Live In Japan

Mamamia! More free SAFS (Suddenly Acquired FigureS) which materialize out of thin air. Hmmmmm. I love my job even more than I did yesterday ^^;

In the bullying in Japan article, I mentioned briefly that I had zero fond memories as a child and only mentioned the bullying I received. There is actually another reason why I was unhappy and that was because I was brought up in a foster home. Going to talk about about this subject while we look at the goodies - the contrast may throw you off a bit ^^;

First up is the SMILE800 V.I.P Trading Figures - the girls from ToHeart. For trading figures, the quality on these are pretty astounding - 800 yen each. This big box has 8 inside - I think there is the usual rare item inside too but haven’t looked yet - full review soon.

My parents crossed over to the UK from Malaysia many moons ago. My mother got a job as a nurse and my dad took after G’pa and decided to make shoes in the UK. They were both busy trying to make ends meet and didn’t have time to look after me. Mum had late night shifts at the hospital and Dad had to concentrate on getting money in though making shoes.

The ever so sweet Re Mie from Zoids.

My parents decided to get other folks to look after me.
I lived with not one but three families! I guess I had a very international upbringing because I was brought up by a Jamaican, British and an Indian family ^^;

Sonic Diver Reijin by Freeing. Will be sticking Haruhi in this ^^;

Dad was supposed to pick me up at weekends but sometimes he was too busy to make it. I would remember sitting on the stairs crying because I so looked forward to go back to my real home to see my folks for the weekend. A week as an adult seems like yesterday but a week to a child seemed like an eternity. Sometimes it would be weeks until my Dad came to get me.

The memories I have living with one of the families in particular are all horrible. The mother would take my clothes for her family and deny taking them.

Their kids would constantly bully me in the house and because they didn’t let me out, all I could do was sit in my room and cry. They would also steal my things too.

One thing I will never forget is the day a burglar came into their house. We came home to see the place in a mess. I got scared (and started to cry ^^;) and one of their kids shouted at me saying “What are you crying for? This even isn’t your house!”

Nanoha Figma. Wish I could talk about the future releases but I’m sure somebody would cut off my tongue ^^;

Most of my childhood was spent with one of these families. Was extremely frustrated with nowhere to go or nobody to speak to. I didn’t discuss any of this with my parents because I knew they were having a tough time making ends meet.

The Lucky Star Puchi Nendoroid Season 2 set. Not even sure if these are out yet ^^;

Baek Changpo. Initially thought she had an odd face but looking at her in the flesh I think shes quite cute - great bottom.

I had friends as a child but only saw them at school as I wasn’t let out. I would lay in my room where I always had dreams of being visited by Buck Rogers and his silver robot Twiki.
Buck Rogers OP with Twiki below.

The lovely ChuChu Astram. Oppai Oppai!

I know there are folks out there who have gone through much worse ordeals as a child so I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I don’t hate my parents or that family for the way they treated me - whats past is past and nothing is going to change it. Coming to think of it, If I didn’t have the upbringing that I had, maybe I wouldn’t have turned out so determined in life (maybe?)

Cant change the past but am making sure I spend whats left of my life changing the future.

I do try to understand my personality as much as possible and think that as I didn’t have much (any) fun as a child, I’m making up for it as an adult. At the moment I’m having fun every day doing what I love and being rewarded by the satisfaction of achieving goals, by monetary terms and receiving figures which suddenly appear ^^;;;;;

Kemeno Nendoroid Plus. This will be out in a few days time. If this photo disappears its because I was told to remove it ^^;;;

This figure is paired with MM by Max Factory.

Cutie Kotona from Zoids. Its just a coincidence that all of these are from the Good Smile and Max factory bunch…

^^;;;

As for how long I will be collecting figures? Not sure as I certainly haven’t grown tired of them. They are more than just “Toys” to me, I love looking at them and see them as forms of art. I guess the answer is “until I go sleep forever.”

Do you think you would ever get bored of your figures? Who here is the eldest reader who still collects figures?

Cant wait to get Rize out of the box and have a look at her eyes.

Up until a few years ago I used to break down in tears whenever I talked about my childhood - have not gone into details but it was truly a horrible experience.
These days however I feel fine - being depressed about my past doesn’t really help me in anyway. I wont try to forget it either though - I probably couldn’t even if I tried.

How many of us here have had a rough upbringing? Feel free to share any stories you have to help your fellow comrade.

As I was taking pics of the boxes I realized after that I barricaded myself in behind the table ^^; A Barricade O figures…
If you are looking for any of these figures then try one of the following dealers who ship worldwide.

• Hobby Search
• Anime Export
• Kid Nemo Company
• Anime USA
• Otaku Fuel
• J List

Hobby Stock is the place to try if you live in Japan.

Will get round to reviewing all of these soon. Also need to get round to working on implementing the rating tool for your competition entries to win some of these figures.

Ah - really want to show this but…You know I like to tease you ^^;

It goes without saying that I’m enjoying life more as an adult than a child but I know there are folks the other way around - which are you?

And before I forget. You will notice that I’m recently talking a lot about my past and my current achievements of late.
I used to write a lot about these topics but would get so many horrible spiteful mails like “where is your modesty, you suck, you show off, you loose blah blah.” For a while I removed all the motivational articles I wrote.

I have nothing to show off but lots that I want to share with others in the form of my past experience and current knowledge. My wish is that the information is useful to others and serves as motivation for some too. I would rather die sharing everything I know rather than die keeping my knowledge and experience to myself.

Another reason why I talk about myself is because letting people know about my achievements, abilities and experience has helped me meet many people with similar interests who I may not have ever been able to meet if I shut up just because somebody wants to be spiteful and send hate mail.

I have also made many business partners through letting others know about my abilities - and I’m not the only one as you will see hundreds of thousands of other folks in LinkedIn talking about their own abilities and past experience for example. My LinkedIn profile is here - feel free to add me.

Dont be afraid of letting others know of your abilities and achievements. The minority may knock you but the majority will notice you and that cant be bad.

By Danny Choo on 2008/06/23 22:11

From Live in Japan Source

In a previous article I spoke about looking for work in Japan and today thought I should talk about the typical work benefits by taking the current opening position at Good Smile Company and my past experience as examples.

Good Smile Company are looking for a general administrator to manage the human resources book keeping and also to manage the finances.

Qualifications needed for this position are…

Yes you would be surprised how many young folks in Japan who cant use mail. Anyway the qualifications needed are not particularly high and GSC mention that they provide training.

Some companies provide OJT (On the Job Training) or a few weeks of training before your regular schedule starts. And then theres companies (like Amazon) who will expect you to hit the ground running with minimum guidance on your first day. If you know your job description well then you should know what questions to ask.

Most companies look at your education history as a criteria for deciding whether to proceed with an interview or not. As a hiring manager, I personally never paid attention to the education and was more interested in skills and achievements.

Many companies that I’ve worked in over here tend to favor folks who have an MBA and pay them loads of money regardless of their experience. Dont know what it is about an MBA but I’ve never thought much about it when hiring somebody - especially after seeing many hiring mistakes of poor performing MBA holders.

I know that many folks do an MBA and then a PHD just for the purpose of getting paid more when they land themselves a job. Do you plan on doing an MBA or PHD?

Photo below was taken in 2001 when I was at a recruitment company called Job Dragon. They were based in Omotesando which had great office views.
The CEO of Job Dragon contacted me because he liked my designs of dannychoo.com which I spoke about in the history of dannychoo.com article.

The hiring process at Good Smile is as follows.

I think I may have spoken about this before but cant find the article. While in the UK working for Japan Airlines, I applied for a position that was in Tokyo working for Nature online through a recruitment company called People First. They have many connections with Japanese companies so if you are in the UK then you may want to give them a whirl if you are looking for work in Japan.

The job was based in Tokyo and the description was “Web marketing in SE Asia.” I said to myself that I had to have that job and even told my wife on the day I applied that “we are going to Japan” - she gave me a smile.

A few days later, I got a call to meet the general manager (David) of Nature Japan who had come to the UK for to do interviews. I met with him for an hour and the interview included a task to read a scientific article in Japanese ^^;

After the first interview, I went home and stayed up all night to make a simple Nature Korea website - they didn’t have one at the time and discussed how it would be strategically important to have one during the interview.

I saved the files on a floppy, printed out a screenshot and found out what hotel David was staying at.

I got to the hotel, slid the folder under his door and left.
That night, I got a call from the recruitment agency who said that David wanted to meet me again and that “he was surprised by your delivery”.
Met up with David who said that he wanted to send me to Tokyo for a round of interviews with the staff. I said to myself that I was going to get the job and was confident.

A week of interviews and tests proceeded for a week. I was doing forecasting which I had never done before and had to think of an algorithm that made sense. I was also doing translating of scientific articles which they don’t teach in university for some reason ^^;

The end of the week came and I had a meeting with David expecting an answer but he said “We will give you a decision after you get back to the UK.”
I started to imagine the pain of sitting on a plane for 12 hours worrying about the decision and said “I probably wont have any finger or toenails left after biting them all off through thinking about whether I got the job or not - I would prefer an answer before I go back (smiles).”
David laughs and says “I understand.”

My time was up and I done everything I could. All I could do was to wait for his call.

The hotel phone rang on a rainy Sunday morning - it was David. “Danny, we would love you to join us.”
My dream came true. I was going to live and work in Japan.

Went back to the UK, handed in my notice to Japan Airlines, packed two suitcases and bought a one way ticket to Tokyo.

Now we look at the terms at Good Smile. They have a probation period of 3 months which is the standard in Japan meaning that you are out if you do not perform.
Japanese law protects the interests of the employee more than the employer which means that its extremely difficult to fire folks after 3 months - good for the employee but very tough for the hiring manager who is trying to get rid of a poor performer. Japanese labor laws do state that a hiring manager can fire somebody within the first two weeks without reason.

If an employee starts to perform poorly after 3 months, the company needs to provide evidence that they have done everything possible to help the employee improve their performance.

This is better than some of the horror stories I’ve heard through colleagues working in web companies in the US - some folks would come to work one day to find their desk empty - they had been laid off.

Job Dragon had to lay me off too due to restructuring but it wasn’t the “go-to-work-to-find-empty-desk” tactic. But as Job Dragon was a recruiting company, they introduced me to a few companies. Got job offers including one from Ebay but chose Amazon even though Ebay ended up bidding more. Getting more than two job offers through the same recruiter is good because the companies start a bidding war and offer you a “why you should join us” call from the CEO ^^;

Coming back from a tangent, there are companies however which keep poor performers by moving them around to different departments. These companies typically provide lifetime employment - and many Japanese folks stay with the same company from graduation until retirement. This is the reason why Good Smile dont have a contract - once you are hired you can potentially stay until retirement.

Foreign Capital companies in Japan are called Gaishikei [外資系] and they tend to have a contract which is renewed every year.

Picture below of me in my office at Amazon. Used to be more of a Star Wars person back then ^;

Picture below of me at Nature just starting out in corporate life. I hated that Mac which gave me a bad impression of MacOS!

Back to the position at Good Smile. Folks with no office experience will get just over 180,000 yen per month while experienced folks will get 200,000 yen.Evaluation of salary is once a year and there is a bonus twice a year - each bonus is usually 2x monthly salary but depends on company performance.
Bonus time is usually middle and end of year which is why there are many ads on TV by companies who want a share of your bonus by selling you another refrigerator.

While most Japanese think of salary in terms of “per month”, I always thought of salary in terms of “per year” and I think that’s still the UK way of thinking - same in your region?

I started off with a salary of 5,000,000 yen and at about 27 I thought I hit the jackpot ^^.
I soon discovered that I was way below market value in Japan through talking to recruiters and other folks in the industry.

The 200,000 yen at Good Smile is good for an entry level position but I recommend that folks (no matter where you work) keep your options open and be aware of your own market value based on your increasing experience and skills. Speak to as many people as you can in the industry of your interest and meet up with recruiters even if you feel comfortable in your current job. Feeling *too* comfortable in your current job is a sign of danger though - I know many folks who want to leave their current job because of different reasons but they feel that they can’t because the pay and benefits are good.
Do you feel that you have a grasp of your own market value? Are you currently underpaid for what you are doing?

Knowing your market value is not just about getting more money - its about getting rewarded more in monetary terms doing something that challenges you. Being rewarded more also means that you are being recognized for your experience, skills and achievements. So if you feel too comfortable in your current job, then it could be time to look for something more challenging - life is short.

The Job at Good Smile requires you to be be living in the Tokyo area and already speak Japanese - folks interested can apply here.

I’ve mentioned it many times but in my experience, folks who speak both English/Japanese *and* have a core skill get better paid jobs in high positions - its as simple as that. The management team I was on at Amazon was comprised mainly of non Japanese - all excellent speakers of Japanese - two folks from Canada (one originally from Hong Kong), one from China, one from the US and one from the UK (me ^^;).
Learning Japanese is fun if you are passionate about the language and not so fun if you feel that “you have to.” 30 - 40 people took the same Japanese course as me in university but only 3 or 4 made it through to the end as many took the course because they thought “Japan is where all the monies is” and not because they were passionate.

How many folks here are currently learning Japanese and what tips can you offer to your fellow reader?

Other standard work benefits at Good Smile are health insurance (you pay 30% of medical bills if you are sick), employment insurance (you get money if you loose your job for whatever reason) and they pay some of your pension too. Pension is partially payed by your employer/yourself and theoretically you get money when you are retired. Unfortunately it looks like 50 million Japanese may not get money that they are entitled to as I wrote in my previous Japanese pension article.

Good Smile only mention the standard holidays which are Golden Week and national holidays. There are quite a few national holidays in Japan and I was incredibly shocked to see the lack of them when I was in the US for a while - does your region have a load or lack of national holidays?
Amazon and Microsoft provided about 12 days leave per year while Nature provided about 20. If you joined Microsoft in December, you would be given 12 days for the current year and receive another 12 days come January. How many days of leave does your company provide?

Another benefit are staff discounts - Good Smile don’t mention it but I’m guessing that employees get free figures ^^;

Amazon and Microsoft provided some sort of employee discount card which enabled us to get discounts for hotels and trips around Japan - hotel rooms were discounted from something like 12,000 yen down to 1,200 yen. The best benefit I has was the staff discount at Microsoft which enabled me to get something like 12% off *Apple* products - yes Apple products because we made office and messenger for the Mac. Does your company provide staff discounts?

And for those thinking of the job at Good Smile and who haven’t seen it yet, my previous tour of the Good Smile offices is in the video below and photos in this previous article.

Finally, if you have solid plans of living and working in Japan, do feel free to share them.

By Danny Choo on 2008/06/22 12:33

From Live in Japan Source

「水の表現」

Let’s look at a few words and expressions that involve water, 水 (mizu).

水商売　(mizu shobai) = the water world, which refers to red light districts and the trade in flesh

寝耳に水　(ne mimi ni mizu) = a bolt out of the blue (literally, “water in a sleeping ear”)

水に泡 (mizu ni awa) = to come to nothing (literally, “foam on water”)

水いらず　(mizu irazu) = to be alone with one’s family (literally, “not letting water in”)

水臭い (mizu kusai) = to become cool suddenly (literally, “stinking of water”)

水と油 (mizu to abura) = oil and water

焼け石に水 (yake ishi ni mizu) = a drop in the bucket (literally, “burning stone in water”)

And, our own favorite:

水に流す (mizu ni nagasu) = to forgive and forget (literally, “to let flow away”)

Please send us your own favorites.

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From Live in Japan Source

Firstly, the famously difficult exam that you have to take to become a barrister in Japan is set by the Bar Association, ie practicising lawyers, who obviously have good financial and status reasons for keeping the number of lawyers as low as possible. Another factor is that many of the top law graduates in Japan […]

From Live in Japan Source

From Live in Japan Source

So, you have just moved to Japan and bought a house but are worried about burglars aiming for your huge collection of figures, gundams and Candy Girls - what do you do?

Well you can do what a load of other home owners in Japan do and hire the security services of a company like Alsok.
Starting from a laughable 4,000 yen, you can order the Home Security 7 plan and have your house transformed into the state of the art fortress equipped with the latest sensors which will detect movement, fires, opening windows, farts, a light to illuminate your entrance (…) and most importantly an Alsok sticker that you can stick on your window to scare off potential burglars/assailants.

All equipment is controlled by a central electo plasmic vertex membrane (plastic control panel) and as you can see from the diagram below, (larger version at Alsok) the triggered sensors around the house can be set to alert Alsok’s emergency bridge full of trained ninjas disguised as operators who will either call the police or send a man in a plastic hat with a stick. You can also call them manually by hitting an emergency button.

You would think that Alsok would get in trouble for false advertising - the photo below shows how many are supposed to turn up when alerted.

If you want more security then paying 7,000 yen per month will get you the Home Security X7 plan which includes all of the above, a gas cloud detector, button to mobilize doctors for when you’ve had too much spicy food, a “Life Rhythm” device which will alert Alsok if your toilet door has remained closed for more than a certain period of time (incase you die from smelling your own shite).

X7 also includes cameras which will take pictures of suspicious persons around your house and send the images to your mobile phone, cameras to take pictures of your house which will be sent to your mobile and devices to detect if the security line to Alsok is cut.
I can imagine a scenario. You are abroad on holiday enjoying the sun and sea on the beach when you get a picture sent to your mobile of somebody entering your house - or even worse - a picture of a person leaving your house with a ton of your belongings ^^;

The only people I personally know who have these are American folks living in Japan. One of them tells me how they only have 10 seconds to deactivate the defense systems in the house before it automatically alerts Alsok ^^;

Are there security firms like Alsok in your region? Do you/would you hire their services to “protect” your home and family?

The image above shows how the Alsok guards are taught how to do sentai poses to scare off burglars.

Alsok also have a bunch of security robots which do things like put out fires, take video and use up a load of electricity.

Alsok also have other security related products like Computer Monitoring for bosses who cant trust his/her own employees.

The Computer Monitoring will cost that boss 17,325 yen annually per monitored machine. A log is produced for each monitored machine which includes…

• Machine on/off time, login/logout time
• All software used
• All USB devices that were attached to the machine
• All documents printed
• Current mail status (send/receive) and all files attached
• All sites visited/how long etc
• Name of files uploaded/downloaded via P2P software
• Name of files being sent by FTP

When I first heard of the Computer Monitoring service that was announced by Alsok this month I thought “wow.”
Employers would probably find it cheaper learning how to employ people they trust instead.

Alsok say that this product is great for employers to prevent theft of intellectual property - what do you think? What would you do if you found out that your computer was being monitored in this way at work? is your machien already monitored?

When Alsok’s guards cant scare off burglars with their sentai poses or sticks, they grab each other and do some Boys Love scenes which scares off 70% of the evil assailant.

Photos in this article taken from Kosei Inoue-san’s blog who you can see in the CM below.

Apart from sticks, Alsok’s guards also can sing to scare off burglars.

One of the Alsok robots in action below.

By Danny Choo on 2008/07/01 20:13

From Live in Japan Source

There were a few things going on yesterday besides the big news about Kodansha.At PWCW, Kai-Ming Cha takes a look at the seinen title Gantz, due out soon from Dark Horse.David Welsh takes a look at the new manga reaching comics stores today.Jeff Yang has a thoughtful look at death and manga at the San […]

From Live in Japan Source

紫陽花

We are very much in the middle of the rainy season now in Japan. In most parts of the country except Hokkaido more rain falls in June than any other month.

Two plants are particularly visible at this time of year: colorful hydrangeas (ajisai) in blue, purple and white and rice seedlings by the sides of paddy fields ready to be planted - no longer by hand but by small rice-planting tractors.

Hydrangea leaves by the way are toxic and a number of people fell ill when the leaves were served as a trimming to a main course in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.

By the middle of July the monsoon will be over along with the flowering of the hydrangeas and the unremitting heat of summer will be here again.

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From Live in Japan Source

秋吉洞

To date, more than 400 caves have been discovered beneath Akiyoshidai, the largest karst in Japan. Several of the larger caves are open to the public, and of these, Akiyoshido is the largest as well as being the largest cavern system in Japan.

Originally named Taki ana (waterfall hole) it was renamed by Crown Prince Showa when he visited in 1926, The cave is 10km in length, though only 1.5km is open to the public.

You enter along an elevated walkway into a vertical gash in the cliff wall out of which flows the underground river. The first section is huge, at places 100m wide, and is more like an aircraft hangar or cathedral. The temperature is a pleasant 16 degrees (62 Fahrenheit), and stays constant year round so the caves can be visited no matter the season or weather.

Further back in the cave the path leaves the river and twists and turns and climbs through some of the side caves. Here you can see classic stalagtites and stalagmites and a whole variety of fantastic formations. Colored lighting makes the most of these features. Most of the formations have names, “King of the Cavern”, and “100 Limestone Pools” are pictured here.

At the rear of the cavern is an elevator up to the Akiyoshidai plateau, so if you didn’t want to walk back through the cave you can exit this way and explore the plateau. A shuttle bus runs you back to Akiyoshido Town.

The cavern is open from 8:30am to 4:30pm daily, and entrance is 1200yen.

Akiyoshido can be reached by bus from Hagi, Yamaguchi City, or Shin Yamaguchi Shinkansen station.

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From Live in Japan Source

From Live in Japan Source