First Full Week in Japan
So now I’ve officially lived in Japan for one week. And I’ve worked in Japan for one week. And it’s been busy, true to the image of the hardworking Japanese. Maybe I’ll write about that later. More importantly, the interesting things that happened in the last five days:
Work
On the first day at work, the 2 other interns and I took a tour of the company building, the factory, and even the museum that they constructed for their 50th anniversary in 2008 or so. (Misleading anniversary: Mabuchi has been around much longer than 50 years, 2008 was the 50th anniversary of that particular building).
We met the various heads of the departments, then the chairman of the board, and then the company president. Everyone was very nice and seemed interested in us, which I thought was rather unusual. But still quite nice!
The rest of the day we were with our assigned departments. I’m in R&D, one of the other interns is in a different R&D group, and the third intern is in the sales department working on marketing strategies or something similar.
I was introduced to the group leaders, as well as my supervisor, a guy named Kadoguchi. None of them speak English too well, so communication consists of basic vocabulary and grammar. And it’s surprisingly difficult to keep words simple, to avoid contractions, to avoid colloquial phrases. Conveniently many of the technical words (rotor, commutator, magnet, wire, ferrite, etc) are all borrowed English words, so those translate really easily.
I learned how to operate various equipment for testing the motors. My job right now is to characterize one of their new motors and identify factors affecting the efficiency. Unfortunately, the testing equipment takes a while to use, and the data doesn’t seem too reliable. We’ll see how this progresses in the next week or so. Regardless, I’m learning some interesting things about dc motors, and the test setups are interesting to examine and work with.
Food
The lady in charge of the apartment complex where I live is a nice old Japanese grandma. She gave me a rice cooker earlier this week, which was very nice of her and prompted me to go to the store and buy a 5kg bag of rice. By the way, rice in Japanese is 御飯 (gohan), and rice cooker is 炊飯器 (suihanki). Related because of the han part.
We went to a 焼肉 (yakiniku) restaurant Monday night, to celebrate our first day on the job. Yakiniku is Japanese barbeque, and consists of coals in the middle of the table where you can cook the thin slices of meat on your own. We ordered some chicken, some beef, some beef tongue, some Korean bibimbap, and some soup. All of it was delicious.
Thursday night we ate 回転寿司 (kaiten zushi), or “conveyor belt sushi”. (I asked if it’s pronounced sushi or zushi. Everyone I ask says it doesn’t matter, but the dictionary says zushi. I’ll still say sushi, personally). In this restaurant, sushi comes out on a conveyor belt and you can pick up plates that you want to eat. Each plate is 100 JPY, which is pretty much a dollar, and comes with 1-4 pieces of sushi depending on what type it is. You can order something specific with a touch screen on the table and it will arrive on a separate conveyor belt just for you. At the end all of the plates are counted up for your bill. Like all the food I’ve had so far, this was also absolutely delicious. Here’s a Youtube video of kaiten sushi at the same restaurant chain that we went to - Kura Sushi.
At work there’s a cafeteria with ridiculously low prices. Each lunch that I’ve had has been substantial, with a main dish, a soup, a salad, and rice. And it’s never been more than 450 JPY. Usually it’s below 400. This substantially helps my budget, which used to be 1000 yen per meal each day.
I’ve been cooking my own breakfasts and dinners otherwise. With the rice cooker this becomes vegetables and meat since the rice handles itself. My most recent endeavor was torikatsu or breaded fried chicken breast. Like this. I got some lemon and some generic nutmeggy meat sauce from the store, and altogether it tasted great with some rice.
Language corner
Unlike a lot of names I’ve seen, my supervisor’s name is spelled with easy kanji. It has the kanji for corner, 角, pronounced kado, and the kanji for mouth, 口, pronounced kuchi. Put them together (and add the necessary consonant softening) and you get 角口, Kadoguchi. Some of the names can get downright confusing, using strange kanji or unusual readings, so it’s refreshing to see common and easy kanji in a name.
In the morning when people greet each other, they say ohayou gozayimasu, except conversationally this just becomes hyogozaimaaaaas. They really sit on that last syllable and drag it out. Similarly in the afternoon/evening, as people leave work they say good-bye with otsukaresama desu. This doesn’t really shorten when spoken, it’s just otsukaresamadeeeeees. It means literally “Thank you for your hard work”, which kind of highlights the attitude of respect that permeates the culture here.
I’ve learned some vital phrases and grammar already. “How do I say ＿＿＿ in Japanese” is useful (＿＿＿日本語で何と言う), same with “I’ve never eaten that before” (それを食べたことない). Or “This weekend I’d like to go to Tokyo”(今週末東京に行きたい). Because that’s what’s happening this weekend. That’s where all the pictures will be :)