Cold Night

Today was cold. It was probably the coldest day this winter. Since my home is made from wood and soil, and many decades have passes since this house was built, it is very cold even when I am inside my home. I am typing this document in front of my PC in a room, and I am not currently using a heating system in this room. So, my fingers are getting cold.

I could use the air-conditioner system now if I wish to. However, I do not like to use it now because sometimes I feel very comfortable when I am in a very cold room. My home is away from the traffic on the streets, so the tranquility is prevailing. I would like to keep this silence rather than listen to the noise of the air-conditioner. I  have wrapped myself in a blanket and warm clothing.

Asian Cup

Last night, the Japanese football team won against the Australian team, and gained the first prize in the Asian Cup. The Asian Cup was held in Doha, Qatar, which is far away from Japan. Thus, the final match started at midnight and ended at 2:30 a.m. Japan time, and I watched the complete match on live TV.

The match was really exciting. This was partly because the match was the very final match in the Asian Cup, meaning that the winner of the match would become the Asian champion. In addition, the match itself was interesting. Japanese players often attacked the Australian goal, while the Japanese goalkeeper, Mr. Kawashima, performed miracle saves many times.

The Japanese team seemed not to play well in the first half of the match. However, the team manager Zaccheroni, who conducted the operation of the Japanese team, changed some of the players and the formation of the team in the last half of the match. His decision hit the mark, and made for a great result.

When I was single, I did not pay much attentions to football games at all. One of the reasons was that I did not possess a TV set in my home. I had been living without a TV set for about 10 years, starting from 19 years old and until 28 years old. Those days were good days. Reading novels was one of the greatest pleasures of my private life.

However, after my marriage, my wife insisted that a TV set was one of the necessary home electrical appliances, so that we had  a TV set installed. I started to watch soccor games after I watched a match of the Argentinian team against another team (I forgot the country name) in the World Cup 2010. The quality of the Argentinian team was high and I realized that football was one of the best entertainments of daily life.

The other reason why I am currently interested in watching football games is probably that football requires both personal skills and team power. Football players have to not only have high physical skills, but also cooperate with each other in order to win games. I am currently working with many team members (including my colleagues, clients, subcontractors, and bosses) in my business life, and one of the necessary conditions for the success of my current missions is team power. The Japanese football team provides me with a masterpiece of an organization’s power.

Anyway, I will follow the performance of the Japanese football team in the future.

Business Travel to Chile (Part 2)

(1) At an airport in Santiago

I am currently at an international airport in Santiago, Chile, waiting for the departure time of a flight to Japan. This time, I will be in transit through an airport in Atlanta on my way from Santiago to Narita, Japan. The flight takes about 10 hours from here to Atlanta, and I have to wait for about 5 hours for in Atlanta, and finally I can get back to Japan after taking about a 14 hour flight from Atlanta. My current physical condition is good, but I do not know how I will be when I get to Narita. I hope that I will also be fine even at the arrival time in Narita.

(2) At an airport in Atlanta

I arrived at an airport in Atlanta, and am waiting for the flight to Narita. The flight from Santiago to here took about 10 hours, but it was not so bad. I could have a sleep, and finish reading the novel “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. The novel was good. People say that Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are the two best novels by George Orwell, and I have no doubt about this evaluation.

Both books illustrate a society governed by dictatorship. Animal Farm depicts how the dictatorship is developed, and Nineteen Eighty-Four illustrates how the dictatorship maintains its power. Logics of the development and maintenance of the dictatorship prevailing in the two books are clear. The two books imply that our society (at a community level, at a business operating unit level, or at a national level) always have possibilities to go to socialism or dictatorship.

(3) The business performance in Chile

I was working in Chile for about one week, and I realized that my consulting skill is not at a satisfactory level. I could have contributed more to my business mission in Chile.

Chile has many mining sites, and my mission in Chile was to evaluate whether or not one of the mining activities in Chile causes environmental impacts. I visited a mining site, and conducted several interviews with relevant people to the mining activity. However, I am not satisfied with my performance. I could have obtained more precise information if I had prepared what items I should have asked about in interviews, if I had known what points needed to be clarified during the mining site visit, or if I had had better verbal communication skills in English. Knowing my weak points is a good opportunity to improve myself, but I need energy to shine the light on my weak points. No-one wants to see one’s faults, honestly speaking.

(4) Impression of Chile

I visited Santiago, the capital of Chile. Although some garbage was scattered on streets and beggars could be seen here and there, Santiago was an ordered and developed city. I visited Mumbai, the financial center of India, last spring, and I can say that there is more chaos in Mumbai than in Santiago.

Chilean people wear western type clothes, equivalent to American people. As far as I have seen, few people wear traditional clothing. On the other hand, many people in Mumbai wore saris. Clothing makes a visual difference.

(5) On the train from Narita to Tokyo

Although the departure time at the airport in Atlanta was delayed for 5 hours, I finally arrived at the airport. The15 hour flight from Atlanta to Narita was tiring, and I spent most of time sleeping and watching movies. I am now a little tired, but not too bad. I have finally completed my long journey. From tomorrow, I will restart my Japanese life with my family, friends, and colleagues.

Business Travel to Chile (Part 1)

I am now at a large size airport in Atlanta in transit from Tokyo to Santiago, Chile. Tokyo is far away from here. The journey from Tokyo took about 12 hours. My seat was a middle chair (in between an aisle seat and a window seat) in economy class, so there was little physical freedom when I was on the airplane.

In addition, I am suffering from jet lag. My departure time at Narita-airport was about 3p.m. local time, and my arrival time at this airport in Atlanta was about 3p.m. local time. My physiological function does are working well. For example, I am now feeling hungry, even though I ate my breakfast (or lunch, I do not care whichever the name is) a couple of hours ago. I am writing this document, while falling in an unconscious state and finding myself asleep several times.

The long flight was hard for my health, but there are a few good things. The most enjoyable experience was that I could see the movie “The Social Network” during the flight. The movie illustrates the humanity of Mark Zuckerberg. He is the co-founder of “Facebook.”, and is better known as a man who broke the record of the youngest billionaire in the world.

I am not deeply involved in social network services. I have not had any necessities/opportunities to do it so far, so I cannot grasp the essential points of why social networking services have become so popular. However, the movie provided me with sufficient suggestions.

The key point is “exclusivity.” Mark went to Harvard University, and there were several prestigious social clubs at the university. In order to become members of such clubs, you have to complete many selection processes. If you can finally gain the membership, you are exclusively allowed to socialize with the other members, and your prohibited friends are envious of you solely because you are the member of the club.

Mark was fortunate in that he could realize the eternal theory that people were seeking exclusive social networks. In addition, he has exceptional professional IT skills, so that he could implement his idea in the IT language.

In this sense, the success of Facebook is different from Google or Windows. The purpose of Google is to enable people to collect information efficiently and effectively on the Internet. Along the same lines, the purpose of Windows is to provide people with a technological foundation for IT systems. The success of Google and Windows is not rooted from sensitive human emotions such as the desire for socialization or envy of socialized people, but from a simple engineering slogan of “more efficient, and more effective.” The success of Facebook suggests one of future business blueprints.

My departure time in Atlanta will be 8p.m. local time, and the flight to Santiago will take about 9 hours. I have reserve an economy seat of the next flight as well. If I am asked from my business partners what the air travel is like in Santiago, I will try to answer, not that it was long, but I enjoyed the movies.

The New Year Resolution

Japanese people traditionally take a short vacation over the New Year holidays. The holidays usually start from December 29th and end on January 3rd in the next year. I planned to take a vacation this season as well. Actually, I went to my wife’s parents’ home in Wakayama and stayed there.

I went to the Ise Shrine to celebrate the start of the year 2011. The place was like a sanctuary, and much remains the same probably since a long time ago. It was a nice sightseeing trip. One regrettable thing was that I had an only limited time during the stay in the Shrine. I had only one and a half hours there, so that I had no other time except to visit the main building. There were many other accessory (or secondary) buildings and a lot of space where I could feel relaxed. There was serenity and many natural elements in the Ise Shrine. I want to take the next opportunity to visit the Shrine again in the future.

Except for the short trip, I was in front of my laptop PC almost all of the time during the stay in Wakayama. I had several tasks which had to be done by the first business day of the year 2011. My mother-in-law said that “Oh, you have to be engaged in your job even on your vacation, haven’t you? How hard your work is.” I wanted to explain why I had to work in the home, but, since it was a little complex, I gave up making the explanation.

The year 2010 was over, and the New Year started. My New Year’s Resolution is to live in harmony with myself. In the 2010, I sometimes experienced nearly to lose my mental and/or physical balances. In some time, reasons of the imbalances originated from my work. Continuous overwork and strong pressures caused me anxiety. In other times, the causes were related to my private life. I want to reduce the occurrences of such negative emotion in this year. I want to keep serenity and good harmony inside me like an atmosphere prevailing in the Ise Shrine. I hope that the year 2011 will be a good year for you and me.