global standards." But this is why having your own unique standards is a fun. It enables you to appreciate things more deeply, richly and uniquely and gives you the opportunity to expand yourself and live your own life. The idea of whether being a "half or double" or "authentic or inauthentic" is meaningless and exclusive, and among other things limits your potential. Authenticity should be measured by your own standards. 
      

 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Japanese elementary schools will start to teach English in the third grade in 2020, two years sooner than currently. And I am concerned about something. In a TV commercial aired by one of the most famous cram schools for colleges, the English teacher explains the grammatical difference between "at the ceiling" and "on the ceiling." Understanding this difference is important to pass college examinations. But don't you think that Japanese people have many other things to do before understanding such a difference?

We, Japanese, love to speak English. Everyone does. But our feeling to avoid being embarrassed by mistakes is much stronger than the curiosity to learn English. This is partly because in Japan being talkative is deemed to be self-centered and stupid. (This is why we like the proverb "silence is golden.") Also, we don't want to be treated like babies because of our English proficiency level.

Generally, the more fluently a Japanese person speak English, the less Japanese their attitude is. This is most hated by those who only speak Japanese. English speaking Japanese often abandon or are ashamed of their local culture. Even when speaking in Japanese, they think and speak as non-Japanese do and those who speak only Japanese see through it and feel that they are excluded.  

So, why don't we become "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," i.e., behave according to the Japanese protocol (e.g., polite, quiet, shy) when communicating with Japanese speakers, while, when talking with non-Japanese speakers, act according to the global standard (e.g., smiling, assertive, eloquent)? It is needless to say of course that we have to have the third personality to control these two personalities.  

I don't want to replace my local culture with another, but want to accommodate more than one culture and keep and grow them both.   

Haiku and Translation

Haiku and translation are similar. 
They both require a clear and precise understanding of the subject matter.

The following haiku was written by a former professional golf player (i.e., an amateur haiku poet).

Original haiku in Japanese: ふる里の　山河よさらば　卒業す (furusato no sanga yo saraba sotsugyo su)

Translation of the original haiku: (This is my first translation of a haiku....)
Good bye
Hometown rivers and mountains
On the graduation day.

This haiku was revised by a popular haiku master as follows:

Revised haiku in Japanese: 卒業の　山河に誓う　志 (sotsugyo no sanga ni chikau kokorozashi)

Translation of the revised haiku:
I resolved to hometown rivers and mountains
To pursue my dream 
On the graduation day. 

The haiku poet described the meaning of the poem as follows:

"I had to do a lot of practice when I was a child to become a professional golf player and had no time to play with friends and couldn't care about anything but golf. So, on the date graduating from a high school, although everyone around me was hugging and crying, I promised to myself that I would never come home until I became a successful golf player."

This her resolution is not understandable from the original haiku. The haiku master did not either. So, after listening to her explanation, the master revised the poem to clarify her real feelings. 

This also applies to translation. When we translate something, we need to understand the subject matter, whatever it is, e.g., a feeling, a person, an animal, or a concept, etc. This is particularly important when the matter is intangible, such as an idea and a feeling. A description or explanation made by the person who experienced the matter does not necessarily describe what it is correctly. This is why translation requires both language proficiency and subject matter knowledge equally.      
   

Reason for Writing in English, My Second Language - No.3

A few days ago, I wrote down a history of my relocations during the childhood before forgetting it! Although I don't specify them in this post, in short, I moved 12 times until the age of 15. All these places are in Japan.

These moves and school changes have the following effects on me:
- I am good at speaking with (Japanese) strangers.
- I am good at blending in with new people (only Japanese). 
- I don’t easily trust others (only Japanese).
- But others (Japanese) think that I trust them.
- My classmates were from a diverse range of social strata (i.e., poor to rich).
- I have two personalities, one very extrovert, the other very introvert.
- These two personalities sometimes argued inside of me and made me tired.
- I can enjoy being alone especially in the workplace.
- But I am scared of being alone again (like in my childhood) after my husband dies.
- I am good at speaking with various accents (of Japanese).
- I didn’t like changes until some time ago.
- My husband is also like me (though global in his case)

I found that such background made me write posts for this blog in English. I am Japanese, but don't belong to any specific place in it. I am free, but also feel a bit lonely.  

Work Style Reform - Exercise for Being Efficient

Sachiko, one of my best friends, used to work for a Japanese company. She quit the company after working for seven years because the work efficiency was too low.

Sachiko understood that company employees had to compete against each other, but did not understand why her co-workers worked for almost 14 hours every day. If she had worked for only eight hours, i.e., the regular working hours, she would have had to work nearly two times more efficiently than they did. It was impossible.

Another reason for her quitting the job was that almost all male employees were fully supported by their wives. When they went home, everything, e.g., dinner, bath and bed, was ready, because they all had stay-at-home wives. In other words, their output was not only their, but also their and their wives' joint achievement. Sachiko had no intention of having a stay-at-home husband.

Work style reform has been one of the hottest issues in Japan and its major purpose is to improve work efficiency. However, according to Sachiko, as long as people like her former co-workers decide how to work, workplace efficiency will never improve, because they don’t know how to work efficiently.

The most difficult part of working is not to do what to do, but to decide what not to do, i.e., prioritization. Prioritization requires a decision of what to let go. Sachiko saw at the previous company every employee of her department being assigned more than 50 projects per year. They knew that they wouldn't be able to finish them, but couldn’t say so or let go less prioritized projects.  

Prioritization requires criteria and criteria requires successful and unsuccessful experiences. And such experiences require the actual performance of prioritization. This cycle goes on and on.

So, the question is how to develop such a virtuous efficiency improvement cycle so that employees make decisions leading to improved efficiency on their own.

By the way, efficiency can improve, but not forever. When it is maximized, it's time to let it go.

If you are interested in a story about the comparison between the concept of "mottainai" and that of "let it go," please go to: http://keinarujima.blogspot.jp/2017/09/mottainai-make-it-work-or-let-it-go.html

Mottainai - No. 2

A few days ago, I received a box of business cards from a GA staff member. When I was checking one of them, I found something wrong with the other side. 

It reads "Narujima Kei." As you may know, the order of the first name and the family name of a Japanese name is the opposite of that for an English name. For example, in my case, Kei is the first name and Narujima is the family name. So, in English I am called "Kei Narujima," but in Japanese, "Narujima Kei."

I emailed the staff to ask if there was any company rule that even an English name be written in the Japanese manner.

She responded immediately, said that that was a mistake, and would place another order with the vendor. 

The box contains one hundred cards. I don't know how much it costs exactly, but it must not have been a large amount, because she was indifferent to the replacement. Similar things happened to other employees a few years ago. Maybe it's not a big deal for the company, but I was surprised. Wasn't it mottainai? If these had not been mottainai, what would be?  

"Mottainai" is used when something useful, such as food or time, is wasted. However, it has been frequent recently to decide if something is mottainai from only the financial perspective. This time, "resources," that is paper, was wasted and so, I think it was mottainai. But it wasn't for the GA staff member because according to the recent definition, even if something useful is wasted, but does not cost much, it is not mottainai. 

"Mottainai" originally means to regret or feel sad about the loss of what should have been and is not about money. I like this term because it reflects a good aspect of an old Japanese belief of "Yaoyorozu no kami (eight million gods)," meaning that God exists in everything.  

When do you feel mottainai? Do you feel you are wasting your time when waiting for someone?  

If you are interested in a story in which a woman used this term to describe her relationship with her boyfriend, please go to: http://keinarujima.blogspot.jp/2017/09/mottainai-make-it-work-or-let-it-go.html