★Networking & Presentation!★

People who have different background get together and share their Mechakucha (“Crazy” in Japanese) ideas or experiences with others – that’s “Mechakucha Night”!
Our lineup of presenters is already full, but you can tell them during the networking time if you have a message!
*Expected presenters are from the US, the Philippins and Japan!

☆Date: May 24 (Fri), 2013
☆Time: Open… 7pm　Start… 730pm
☆Fee
・Presenters: ¥1,000 (*Lineup is full… so next time!)
・Other attendees: ¥2,000

☆Venue
CoworkingSpace Kayabacho (Co-Edo)
5th Floor of PA Bldg. 1-3-4 Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo　*Map: http://goo.gl/maps/OktUE
＜Direction＞
No.3 Exit of Kayabacho Station (Hibiya/Tozai Line)
→Go straight, pass by Starbucks, cross a bridge
→You can see a building with “PAビル” written on it on the right side (Between “Cafe Veloce” & “Pitatto House”).
*In case you are lost, call Co-Edo at 03-5542-0470.

☆Time Schedule
●7pm – 730pm: Networking with some food & drinks
●730pm – Mechakucha presentations Part1 (4 presenters + 2 short presentations)
*Each presenter has 5 – 10 min.
*No Q&A sessions. If you have some comments or questions, talk to speakers during break time.
●830pm – 9pm: Networking with some food & drinks. If you have a message or announcement, you can tell them here!
●9pm – 945pm: Mechakucha presentation Part2 (3 people)
*Each presenter has 10min. (They make presentations with slides)
*We have Q&A sessions, 5min for each presenter.

If you want to participate in this event, please write your name  & a message on the message board below and click “Submit Comment”. Hope to see you there!

Two years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake. It occurred at 2:46pm on March 11, 2011 (JST) and 2,668 people are still missing (As of March 11, 2013). So the 3.11 Earthquake is not a thing of the past at all.
So My Eyes Tokyo features the interviews with expats who had the earthquake and who have given aid to the devastated areas. Read them when you have time and pray for Tohoku’s recovery.

● Kathy Bauer (From US, interviewed on Apr 3, 2011）
http://www.myeyestokyo.com/46

● Sri Lankan Curry Kitchen Project (Interviewed on Apr 24, 2011)
http://www.myeyestokyo.com/42

● Tanja Sobko (From Sweden, interviewed on May 8, 2011）
http://www.myeyestokyo.com/27 
*Radio interview: http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2341

● My Eyes Tokyo x AP Tokyo Bureau (Talk session on June 26, 2011）
http://www.myeyestokyo.com/50

● John Matthews (From US, interviewed on Aug 19, 2011）
http://www.myeyestokyo.com/2306

● Kateryna (From Ukraine, interviewed on June 20, 2012）
http://www.myeyestokyo.com/4368

● Angela Ortiz (From US, interviewed on Aug 17, 2012）
Part1: http://www.myeyestokyo.com/5956
Part2: http://www.myeyestokyo.com/5959

Also many expats told us their earthquake experiences on the radio.

● Tasnoova Tahia (From Bangladesh, broadcasted on Apr 16 & 23, 2011）
4/16：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?m=20110416
4/23：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?m=20110423

● Diane Orrett (From UK, broadcasted on Apr 30, 2011）
http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?m=20110430

● Tohoku Shine On! (3 Westerners who cycled from Tokyo to Sendai and inspired people to pledge donations, broadcasted on May 14 & 21, 2011)
5/14：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2173
5/21：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2328 

● Mohamed Omar Abdin (From Sudan, broadcasted on June 25 & July 2, 2011)
6/25：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2574
7/2：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2595

● Kimberly Forsythe (From US, broadcasted on July 9 & July 16, 2011)
7/9：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2613 
7/16：http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=2614

● 1 year has past since the disaster (Broadcasted on March 10, 2012)
http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=3418

● Glen Hikari Onodera (From US, broadcasted on Mar 17, 2012)
http://fm840.jp/blog/myeyestokyo/?p=3467

We will exchange our 3.11 stories with participants of the morning meeting on March 13 (Wed *See details at https://www.facebook.com/events/191263047664011/), but we would like to hear as many episodes as possible. So we’ve decided to have another opportunity to share your experiences of the earthquake with us on the night of March 13.
However we’ll do a little bit different thing from what we do at the morning session. What we do at the night session is “Lightning Talk (LT)”, a short presentation which lasts about 5 minites. Each presenter speak your story in front of the audience and has a Q&A session.

Theme: Where were you & what were you doing at 2:46pm on March 11, 2011?

Language: Basically English

*If you live overseas or in far-off places, you can join us through Skype!
(Of course it’s free!）

———-MET Night Birds 〜LT on 3.11〜—————-

Date: Mar 13 (Wed) 2013
Time: Open: 7pm　Start: 730pm (-9pm)
Participation fee: ¥2,000 (includes 1 beer, some soft drinks & snacks)
Place: CoworkingSpace Kayabacho (Co-Edo)
Address: 5th Floor of PA Bldg. 1-3-4 Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
*Map: http://goo.gl/maps/OktUE
Direction: No.3 Exit of Kayabacho Station (Hibiya/Tozai Line)→Go straight, pass by Starbucks, cross a bridge→You can see a brown-colored building with “PAビル” written on it on the right side (Between “Cafe Veloce” & “Pitatto House”).
*In case you are lost, call Co-Edo at 03-5542-0470.

What presenters do: Lightning Talk (maximum 5 min) → Q & A session (about 5 min)
Language: Basically English
Things to bring: Stories & Openness enough to hear/respect others’ opinions.

*No stories? Of course that’s OK! Feel free to come and join us!
*If you live overseas or in far-off places, you can join us through Skype!

If you want to participate in this event, please write your name  & a message on the message board below and click “Submit Comment”. We appreciate it if you tell us that you’ll join us in person or through Skype .

Hi, nice to meet you! I’m Tazu Yamada, Kansai Area Manager of My Eyes Tokyo. I’ve delivered some news articles and interviews with wonderful people from the area including Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe in Japanese, but today I will try to tell you what I saw and felt in English for the first time.
Today’s topic is “Hack Osaka”. Do you know what it means? It’s a subtitle of the big international conference called “Global Innovation Osaka 2013” which was held in order to discuss how Osaka should be changed right before the opening of the innovative complex facility called “Grand Front Osaka”

日本語 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

On February 14 (Thu), Global Innovation Conference Osaka 2013 “Hack Osaka” was held at the Osaka City Central Public Hall, almost 100 years old historic architecture.

This conference was organized by the Osaka City government. They are aiming at turning the city into an international hub of finance, information and human resources. As many as 400 global innovators such as consulates in Osaka, startups and investors participated in the event.

After the video message from John V. Roos, US ambassador to Japan, Dave McClure delivered a keynote speech. A spearhead of the Silicon Valley Angel troop called “500 Startups” preached about “Comparison of innovative areas in the world with Osaka”.
“Don’t fear failure! Failure is an essential for innovation! YOU MUST BE THE NAIL!” He banged his fist on the stage and stimulated our shyness and hesitation. Also he touched on the magnitude of risk to Japan when we fail in something and appealed for the need for systemic reforms in Japan.

Then the panel discussion started. Its theme was “Challenge the global innovation”. The MC was Hiroshi Menjo, Advisor to Osaka City, panelists were ▽Takuma Iwasa (CEO of Cerevo, home appliance startup) ▽George Kellerman (500 Startups) ▽Toru Tokushige (CEO of “Terra Motors“, electric motorcycle manufacturer) ▽Allen Miner (Chairman & CEO of “Sunbridge“, promoter of the globalization of Japanese IT companies). They discussed “Why Osaka? Why Osaka now?”.

One participant asked panelists a question, “It often happens that my bosses say no when I try to do innovative things. What should I do about that?”. Panelists answered, “Innovative ideas tend to be like what those kinds of people say no to”. We had such a lively Q & A session.

Panelists’ opinions

・Osaka is full of possibilities, but I don’t have any basis for proving it. Osaka has enough human resources, know-hows, many different industries, financial functions etc for innovation. So we hope innovative businesses would be generated here.
・The nail that sticks out gets hammered, but I don’t believe that is negative. If the nail sticks out too much, there is no way to hammer it.
・Compared to Tokyo, Osaka is free of constraints because it’s far from the national government.
・There’s no person who is from Osaka among the panelists. I think it’s important for you to hire “strangers” if you want to make innovation happen.
・From the home appliance guy’s perspective, Osaka is resourceful. There are many factories in the city. You don’t need to pour water on a vacant lot; you can look for a land which buds are coming out of.
・I feel there would be people potentially who want to join the venture companies.
・Compared to overseas, I feel a sense of limitation very much here in Japan. So go overseas! “What you think” and “what you do” are the important things. I start in on it if there’s a 60% chance of success. Some Chinese startups do even if there’s only a 30% chance of success. So just do it!
・I really feel how quickly people in the rising nations do and decide something.
・There’s just a few time differences between Japan and the rising countries. That’s our advantage.
・Turn to the niche market. For example, Roomba, a series of robotic vacuum cleaners, has many uses such as cleaning a bathroom or gutter. Your product might be needed by certain people or certain places, so change the direction you look at a little bit so that an innovative business can be created.

 

After the discussion, Menjo (Advisor to Osaka City) and Toru Hashimoto, Osaka City Mayor, had a talk on leadership and transmission of information with each other.
Hashimoto said, “Government does institutional design so don’t ask them to be leaders. What leaders do is to do things that organization members or employees cannot do. Bring up a man who fails after he/she challenges something. Stretch points – that is important.” Hashimoto also said that sometimes it’s necessary to dramatize it when you tell something to people.

Finally Hashimoto made a statement called “Osaka Innovation Vision“. He declared in English – even though he says he is not good at English – that Osaka Government will develop an innovation platform which connects technology and ideas in the world with Osaka and create new values and make Osaka open to innovation. The conference finished with a standing ovation.

Osaka Innovation Vision

*Click here to see the video!

“As Mayor of Osaka, I, Toru Hashimoto, declare a promise to create a city that is open to innovation and overflowing with opportunities.”

“This spring, the city will see the grand opening of an epoch-making base for knowledge creation in the newly developed Umekita district, located right in the center of Osaka.”

“We will establish an innovation platform that will attract ideas and technologies from all over Japan and the world and create new values to share with the world.”

“As a result, Osaka will be an innovation hub where new talent will gather and successful leaders will be born from all over the world.”

Isao Tokuhashi, editor-in-chief of My Eyes Tokyo, also participated in the event. The reason he came to Osaka all the way from Tokyo was “to see the wonderful innovative people”. That’s it. But he wrote what he felt about the event seriously after its news coverage was aired.

After I watched the coverage (http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/mv/wbs/newsl/post_35321/), I recognized our ultimate goal – To revitalize Japan.

We’ve been running My Eyes Tokyo for over six years so that people in the rest of the world know about Japan. Also we started its Japanese edition in order to tell how the world looks at Japan to our fellow Japanese. It’s because – in the words of the panelists – we hope that more “strangers who love Japan” would come to Japan and would like to contribute to cultivate an environment that accepts those people.
*Strangers who love —” – The word one of the panelists mentioned at the event. All of them are not from Osaka; some of them are even from the US, but they said that they would make innovation happen to Osaka with love. That’s the reason he said they are “Strangers who love Osaka”.

Now we are focusing on “English”. Of course we don’t think it’s a sufficient condition for creating such an atmosphere of tolerance, but it must be essential. For example as the coverage said, 500 Startups in Silicon Valley attracts many ventures from foreign countries such as Japan and Taiwan and they make pitches to raise funds from investors.
If Japan tries to attract startups from all over the world, the spread of English is a must. We should see the reality, rather than being overwhelmed by emotional nationalism (But it’s incredibly foolish if you learn English and forget your mother tongue. It’s worse than the case of not being able to speak English).
Osaka City Mayor Toru Hashimoto said that he wants Osaka to be a place where many different people come and go. A good example is exactly like Silicon Valley. If you want Japan to be the “Mecca of innovation” like Silicon Valley, first of all you must create a place like Hashimoto mentioned.
The concept of My Eyes Tokyo is to contribute to making Japan into a place where “Japanese who are in crisis” and “strangers who love Japan” work together in many places.

My Eyes Tokyo will continue to hack Tokyo, Osaka and Japan!

Related links

【Global Innovation Osaka】
HP: http://www.innovation-osaka.jp/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InnovationOsaka

This event, which is held in Kayaba-cho (Chuo-ku, Tokyo) on Feb 13 (Wed), is open to any Japanese speakers who want to learn to speak English/are starting to learn English/want to study English but still not sure where to begin.
The speaker started to study English as a beginner in the beginning of Jan 2011 and now he’s going to start teaching English at a Japanese huge internet company from the end of Feb 2013.
If you have friends or students who are not sure how to improve their spoken English, please share this event info with them!
*Speech will be delivered in Japanese.

 <Details of the event *Japanese>

英語を身につけるのに、海外経験は必要でしょうか？今英語が話せる人は、生まれながらにして英語が話せたのでしょうか？答えはいずれもNOです。それを、このトークライブで証明します。
英語なんて、誰でも話せるようになる – そう思っていただけるイベントにいたします。

＜こんな人におススメです＞
● 英語コンプレックスを抱かれている人
● 英語が（自称）中学生レベルの人
● 英語が全く口から出て来ない人
● 英語教材を購入したけど、まだまだ効果が現れていない人
● 英語の勉強をしようと思っているけど、そのまま何も始められていない人

 　　　　　　　　　　　　☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

今後の英語事業着手を視野に入れ、様々な活動を開始したMy Eyes Tokyoは昨年、英語初心者の方々を対象にアンケートを実施しました。テーマは「あなたが英語で一番難しいと思う事は？」。このアンケートから実に興味深い事実が浮かび上がってきました。

話せる気がしない・・・４０％
リスニングができない・・・１５％
単語や文法が苦手・・・１５％

”その他”では「外国人と話す事に緊張する」「英語自体にトラウマがある」という回答がありました。

英語を初めたばかりの人のほとんどが、話したいと思っているのです。聞けるようになりたいと思っているのです。つまり、英語を「使いたい」と思っているのです。なのに日本の英語学習者の中で、英語をモノに出来る人は１０％以下だと言われているのはなぜでしょうか？ そこには日本人の風潮やメンタリティ、日本の英語教育、生活環境など様々な要素が考えられます。

ただ、一方で時間もお金もかけずに英語が使えるようになってしまう人がいるのも事実です。彼らは何が特別で、他の人と何が違うのでしょうか？そのような人から直接話を聞ける機会は少ないですし、またその方法論を誰にでも応用できる形で教え、伝授できる人は本当に少ないです。
でも皆さんは、その貴重な機会を手に入れることができます。それが「傷だらけの英会話習得術」です。

My Eyes Tokyo主宰の徳橋は、昨年ある一人の男性に出会いました。旅行も含め海外経験ゼロ、日本国内だけでわずか１年あまりで、ネイティブとも互角に英語でコミュニケーションができるまでに至った人物に、東京で出会ったのです。その人物こそが、今回のゲストスピーカーの「セレン」さんです。
セレンさんは元々、全く英語が理解できないところから英語学習をスタートしたとのこと。つまり、皆さんと同じです。そんなセレンさんの挫折の経験、そして短期間で人一倍失敗を重ねたからこそ多くの発見ができたというストーリーは、英語学習を始めたばかりの方が最短距離で英語力を上達させるヒントになると、徳橋自身が強く確信しました。
語学学校やセミナー、ワークショップ、発音矯正メソッドなど、お金をかけることを厭わなければ学習手段は山のようにあります。徳橋自身も英語学習教材を購入しては挫折し、英会話スクールに行っては長続きせずに辞める経験もしました。英語で苦労してきた皆さんと同じ経験を持つ一人です。そんな私、My Eyes Tokyo主宰の徳橋が胸を張って企画したのが『傷だらけの英会話習得術』です。

無駄なお金をつぎ込む前に、無駄な学習に時間を費やしてしまう前に、皆さんにお伝えしたい大切な話があります。是非ご参加ください。

＜メインスピーカー＞
セレン http://wailingual.com/

英語キュレーター。海外経験皆無にもかかわらず、非常にクリアな発音と澱みない会話力を手に入れる。そのきっかけは、大学の時に知り合った外国人の友達に１０年近くぶりに街でばったりと出会い「一緒に飲みにいこうよ！これから時間ある？」が言えなかったことだった。
２０１１年１月１日、一念発起で英会話の勉強を開始。自分の成長を確認するために同年５月にニューヨークに行くも、英語力不足を痛感しさらに奮起。生活の中に可能な限り英語環境を取り入れ、オンライン英会話などで会話力を磨く。それらの英語学習法や成長の軌跡をTwitterやTogetterでリアルタイム配信、数千人のフォロワーを獲得。英語学習開始からわずか１年あまりで、ネイティブ講師との英語ワークショップ主催、そして東証一部上場企業であるGMOインターネットグループでグローバル化推進のために発足した『GMO英会話部』にゲスト講師として招かれるまでに登り詰める。２０１３年２月より、GMO英会話部にて年間を通して英会話取得プログラムを実施。
＊ My Eyes Tokyoインタビュー：http://www.myeyestokyo.jp/6227
＊ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cellen0「セレン＠英語キュレーター」
＊ Togetter: http://togetter.com/id/cellen0（セレン流英語学習メソッドまとめ）

＜司会進行＞
徳橋功（My Eyes Tokyo主宰）http://www.myeyestokyo.jp/organizer/profile

大学生の時に受けたTOEICのスコアは４００点。会話は全くできず、海外インターンに応募する際の英語面接（面接官は日本人）では頭が真っ白になり、一言も発せなかった。
それから時が経ち、過去最高のTOEICスコアは８３０。会話についてはほとんど抵抗がなく、インタビューは必要に応じて英語で行う。某公共放送局の国際放送部での勤務経験あり。

昨年１２月に実施した、第１回目の『傷だらけの英会話習得術』でいただいたご感想です。
●まさに聴きたい話でした！日本に居ながら英語を話せるようになった術を赤裸々に話してくださり、これから自分がどう頑張るべきかビジョンが描けてきたし、モチベーションも上がりました。
● なかなか英語学習に伸び悩んでる今日この頃でしたが、英語を学ぶ精神論も込みで方法まで教えてもらえる貴重な機会になりました。初心に戻って今日から早速実践させてもらいます♪♪
● つまづき易いスピーキングについて、体験談や時には笑いを交えながら具体的にお話しいただき、Cellenメソッドが良くわかりました！
● 「現在→理想」の一方通行ではなく「現在⇔理想」の双方向で目標との距離を把握する、というお話が印象に残りました。
● すごく楽しかったし、ヤル気が出たし、目から鱗の学習法が聞けたし、勉強仲間が増えて、本当に行って良かったです。

トークライブ形式で、皆さんとのコール＆レスポンスも楽しみたいと思いますので、皆さんにもどんどん質問させていただきますし、皆さんからの質問も超Welcomeです。
トーク後はささやかな懇親会を行います。会場にいるみんなで、英会話の失敗談や悩みをシェアしてしまいましょう！

日程：２０１３年２月１３日（水）
時間： 開場：午後７時　開演：午後７時半
・７時〜７時半 軽く交流タイム。参加者同士で名刺交換など。
・７時半〜８時半 トーク
・８時半～９時 質疑応答
・９時〜１０時 懇親会！
会場： コワーキングスペース茅場町（通称「Co-Edo」）
東京都中央区新川１－３－４ PAビル５F
*地図: http://goo.gl/maps/OktUE
東京メトロ日比谷線・東西線「茅場町」駅３番出口を出て永代通りを直進、スターバックスを過ぎ、橋（霊岸橋）を渡って「ベローチェ」を過ぎてすぐ隣に、うす茶色で「PAビル」と書かれた建物があります。永代通り沿いにそのビルの入口があります。会場はビルの５階です。
参加費： 一般３０００円　学生１５００円（いずれも懇親会費込み）
＊５名以上のグループでお申し込みいただいた場合、一般はお一人あたり２０００円、学生はお一人あたり１０００円に割引いたします！
対象： これから英語を勉強しようと考えている方、英会話初級者の方。
定員： ５０名
連絡先： コワーキングスペース茅場町 ０３−５５４２−０４７０

ご参加を希望される方は、下記にお名前とメールアドレスをご記入し、送信ボタンをクリックしてください。

To know the differences between Japanese and English is the best way to learn English.

Nowadays, My Eyes Tokyo is engaged in English-related projects because we’d like to encourage people who want to be able to speak English well. Today’s interview will help them a great deal. It is with Mike Cadman, an English educator here in Tokyo. A Japanese man called Cellen, who’s been working on the projects with us, introduced us to him.
He came up with the word “Janglish”, which means “Japanese-English”. He researched how it differs from natural English and turned it into a book. He tells us that a good way to learn a language is “to learn from your mistakes”. He teaches this to his Japanese students, but it must be efficient for learning any language.

*Interview in Shibuya

日本語

Konglish & Janglish

Koreans and Japanese make similar mistakes in English. Korean-English is called “Konglish” Japanese-English is called “Janglish”. I started to notice the same mistakes were being made again and again when I was in S. Korea. So I started to write them down and I created a worksheet for my students in order to try and correct those mistakes into natural English.
Then, when I got to Japan, I noticed that it was almost exactly the same – not everything – but I would say 80 to 90% was the same. I guess the reason is that the Korean language is similar to Japanese. So I was able to recycle the Konglish worksheet into a Janglish one. After that, I decided to turn it into a book. There are many different categories. You can focus on different things like “small talk”, “work”, “free time”, “entertainment”, and so on. You can choose any situation you like and can start from wherever you want.

Get to know the differences between Japanese and English

People often make “Janglish mistakes” because they are translating directly from Japanese into English. I think that’s one of the main reasons. In these cases, the expressions are completely natural in Japanese, but they sound strange and make no sense in English. Other “Janglish mistakes” sometimes come from their common habits and misunderstanding of the true meaning of the words in English. This textbook covers all of those kinds of mistakes. Such as:
☆My co-worker is a claimer.
☆I watched the paintings in the art museum.
☆I’m boring.
☆I didn’t decide yet.
☆Q. What is your hobby? A. My hobby is reading books.
*”Hobbies” are very specialized activities, so it’s different from “shumi”(趣味).

 
“Mike’s Janglish and Common Mistakes” is a textbook written to correct the mistakes that Japanese people tend to make. The natural English sentences are included, so people can compare them and learn the English that native speakers use. 

It’s very natural for Japanese to make those kinds of mistakes and it’s very important for people to be corrected. I’m very strict about correction. I’m nice, but my philosophy of teaching is “I teach the way I want to be taught”. I’ve studied languages in the past and I’m studying Japanese now. So I know what I want to learn and I try to give it to my students. And one of the things I want is strict correction.
The “Janglish” is the original programming. So if they can learn how to change that, it will make the building up of the new OS system much easier because they learn how to think in a different way.
After I started to learn Japanese, I realized why people were making these mistakes. I got to know “that’s why they say that!”. In the same way, if the Japanese people can learn their mistakes by reverse, they can start to understand natural English. To know the differences between Japanese and English is the best way to learn English.

A four-hour simulated experience of studying English abroad. The concept is to learn natural English from a native speaker and how to study English effectively from a Japanese person. The Japanese instructor is Cellen, a man who was able to improve his English skills very rapidly.

Koreans don’t mind large classes, but Japanese people tend to prefer small classes

I was comparing everything to Korea when I came over here so I didn’t get much culture shock. My students always ask me about the differences in English education between Korea and Japan.
In Korea, there are many “hagwons”, private institutes or cram schools. As for English hagwons, they are a bit different from Japanese “eikaiwa” (English conversation) schools. They often focus on large groups of people like around 12 – 15 in one class. Koreans prefer the large groups – that’s my impression.
On the other hand, they focus on either individual people or small groups in Japan. So the whole feeling of how to teach them is quite different. They would not feel comfortable all the time in a large group. Having so many people in the same class, I think most people are not comfortable because most students have little confidence in his/her English skills.

Koreans try to speak more and don’t worry so much about mistakes, but Japanese people are more shy and worried about making mistakes

I would say that Koreans’ English skills are a little better than Japanese ones, but the situation is, in my opinion, basically the same. I think the one advantage Koreans have is that they are a little bit more outgoing and less worried about making mistakes, so they try to communicate. And they can be much more direct in the way they do that. They tend to ask people a lot of personal questions. Of course I know that’s because they want to know each other deeply.
Whereas in Japan, people don’t do that. If I ask somebody in a store “Can you speak English?” and if they can speak a little bit, they usually say “No”. If their English is very good, they usually say, “A little”. And they often apologize saying “I’m sorry for my terrible English” even though their English is amazing. Even if I say, “Your English is very good”, they don’t believe me.

I plan to stay in Japan for the rest of my life and help people improve their English skills

I spent six years teaching English at some English schools in South Korea, so I’ve been teaching English for about fifteen years now. I still love teaching English. After I graduated from university in Canada, I took a month-long training course in San Francisco. It was from Cambridge University. At that time it was called the RSA (Royal Society of Arts) and it is one of the highest qualifications for teaching English overseas. I received the RSA at that time.
When I was in university, I wanted to travel and live overseas. I wanted to learn more about the world, but I was never sure how to do that. One night, I was at a party, a girl had just come back from teaching English in S. Korea. She was talking about all her experiences of teaching English. From that night on, I knew what I wanted to do. And from that time, I made my plans to go overseas to teach English after I graduated.
I had many friends who went to S. Korea. Among Canadians, S. Korea was a popular destination at that time. When I decided to leave Korea, I knew Japan was very close by and it was also very popular. So, one of the reasons why I came here was because I wanted to learn more about Japan. Obviously, it’s a very important country, but I didn’t know very much about Japan; all of my experiences in Asia were based in S. Korea.
Now I’ve been in Japan for nine years so far. I’m really happy to be here, and I’ve established my career here, my friends are here, everything is here. I’m not planning to leave anytime soon.

“Mike’s Janglish and Common Mistakes” is a book from which you can learn natural English by learning the mistakes that Japanese people tend to make. Click the image to go to the Amazon site.

I’ll live here permanently. I feel Japan is where I’m supposed to be. I feel such a sense of peace here and improving Japanese people’s English skills – that’s what I want to do.

Mike’s links

His private lesson: http://www.mikesprivatelessons.webs.com/

Mike’s ESL Books and Workshops: http://www.mikeseslbooks.net
English Help Online: http://www.englishhelponline.net

Related Interview

Cellen *in Japanese

ハナス・ジャスティンさん
Founder/CEO of Fake Food Japan
(Resident in Japan since 2001)

Japan is the leader in the fake food field! My goal is to spread fake food replicas originating from Osaka around the world.

Today we introduce you to Justin D. Hanus, an American resident of Osaka who manages “Fake Food Japan“.
Have you seen “fake food replicas”? Ones that are made out of plastic and sculpted to look like actual dishes? The fake food items I’m referring to are the ones in display cases of restaurants or cafes throughout Japan.
Mr. Hanus started the “Fake Food Japan” business with the aim of spreading this beautiful Japanese “handicraft” to people both in Japan and overseas. His business produces and sells fake food items that resemble Japanese food such as cell phone cases, business card holders, ear picks and more.
Mr. Hanus is very friendly and speaks Japanese fluently. We were laughing throughout the interview. I was reminded that laughter is important in Osaka by Mr. Hanus who has extensive experience living here.

*Interview at Honmachi (Chuo-ku, Osaka)
*Interviewed by Tazu Yamada (Kansai Area Manager of My Eyes Tokyo)

日本語

Why did you come to Japan?

Originally I majored in Spanish at my university in the US. I also took a Japanese language class but due to a class schedule conflict, I had to choose one language over the other. Because of my major, I continued taking Spanish classes initially.
But as I became friends with Japanese who were studying at my university, I grew more interested in Japan. So much that I decided to study abroad in Japan rather than Costa Rica where I was planning to go on a study abroad program. When I mentioned about my plan to my parents, they asked me, “What are you going to do in Japan? Are you going to study Spanish there?” I told them that I didn’t know exactly why but my heart was telling me to go to Japan.
Once I was in Japan, it was tough for me as I was at a university in Aichi Prefecture for 5 months away from most of my Japanese friends who were from Kansai (The region includes Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe). Because of this, I traveled back to Kansai about once every 2 weeks.

Why did you create Fake Food Japan?

About 2 years ago, I found that Osaka was the home of replica food through my search online. I wrote about it on my blog and my Taiwanese friend who lives in Osaka commented about it saying,”Why don’t you try fake food as a business?”. And that’s how I got started in the fake food business.
Realizing that the fake food items were popular souvenirs among foreign tourists, I quickly started to contact various fake food manufacturers. Through my actions, I came across a company called ‘Morino’, which is an Osaka-based fake food manufacturer. As we hit off with each other from the get-go, we started to develop a business relationship marketing the company’s fake food products online. Even though we sell only online at the moment, we get asked constantly about where our brick and mortar store is. This is definitely something I’m interested in opening and operating in the not so distant future.
As I mentioned before, the birthplace of replica fake food is Osaka. Because I reside in Osaka, I want to do everything in my power to help the fake food industry here in Osaka by promoting it to the entire world.

What kinds of products do you handle?

Our core business is making life-size replicas. As most of them are sold to restaurants, we wanted also to make goods for consumers to enjoy as well. We have expanded our product lineup to include food-shaped iPhone cases, headphone jack plugs, ear picks, Frisk cases, USB thumb drives, business card cases, magnets, keychains, etc.
Of our products, Japanese tend to love headphone jack plugs and ear picks while foreigners love magnets and keychains. Also we handle customized orders to make one-of-a-kind items for our customers.
For example, companies that handle sets for dramas or commercials, overseas restaurant establishments, and education-related businesses ask us to make fake food for them to assist with their needs.
Outside of Japan, our products are popular in Europe and the US. We even receive customized orders such as ”place fake food on the surface of my wallet”. In this particular case, the wallet itself was around ¥3,000 (approx. US$30) however the cost to decorate the wallet with fake food was more expensive than the actual wallet. After receiving the wallet, our customer was quite pleased with how everything turned out and I’m glad that we were able to create a very unique item for our customer.

Life-size replica
  
(Left) Assorted sushi (Center) Chilled soba noodles with tempura (Right) Hamburger patty in demiglace sauce with deep fried shrimp

  
(Left) Kitsune udon, udon noodles with deep fried tofu (Center) Osechi, New Years dishes (Right) Shabu shabu nabe, Hotpot assorted vegetables

  
(Left) Makunouchi bento, combo lunchbox (Center) Fried rice omelette (Right) Assorted ice cream

iPhone case
  
(Left) Soy sauce minced meat rice (Center) Uncured ham (Right) Salmon roe rice

Headphone jack plug
  
(Left) Fava bean (Center) Onigiri rice ball (Right) Lemon slice

Ear pick
  
(Left) Sliced tomato (Center) White spring onion (Right) Konnyaku

Frisk case
  
(Left) Pickled plum rice (Center) Curry rice (Right) Corn and leek miso soup

USB thumb drive
  
(Left) Shrimp sushi (Center) Salmon roe battleship roll sushi (Right) Sesame dumpling

Business card case
  
(Left) Stir-fried shrimp with chili sauce (Center) Sekihan, red bean rice (Right) Curry rice

Magnet
  
(Left) Takoyaki, fried octopus ball with mayonnaise (Center) Chicken wing (Right) Mushroom tempura

We want to revitalize Osaka’s economy with fake food!

Osaka is the birthplace of fake food, and also the home of foodies! You can enjoy a good variety of food at reasonable prices. To sync with the theme of Osaka, we’d like to have our own shop and would like our first one to be based in Osaka.
As for overseas, we are still debating if we should open shops there. Currently, I have some clients in The Netherlands and France, but I am always on the look out for more partners.
The fake food industry is also well established in China, Thailand and the US, however when it comes to technique, Japan is hands down #1. When it comes to pricing, Japan is not the cheapest but does offer the best value when quality is taken into consideration. In addition, fake food here in Japan is handmade like it has been for over 100 years by Japanese craftsmen.
As fake food manufacturers spend most of their precious time in making the realistic-looking fake food, they tend to not have enough time left over for market research. This is where I come in and assist. By teaming up, we are able to focus on our core skills to make the business successful and expand our operations globally. Together, we are working diligently to spread the word of ‘fake food’ to the far reaches of the world.
Also, many foreigners visit Kyoto but not many make their way to Osaka even though the two cities are quite close together. By creating a fake food tourist attraction in Osaka in the near future, we hope to entice foreigners to spend some of their time here in Osaka.

What is the most important thing for you when it comes to business?

One’s network is first and foremost the most important. If you don’t have an influential network, you will be put at a disadvantage. Now when it comes to meeting people, you just don’t need to meet people, you need to meet successful and influential people who have power. In the past, I used to go to many places and exchanged business cards with guests. But in the end, I only kept in touch with just a few of them. So you need to have a strategy in place on where you can meet the kinds of people who you’d like to meet.
For example, you can go to a ¥5,000 (approx. US$50) event 20 times or you can go to ¥100,000 (approx. US$1,000) event once – which one would you choose? At ¥100,000 event, guests in attendance are able to afford it. If you go there, you would be able to meet people who are more likely than not to have money, power and influence over the attendees at a ¥5,000 event. If you want to meet people like CEOs or presidents, one idea is to work at a golf course because many of them play golf for business. Even though these may be some extreme examples, the point I’m trying to make is the important thing in business is the quality, not quantity, of your network.
Secondly, decisive action is key. With that said, courage to stop is also necessary. It’s important to try many things in business for a limited time before investing all of your resources. If things don’t work out too well, you stop and move on to the next project. Even if you decide to give up, there is always another opportunity waiting. So in the beginning of starting a business, you should decide how long you will invest of your time, money, and other resources before shutting down the operation in case things don’t work out well in advance. If things don’t work out and you fail in your business venture, what do you do? You always have a backup plan/business acting as insurance in case your first choice doesn’t pan out.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I’ve failed many times, but I’ve learned many things. If you fail, you’ll be careful not to repeat the same mistake. In that sense, try, fail, and try again is the best education in one’s life.

What is Osaka to you?

Osaka is Japan’s heart and soul.

Osaka people are filled with such spirit because Osaka has been the town of merchants for a long time. I’ve lived in Tokyo and Aichi Pref, but for me, Osaka is the most livable city. I love this place and the warmth of the residents.
Since many of the Kansai people are born and raised in Kansai, they tend to not leave the area. They really love their home. And at the same time, they welcome visitors from other areas. They welcome everyone. I love it. When Kansai people meet Kansai people, they become good friends almost instantaneously. And you may not be surprised knowing that most of my Japanese friends that met prior to coming to Japan were originally from Kansai.

I love Osaka.

Thank you for your time, Justin!

Justin’s links

Fake Food Japan website (Eng) http://fakefoodjapan.com/
Fake Food Japan website (JP) http://fakefoodjapan.net/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fakefoodjapan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FakeFoodJapan
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/FakeFoodJapan

*Inquiries (E/J)
info@fakefoodjapan.net

Related interview

Ayaka Sugiyama “vivi” & Puti Puti (Executive Director of Kawakami Sangyo)

I think a multiple number of people gather in a place not only for learning cooking, but also for enjoying other things.

My Eyes Tokyo brings you interviews with teachers from “Niki’s Kitchen“. It’s a cooking school in which foreigners teach their homeland dishes to Japanese people. Today we introduce you to Munshi R. Sultana, a very nice instructor from Bangladesh.
She conveys an extremely gentle atmosphere which embraces her students, so they totally became like her daughter. They were charmed by her gentle way of talking, her smile which seems like it accepts everything and of course her cuisine. They lost track of time talking to each other with laughs. It was already candle-night when they looked at a clock and hastily cleared off the dishes and washed them.
Once you step in her classroom, everyone becomes like her son or daughter. MET shows you the secret of “Sultana’s magic”.

*Interview at Umejima (Adachi-ku, Tokyo)
*Click here to read the article of Niki’s Kitchen.
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

A new face

I started teaching at Niki’s Kitchen in October 2012. I had classes on October 14, three days ago and today. The first one was a “trial”, so today was the second one since I opened a class officially.
I said that to my students today and they were really surprised like “Unbelievable! We had a wonderful time here!”. I’m happy with that. If they really felt so, it’s thanks to my background. I’ve been engaged in “teaching”. Of course I’ve given cooking lessons to people, but mostly I’ve worked as a Bengali teacher for a long time. I have much experience in teaching things to Japanese, so I can have a clue about the distance to take with students from a few words. So I’ve not felt that it’s difficult for me to teach cooking at Niki’s yet.

Textbook made by Sultana and her husband

But attitude towards students depends on what I teach. When I teach language, the relationship between them and I must be “teacher and student” because there are things that must be explained rationally to them such as grammar.
But to me, teaching cooking is to share my culture with othersso there’s no hierarchical relationship at all.
Moreover I have many brothers and sisters so I love having fun with people. I want to create such a happy atmosphere in my class.

A proposal from “daughter”

I’ve been interested in cooking since I was a child. When my mom was cooking, I looked over her shoulder at what she was putting into a pot and she told me many things.
But I didn’t cook at that time. She didn’t let me do that because she thought it was kind of dangerous for a little girl to cook something in the kitchen. I started cooking when I entered university.
I learned about Niki’s Kitchen from Tasnoova Tahia, another Bangladeshi cooking instructor of Niki’s. Her husband is the same age as my oldest son so he calls me “my mom in Japan”. He attached himself to me that much and I also treat Tahia like my daughter. She said, “Your dishes are very good so you should spread Bengali cuisine to Japanese”. Then she told me about Niki’s. I used to teach how to cook to my Bengali class students sometimes and introduced my dishes on TV in Japan. But I didn’t know the way of sharing my food culture with folks in Japan other than that. I decided to accept her proposal. It was April 2012.
Then she called Naoko Tanase (Niki), organizer of Niki’s Kitchen, and I met her for the first time in the summer of 2012. Niki-san tried my dishes and said, “Wonderful! Those taste like Khuku’s ones”. Khuku is a former Niki’s instructor who had a Bangladeshi cooking class until recently.
She is from a place located near my hometown in Northern Bangladesh. On the other hand, Tahia is from Southern Bangladesh so we deal with different kinds of dishes. So I joined Niki’s at the right moment.

 
 
 
Sultana shares not only her cooking method but also Bangladesh’s rich food culture. Also she shows students her grandsons’ photos… Students seem like her daughters!

Language education professional

As I told you before, I’ve been a teacher so far. I used to be a teacher for kids aged 6 to 16. Then I came to Japan after I married my husband.
My language students were the members of JOCV, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers, who were supporsed to be sent to Bangladesh. Their training facility was in Nagano Prefecture, about 200km (approx. 125miles) from Tokyo, so I lived there from April 2006 until March 2012. My husband also worked there for 30 years until I moved there. He retired from JOCV and then I moved there.
Before that, I taught Bengali at an education facility in Tokyo. They deal with many Asian languages and one of my students is Eriko Yamaguchi, a founder of a bag brand called “Motherhouse” which makes hi-end bags from Bangladeshi jute. She really loved me. She enjoyed cooking and singing with me. She still says that she wants to see me because I came back here from Nagano. But I’m sorry we haven’t had time to see each other.
Furthermore I worked at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies from 1985 until 2005. I taught Bengali to university students and research languages including other Asian/African languages. Actually I focused on phoneticsbecause the languages I can speak are actually Bengali, English and Japanese.

 
 
“Complimentary Bengali dishes” made by mom and her “daughters”. You can cook up every single meal.

Came to Japan by chance

The reason I came to Japan is because I married a man who was working in Japan. He came here for the first time 45 years ago. He stayed in Japan for about a year and went back home.
Then a war (Bangladesh Liberation War) broke out in Bangladesh in the early 70s. He wanted to come back to Japan once again, but it became impossible. After the war ended, he came and settled here. about three years before I came to Japan.
I lived in a dormitory and my husband’s younger sister was living there, too. Eventually I met his parents and they thought that I would be the right person for him as a wife. My family got to know that and I married him.
Things related to Japan which I heard when I was a child were “island country” and “people eat raw fish”, that’s it. Then I studied industries both in Bangladesh and Japan in the geography class in university. It was not because I liked Japan, I took the class because I got interested in comparing my country and other countries.
I never imagined that I would live here for such a long timeso I sent my sons to an international school, not a local elementary school, because its curriculum would be almost the same as a school’s one in my country.
But I studied Japanese. You cannot understand their culture unless you understand language. Also I got interested in Japan and Japanese language while I studied industries both in Bangladesh and Japan.

 
Some students had dishes with a spoon and others tried to eat with their hand. Whichever way you eat, her food had a just the right spicy taste!

Teaching family

I taught Bengali to JOCV members who were supposed to be sent to Bangladesh. But I didn’t only teach them about the language, I also taught them about the country itself because I wanted them to like my country. Some of them had the idea that Bangladesh is a poor country or many natural disasters like cyclone hit thereso I wanted to relieve them of their concerns. Instructors didn’t have to do that, but I thought an instructor must care about things other than language.
There were many students. Characters were different, the ways of thinking were different and backgrounds were different. I walked to shy students who were staying alone and talked to them. Because you need to establish a close relationship with each student in order to run a class well.
But I don’t mind doing that at all because I love teaching. I don’t know exactly why, but I simply love it. When I was young, a teacher was a respectable job, especially for women, in my country. Also my parents were teachers and my sisters are teachers, too. Now I sometimes work as an interpreter, but I want to go back to school again if possible.

 
(Left) Bangladeshi dessert called “Sana pudding”.
(Right) They picked up a small umbrella which Sultana bought her grandson and had fun talking with each other till dusk.

You can learn how to cook from books

On the other hand, cooking is not something to teach; it’s something to “share” with others. If you want to learn how to cook alone, read recipe books. But I think many people gather in a place not only to learn how to cook but also for enjoying other things.
In that sense, Niki’s Kitchen is the place where you can introduce people to your culture, you can make friends and talk about many kinds of things. We talked about many things in today’s class and I learned things that I didn’t know. That’s really good for me. So I want to continue to have a class as long as Niki’s Kitchen exists.

What is Niki’s Kitchen to you?

That’s a difficult question because it’s new to me and I’m still learning about it.

But it’s fun for me to teach at Niki’s. I’ve had only three classes so far, but I received favorable comments from my students. Some students said, “She has much teaching experience so she knows about a lot of things”.

My JOCV students said that I was like their mom. Niki’s students say so, too. But I’m still 20 at heart!

Sultana’s Link

Her introduction on Niki’s Kitchen website (Japanese) Click!

Related Interviews

Eriko Yamaguchi (Bag designer/CEO)
Tasnoova Tahia (Bangladeshi cuisine instructor)

Taken by Chihiro Imahashi

I feel my activities connect Vietnam and Japan
so I’m really happy now.

A Happy New Year 2013! My Eyes Tokyo hopes this will be another great year for you!
*Uploaded on January 6, 2013

My Eyes Tokyo and its radio program have heard the real voice of more than 200 people in total from various countries but we haven’t brought you the voice of a man from this country – Vietnam. Today we introduce you to Hai Trieu, a Japan-based Vietnamese singer.
Tokuhashi, the founder of My Eyes Tokyo, met him for the first time at the event called “Love Asia Vol.18″ which was held in Shibuya in October 2012. Its slogan is “Unify Asian nations through music” and Hai sang songs with his band. He looked a little bit small in stature from a distance, but Tokuhashi was really amazed with the incredible strength of his voice and his commanding performance.
After his show, Tokuhashi was called by Ayaka Sugiyama, MC/organizer of the event who is the Executive Director of Kawakami Sangyo, to come on stage. While the next performer “GYPSY QUEEN” was preparing for their performance, he said, “I was really moved by your voice so can I interview you?” to Hai, who was already in the audience, through a microphone.
He’s never made such a proposal for an interview but Hai said OK willingly. He speaks about how much he loves Japan calmly and slowly in very fluent Japanese.

*Interview at Ikebukuro
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

Photos by Hai Trieu

Spreading my songs to Japanese people

I believe that I’ve really grown as a human being and it has made me reflect on things since I came to Japan. Of course I grew up with age, but I developed my thinking through learning Japanese virtues and absorbing them. Those are reflected in my songs.
I used to attach importance to the singing technique. But now I think a great deal of spreading my songs to people. I want to have my songs carry my messages to the hearts of Japanese people. I’m sure that I can do that because Japanese people are moved by my songs. Some of them cried at my songs and others came to see my performance from far off places.
When I start singing in Japan, I didn’t think people loved my Japanese songs. But I realized that I would be able to reach them if I sang my heart out and Japanese pronunciation is not a big deal. I love the Japanese language. I’ve been loving the language since I started learning it. I still feel very happy even when I learn a new vocabulary word from lyrics.

Infant genius in Vietnam

My parents said that I sang everyday after I started to speak. I often appeared on stage at my elementary school. I represented my school and won the first prize in big singing contests many times. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but my teacher gave me higher marks than I expected. Moreover, I won the cup for more than 12 consecutive years in the contest which was held at my school so I was a kind of a big name among the 1,000 students of the school.
Then I started singing on TV/radio shows in Vietnam at random times. I sang at the stations when I received invitations from program staff.
But I didn’t think of being a professional singer. My parents told me that I should go to university and make a living by using knowledge because a singer is unstable. I totally agreed with them, so I majored in English at University of Hue (Current Hue University of Science) because I was interested in language. But I didn’t stop singing even after I entered the university. I sang songs at university and sometimes at live houses in the night.

 Taken by Pho Ba Quoc Huy

Characters written on a rice cooker

If you want to be a professional singer in Vietnam, you should go to big cities like Ho Chi Minh City. But I stayed in my town. Hue is a place where I met “Japan” for the first time.
When I was a child, of course I didn’t know Japanese at all. But I saw bonsais at my classmate’s house when I was in the second grade in junior high school. His father loved bonsai so I learned the word. His brother was living in Russia at that time and bought a rice cooker for them. Its instructions were written in several languages including Japanese.
Of course I didn’t know it was Japanese, but its characters looked very beautiful. So I got really interested in it. But there was neither a Japanese school nor a Japanese textbook. However I decided to learn the language and waited for the opportunity for a long time.
Finally a Japanese school was opened in Hue when I was a college student. It was operated by Japanese (*now closed). I applied to the school and passed the exam.

 *Taken by Chihiro Imahashi

“Dad” brought me to Japan

The number of students of the Japanese school was only 20 in total. The entrance exam was in English and no school fee was needed. The exam was difficult however, but fortunately I passed it. The more I studied Japanese, the more I loved the language and culture. After I graduated the school, I sometimes did jobs using Japanese.
Let me tell you an interesting story. A president of a Japanese machine maker based in Kyoto came to my town on business. He asked a local travel bureau to have an interesting guide who can speak Japanese because he wanted to enjoy sightseeing during his work breaks. Then I was picked as his guide. I had enough time to do that so I met their request.
One day, after he went back home, he called me. He said, “Do you want to come to Japan?” Of course I said, “Yes, I do!”. He made an arrangement very quickly and then I went there for three months.
Kyoto was especially impressive. There are many temples in my town like Kyoto so I really loved it and went to many sites.
Moreover every time he went on a business trip, he brought me with him! While he was having meetings with his clients, his friends took me to beautiful places.
Thanks to him, I enjoyed traveling around the country. Before that, I learned about Japan only in magazines or TV. But everybody I met in Japan was very kind to me, I learned a lot more about Japan and then I took more of an interest in Japan. So I decided to study in Japan after I went back home.
I call him “dad”. He still treats me like his child. The encounter with him was exactly fateful. If I didn’t meet him, I would never come to Japan. So I’m truly grateful for my “dad”.

“Te No Uta” (Literally means “Song of Hand”) Tokuhashi, editor-in-chief of My Eyes Tokyo, really loves this song!

Major debut in Vietnam

I was thinking of studying mass media in university in Japan because I wanted to produce a Japanese language education program at a TV station in Vietnam. I came to Japan with such an ambition and entered a university which offers video editing/communication programs.
It had a very unique class – “Singing songs on stage” – students practice their singing with a professor and each of them sing a song on stage on exam. I found that kind of class even though I didn’t expect that I would be able to have an opportunity to sing at all because Japan was totally new to meso I took the class right away.
I sang a ’90s Japanese song called “Shima-Uta” (島唄 Island Song), which was written by The Boom, on exam. Then a professor told me, “You should be a singer here in Japan! I think you don’t need to come to my class”. Not only he but also my classmates said that. Also every time I sang songs at events that were held by the Vietnamese students association, Vietnam Embassy,  meetings held by wives of ambassadors from Asian countries, the audience said that I should be a singer in Japan. Those feedbacks gave me much power. I wanted to chase a dream I gave up when I left home. If I teach Japanese or Japanese culture to Vietnamese, I’ll do that through songs. It means I cannot do anything without singing.
In 2006, I made contact with the president of the biggest record company in Vietnam and I said, “I want to release an album”. She already knew me because my friend told her about me. She said OK and asked a famous producer to make my album with me. Then finally I released the major debut album in Vietnam with the big support of them. Before then, I sang songs because I loved singing. But I developed a clear awareness of becoming a professional singer and a responsibility for singing for people.

 2nd album called “From Tokyo”

I want to sing Japanese songs in Japan

My major debut album included the Vietnamese version of “Shima-Uta”, which I sang in Japan, and some Japanese songs that were originally sang in Vietnamese. I translated them into Japanese. It was a really hard job, but people who were studying Japanese listened to the album after the release. I appeared on many Vietnamese TV and radio broadcasts and got known as a “Vietnamese singer who sings in Japanese”.

 
His musical activities made the headlines in the media.

So I thought of being a “Vietnamese singer who sings in Japanese in Vietnam” – I guess nobody ever became like that – but there are few people who can understand Japanese. So I couldn’t give up a dream of being the first Vietnamese singer who sings in Japanese in Japan.
When I made a major debut in Vietnam, I was studying Japanese language education at a grad school in Japan. But I couldn’t show up for class very much and it was very hard for me to keep up with the course content because it was a professional course. So I was obliged to take a leave of absence from school and started running toward my new dream.

 
Hai appeared on stage in the US. The concert was held for telling local people about the sufferers of the Agent Orange. Hai heard from the American audience that there are many Americans who love peace and who suffered from the Vietnam War. Hai created a different feel to them.
Washington DC, 2008

Connecting Vietnam with Japan by singing

Some of you may think that I went a long way around to being a professional singer. Actually some of my friends directed their courses and pressed on toward the goals without hesitation. I don’t know which is better, but I have no regrets at all.
I met a Japanese band called “GYPSY QUEEN” who connects Asian countries with Japan. They invited me to join the 2nd Vietnamese Festival in 2009. Also I teach Vietnamese to Shinon, a vocalist of GYPSY QUEEN. My 2nd album which was released in Vietnam and it includes the Vietnamese version of the Japanese song called “Shimanchu-nu Takara” (島人の宝 Islander’s Treasures). College students in Vietnam sing that! And Vietnamese media covers my activities like joining in the charity concerts. I feel this stuff connect Vietnam with Japan. I’m really happy with that.
I want to keep singing about my affection toward my family, my home, my younger days and love here in Japan.

Performing with GYPSY QUEEN at Love Asia Vol.18
October 2012 *Taken by Chihioro Imahashi

What is Japan to you?

My second home.

To me, Japan is a foreign country. But I don’t feel lonely at all. Of course I felt alone when I first came to Japan. But people really supported me and they were very warmhearted. So I love both my home where I used to be and Japan where now I’m in.
So I didn’t think of going back home at all when the 3.11 Earthquake occurred in 2011. I thought that my parents would worry about me, so I explained what was happening to me and in Japan before they made me a phone call.

I have many precious friends here and everybody goes about his/her daily life even after 3.11, so I thought of living in Japan with them as I did before.

I would like to bring you a song. It’s called “Home”, which is known by all Vietnamese. My Japanese friend wrote the Japanese lyrics and arranged the song with a Vietnamese musician. So it symbolizes myself, who works as a bridge between Vietnam and Japan.
I’ve sung mainly pops, ballad and R&B so far. I’ve not sung folk songs or ones that sing about home, but I really wanted to introduce Japanese to this song so I tried to sing. It sounds easy to sing, but actually it’s difficult to vocalize.
A Japanese musician arranged it into a Vietnamese style and I sing it in Japanese – That’s the cultural exchange between Vietnam and Japan! I put some photos of landscape pictures taken by my friend photographers on the music clip. The guy who is taken with Mt. Fuji in the background is me, of course! Listen.

「故郷」Home
Composed by: Giap Van Thach
Lyrics by: Do Trung Quan
Japanese lyrics by: Yoshio Matsushima
Arranged by: Yoshio Matsushima & Tran Gia Hoa

Landscape photos: taken by Cao Trong Bang, Tran Thai Hoa, Lam Thanh, Quoc Dan etc

Hai’s Links

Facebook ID: Hai Trieu Tokyo
Official website (Japanese): http://www.milmil.cc/user/haitrieu/
Blog (Japanese): http://haitrieujp.exblog.jp/

Related Interview

GYPSY QUEEN (Musical group)
Ayaka Sugiyama “vivi” (Executive Director of Kawakami Sangyo)

I believe something wonderful will happen if people who are isolated connect with each other.

Today we would like to introduce you to one of the organizers of the event for those who are interested in bootstrapping. DongYol Lee from South Korea.
He organizes the event called “Startup Weekend Tokyo“, It’s a Tokyo version of Startup Weekend, which originated in Seattle and is now held in about 300 cities in the world. Things participants do are forming a team, making a product or service and pitching in 54 hours during the weekend. You pay only $75 per event and join it as many times as you want. Lee has held the event in Tokyo, Kyoto, Ishinomaki and Seoul (S.Korea) so far.
I met him for the first time in the summer of 2012 on referral from Michael Reinsch, another organizer of SW Tokyo. He was very, very friendly as you can imagine from his photo on the top of this page. But dispute his looks, he used to be in the SouthKorean military for 2 years and carried a machine gun. His background is quite remarkable.
Also what he wants to realize through his activities is remarkable for me, too. His remarkable background, vision and dreams… so many remarkable things appear on this interview!

*Interview at Shibuya
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

Photos by Startup Weekend Tokyo

Hacker is not a bad guy.

For me, hacker is a guy who does good things. Originally the term “hacker” refers to a person who pursues technologies and create something from scratch. The commonly called “hacker”"hacking” must be called “cracker”"cracking”, I think.
Japan has made products that have never been seen as a manufacturing country. But they’ve not done that in the field of software development. There are excellent “assemblers”, but there’s no “hacker”. Or they confuse assembling and hacking in my impression.
The place where hackers exist is the US. New products have been created from scratch in the software field, but not yet in SouthKorea, Japan, Southeast Asian countries etc. We only make something under favor of the new products or services that are from the US.

Age of “creating totally new thing from scratch” ended

I organize the event called “Startup Weekend“, which is different from “Hackathon” (an event in which computer programmers and others in the field of software development get together). SW is more business-oriented and participants try to generate ideas of their business models or revenue models. In other words, Startup Weekend is the event for those who can build businesses or are interested in building businesses.
Up to a decade ago, there was a possibility of selling it if you produce something new. For example, cars were salable when people didn’t have those. When the e-mail system for companies was developed, companies bought it. But now is an abundant era and there are things that are harder to notice. Now it’s very difficult to create something which has never been seen before.
In order to drive sales of your products in such times, you need to secure purchasers or users beforehand and then think how to convince them to spend their money. Then you create products or services after you come up with answers or draw conclusions – That’s a valid and feasible way I think.
Where you can mimic the whole process of bootstrapping in mere 54 hours is “Startup Weekend”, which originated in Seattle. SW is not the event for software developers, it’s for those who want to be entrepreneurs with a “hacker spirit” to gather. I want it to be a place where we (Not geniuses, not cats with nine lives, those who overcome our failures and keep trying) seek the best way of bootstrapping for us and the necessary skills that we must gain.

Participant became organizer

The 1st session of “Startup Weekend Tokyo“, the Tokyo version of SW, was held by a British guy named Jonny Li in December 2009. He held it with the worldwide investor group called “Geeks On A Plane” and KDDI Web Communications Inc. on the weekend for 48 hours.
As for me, I quit a company in September 2009 and became a freelance engineer. I’ll tell you more later, but I was working on my own project. I gave a presentation of it at the big IT startup event and got a lot of feedback there. In order to launch my business, I attended many events and tried to learn how to start business and make contacts. But not much progress has been made even though I got tons of business cards. However I came across the ad of SW Tokyo when I was attending an event and got interested in it.
At SW, participants who have unique ideas make presentations in front of others, vote for ideas, form teams and cast their ideas into shape. Unfortunately my ideas didn’t collect enough votes to be chosen, so I joined someone else’s team. The SW Tokyo which I participated in was the 1st one which was organized by Jonny and it was held for only Saturday and Sunday (Now it’s held from Friday night until Sunday night) but I experienced the process from the beginning to the end, such as brainstorming, development of business model and commercializing our idea only in 48 hours.
To me, that was a really fresh experience so I wanted to hold a SW in my country. Then I organized the 1st session of Startup Weekend Seoul with other Koreans who were living in Seoul, Silicon Valley and Boston at the end of March 2010. I invited Jonny, organizer of SW Tokyo, to SW Seoul and said to him; “I want to be engaged in SW Tokyo with you”. He saw what was going on at SW Seoul which I led and he said OK.
Jonny and I held the 2nd session of SW Tokyo, which followed SW’s concept “Experiencing the whole process from forming teams to bootstrapping in 54 hours” in September 2010 in a roundabout sort of way.

Startup Weekend Tokyo (@Pasona Inc, Aug 31 – Sept 2 2012) *Click to enlarge
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Providing a place for people who have no place to stay

I came up with an idea of the SNS for the visually disabled. I gave a presentation of the SNS at the event held by TechCrunch Japan, the Japanese edition of the American IT news media. My awareness of social issues made me create it.
I’ve hitchhiked from London to Rome in 1996, which was my first overseas trip. During the hitchhiking, I saw many interracial couples like whites and blacks or Asians and blacks. I was really surprised because I even saw foreigners for the first time then.
I have some friends who are Koreans residing in Japan. They are called Japanese in Korea and called Koreans in Japan. There is a community for those who waver between two identities in Japan. They didn’t seem to fit in any country and actually didn’t expand their circles of friends in their places.
As for me, I’m married to a Japanese woman and have 2 kids, They are half Korean and half Japanese. They might actually run into the identity problems when they grow up. So I wanted to solve that problem 10 – 15 years before they reach high school age. I wanted to make a world where you don’t need to recognize any boundaries and any people can blend in with others. Moreover I was in charge of programming and a leader of development team of the play-by-play announcement system which is used at racetracks of horses and motorboats. So I wanted to create a community where the visually impaired can join in by using their hearing abilities.
That SNS still remains incomplete because of being short-handed. But I still really want to make a social contribution even though I’m a genuine engineer and contract for application development. That also may be the reason why I was attracted to SW and became an organizer of its Tokyo version.

To eliminate any “segregation”

I’ve taken to English through playing games since I was a child and had contact with Japanese language or Japanese culture through comic books. Then I travelled in Europe and saw foreigners in person for the first time. It was my first overseas trip so I was frightened by them and I wanted to go home. But I forgot that I’m Korean and felt like all human beings are the same while I worked at a restaurant in London to save money to go traveling and hitched rides.
I developed the “SNS for the visually impaired”. It made me think about being a social entrepreneur. I didn’t want to chase money, I wanted to change our society, I wanted to do something to make the world a better place. The SNS is not the community only for the visually impaired. My goal is to create a community which world’s sighted people and the visually impaired can interact with each other.
Now our world is divided into communities and those are formed by the stablemates (same race/school/working place/origin/hobby etc) and are segregated.
I believe something wonderful will happen if those are blended. To eliminate cultural and economical segregation – that’s my dream.

World you can enjoy success wherever you are

It’s not too much to say that the reason why I joined SW is to create a world which has no segregation – diverse individualities are blended in their true colors and naturally.
There are places which have produced many successes and ones which haven’t produced successes very much in the world. A typical example of the former is Silicon Valley and the latter is Seoul or Tokyo. Those places are segregated, I mean the environments which you can become successful easily and you cannot make it easily are separated. I want to eliminate that kind of segregation. I want to create an environment which you can enjoy success wherever you start your own business.
When I was in my late 20s, after the hitchhiking in Europe, I thought that I would be able to live anywhere in the world. I wanted to read the Japanese cartoon called “ONE PIECE” as soon as possible, that’s the only reason I came to Japan. I didn’t expect that I would get married with a Japanese woman. Then I came to believe that where I’m living in is my home.
I do NOT aim at producing “Japanese great startups”. My goal is “producing great entrepreneurs IN Japan”. I want Japan to be a place where you can succeed easily as you can in Silicon Valley.

Trailer of Startup Weekend Tokyo Nov 2012
@Cyber Agent (Nov 16 – 18, 2012)

Rakuten & GREE, that’s good enough for you?

But in order to accomplish this goal, Japanese have to alter their state of consciousness a little bit. I’ve been reading Japanese comics since I was a kid and many of them conclude with getting the pennant at the Japanese high school tournament and winning the championship. It means their dream is to be the best in Japan.
But I think you have to teach them that you can take an alternate route taken to be the best in the world.
Overseas, people’s skills or techniques are more important than who they are. I feel that people get interested in or evaluate his/her skills themselves. “His/her skills are great. I’m going to learn them, use them and improve them”. On the other hand, it seems that people tend to think, “He/she learned wonderful skills. So I’ll try hard to be like him/her”. It means Japanese tend to be interested in or evaluate their “efforts” to learn skills and I guess it’s because Japanese culture requires people to rank technique to a level of art.
But recently, once a Japanese company has the largest market share in Japan, people think they’ve worked harder than other Japanese companies and developed its market share. That company has the respect of people, feel fulfilled and become relaxed about aiming at having the largest market share in the world.
Companies like Google or Apple are not created in Japan because Japanese don’t need to create them. They are satisfied with having Rakuten or GREE. But I want to show them that a 2nd Google or Apple has to be created in Japan. It’s more to eliminate “segregation” which is arisen by a difference in attitude between Japan and other countries than contributing to Japanese society.
They have the word “Best in Japan”, but its meaning is totally different from “Having the largest share in Japan”. If they realize that, the number of startups who go further would increase. Eventually the segregation which lies between Japan and overseas would be eliminated and both can be good rivals – I believe so.

Get to the essence of things

My goal is to produce great entrepreneurs “IN Japan” through SW Tokyo, NOT producing “Japanese great entrepreneurs”. In order to understand what “number one in the world” means, you should not care about people’s nationalities such as Japanese or South Korean. If I say, “I’ll produce Japanese great entrepreneurs”, they have to compete with startups overseas with Japanese values; Japanese and people overseas won’t be able to talk about the same thing and Japanese won’t understand why American entrepreneurs can succeed in the world market and Japanese ones cannot.
For example, I think there are slight differences in the ways America and Japan define the word “success”. In the US, the “entrepreneur’s success” means “to find the business model which creates something that anybody can use, creates values and change the world”. On the other hand in Japan, it means “to be a key person who is needed to create value through business and change the world” in my impression. I mean Japanese people tend to think what a fruit of entrepreneur’s success is to be like “it’s accomplished because he/she’s worked on it”. Which is correct? That’s a barren discussion because both are correct. Both of them need to understand that before competing with each other.
That’s why I care about the “place” where he/she is, not where he/she is from or his/her background, in order to eliminate differences in awareness that come from the differences of where he/she is from or his/her background and eliminate the distance between communities arising from that.
Birds fly and human beings walk. They do different things, but both of them “move”. You see something or you hear something, both are done in order to “know” about something. So I don’t want to say either is handicapped.
The same is true of both Japanese and American startups. Even if their definitions or appreciations of success are different, they must have the same goals of creating new values and creating a better world. They may do different things or they may be able to do different things, but once segregation of the ways of thinking or their fixed concepts is eliminated and they understand each other, they will be able to compete with each other in a real sense and start interaction with each other. I think you need to realize something which you’ve not realized before in order to make the world a better place.

@Startup Weekend Tokyo Nov 2012
November 18, 2012 

What does your ideal world look like?

I have my own three principles; 1. Believe “I have infinite possibilities” 2. Believe “Everybody else is the same as myself” 3. Believe “I always do my best”.

That means I have no regret of what I did before because I always do my best, I have a bright future because I have an infinite future and everybody can respect each other because everybody else is the same as myself.

If every single person observes those principles, we will be able to realize a world full of happiness, I believe.

What is Tokyo to you?

It’s home because I have my family and friends of mine here. But I won’t get satisfaction in being here and staying here for a long time.

However I don’t mean I’ll move to New York five years from now. I’ll still be based in Tokyo, but I want to expand my sphere of activities. I’ll support startups in Tokyo, in Japan, in US and in the world and create opportunities for merging startup communities both in overseas and in Japan. Then I want to work in various places like visiting welfare facilities in North Europe as a social entrepreneur.

Then my ultimate goal after those experiences – to be an author of children’s books. I want to write “children’s philosophy books” that are a little bit difficult for kids. You can get tips on how to change the world for the better if you read them. I would like to write that kind of book in the future.

Lee’s links

Startup Weekend Tokyo：http://tokyo.startupweekend.org/
Startup Weekend（Global）：http://startupweekend.org/
Run 311 (Global run event held by Lee for 3.11 Earthquake)：http://www.run311.com/

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There is no person who is unworthy. All humans are valuable.

Do you know about “AIDS orphan“? I had little idea of that, but I learned that its definition is “a child under 18 who lost his/her parent(s) to AIDS”. Today’s “Big Generators” introduces you to Ruiko Monda, a woman like a caring sister for them.
According to her organization called “AIDS Orphan Support NGO PLAS (Positive Living through AIDS orphan Support)”, many AIDS orphans are adopted by their grandparents. But they cannot work due to old age, so some of them are forced to work or discriminated against by grandparents or other family members. Therefore getting an education becomes more difficult for them. I knew that there were many AIDS victims in Africa. But the embarrassing thing is that I’ve never thought of their children.
I met her for the first time in September 2012, at her event which discussed with Hayato Ikeda, a Japanese popular blogger, about “Social Change and Social Media” (@Samurai Startup Island). I learned PLAS has used social media like Facebook to tell people about AIDS orphans that are strange to most of us. They’ve incorporated Ikeda’s advice in their social media activities and continually strived to disseminate information on AIDS orphans so far.
But as it is now, there are said to be as many as 16.6 milion AIDS orphans all over the world (See this for details) so it’s not a small problem. Rather it’s a really big issue, but to Japanese, it’s what’s happening in a distant world. So I heard from her how she got to deal in such a reality.

*Interview @ Meguro
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

日本語

Photos by AIDS Orphan Support NGO PLAS

Why is banana so cheap?

I directed my attention to overseas when I was a sophomore or junior in college. At that time, I wanted to be a counselor because I majored in psychology. But I took peace and conflict studies, which was one of the liberal arts.
One day I learned the fact that our food items and clothes are made in developing countries. Cheap everyday goods around us are made by children who are working at low pay – that was very shocking to me. So I got interested in international cooperation.
A professor told us an example – Philippine bananas. Bananas used to be a luxury food when my parents were young. But now you can get a bunch of bananas at about ¥100 (approx US$1). That’s because of cheap labor or child labor.
Before that, I had no interest in overseas stuff. I didn’t even have a passport so I’d never been to foreign countries. But right after the class, I searched by keywords such as “Philippines”"volunteer”.

Kids at the Smokey Mountain

I searched for volunteer groups specializing in the Philippines and the name of “ACTION” was displayed on the top of the page. ACTION is a Japan-based NGO which supports orphans and street children in the Philippines. I stayed at an orphanage in a rural area in the Philippines with other participants for 3 weeks. We helped to construct their kindergarden and played with kids.
I witnessed the present situation of poor children in Philippines there. There were many shacks near a waste pile called “Smokey Mountain” and the section fell into slum wino. Kids were picking up plastic goods and cans and selling them to residents. I was really shocked by that.
But on the other hand, I encountered something good that I didn’t expect at all. Before I went to the Philippines, I thought that orphans might be depressed and wouldn’t be open up to me. However they were very cheerful. They were very adorable so I wanted to see them again.
I got interested in the developing countries much more because I had such a rich and rewarding experience in my first life overseas. So I read many books about international relations. I was especially impressed by Makoto Katsumata‘s books and articles about African studies, therefore I went on to the graduate school of Meiji Gakuin University where Mr. Katsumata was teaching at.

Meeting with AIDS orphans

Around the end of the first year of the graduate school, I decided to go to Africa because I was inspired by Mr. Katsumata’s lectures. I chose Kenya because people can understand English and assignments/length of time for volunteering were desirable for me. So I went there and worked for a Kenyan-run NGO as a volunteer for a month.
I mainly helped a hospital. I separated their medicine into valid ones and expired ones and I went to visit homes for medical care with a doctor as her assistant.
The place of my assignments was a small island and there was only one doctor. But some residents denied her physical exams because they didn’t trust Western medicine. Instead, they wanted to cure their diseases or injuries by magic or black magic.
But there were many HIV-positive people. However they didn’t want to receive her medical care or some of them didn’t come outside. I asked her the reasons and she told me that they would be ostracized if people knew that they were HIV-positive. Also some were afraid of knowing that they would be HIV carriers or they couldn’t accept that they were infected patients. That means everybody was afraid of being discriminated against.
I saw those people and came back to Japan with a lingering feeling of discomfort. I couldn’t get AIDS issues off of my mind, so I flew to Kenya again about six months later. I went to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and visited AIDS-related facilities and orphanages with NGO staff. Then I met AIDS orphans for the first time ever in my life.

Organizing NGO

I met many AIDS orphans in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. I originally like children and many organizations had already supported HIV-positive adults. On the other hand, aid for children who became orphans after their parent(s) died was not enough.
After I returned, I met a man named Takuma Kato. I was sent to Kenya by the Japan-based international volunteer NGO called “NICE” and he was also sent to Africa by NICE and saw the situation regarding AIDS. So he proposed a discussion on AIDS to those who were registered on the NGO. And guys who were involved in AIDS issues in different countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Malaysia joined the discussion. Everybody considered HIV and AIDS orphans and seven of them including me decided to act for them.
Especially in Uganda, where Kato was involved in the activities, he was told that they needed support by an elementary school which accepted AIDS orphans. So we thought of supporting that school. We decided to organize a group and start with a school support in Uganda.
Then we built PLAS in December 2005, 3 months after I met AIDS orphans for the first time. At that time I was a secretary-general and our representative was Kato (Monda was inaugurated as its representative in 2009).

School renovation – our first assignment

We thought of sending money to the elementary school in Uganda as a means of support. Their specialty was music education and we heard there were many kids who could play instruments so we brought up the idea of selling their CDs and sending those sales to them.
But actually it was not so good which means it was beyond selling. They said it was excellent… If the difference in value and poor communication remained between us and them like this, we wouldn’t be able to give enough aid to them. We thought that and so decided to visit the elementary school. That was January 2006, a month after the birth of PLAS.
We sent a few staff members there first for the field survey and we learned what they really needed was not money. They needed an environmental improvement. Once it rained, water leaked into the school from its ceilings, floors and chinks in walls so both we and school agreed on the renovation of its building in order for the students to study comfortably.
After that, we sent some volunteer staff members to teach teachers accounting basis and get quotes of renovation cost from carpenters. Then the Ugandan school renovation project started in summer 2006.
We were suffering from a shortage of manpower and money. Thanks to NICE, the Japan-based international NGO, about 20 volunteers came to Uganda. We made them pay to join the project and we took out money from them to help pay for the material costs. Ugandan volunteers also helped us and we completed the renovation three months after the groundbreaking.

Renovation of elementary school in Uganda　*Click to enlarge
2006

Frighteners

It sounds like the project went smoothly, but a complicated affair occurred.
The school and parents were happy with renovation school which accepted AIDS orphans. But on the other hand, there were people who didn’t want us to do that. We were threatened by them and told that they would force us to take all the stuff away if we didn’t stop it immediately. To make matters worse, carpenters we hired demanded a stiff fee from us.
But they saw what we were doing during the project – we stayed at another local elementary school and slept on its muddy floors; we made a fire and cooked meals. Also schools talked to those against the project over and over again. Finally opponents softened.
Also carpenters’ attitudes changed. Towards the end of the project, a head carpenter said, “We don’t need daily pay from tomorrow till the end. Japanese work hard for kids including AIDS orphans and their school. So we should do our best”. Then he began to convince other young carpenters. He told them why the school was needed and asked them to work for free for the remainder of the project. His subordinates also agreed with him. They worked for free for the last 10 days.
After the project was complete, I thought, “Finally done”. I didn’t get a sense of achievement very much. I wondered if I would be able to keep working on tough things like this.

Consulting for school management

We continued our support of the school after that. It was a support for self-sustaining, so what we did for them was a kind of consulting.
We taught them account basis again in order for them to aim for sound management and becoming independent without financial help from PLAS. What we taught them was making a habit of keeping accounts and how to do it.
Also as for school management costs, we constructed systems to manage schools with tuitions from normal kids. Instead, they made it possible for AIDS orphansto learn without tuitionsand we asked them to calculate the amount of money required for management and set their school fees by taking computed amount into consideration.
Moreover we focused on its promotion in order to attract pupils’ parents enough to make them want to send their children to the school even if it would be costly. The school made a strong effort to music education so kids sang and danced very well. Therefore we proposed that they would hold a school play at a big hall in order to be able to invite neighbors. Actually many people came to see it and the school was swamped with numerous applicants. We repeated that and the number of its pupils increased from 80 to 200 and it enabled them to manage the school by themselves.

Providing independence for AIDS orphans

It took 2 and a half years for them to be independent and we didn’t pay for them very much. But there was an exception.
AIDS orphans go to the elementary school without charge, but some people who got custody of orphans left them and orphans were at a loss for what to do in front of the empty nests. In this case, we paid for their living costs and the school put orphans up in there. There were about 10 orphans who had no relatives and stayed in the school and a teacher took care of and slept with them.
Now the school can raise orphans with their own resources. We want all schools that look after orphans to become independent, like they’ll be able to come up with the finance by themselves. Because there are 1 million AIDS orphans who need support from us only in Uganda. We cannot support an elementary school for 10 years or 20 years.
As such, we devote some of the resources to our education campaign for AIDS prevention. We’ve talked to 10,000 adults about the importance of AIDS prevention. The reason is simple; If you prevent AIDS, the number of AIDS orphans won’t increase. Also this campaign is an activity for people to understand AIDS orphans correctly. However it’s difficult for us to resolve their misunderstandings and prejudices, so we need to work on this issue steadily and over time.

Participants of AIDS education campaign

We’ll start the new project in Uganda soon; it’s a chicken farming done with a local self-help group of HIV-positive patients and divert profits into supporting AIDS orphans and we will have to teach the method of bird farming and enrich the area itself in order to build an economic base for not leaving AIDS orphans behind.
Our goal is not a “Supporting AIDS orphans, it’s to “encourage orphans and their protectors independence”. Then we want to produce a system for them to do what we are doing now by themselves in the future. That’s our goal.

Charity party celebrating World AIDS Day 2012 (November 25, 2012)

What is your ideal world?

The world where AIDS orphans and normal kids live together. That’s the best one I think.

Some orphans put themselves down while their parent(s) die and are stigmatized by many people. “I wish I was never born” “My parent(s) died and bad things happened because I’ve been a very bad boy. I’m no longer worth living”. Many AIDS orphans are harassed by guilt.
But I want them to have confidence that they are worthy people so they would be able to contribute to society.

All people who live in this world are valuable, I think so I hope all people or all children would become confident like that and I want to create a society where each of us thinks that they are valuable.

Monda’s Link

PLAS official website：http://www.plas-aids.org/english/

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Kentaro Sakakibara (Incubator)

No one will ever be able to destroy the relationship between us and people in China.

Today’s Big Generators introduces you to GYPSY QUEEN, the “Asian band”. Ayaka Sugiyama, executive director of Kawakami Sangyo who we interviewed before, gives them a boost.
When I heard that they call themselves “Asian band”, I wondered why they didn’t say they are a Japanese band. But they said with a laugh.
“Japan is part of Asia, isn’t it?”
Absolutely! But it’s not the only reason for it. They’ve performed in 10 countries so far, such as China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Brunei, Malaysia and Japan.
Such an “Asiatrotting” band has tons of stories but we were limited in time so they picked the stories of their first tour in China. Recently Sino-Japanese relations are strained by the territorial issue, but they said that their experiences in China formed the basis for our activities and they got strength from support by folks there.
So My Eyes Tokyo brings you the stories of their first experience going abroad and how they became a group of “performing diplomats” that connects Japan and other Asian countries through music.

Interview with
Aki (Left: bandleader/bass)　Shinon (Right: vocal)
 

*Click here and learn how GYPSY QUEEN & My Eyes Tokyo met with each other.
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

日本語

Photos by GYPSY QUEEN

@Vietnam Festival 2012 (Tokyo)

Singing voice leads us to “hell”

Shinon: GYPSY QUEEN were officially formed in 1997, but originally it started when Aki was a college student. I’m it’s 3rd vocalist.
Aki: The first one, Satoshi Ikeda, made his major debut in the mid-80′s. When I formed a band, we played latin rock and black music as well as other student bands. We didn’t have any goal, we only enjoyed playing music at live houses, beaches and mountains with our friends.
But in 1997, we started to think about music and where we should go seriously, and decided to create our “works”. We changed members some times, but we assembled the current members we have from around then.
Shinon: In 1999, I met a person who told me that my voice would fit the Chinese sound. I got satisfaction from that and tried to sing Chinese songs.
Aki: Then we were invited to appear on the Chinese radio program on Inter FM, the Tokyo-based multi-language FM radio station. A friend of mine who was working at an ad agency connected us with them. Of course it was broadcasted in Chinese, but they interviewed us in Chinese, too!
Shinon: So I studied Chinese frantically before the radio interview, but language acquisition can’t possibly be achieved overnight. A radio host restated what I said even though I answered questions from him in Chinese!

 
A host prepared questions & answers for them beforehand. Shinon added how to read sentences in Japanese. Now she can speak Chinese. *Click to enlarge

Later, someone became interested in us and invited us to the event which was supposed to be held in China in 2001.
Aki: I also met a staff member of a travel bureau specializing in China through Shinon. He networked various kinds of people in China and introduced us to Cheng Bo (程波), who is a representative of “China Art Center” in Tokyo.
Shinon: The person who invited us to the event in China was Mr. Cheng. He is an actor and singer and has appeared in many dramas and shows on Japanese TV so far. He taught me not only the Chinese language but also Chinese songs. He was hard on me a little bit.
Aki: So we took up the offer of joining the China tour, but we went to “hell” and back there.

Where is this bus going to?

Shinon: We joined the big cultural & artistic event called “Meet in Beijing Arts Festival“. It’s an annual event which people like musicians and dancers turn out to from all over the world.
We heard that we would attend only that event. But while we were unaware, it was decided that we would also attend another big festival called “欧亜風情演唱会” (literally meaning; “Eurasian Style Concert”). Touring 7 cities in 3 weeks – I was working at a company so I was not sure if I would be able to get leave for such a long time. But I showed an invitation from the Chinese government and my boss said OK.

Invitation from organizer of “Meet in Beijin Arts Festival”.　*Click to enlarge

Aki: But what troubled us more was that we were not scheduled until just before the concert started. We wanted to know “where we go to”"When we go there”"Which hotels we are going to stay”, but organizer didn’t tell us. They only said, “No problem”. We received phone numbers, but those were not real. We didn’t know our accommodations where we were supposed to stay on the first night in China until the day before we left Japan. So I got rooms at another hotel just in case.
Shinon: Really?
Aki: Yeah, and I got to know the accommodations when we arrived at Narita Airport. So I cancelled the reservation.
Shinon: I didn’t know that.
Aki: But I cancelled some rooms. I was too shy to cancel all of them because I made a reservation a short time before. But the organizer asked us why we made a hotel reservation even though they said everything was OK.
Shinon: My parents were worried that I would go to China with many guys. So they wanted to know our accommodations in China. A fax was sent to my parents and the names of the hotels were on it, but actually those were not correct at all. I got to know that after I came back home.
Aki: I think they didn’t understand why performers wanted to know their accommodations. Also when I asked when we would arrive at the next destination, they said, “Why you want to know that? We’ll be there because we have a driver!” And I asked, “I want to know WHEN we’ll arrive there!”. Then they said, “Why do we need to tell you that?”.
They think time and place are NOT things that performers should know, I guess. Musicians play music, that’ it. So you go where we go, you eat what we eat – that’s their idea. But I didn’t know where we were going to stay, so I wondered how I should explain to the members or even suspected that we were cheated. I was so bothered that I got severe hives. They didn’t tell us even the concert venues.

No power, no mic

Aki: “Meet in Beijing Arts Festival” is a big event which gathers musicians and artists from all over the world. We travelled with 3 performers from US, Germany and Australia. The first venue of the China tour was in Xidan, a youth town in Beijing, and there were an audience of thousands. Performers stand on an elevated place in the venue and a view of a big crowd was really spectacular. Moreover most of them were Chinese, not Japanese – we were much inspired.
But there was not something very essential for live performances – power supply. So it caused the slow start of the concert.
Shinon: Even performers from Western countries learned the Chinese word “dian yuan（電源）” really fast.
Aki: The audience was waiting for the concert to begin. A while later, “OK! Now the power is available!” but we had no microphone. When we were running through, we thought that someone would bring it before the show. But nobody brought us any mic. So I said, “We cannot sing if we have no mic!” Staff said, “If so, why didn’t you say that you would need a mic?” But I wondered why they didn’t think we needed it even though we have a vocalist.
Shinon: In Japan, the staff brings you a mic and even positions the height of the microphone stand.
Aki: Surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar environment without enough equipment, we were oppressed spiritually. But actually they brought a mic very quickly once we said “We want a mic!” and we played the first one which was our original piece written in Chinese.
After the show, we gained a certain level of sense of accomplishment. But we were completely weary of their bad arrangements. I even thought “Can entertainment exist in such a country?”. We got on a bus and we thought that we were going back to a hotel. But it took us to another venue in Beijing.

Live on the brink of fire

Aki: The next venue was the Capital Library. It was a huge place. There was a theatre and that was our waiting room. We had boxed lunches for dinner. The concert was held on a special stage in front of the library building. We made a virtue of necessity by that time and played with Polynesian dancers who also were performers at the festival.
And the power turned off while we were playing the second song at the venue. We’ve experienced turning-offs many times but it was the first one.
Shinon: We’ve never experienced turning-off in Japan. There is no country where we can ensure a stable power supply other than Japan.
Aki: But when I played on a beach or in a mountain as an amateur musician, I often experienced that. Even if we faced blackout, a drummer kept playing. While the drum solo was played, I tried to have power supply back. So I told our drummer.”Keep on drumming!” when the power was out at the Capital Library. But there is still no power recovery a couple of minutes after the blackout. Rather staff members didn’t seem to be flustered at all and they said, “Stop drum solo!”. We felt down, we felt horrible.
We were going to play the next song with a new attitude, but a stage light caught fire! Not reeking, breaking out a blaze!

Before the concert started at the Capital Library. During their performances, a light caught on fire and the red wall behind performers also caught fire.

We couldn’t concentrate on playing so our performance was terrible. And the audience brought their hands up to their ears because they were not familiar with rock music. They clapped their hands after we played each song, but I remember that they didn’t smile at all when we were playing.
Shinon: There was no place for ordinary people to listen to rock music in China because rock music was still underground there at that time.
Aki: Nobody understood what Shinon said and she still couldn’t memorize all the Chinese lyrics. We totally got depressed and complained to our Japanese friends who came to Beijing about their poor handling.

A glimmer of light

Aki: On that night when we dropped our heads, we could have a chance to play at a live house called “Power House” in downtown Beijing. We were going to have dinner there with a Japanese guide who lives in Beijing. But we wanted to perform live there.
They had all equipment like microphones, amplifiers, mixers, monitors and of course, power supply. The audience consisted of young guys who were drinking there and they got really excited once we started a gig. We felt soothed by that.
The next day we went to the prestigious theatre called “Poly Theatre” and joined the another event called “Eurasia Style Concert”. Organizer recorded the concert for the broadcasting.
Shinon: Its brochure said, “Once Shinon starts to sing, kids are moved to tears and thousands of horses break into a run”. The endorsement of our performance was written by Mr. Cheng Bo, my Chinese instructor.
Aki: It was a theatre, so of course there were all kinds of equipment. Sound and lighting facilities were excellent so we could accomplish one of our goals, which was “Appearing on stage with the spotlight on us in China”. We established the goal for it around ’99 when we started to write songs in Chinese.
Shinon: I felt great when I was singing there and thought that we achieved our goal eventually. But our supporters from Japan went back home before we left Beijing for the tour around the country so I felt lonely. Also I felt much anxiety because I had no experience of singing in front of thousands of people before then. So I cried like a little girl who was going to be sold. I wanted to go back home with them.

 
Left: Gig at Power House in Beijing　Right: Rehearsal at Poly Theatre

We are all the same

Aki: After we left Beijing, we travelled with performers from US, Germany and Australia. We also had a Chicom and an English/Chinese interpreter.
Shinon: Suddenly nobody else understood Japanese, so I was still crying.
Aki: We flew to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province. When we arrived there, we saw a woman who was a staff member of the Cultural Affairs Division of the Province speaking English. At that moment, we became painfully aware that we couldn’t speak any language that they could understand. In Beijing, we had a Japanese guide and our friends from Japan. But after Beijing, we had no Japanese guide or Japanese friends.
Aki: You may think that we couldn’t interact with others so we were depressed… But actually, no. Nobody interpreted what we said, so we started from anew and freely asked them things we didn’t understand.
Shinon: For example, we asked an interpreter girl “What time are we going to have breakfast?”.
Aki: Also we bawled “We have no mic!” when nobody brought us microphones. Or we didn’t play when we didn’t have microphones. If someone else asked us why we were not going to start to play, we said,”Because we have no mic!”. Moreover we said like “Nuts!” in Japanese because nobody else understood.
So I think it’s important for us to put ourselves in such a severe environment. Humans are weak. We can’t go on living without relying on something. But if you are not in such surroundings, you’ll mature as a person.
In China, everybody expresses his/her opinions freely. For example, a young staff of the Cultural Affairs Division of the local government told us that we needed to call more attention to audience. Our bus driver also suggested like “Swing your bass hardily when you play ballads!”. I hesitated to do that a little bit, but the audience got excited when I did that.
Shinon: And they suggested to us doing a member introduction in Chinese.
Aki: Then people enjoyed our performance and we felt flattered. And we found that we were allowed to be more assertive there. That was really a big thing because musicians or performers are originally assertive. Then things got better. We really enjoyed local cuisines!
Also we tried to communicate with our guide (who is Bai, one of the ethnic groups in China) in broken Chinese and got friendly with him. And we became fond of them after we started talking in the same language. We felt, “They are the same as us!”. If we shut our mind, they also do that. If we open up our mind, they also do that. We learned it. Do you remember that audience covered their ears when we played at our first venue in Beijing? It might be because we shut our mind.
Shinon: Then we took up with other performers from US, Germany etc. And we made good friends with an interpreter girl. She sat next to me on the bus and held hands with me when we were walking together.
Aki: We taught Japanese to our tour guide and he taught us Chinese during the tour, so our Chinese skills developed rapidly.

Shinon and an interpreter got really friendly! (Nanjing, 2001)

Comfortable life in China

Aki: Then we went to Nanjing, the third city of the tour. The venue in the city was a gym and there were 8000 people, which was the largest in the tour I guess.
Shinon: Other performers said that we would be egged. Maybe you know why…
Aki: But actually our performance was received very well with Nanjing people very much. That meant a great deal to Japanese.
Shinon: In the middle of our performance, fireworks went off suddenly. I unconsciously said, “吓死我了！(I got the fright of my life!)” in Chinese and the audience cheered. Those were words that our interpreter mentioned when I was walking hand in hand with her and I was almost running into a street. I was still depressed even though other members came alive in Kunming. But I got better at that moment. Horses broke into a run!
Aki: And we did member introduction to excess. The audience loved it. I guess it was funny for them that Japanese guys spoke Chinese exaggeratingly.
After the concert in Nanjing, we went to a department store in downtown with other performers. Then a news crew of a local TV station came and shot us while we were shopping.
Shinon: Announcements were made there; “Performers of Eurasia Style Concert are enjoying shopping here now!”. Shoppers stared at us with curiosity.
Aki: We were feeling great and took a strong stand more. Even if a concert staff came for us, we didn’t go. He came here because we knew we would be made to wait. So we went out there only after he came to our room three time. And we freely had snacks that were prepared by staffs at green rooms. Our lives in China became very pleasant.

 
Left: Brochure of the concert in Nanjing. You can see Shinon’s photo at the upper left. “疯狂的酷女孩” on her photo, which means “Crazy and cool girl”.
Right: Shinon smiles after the show! (Nanjing 2001)

Face-to-face relationship breaks down the wall

Aki: After that we were supposed to go to Suzhou from Nanjing, but the event in Suzhou was cancelled. So we flew to Dalian. We arrived there ahead of time so we took a two-day off. We’d enjoyed holiday for the first time since we came to China and performed at Zhongshan Square. It was very exciting.
Shinon: After I finished singing, one guy cheered and said “Arigato! (Thank you)” from an audience. Dalian used to be part of Manchuria where Japan set up a puppet government in 1930′s. So we were in great fear before the concert.
Aki: But the reaction from the audience was wonderful. We talked to the audience only in Chinese, that could be one of the reasons. Our Chinese was not so good, but I can say that we tried to communicate with them in Chinese as much as possible.
Then we moved to Tianjin, our final venue. The audience were groovy there. After the concert, its host talked to us with a smile. We thought he praised our performance. So we asked our interpreter what he said. But she didn’t translate. So I thought that he said we should improve more. However that was still bothering me even after the wrap-up, so I asked her what he meant once again. She told me that his grandfather was killed by Japanese army.
Shinon: I remember that he gave an imitation of the march. He was imitating a Japanese soldier.
Aki: She didn’t interpret that and hesitated to tell us what he said; that means the relationship between us and her might be something special.
Shinon: After we came back home, she gave us a mail. I hated Japanese before I met you. But I love Japan now!”. When we met her, she enjoyed talking to other performers from Western countries because she studied English. But she didn’t talk to us very much. However she walked hand in hand with me in Nanjing and she became fond of Japan finally. They’ve gotten anti-Japan education so they hate Japanese even if they’ve never seen us. But she travelled throughout the country with us and she loved Japan. We realized how important the face-to-face relationship was. So we’ve been to Asian countries and had the face-to-face relationship with people as well.
If I didn’t experience the the China tour, I might have stopped singing a long time ago. I can say that because I learned a lot of things during the tour. Above all, I kept singing thanks to this experience until now. I can’t be happier as a singer.

Audience rushed toward the stage! (Dalian 2001) 

“We came here because we love you”

Aki: A girl who travelled with us as an interpreter changed her impression of Japan after the tour. That means what we do is a kind of international exchange. We have a long way to go to the deep interchange with China, but we now welcome the challenge of improving Sino-Japanese relations.
Of course our road has not always been an easy one to walk after the tour. We faced some cancellations and trouble. But we learned from the experience of our first China tour – Meet people, talk to people and love people. We’ve done those things so far.
In 2005, we performed in a city where anti-Japan rallies took place. But young Chinese chemical blonde rock’n'roll guys said, “No worries. We’ll protect you from them”.
Shinon: “Politics and music are different issues” they said. Also a taxi driver told me that he would fight back if someone kicked us around.
Aki: Even though a concert was cancelled, people made a plan for us to perform at another venue. I think because we’ve talked to them directly in their language. So we could become close to them.
It’s very important for us to get along with local officers in order to hold concerts in China. Our backgrounds are different, but we are the same human beings. They drink, laugh and cry. Also some of them are very friendly. We drink with them at a small bar or drink with local university students at a bar which is known only by neighbors. Then they open their mouth and say that they have to learn how we keep their social order. They look exactly the same as those who join anti-Japan rallies.
Shinon: If you have no friend from China, it’s no wonder that you watch the news coverage of rallies every day and you would hate China. Only a few people say, “I like you” even though they are told, “I hate you”.
But if you have friends there, I think you’ll hesitate to say, “I hate you”. It’s tough for me to watch that kind of news footage, but I know there are people who are totally different from the demonstrators.
Aki: Many people ask us why we go to China now. But no one will ever be able to destroy the relationship between us and people there. We have a lot of friends there. Moreover tens of thousands of, hundreds of thousands of people are waiting for us. At least people who’ve seen our performances must know that we are their friends.
So if audience boos us at a concert venue in China, I would say, “Shut up! we came here because we love you!”. There must be someone who reacts to that.
What we do is to see people who wait for us. That’s it.

  
Their performance record in China.

 
Left: Their solo concert (Chongqing 2004)
Right: Lecture & Live at a music school, where pet bottles were thrown to a Japanese band in the previous year. (Beijing 2005)

Love from China to Japan

Aki: Our philosophy is “If you are not sure, step forward”. For example, we performed in Guizhou Province in China only a week after 3.11 Earthquake. That was a concert which was postponed due to the anti-Japan rally in 2010. We really wondered whether we should go there or not because the organizer invited us soon after the disaster.
But we went there and it was a correct decision. The audience offered silent prayers for victims, and also they gave us a thousand paper cranes! So we held the event called “Pray For Japan Concert” in Tokyo 2 months after the quake in order to show paper cranes from China. That event led to bringing 17,000 hot dumplings to people in the devastated areas and hold some mini-concerts there. All of them must have started from our concert in Guizhou.
Shinon: I really got harassed for going there as well because my mother’s family is in Fukushima. My relatives ran an inn but it was swept away by the tsunami. And I couldn’t connect with them at one point so I wondered whether I should go to China in those emergencies.
I told my mother what I felt. Then she told me, “Do what you can do”.
I told the audience at the venue in Guizhou, “My mother’s family is in Fukushima and my relatives are also visited by tsunami.” So I asked them to sing a song which we wrote for the victims of 2008 Sichuan Earthquake for the victims of 3.11. Then all of them stood up and sang the song together.
Aki: I got the goose bumps all over.
Shinon: I couldn’t sing because I cried…
Aki: They sang for 3.11 victims. They made a thousand cranes and gave us a message of “Go for it, Japan!”. You know what? It happened at the venue where our concert was cancelled the year before. We could experience such beautiful things so we moved forward.

 
Left: University students made a thousand cranes in remembrance of victims of 3.11.
Right: An encouraging message from students from China!

＊See this news footage, too! (News on Guizhou TV)

What is the future goal of GYPSY QUEEN?

Aki: What we’ve done in China is like connecting dots A and B. So we want to build relationships with people throughout the country. In order to do that, we’ll have to work more actively.

Specifically, we want to have more people who run after us. Those who understand the cultural gaps between Japan and China and enjoy face-to-face interaction will follow after us. If such people get going in many places in China, Sino-Japanese ties will be improved.

What we are involved in is not politics. Instead, why we can do what politicians cannot do is because we have a lot of friends who keep direct contact with and get along with without mentioning money. What we want is not results, what we want is fellow feeling with them so we want to continue to build a lot of relationships like that.

The audience sang a song which was written for victims of Sichuan Earthquake for 3.11 sufferers.
(Guizhou March 2011)

GYPSY QUEEN’s link

Official website (Japanese)：http://www.gypsy-queen.com/

Shinon on My Eyes Tokyo radio!：Click here and listen!

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Shota Ko (Representative of China Elite Club)
Yan Yifei (Sushi chef)

If you get out of a warm water bath, go out in the cold and get in a bath again, you’ll feel much more comfortable.

My Eyes Tokyo interviewed a guy from Spain for the first time! Tao Romera Martinez, an engineer of the smartphone application service called “Sanpo“.
Sanpo (散歩, walk or outing in Japanese) is like “Google Map for people who enjoy the slow life”. Google Map shows the shortest distance from A to B, but Sanpo tells you the courses from A to B that are wonderful to stroll or cycling irrespective of distance.
I got to know the existence of this service at Samurai Venture Summit (Sept 2012), which was held by Kentaro Sakakibara, a Japanese incubator. There were startups’ booths at the venue and the letters of “Sanpo” on their orange-colored banner were shining. I wondered what it is, walked to them and a Japanese guy and a foreign guy kindly showed me about their service.
I love to get around with a bicycle so I got interested it. Also I wanted to hear the story of an entrepreneur who came from abroad and launched the service in Japan. I asked him for an interview and he said YES. Later we enjoyed talking to each other and it made us forget the time.

*Interview at Shinjuku
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

日本語

Thumbs-up to my unconfident idea

When I get around with my bicycle in Tokyo, I check the shortest route by Google Map. But it shows the routes that go under express ways or are very busy. It’s not comfortable to ride a bike on those roads. So I looked for a service which would tell us routes only for cycling or walking, but there weren’t any.
I wished there was such a kind of service, but I was not comfortable with my idea. I was brainstorming with my team members and discussed with them my idea almost the end of our talk. Surprisingly, they said, “Cool!”"Wonderful!”. That was the origin of “Sanpo“. We were going to create an application for cyclists at first, but we applied it also to walking. Then our ideas got larger.
I was assigned to construct a system of technology behind the service and another engineer was in charge of the interface construction. And we formed “Team Sanpo” with a designer and marketing/PR person. We started the development of Sanpo application in February 2012 and released it six months after that.
I’m not only a creator of this service, but also a user of it. That’s the service we created, but I’m grateful to it. So I think a seed of bootstrapping is “my own needs” because I know which kinds of functions must be added to it if you want the service.

Demo of Sanpo

Japan, a totally unknown country

Now I live in Japan and have almost no worries about the Japanese language. But I hadn’t only seen Japanese but also Asian people before entrance into college. I was not interested in anime or games, so I didn’t know about Japan at all.
In Spain, my home country, I went to French schools between the ages of 6 and 18. So I was qualified for a French university examination. I passed an exam, entered a university and majored in electronic communications.
The reason why I studied at French schools is neither because one of my parents was French nor they loved France. Moreover a school was located about a 30 minute drive away from home. Nevertheless my parents sent me to that school because they wanted me to have the opportunity to experience a different culture. Thanks to that, I acquired the ability to speak three languages such as Spanish, French and English.
But I wanted to study a totally different language from those after I entered university. Other than European language classes, there was only Japanese class at university. So I began to learn Japanese as a hobby. If there was only Chinese class, I might have a completely different life.

Got hooked on Japan

The class I took taught me both Japanese language and culture. Those were very interesting for me. Also Japan is developed like Western countries even though it’s part of the Orient, so I didn’t feel it’s a faraway country. That made me come to Japan when I was a third-year student. I went to the beautiful highland called Kiyosato, about 200km away from Tokyo, and stayed at a Japanese Inn (ryokan) for two months.
It was pure Japan. Nobody else could speak any language besides Japanese. My Japanese skills improved very much thanks to that tough environment. And I could experience Japanese culture, which is totally different from Spanish or French culture, so my life in Japan was very stimulating.
That’s why I wanted to do the research work, which is done during the last half of the year in Japan when I went on to fifth grade (Engineering faculty of French university offers a five-year course). Then I was lucky to be involved in the research at the electronics and communication division of Tokyo Institute of Technology for half a year.
When I was in the university in Tokyo, I wrote my diploma thesis and went back to France to present a paper. I graduated a French university in September in the year, but the school year ends in March the following year in Japan. So I continued the research at Tokyo Institute of Technology until the annual end-of-classes.
As a result, I was enrolled at the university for one year. I looked for a job in Japan and entered a Japanese company. I’ve been in Japan ever since.

Taking control of the international team in Africa

After working at a small medical device manufacturer and a research laboratory of Fujitsu, I became a consultant for international development. I was fed up with sitting in front of a computer for a long time, I wanted to get a more humane job which enables me to interact with people. So I chose to be a consultant.
JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) funds the developments of developing countries, but actually consultants are at the vanguard of the developments. I was in charge of being a project manager, who manages a set of processes from designing development of systems within budgets to activating them overseas. I often went to Africa, especially Tunisia.
When I was involved in countermeasure projects against floods in Tunisia, I operated the remote measurement of rainfall. Sometimes I took control of negotiations among Swiss, Tunisian and Japanese staffs. Each of them had a different background and interpretation of words differentiated because of that. So it was very tough.
I worked as a consultant for two years. I gained engineering experience at Fujitsu and learned the project management when I was a consultant. But my core, I’m an engineer. If you work as a consultant, you would be in charge of system management rather than system development. So I wanted to be an engineer again.

“This is it!”

I worked for Japanese companies for five years and felt the uniqueness of Japanese corporate culture. I couldn’t take a paid vacation very much and couldn’t work to my satisfaction. I was tired of being restricted at working places and time. So I thought of working as a freelancer, but I didn’t decide what to do. So I intended working at a startup venture company as well.
Then I searched for information about startups in Tokyo and came across “Startup Weekend Tokyo“. Startup Weekend, which originated in the States, is the event which is designed to foster startups in the world. Participants spend 54 hours simulating the entire process from organizing a team to starting your own business.
In October 2011, when I was working at a consulting company as an engineering consultant, I joined Startup Weekend Tokyo even though I didn’t have a specific idea.
But I thought “That’s what I want to do!”"I wanted to work like this!” after I came along it. I worked on a project with other young people, it was totally different from my working style at that time so it was worthwhile. It’s more important for entrepreneurs to produceresults than working for a long time. I thought that working style would suit me. So I began to think of starting my own business after the event. I left a consulting company in April 2012.

Sanpo helps society?

Conditions for launching business which are applied to foreigners are different from ones applied to Japanese. If you’re Japanese, you can start your own business with ¥1 (approx. US1cent) in capital. On the other hand, ¥5 million (approx. US$50,000) need to be invested on your business and you have to have a facility for your office space if you’re someone from overseas. You’re not allowed to use your home as an office space. That’s why it’s difficult for us to found a company by ourselves.
But fortunately I met Shingo Hiranuma, associate developer of Sanpo, and Naoko Tsubaki who subsequently joined us as a marketer. We clicked together and brainstormed over and over again for a month after welcoming Mika Nozue as a designer. Then we released Sanpo as I mentioned before

Presentation of Sanpo at Samurai Venture Summit (Sept.22, 2012)

All of us think of “creating a service that would benefit society”. Of course we have to make our living by releasing services, but we don’t want to make something not only for earning money but also helping society.
However Some people may wonder if Sanpo is beneficial for society. That’s why I hesitated to tell my associates about my idea when we were trading ideas. But you’ll enjoy walking or cycling by using Sanpo and prevent obesity. It’s good for a change and you’ll become healthier mentally and physically. So Sanpo will be able to help people. That’s our motivation, so we enjoy developing the service.

Sanpo to the world

I’ve been in Japan for seven years so I’ve taken root in this country. When the 3.11 Earthquake occurred in 2011, my parents were worried about me and there was the split second when I thought of leaving Tokyo especially after the nuclear accidents. But it was not easy. Even if I had escaped from Tokyo to Osaka (500km away from Tokyo), I wouldn’t be able to be there more than a week because I made my livelihood in Tokyo. I took root in Tokyo that much.
Moreover now it’s possible for us to promote services overseas without leaving Japan. The name of Sanpo is always expressed in the ABCs, not in Japanese alphabets or Chinese characters even in Japan, because we’re aiming for its overseas expansion. Every time I plan a new service, I think whether it’s possible to promote it overseas or not. For example, if someone suggests the idea of containing information about cherry blossom viewing spots, I can tell him/her, “That’s interesting, but people overseas won’t be interested in that kind of info”. In that sense, Team Sanpo has the best advisor! We want to tell people around the world about Sanpo from Japan.

With Shingo Hiranuma, his associate engineer. (at Samurai Venture Summit)

What is Japan to you?

Good country. Everybody is very kind.

But I feel that there are only a few people who are interested in other cultures. I don’t know whether it’s because Japan is very comfortable, but it’s like a bath. You feel very comfortable when you immerse yourself in a nice hot bath, but you’ll feel much more comfortable if you get out of a warm water bath, go out in the cold and get in a bath again. In the same way,

You’ll have stimulating experiences if you interact with people from other countries or have the opportunity of learning other cultures.

What is Tokyo to you?

Very livable even though it’s a huge city. And there are a lot of possibilities here. You can see various kinds of people and see people who have the same ideas. So Tokyo is a very good place for people who want to try to do something or who want to realize something.

Tao’s Link

Sanpo (Japanese)：http://www.sanpo.mobi/

It’s possible for Japanese to create web services that overtake Facebook.

“We will create a second Google or second Facebook!” If you heard that, what would you think? Some of you might think, “No, it’s impossible”. But today’s “Big Generators” introduces a man who makes it his mission to realize such a thing. Kentaro Sakakibara, President of Samurai Incubate Inc.
I got to know about him in April, 2012. I found him in a magazine which featured Japanese entrepreneurs who were aiming for a global expansion and their supporters such as incubators and investors. The word “Samurai” was burned into my brain.
Also there were other impressive words; “Whether you can do it or not isn’t the point at all. Whether you DO it or not will change the world!!”. I’ve interviewed those who are actually struggling to change the world, so I wanted to hear from a man who makes his intention to do that clear.
Then September 2012 – Sakakibara said proudly in front of a crowd with his trademark loudspeaker; “We will keep holding this event until Japanese Google or Japanese Facebook will be produced!”. He said to Japanese startups at the event called “Samurai Venture Summit (SVS)”. I was at the site and really touched by his passion. So I ran to him and said that I would like to do an interview.
To be honest, I’ve never met such a formidable man. But I’m sure that his complicated background became a driving force for his challenges.

*Interview at Samurai Startup Island (Tennozu Isle)
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

日本語

Reason for “Samurai”

There are many reasons why I put “Samurai” on the name of my company and incubation office. One of them is that I named my sales force “Samurai Operation Headquarters” when I was working at a venture company called Voyage Group in Tokyo, where I was part of the team that started up. I wanted to encourage them a feeling of unity by calling it team Samurai.
Another reason is the movie “Last Samurai” (2003). That movie is one which portrays samurai spirit objectively, and I realized that samurai spirit is thought highly of by people overseas. I’m greatly attracted to their spirit of self-sacrifice, like “I’ll fight until the end for all even if I’m the only one left”. Also soldiers of the New Government’s Forces bowed to Katsumoto, a soldier of the Shogunate Forces, even though he was their enemy during the civil war. I thought they were cool. Recently our sense of humility, integrity and politeness have won approval from overseas. Those are also manifestations which proceed from our samurai spirit.
On the other hand, I don’t experience the sense of unity among us, especially young Japanese businesspeople. I don’t feel they band together for going to the global market. But as for sports, the national baseball team has rallied under the banner of Samurai Japan and national soccer team has joined the standard of Samurai Blue, and they made the world their stage.
So I followed them. I wanted to form the Samurai Brigade in order to unify young Japanese startups and go into the world market together. Samurai is one of the major symbols of Japan so it’s easy to understand for people overseas.

 
Samurai Startup Island, the 555-square-meter (5974-square-foot) incubation space in Tokyo.

The world will change if you stride ahead

My career began with an employee of a medical equipment manufacturer. I used to be involved in social action programs when I was a university student, that’s why I stepped into the industry. But the reality was not as I expected. I worked at the company for three years and moved into an entirely new career – IT industry where I expected to be given a chance regardless of background.
I transferred to a tiny venture company which had an office at an apartment from a large public company. So many people objected to my career change. But I joined a little, tiny company over the opposition and contributed to a huge growing sales like from almost zero to US$20,000,000.
Moreover now people use the internet routinely even though they used to think that it was evil. I thought, “If I work hard, I can realize anything” and “The world will change if I stride ahead”. So I lost my fear of challenging in anything. Our slogan “Whether you can do it or not isn’t the point at all. Whether you DO it or not will change the world!!” was made up because I had such an experience.

How many people will cry after I’m dead?

It was interesting for me to be involved in company growth and my goal was to earn a high salary and drive a luxury car. I thought so until when I was 30. But once I got it done, I didn’t feel it was not interesting to have much money at all.
Also I’d been thinking of the moment of my death since a long time ago; If someone says “I’m going to Sakakibara san’s funeral ceremony because he is my neighbor”, I don’t like it. I want somebody to say something like, “I’m going to his burial because he took care of me very much”. The more people say that, the better. I decided to start a life about achieving that kind of goal after 30.
I had a track record of achieving US$20,000,000 annual sales from scratch with a few managers. So I wanted to support many entrepreneurs by using my experience. If I can live as I would die… so I launched the “Samurai Incubate“. It was the moment I set up my own company for the first time.

Aiming for the global market from my room

In 2008, when I launched Samurai Incubate, nobody else supported them even though many IT startups emerged in Japan. So I wanted to be a sales director of Japanese IT startups. As I mentioned before, I had an experience of achieving the sales of tens of millions of dollars from scratch so monetization was my specialty. I started an incubation business because I didn’t only want to provide funds for startups but also wanted to offer my know-how on monetization to them.
Now our co-working space is huge, but originally I started my business in my apartment. Actually I wanted to make a closed school an incubation space, but METI, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said no because I didn’t have a record of incubation at that time. I had nothing but opening an incubation office in my room.
At that time, my room didn’t have enough space for working, at most two people could work there. Entrepreneurs whom I supported had meetings together at restaurants.
Then some entrepreneurs needed their office spaces, so I rented a house. I named it “Samurai House” and open it to startups. I not only worked with them, but also lived with them. So it was not a co-working space, it was a “co-living” space.
Eventually one of the ventures I supported achieved a stock exit and also many startups asked me for advice, so I invested the exit profit on a new incubation space. Moreover, I got a boost from Terrada Warehouse Company. Then the new incubation space called “Samurai Startup Island” launched in November 2011.
If this kind of space is created, many people will get interested and METI would also start an incubation business. It means the environment surrounding Japanese startups would change. Japanese tend to start something after someone else starts. So I always want to be in the vanguard because I like to do things that nobody has done.

Articles that feature Sakakibara’s activities. You can see a photo taken on what was happening at “Samurai House” on the bottom-right corner.

Samurai Festival

We organize the “Festival of Japanese startups” in addition to our day-to-day tasks. It’s called “Samurai Venture Summit (SVS)”. Not only ventures that we support but also other startups have little booths at the venue. We give them opportunities to pitch their services to visitors. Also we invite investors, serial entrepreneurs etc from home and abroad and hold lectures and panel discussions. In addition, we hold the presentation event called “Samurai Shout” in the festival, where startups make short presentations alternately.
We held the 6th SVS in September 2012 and about 800 visitors came to the festival. It’s quite a big event, but the original idea was a drinking party. Startups that we support wanted to have an opportunity to know each other. But we added a pitch event to the party. That’s SVS. Only 50 people joined its 1st session (June 2010), but other startups who wanted our support joined its 2nd session, 3rd session, 4th session… SVS grew little by little.
SVS started lightheartedly, so there’s no formal atmosphere at all. Especially as for Samurai Shout, participants fling jokes at presenters during the event and people laugh. It’s like a school festival.
So I call it “Festival of startup’s school”. Organizer, startups and visitors create the event together. That means we want to create a place for aiming for a global expansion together, regardless of whether or not companies that we support. We want to foster an environment for creating Japanese companies that will make successes in the world.
In order to spread our ideas around Japan, we organized SVS in places other than Tokyo, such as Fukuoka, Kagawa and Nagoya. We’re also planning to hold the festival in Okinawa (It’s ended at the beginning of October 2012) and Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture.
It’s exactly the same as the Japanese national baseball team, which plays against other countries in the world under the banner of “Samurai Japan”. We would be very happy if everybody started thinking of changing Japan or energizing Japan because of SVS.

The 6th Samurai Venture Summit @ Headquarters of Microsoft Japan

Sept.22, 2012

Samurais go overseas

We hold the Samurai Venture Summit not only in Japan but also overseas. We took some ventures that we support to the Silicon Valley’s startup event called “TechCrunch Disrupt” as exhibitors some years ago. That’s why we held the first Samurai Venture Summit outside Japan in Silicon Valley in September 2011. Then we held it in New York (February 2012), Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. And we went back to the Silicon Valley in September 2012.
Participants in the 1st session of SVS Silicon Valley were mainly Japanese, but local people came to the 2nd one. It is meaningless if you don’t appeal to the local people now that you are overseas.
In that sense, our company name “Samurai Incubate” has a powerful impact on people overseas. Our name spread especially in Silicon Valley and some thought that we were based there.
So we hope that in the next year or so we’ll open our office in Silicon Valley. There’s no Japanese who incubate Japanese startups over there, so they don’t know whom they ask when they go to Silicon Valley. More than that, there’s no Japanese incubator who invests in five companies a month. So we would like to create an environment for Japanese startups to challenge bootstrapping in Silicon Valley.

 
Left: Silicon Valley (2nd session)　Right: New York

Left: Thailand　Center: Vietnam　Right: Indonesia
Photos by Samurai Incubate 

Rewarding our forerunners

I always think like that, but actually I’m a fourth generation son of a shop owner of Japanese traditional instruments (Koto/shamisen) which has been in business for about 100 years. My father is a craftsman and manager who is a man of few words, like a typical artisan. I treasure samurai spirit, it could be because I’m descended from a traditional craftsman family.
I don’t know if that’s the reason, but I strongly feel that I’m Japanese. So I really want to contribute to Japan’s economic revitalization as a Japanese. Our forerunners arose from a devastated land after defeat in the war and aimed for making Japan the “world-class cool country” from scratch. The world-famous enterprises such as Toyota, Honda, Sony, Sharp etc were built in the process. That’s why we can enjoy amenities of life.
But some of those companies are now miserable. So now is the time to give back to those who came before us. If the present trend would continue, for example, Sony might be taken over by Facebook or Google. We must avoid such a consequence any way we can. Also we have to build world-class companies like the ones our forerunners built in order to reward them. However, manufacturing industry cannot cope quickly with the change of the times because the pace of change is really fast now. That’s the reason we are tackling with creating the global services with information technology.
Japan is becoming an aging society with a falling birthrate. It means the size of its labor pool will be much smaller than before. But we’ll be able to enrich many people’s lives through IT and support a graying society with fewer people because IT services don’t need a large workforce. We shouldn’t think that supporting forerunners is a burden to us. It’s natural for us to support them because Japan could become an economic superpower thanks to them. If we could create global companies, I believe that Japan would be able to get money from all over the world.

Nobuyuki Idei, former Sony CEO, delivers the speech.
@Samurai Startup Island (Sept.11, 2012)

Don’t fall in step with others, just pull up

The services created by Japanese entrepreneurs are not inferior to ones created in Silicon Valley. I believe that Japanese services are even better than ones from Silicon Valley. So if we improve our English skills and build our networks of contacts over there, we would be able to create global services that overtake Facebook. If you are invested in by the American famous venture capitals such as Sequoia Capital or Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), it’s clear that you’ll succeed in the global market. Then if we can show successful experiences to the world, American VCs will come to Japan and look for investment destinations here. If so, Japanese VCs will get square with American VCs. And eventually we will regain the “economically strong Japan”.
But in order to realize that, entrepreneurs and their supporters need to “take a step forward”. We tend to keep in line with others, but we shouldn’t.

Employment creation is the best way of social contribution

I used to dedicate myself to the social action programs. When I was a university student, I joined a social contribution club on strange occasions. Then I played with kids at orphanages or elementary schools in less-populated areas. After that, I became a member of the NGO which donates houses and foster homes to Cambodia and builds playground equipments for Cambodian kids.
I’ve still been working on social contribution even since I became an incubator. For example, we donate 1% of our annual earnings to NPOs and NGOs. Also we gave 60 soccer balls to orphanages throughout Japan.

Many “thank you” from children

Actually social action programs are very meaningful and people become happy from them, so they’re worthwhile and I really enjoyed them. But let me think more broadly. If you generate jobs and provide money to people, they can make happy homes and live comfortable lives. I think that’s the best way of social contribution. So now I’m focusing on creating entrepreneurs.
Also “Samurai Venture Summit” will be held in the Tohoku Region because we think that the revitalization of the quake-stricken areas by IT startups must be possible. Reconstruction is time consuming so that’s a government’s job. We want to contribute to creating new things from scratch in the devastated areas.

How do you want to change Japan?

I want to make Japan an entrepreneurs’ country.

There are still only a few entrepreneurs and examples of bootstrapping. It’s because Japanese startups tend to think like “I have to manage a company until I die once I found a company”. Instead M&A, selling out or assignment of business is OK, I think. Then they turn incubators or serial entrepreneurs. I want to promote that way. And I think politicians must be people who used to be entrepreneurs. Otherwise Japan won’t revitalize.

We want to support not only IT startups but also craftsmen and manufacturers. Eventually we want to be the sales directors of Japan itself.

What do you want to realize when your goal “changing the world” is achieved?

World peace!

Sakakibara’s Links

Samurai Incubate Inc.: http://www.samurai-incubate.asia/english/
Samurai Startup Island: http://samurai-startupisland.asia/english/

I want to do it before searching for the reason why I can’t do it. I have made it to this point by doing that day after day. I owe what I am now to that.

The theme of today’s interview is kind of extreme; A challenge to Marissa Mayer.
Marissa Mayer, a woman who became CEO of Yahoo! at the age of just 37. She is awesome and no one disputes that. But there are many young female corporate managers in Japan as well. Ayaka Sugiyama is one of them, she is an executive director of Kawakami Sangyo Co.Ltd, a manufacturer of bubble wrap which is known by its nickname “Putiputi” in Japan.

However there are some differences between her and other female managers;
1. Appearing on stage at live houses. Not a hobby. She’s released some CDs.
*Video of her performance: Click!
2. Acting as MC at events.
She doesn’t feel timid at all even though she hosts the events with big-name talents.
3. Hosting the radio show!
She takes control of a 30-minute live broadcasting perfectly with guests.
She said with a smile, “My staff may think that I just hang around”. But that is not fun, those are PR activities for Puti Puti bubble wrap. However she seems to enjoy that work more than anyone.

Bubble wrap itself used to be only for packing, but she focused on its hand feeling – you want to pop them once you touch bubbles – and turned it into various toys. Also she created cute and brilliant bubble wraps with feminine ideas, which means she turned something for packing into a wrapping sheet. On the other hand, she used to be involved in the development of core material of solar panels which were created by applying structures of bubble wrap.
How a pretty woman who entered a macho material manufacturer beat her path and became the first executive director for the company… My Eyes Tokyo wants every single woman in the world to read her story!

- Ayaka Sugiyama “vivi” -
Born in Kanagawa Pref, Japan. After graduating junior college in Tokyo, she entered Kawakami Sangyo Co.Ltd in 1999.
(Performances)
● Opened “Putiputi Shop” which sells bubble wrap products that used to be only for industrial use to the public.
● Established “Putiputi Culture Laboratory” in order to promote the appeal of bubble wrap.
● Won the Nikkei Woman Of The Year 2008.
● Worked as a unit leader of solar panel project with JAXA, Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency.

*Interview at Tokyo Office of Kawakami Sangyo
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

Photos by Kawakami Sangyo Co.Ltd.

日本語

Reason I’m up on stage

I had no experience of singing in front of people or appearing on stage before my band was formed. So you may wonder why I perform.
But I was confident about doing it because the name of the band is “Putimetal” which sings only about Putiputi bubble wrap. I thought that I’m the best person for talking about cute wrapping sheets made from bubble wrap, appeals of bubble wrap, its structure etc. So to me, singing is almost the same as the explanation of the product. It all started from a meeting with a band called “Gypsy Queen“.
Gypsy Queen was formed in 1997. They are based in Japan, but they’ve performed in Asian countries including Laos, Brunei and Mongolia over 120 times in total. I met them by chance at a cherry-blossom viewing which my friend invited me to in the spring of 2005. I was interested in going to Asia, especially Thailand where I went to many times during my school days, so I clicked with them quickly.
Soon after I met them, I took photos of their performances, was in charge of front desk and sometimes joined their drinking parties. But when I accompanied their tour around China with the intention of a trip, I got so stimulated. Then I’ve joined all of their concert tours as a staff. At the same time, Putiputi Culture Laboratory, which promotes the appeals of bubble wrap, was turning out a book about the products. I told Aki, a bandleader of Gypsy Queen, about that and he said to me, “If you publish a book about bubble wrap, how about making a song about it?”.
That was an ordinary idea for him because he is a musician, but it was an amazing one for me. I said YES and he made a song very quickly. Then Aki assembled band members and the band “Putimetal” which I joined as a vocalist was formed in August 2005. I’ve been singing on stage since then.
I’ve never turned work down so far. But normally you may refuse that kind of job. However I didn’t because I think I yearned for people who express themselves. When I was a school girl, I wanted to be a professional shogi player, anchorperson at a TV station or video journalist.

Single CDs of Putimetal

Casting others’ ideas into shape

I believe that the our company’s image as a shipping supplies manufacturer has changed and staff, everyone was free to say what they thought and a lot of ideas came out after I entered my company.
Fortunately I engaged in developments of various kinds of goods and some of them became big hits. But I’m not a person of ideas. A person who has a lot of ingenious and unique ideas is Hajime Kawakami, our president. He’s been suggesting ideas from a long time ago but staff shrugged off his ideas because they thought he was joking.
In that sense, I’m a person who listens to funny suggestions from him seriously and casts them into shapes. But I think I have realized about only 30% of all his ideas. I’ve addded cute stuff and my little ideas on his creativities. I feel it also contributed to creating an open atmosphere.
Now many staff bounce ideas off each other regardless of age or post. We are becoming a company which can realize them.

“I want to join a company”

Right after I entered a junior college, my acquaintance asked me to create websites. I had no experience in it, but I’d loved PC since I was an elementary school kid and taught myself how to make websites.
After I graduated college, I was still doing a web creation job. I enjoyed it and did it freely, but I felt something; “I’m not fit to tasks that have to be pushed along by inches”.
I complete things very quickly, which means I tend to pay no attention to pursuit of quality. So I thought that I would be able to show competence in giving directions to much skilled designers as a director or producer. I don’t think I knew well what a director was or what a producer was like at that time.
I have one more episode regarding my creativity – I attended a beauty school at the same time I was a college student. And I learned something soon; I love cosmetic things but I like to make myself beautiful much more than beautifying someone else.
I experienced a lot of failures and knocked my head against a wall. But I was not satisfied unless I did it once I got interested. So I think it’s important to take half a step forward and try it if you want to try something. Then you can learn the gap between adoration and reality and your inclinations towards the jobs which you are interested.
Then I was inclined to produce something or work at a company in order to widen my view through such experiences.

“Where is the company for me?”

I started job hunting a short time after I graduated college. I wanted to enter a company such as; 1. Producing goods that I know 2. Medium-size 3. Their website is not so cool 4. Blue chip. I looked for a company which met some of my requirements.
I grabbed a membership list at the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I was only 20 years old so I thought its members must be blue chips. Members were listed in order of the Japanese syllabary and I found the name of Kawakami Sangyo straight away. Their business content was “Production and distribution of Putiputi”, that’s it.
The word “Putiputi” sounded very interesting. So I checked their website and… lol Kawakami Sangyo met all of my conditions so I told them that I wanted to work there via e-mail. In 1998, people didn’t use e-mail very much and our company had only one mail address at that time. But I sent an e-mail to them so a person who received a mail told the president about me, then I had an opportunity for an interview.
If our business content was written on the list like “Production and distribution of buffer material”, I paid no attention to that company at all. Also, there were no companies elsewhere which I got interested in. I feel I’m linked with bubble wrap by fate.

“I’ll do anything!”

I loved computer but I didn’t have enough skills to be a programmer. As for web creation, I didn’t have enough skills to work at a website production company. So I was going to do any kind of assignment. I told them at an interview that I had an intention of experiencing anything like sales or clerical job, then working on tasks which I would be able to make use of my experience of web creation. So I was really happy when I received an offer letter from them and the thought of my future thrilled me.
In April 1999, I joined Kawakami Sangyo. I was assigned to the president’s room because they thought that it would be possible to make a website while I worked as a president’s secretary. I could be involved in website creation from day one!
Also I could have links with sales, engineering, plants, staff and others of those departments thanks to working with the president. Every time I was going to realize an idea or launch a project, I got to know whom I should ask. I could learn that at an early stage so it was a really valuable experience for me when I look back.

An entry-level Sugiyama working with Hiroshi Nakamura, current advisor of Kawakami Sangyo.

Promoting bubble wrap to homes

Bubble wrap is a product which protects fragile stuffs from shock and pop with fingers. Everybody may grab it and pop bubbles. Of course I did, too. But only a few people know more about it even though it’s used in various kinds of businesses or industries. Everybody knows the existence of bubble wrap, but only a few people know about it well. I thought that kind of gap was interesting.
80 – 90% of all bubble wraps are sold to Japanese major companies that have their factories in Japan through sales agencies. And 10 – 20% of our products are sold to people at home centers etc. But bubble wrap users gave us inquiries directly after I renewed our website.
And soon after that, Yahoo Auctions became fashionable among ordinary people and they asked us to sell small pieces of bubble wrap to use for sending products to winning bidders. But manufacturers have a taboo against selling their products to consumers directly, so we introduced them to their local shops which sold bubble wraps every time we had inquiries. If they had no home centers near by, we introduced them to their local packing material wholesalers.
But it was really troublesome, so I asked the president if we could do an Internet mail order business. He gave us a green light. Then we opened the “Putiputi Shop” in 2001. As I mentioned before, there was an industrial taboo so we focused on the business-to-consumer transaction. And we brought out the new goods called “Puttin Roll” and “Puttin Bag”, that are used at home in a convenient and fun manner. In addition, we put out another new product called “Puttin Sukatto” which is only for popping. We launched our online shop with those three items. Then I got involved in product planning & development.

 
From left to right; Puttin Roll, Puttin Sukatto, Puttin Bag

I wanted cute bubble wrap products!

Wrapping material is kind of “unnoticed but a reliable operative behind the scenes”. But I wanted to make a cute one which would be able to take center stage from wrapping material. I didn’t feel comfortable unless there was no cute items.
Many people have suggested the ideas of making heart-shaped or star-shaped bubbles. I heard that kind of idea was suggested when Kawakami Sangyo was established in the late ’60s. Also some of my friends and family members suggested the same idea when I told them that I was going to work at a bubble wrap manufacturer. But why had those not been commoditized? It was because of technical difficulties and my company wondered who would be users of them.
But we managed the shop for a year and got to know the existence of women who were looking for wrapping materials on the Internet and retailers who wanted to display their creativity in wrapping. I shared that kind of information with other staff and I wanted to make heart-shaped bubble wrap, engineers supported my ideas. Of course that became possible because I interacted with engineers on a routine basis. That was one of the advantages of being attached to the president’s room.

 

Those are made from packing materials!
Photos by My Eyes Tokyo

Got involved in PR activities without realizing

Soon after I joined the company, the president came up with an idea of setting the “Putiputi Day” and I began to work on it quickly. I gathered opinions from staff and they said August 8 would be appropriate (August 8 → 88 → Pronounced “Hachi Hachi” in Japanese → Sounds similar to “Putiputi”). And I tried to make contact with Japan Anniversary Association in order that the day may be certified as an official anniversary even though they didn’t have their own website at that time in 1999.
Thus we received media coverage and I was in charge of corresponding with them. Media covered us when we made a heart-shaped bubble wrap called “Heart Puti” and I responded to them because I was a projector of it. Then the unwritten rule like “Ask Sugiyama when media request for coverage” spread among our staff. I got to know the existence of a job called PR belatedly in the process and I felt it was fun.
Planning, test production, output, publicizing and selling the product, then recycling it. A set of these processes is like a story and I play a role in it. So I must have something to tell people. Not only publicizing products, but also telling stories of items – I feel a vocation for the task.

Became a board member and executive director

“Expo 2005” was held in Aichi Prefecture. Its theme was “Nature’s Wisdom” and the slogan of our company is “We’re good friends with air”. We’ve been making bubble wrap which is non-polluting when burned, so we got an offer to participate in the expo.
I took over as a project leader of it. The reason was very simple, because every staff transferred the call not only from media but also other people to me. I recall that I received a phone call from the expo organizer through another staff, but anyway I became the spearhead for the project. Expo 2005 was held between March 25 and September 25, 2005 and we exhibited only for the first month. We displayed “Putiputi House”, which was made from bubble wrap, outside the pavilion. Also we held “Putiputi Workshop” inside the pavilion. About 100 staff participated in the project and I led the team. It was really tough.
We had to make something which was strong enough to withstand wind and rain for a month from bubble wrap, and it must be appropriate for this world-class event. Ideas like making a dinosaur with bubble wrap were generated, but finally we settled on the idea of a bubble wrap house. We tried to make stuff from bubble wrap besides carcass. I was in my fifth year at the company, so I made a lot of mistakes on the schedule control of staffs etc. But it’s a precious memory of mine because I had a valuable experience.
In 2006, we published the “Putiputi Official Book” which was written all about bubble wrap. Then the toy called “Mugen (Limitless) Putiputi” was released in 2007. It was produced by Bandai, one of Japan’s largest toy manufacturers, because Bandai staff learned the appeals of bubble wrap and found many products related to bubble wrap such as various kinds of goods, books and songs. They really got interested in our company and gave us a prod.
Mugen Putiputi was exported to the US, Europe and Asian countries and set an astonishing record of 3 million toy sales. And I won the Nikkei Woman Of The Year 2008. I became a board member of Kawakami Sangyo the end of 2007, and assumed the position of the executive director in March 2011.

“Mugen Putiputi”, you can enjoy popping infinitely.
*Reference video：http://youtu.be/3dNCMVWZuLs 

I’ve never pushed myself

But I’ve never tried to change the atmosphere in our company in a strategic way. Also I’m not like young brilliant people who start their own business with taking risks. I’ve never pushed myself, I’ve climbed stairs and each stairstep was the right height for me. And those stairs were made by people who’ve supported me. So I want to make steps for younger generations.
Also the musical activities with the band “Gypsy Queen“, which I mentioned the name before, have blossomed into interaction with other Asian people. And that kind of experience or titillation became really useful in my career. I feel the things which are underlying are both creating my own music and manufacturing or musicians and businesspeople are the same because I know both. There is a quote “Endurance makes you stronger”. And I know in my bones that a dot and dot will definitely connect with each other, so I believe our activities will come into bloom in more fields.

 
Love Asia Concert. Its slogan: “Unify Asian nations through music”. She is a producer/MC of the event.
Left: Performance of Gypsy Queen at Love Asia Vol.18　Right: Leading the events with Aki, bandleader of Gypsy Queen
Photo by My Eyes Tokyo

Never define your scope of work

When I became a board member of our company, I said only “I’ll do my best”. It doesn’t mean I feel good about myself very much, but I don’t feel much pressure. l’ll do my best to play my role, that’s it.
Also I’ve never refused any assignment or said “I cannot do that”. I didn’t say that there would be more appropriate person when I received appointment as a project leader of the bubble wrap house for the Expo 2005. It may relate to my policy “Take a half-step forward first, think later”. I can do that because I believe that people will help me and cover them even if I make mistakes. I truly trust my staffs. I want to do it before searching for a reason why I can’t do it. I have made this point by doing that day after day. I owe what I am now to that.
Through our activities, ordinary people got to know about bubble wrap and our company as well, the number of new recruits and female staff has increased. Some of our female employees joined us because they read my interview articles.
Sometimes I receive invitations to be a speaker. What I tell people is; “Be honest to your feelings and desires, and speak those out loud”. What you feel sets the environment and leads to product developments.
And let me repeat that; Take a half-step forward first, don’t define your scope of work. Who makes you grow bigger or ceases growing yourself? That’s you.

With Gebhard Sengmuller, an Austrian artist who was involved in development of “Very Slow Scan Television”. It can draw pictures by injecting color inks in each bubble. Kawakami Sangyo got the machine from Sengmuller.

There’s one more important thing; “Make a rapid about-face once you find your weak point(s)”. In order to do that, you need to develop the kind of receptivity, see many kinds of things and talk to various kinds of people. As for me, I was very quick to snap out of it, so I was not drugged by my weak points and so have been able to come this far.
And you need to have high motivation. As for me, I want to accomplish things which my descendants will feel a sense of pride in 150 years from now. I love information technology, but I want to put people’s hearts ahead of it.

Sugiyama’s Links

Kawakami Sangyo Co, Ltd：http://www.putiputi.co.jp/en/
Putiputi Radio (Japanese)：http://www.putiputi.co.jp/putirabo/WALLOP/wallop.html
Her weblog (Japanese)：http://blog.nikkeibp.co.jp/wol/sugiyama/
Putiputi Shop (Japanese)：http://shop.putiputi.co.jp/ *Their shop on Rakuten (Japanese) : Click!
Putimetal on Myspace：http://www.myspace.com/putimetaljp
Gypsy Queen official website (Japanese)：http://www.gypsy-queen.com/

Sugiyama on My Eyes Tokyo Radio!：Click here and Listen! (E/J)

Related Interviews

GYPSY QUEEN (Musical group)
Hai Trieu (Singer)

There won’t be a war as long as you know about others and talk to them.

Today we introduce you to a lawyer who’s been bridging America and Japan for about 20 years.
David Sindell is a business immigration lawyer with offices in New York, San Francisco (Silicon Valley), and recently in Tokyo. I met him at the presentation and exchange event for entrepreneurs called “GTIC (Global Techno Innovation Cafe)”, which was held by Tomo Akiyama, a Japanese venture capitalist.
He’s been traveling between America and Japan for many years and recently became a gaikokuho bengoshi (foreign law registered lawyer) in Japan. Specifically through his Silicon Valley office, he acts as a bridge between Japanese ventures and the mecca of the innovation.
In addition to the clear business opportunity, the root of his activities is his deep attachment to people and culture in Japan.

*Interview in Jiyugaoka (Meguro-ku, Tokyo)

日本語

I have no competition in Japan

I am based in Tokyo for at least 6 months out of the year. Many ventures commence in Tokyo and create subsidiaries in the U.S. The genesis of these ventures is in Tokyo.
We receive inquiries from several companies per month, mostly Japanese ones. They are not specifically always ventures in Japan but are ventures in the US. Some of them were established dozens of years ago. Of course, if they start business in the US from scratch, they are ventures over there.
Before Japanese companies go to San Francisco or New York, the normal sequence of events is usually that they have an office here in Tokyo and they decide to set up over there. I’m here and I can advise them prior to their departure. That is what prompted me to set up a small satellite office in Tokyo.
I was very recently admitted to as a foreign registered attorney in Tokyo and I am personally starting my very own venture of sorts in Tokyo. It is my understanding that there is only one other foreign registered lawyer in Tokyo specializing in US immigration law. It’s still a very small market as far as Japanese companies go, but because there are very few attorneys doing what I do in Japan, I may be of assistance to many companies and individuals and I have the ability to take care of their needs once they arrive in the US on either coast.
One of the things I enjoy most about practicing US immigration law is the end result. In most cases, I am able to change a life, help someone or some company start in the US. I have an important role to play between our two countries and I love that aspect of my job.

I feel relaxed when I’m with Japanese

I come from a long line of attorneys. My grandfather, my mother and my father were attorneys. In particular, my father still has a great love for Japan, especially its culture and language. He studied Japanese about 30 years ago, and he took me to Japan when I graduated high school and that trip turned out to be a turning point in my life since it was the start of 25 year love affair with Japan and Japanese cultures. Unlike many professionals who come to Japan initially for business reasons, I came to Japan to learn the language and culture, way before I was ever engaged in any business venture or legal practice.
After high school, I attended New York University, and commenced my studies of Japanese language when I was a sophomore. I majored in French literature and Japanese language.
But I wanted to learn more. I could speak French at that time so I knew how to learn language. I decided, based on my previous travels to France, that the best way is to live in a place where the language is spoken.
I asked my Japanese professor, Noro-sensei. She recommended Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya has a population of over 2 million but in the late 80’s, the number of foreigners was inconsequential, so it was a desirable location for studying Japanese.
Since I graduated from NYU about six months earlier than planned, I had enough leeway time to start working, so I went back to Nagoya again and taught English and French for almost a year. Since then, I’ve been traveling between America and Japan for about 25 years.
Today, I can go weeks without seeing or speaking to a non-Japanese person. I don’t specifically seek out foreigners although I have friends from all different nationalities living in Japan. It so happens that many of the friends I made at a younger age, in New York in the 1990’s were Japanese and many moved back to Japan, so I actually have more close friends in Tokyo than in New York, even though I have traditionally been based more in New York. Interestingly, here in Japan, I don’t have the occasion to speak English, maybe I can find someone to practice with
I love Japan. I love people. I think after 25 years, my personality is probably more Japanese than American, so I feel quite at ease when I’m with Japanese people.

Focusing on immigration law

I became a lawyer in 1994 after I graduated law school. When I first started, I did many things including real estate, trust and estates, domestic relations, and even litigation, but I found immigration law had the most meaning to me.
When I first hung up my shingle, people started asking me about immigration law, but back in 1994, there was very little taught at the law school level about immigration law and there wasn’t a plethora of information available. This was prior to the advent of the internet. I actually took the one class of immigration law taught at my law school, Fordham Law, but it wasn’t much help.
At that time, my friend John, who is now living in Tokyo, was working at a large firm and they bought him a book about immigration law. I didn’t have enough money, but he said, “I don’t use this book anymore. You take me to lunch and I will give you the book.” Then I got a book and studied immigration law by myself little by little. I think I must have read the book 10 times.
I started to take on immigration matters little by little and more people started to come to me for immigration advice. I decided that was what I wanted to do and I decided to focus exclusively on US immigration law in the late 1990’s. By then, I had opened an office in Seattle and Los Angeles, and after divesting myself from those operations, I opened an office in Silicon Valley (actually one in Sunnyvale, and one in Union City) in addition to Tokyo and New York.

Became a Silicon Valley lawyer

Until the end of 2011, 95% of my clients were Japanese companies and Japanese individuals. In the beginning of 2012, I partnered with a close friend who was working in several large immigration firms to run the California office. Her friend, another attorney, also merged with our firm in May, so that now we have a large following of new US IT start-up clients in the Bay Area. They hire all nationalities including Chinese, Indian, Eastern European, and of course Japanese.
In California, what’s interesting in terms of the US economy is that there are now a large number of new ventures. Right now in the US, economically, I feel a lot of new businesses or ventures are in Silicon Valley. Japanese ventures are also starting their businesses there and we are able to assist these companies with their immigration issues. Silicon Valley is very exciting right now.

I never chase money

I was also a start-up, almost 20 years ago. I started with $4,000. I found an office in Manhattan, which was a very small space which I obtained in exchange for legal services in lieu of rent.
And now I’m a venture here again. I’m kind of new to Tokyo so I don’t know many people here yet in the business community. I enjoy meeting new people, so I try to attend seminars or exchange events related to Japanese ventures.
When I started my business in NY back in 1994, I joined events and actually created several event based organizations for Japanese people living in New York. I had a great time doing it. I did it for the opportunity of cultural exchange. I was never doing it because I wanted business. I don’t believe in doing something for business purposes only. Building connections may help my business a year later or five years later. Actually recently, I got a phone call from a man who is a friend of a person whom I met 10 years ago.
If you start out deciding that you want to make money, you won’t. If you do what you love to do, help people, create positive karma for yourself and love your work, money will flow naturally. There is no way to force money since the most satisfaction comes from what you love.
Over twelve years ago, I bought a castle in France and ran a B&B and restaurant. I lost a ton of money and had to sell it, but it was a terrific experience. I am also a partner in several restaurants in New York and in New Jersey because I love the restaurant business and finally, three years ago, I started importing French and Argentine wine into the US and now am a wine distributor and importer.
Life is about doing what you love and being passionate about whatever you do. As long as I can be passionate about my life, my activities, and the people surrounding me, I will find satisfaction and ultimate happiness. At least that is what I strive for!!

Treasure your own uniqueness & embrace other cultures

Japan is a very unique country. Japanese people are totally different from people in other Asian countries even though they look similar. This can be tied to the uniqueness of Japanese history.
Japan used to have an isolated policy and they kept out foreigners until 150 years ago. So the unique climate and characteristics were created during the period of national isolation. That created a negative side, but there must be a positive side. Look at Toyota. It makes cars in the US by using its own unique system such as “Just In Time” and it made up on General Motors.
My restaurants are Japanese, one is actually famous, Hakata Ton Ton, in the West Village. Our restaurant has taken a process of trial and error. When we first opened every dish had Pig’s Feet (Tonsoku), but we added other dishes from Hakata. Now we serve not only tonsoku but also local cuisines of Kyushu Island. It’s so popular that you have to make a reservation a week before you go.

If you offer Americans the same things you offer in Japan, you will not succeed. There must be adjustments to the American palate while still embracing the Japanese ethic and culture. The key is to be able to mix both cultures and come out with something better.
In essence, this is what I strive to do both on a personal and business level.

True reason I’m in Japan

In one word, because I love Japan and it is part of me. The business reason is that. I would like to continue to assist companies or people giving them excellent advice on US immigration issues prior to going to the US. Because of my knowledge of both American culture and Japanese culture, I can assist those who are totally new to the US and are unfamiliar with the US immigration issues that they may face. After 25 years of attempting to bridge the two cultures, I feel that I am well placed to assist those who are brave enough to want to navigate through the murky waters known as US immigration law.
America and Japan are best friends now even though only some 70 years ago, we were fighting each other. Clearly, the way to continue to engage both cultures is to continue to try to understand each other. Communication is always the best path to peace and harmony. It is my hope that our two countries can continue to forge ahead and that in a small way, I can continue to help bridge the cultural gap between them.

With Himi Okajima, his partner at Hakata Ton Ton

What is Japan to you?

Part of me.

What is Tokyo to you?

Very exciting city. There are still many things that I’ve not discovered. Living in Tokyo is an adventure.

Sindell’s Links

Sindell Law Offices,： http://www.sindelllaw.com/
Hakata Ton Ton : https://www.facebook.com/HAKATATONTON

Startups that don’t make innovation happen aren’t worthy of existence.

Today’s “Big Generators” features an IT entrepreneur who lived in the Silicon Valley in his youth.
His name is Hiroaki Taira. He moved around Japan with his family because his father, a semi-conductor engineer, was transferred to some branches. Then his family went to Silicon Valley, but he left the ventures’ playground long before he started business.
Eventually he looked at Thailand, which is still a “developing” country in the IT field. He gambled on its possibility and aimed at a place which has not been reclaimed yet, not a well-established market. Also he is now sharpening his sword to make changes in the Anime production field which still remains an outdated characteristic of the industry.
The venture spirit, DNA of Silicon Valley, has been implanted into his gene.

*Interview in Shibuya
*英訳補助：ダニエル・ペンソ

日本語

Silicon Valley boy who has no interest in IT

My father was a semi-conductor engineer and was transferred to branches of his company. So I moved constantly with my family. I was born at a hospital in Chiba and moved to Osaka, and moved to Yokohama, Mie Prefecture, then we migrated to Silicon Valley. At that time, Intel was growing its business steadily and the demand for semi-conductors increased. So my father was chosen as a project member for the new plant in Silicon Valley. My family moved to California.
We lived in San Jose, California. It’s the center of Silicon Valley, which has the headquarters of Apple, Google and so on. But there are no entertainment areas there so the only things that I did were going to gyms, going to movies or drinking some coffee at Starbucks. I looked up a sign and thought, “What’s Adobe?”. I didn’t know the Adobe Systems because I was not interested in IT so much.
But I remember that every single computer that my elementary school had were Apple’s “iMac“. Many of my classmates were children of “garage entrepreneurs”. And many of them were Asian. They had a strong tendency to aim upwards and headed for very elite universities such as Stanford, Harvard or UC Berkley.
As for me, I got interested in anime under the influence of Pixar‘s works and wanted to learn manga and anime back home. My 8-year Silicon Valley life ended and I came back to Japan. Then I got to know “mixi“, a Japanese SNS, and I felt IT was fun. I never felt like that in Silicon Valley.

Unexplored market

Now I manage an IT company called “GOOPA Inc.” which has its offices in Japan and Thailand.
Thailand is known as a prosperous resort area and relatively close to Japan. Both traveling costs and prices are low. There are quite a lot of people who can understand English in my impression. But I feel that Japanese companies viewed the country only as a production base of industrial products.
On the other hand, the IT service market in Thailand will be the biggest one in Southeast Asia in 2015 according to a forecast by IDC, International Data Corporation.
Actually the number of smartphone users was skyrocketing in Thailand. I felt that in my bones in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand. The smartphone population is much larger than the internet population over there. I thought we’ll make a loss unless we grab the iPhone app market in Thailand so we started developing smartphone apps.
Our Bangkok office has three designers and three engineers. We’ve launched an English education app called “Cuddly ABC” recently and now we’re making a photo decoration app for gothic lolita fashion lovers, gas mileage calculation app which would be much-needed by drivers in one of the world’s major automobile societies and an app for bass fishing which tells you how to choose a good lure.
The internet diffusion rate is about 10% in Thailand and they still use mostly ADSL technology. Some of you may think it’s a minus factor, but in other words, Thai IT industry will focus on smart phones and apps for it. I mean Thailand has a very big potential app market.

“Cuddly ABC”, app recommendable for mothers caring for children.
AppStore link：http://itunes.apple.com/app/id550972790

Being a bridge between Japan & Thailand

If you want to expand your market in Thailand, it would be better for you to leave the whole process from development/produce and marketing/promotion apps to staffs in Thailand.
Above all, it would be exactly advantageous to you. So we sell Japanese companies a package of both “development and promotion in Thailand”. That’s what I do as a president here in Japan. In other words, I’m a bridge between Japan and Thailand. Other than producing apps, we are going to open a co-working space called “Launchpad” in Bangkok at the end of November 2012. We want it to be a “bridge” between Japan and Thailand as well.
We came up with an idea of having a co-working space when we were looking for our office in Bangkok. We have around 10 people, but it was very difficult to find because there are only very small offices like for 2-3 people or very huge ones. We thought; “Startups who want to have their spaces in Bangkok will face the same problem”. So we wanted to solve both our problem and their problem.
About that time, a Thai guy who is a co-founder of GOOPA found a huge space. His father manages a real estate business and the first floor of his building became available.
We’ll use that space and also we want to use it as an incubation center for ventures in Thailand. And eventually we want startups overseas to use it as a toehold in Thai market.
As I mentioned before, Thai IT market is very desirable. I guess IT companies that are looking at Indonesia, Singapore or Vietnam will rush in Thailand about a year later. By that time we want the Launchpad to be a hub in Thai IT market.

 Rendering of Launchpad

Fateful encounter

Why I attached my mind to Thailand is not only because it’s an attractive market but also because I met a guy from Thailand before.
When I was a senior college student, I studied at Carnegie Mellon University. It was a 6-month foreign exchange and I majored in the business administration. I was studying at a university where you can major in animation or manga, but I wanted to study totally different subjects such as business science or accounting in the US.
Fortunately I thought nothing of English because I used to live in the States. So I joined a lot of events and parties in order to meet up with as many people as possible and had a lot of experiences in half a year. During that time, I met Vincent Sethiwan, a co- founder of GOOPA. He is the guy who found a space for Launchpad, our co-working space.
Vincent was managing his own business at that time. His father was involved in the corn and real estate businesses, but he financed by himself without relying on his father’s money and started business. I got good vibes with him and met him almost every week. I don’t know why I became a friend of a guy who was such an unaverage guy. At that time we talked a lot about what we wanted to do, but didn’t take up detailed and concrete discussion.

Transborder joint project

The six-month study in the States ended and I came back home. Later Vincent, my co-founder, graduated Carnegie Mellon and closed his business and went back to Thailand. After we graduated universities, I began to work at an ad-maker and he became an IT consultant at the Thomson Reuters of Thailand.
A little later, he visited Japan. His destination was Hokkaido, so I went there to meet him. Then we decided to do business together.
When I was a Carnegie Mellon student, I came up with an idea of doing business related to “encounter”. That was a vague idea, but actually my world has broadened and I realized that the ways of thinking are really diverse because students’ backgrounds were also varied at Carnegie Mellon. Moreover I met with a business partner there. I really thought that encounters are very important in our lives.
While Vincent was on his way home, and I was on my way home, we dashed off our business ideas. Then we discussed things through Skype after each of us got home and we developed an SNS which promotes interacting between groups. Its name is GOOPA, the same name as our company. We started with a website service development, not apps.

We’ll lead in Southeast Asia

We’ve been a “bridge” between people so far. We’ve connected groups with groups through our SNS, we’ve connected Japanese IT companies with our Thai development team in the app production field. We also connect Japanese IT companies and Thai IT market at Launchpad, our new co-working space.
Also we’re planning to connect Japanese IT companies with Thai investors. They’ve invested on “what you can see” such as corn or real estate. But Vincent says that they are looking for new destinations for the investment. However they are afraid of investing in IT because they are not familiar with the industry at all.
So we’ll make connections with them and tell them about IT industry and introduce them to IT startups. We want to use Launchpad for that purpose too. In order to realize that, it’ll be essential to work with experienced Japanese incubation facilities.
A co-working space which will be managed by a team who can make apps, do marketing research and promote products… I believe that it’ll be very useful and helpful for Japanese IT companies to use as a toehold in Southeast Asia. That’ll be our value and we’re aiming at, “When we expand our market in Thailand, we’ll ask for GOOPA’s cooperation”. Then we’ll go to different countries and get credit. We hope to hear, “When we go to Southeast Asia, let’s ask GOOPA” eventually.

GOOPA team in Thailand & Hiro
Far right; Vincent Sethiwan. Hiro’s right-hand neighbor is Sam Tiyavtiroj, a CTO of GOOPA.

Connecting Japan with the world

My dream will expand further. We’d like to build a bridge between Japan and the rest of the world. But we won’t do it in the IT field, we’ll do it in the animation field.
When I was a high schooler in Silicon Valley, I got into animations created by Disney and Pixar. I wondered why those kinds of world-class animations hadn’t been made in Japan. That was a kind of a juvenile idea, but I wanted to create such an anime giant… I came back home thinking like that and entered a university with an animation department.
But actually there are so many animators who work at low pay and the turnover rate of animators in their 20s reaches 50 – 80%. On the other hand, there are tons of 100,000 dollar players at Disney or Pixar. I think that’s one of the reasons why Japanese anime industry cannot create works that are comparable to them.
Money doesn’t come to animation companies because of the production partnership system.
Before an anime movie production gets started, a production partnership or production committee is formed. Cash-hungry anime companies cannot join it so there are only major media companies on its list as a result. Also an animation company devotes its copyrights to a committee and they don’t receive any continual rights income no matter how much their work becomes a big hit. So we are planning to build a crowd funding system which specializes in the anime field in order to boost up fund power and self-branding ability of Japanese anime creators. Those are things that they are lacking. And we’ll enhance their international presence by raising money from people around the world. Also we will create an opportunity for them to spread their works around many kinds of people, not only among otakus.
Creators raise funds and find sponsors (=potential fans) at the same time. We’ll prepare a platform for completed anime works to deliver them. Creators deliver their works so their copyrights will be protected and rights income will come to anime companies. Also it’ll make marketing research easier. We are thinking of deliver them through mobile devices, not TV or theater. Each of them is a 5-minute movie and you can watch them whenever you want – I mean it’ll be the “on-demand system”. And your movie could be shown at theaters, too, eventually.
Moreover if someone asks you about a secondary use of your work, we’ll introduce him/her to you. We’ll build such kind of bridge and eventually build a system which enables creators to receive certain incomes.
“Startups that don’t make innovations happen aren’t worthy of existence” – a lawyer who supports ventures said. I was deeply impressed by his words and I always work on assignments with my team in consideration of the words.

Connecting bustling Southeast Asian markets with Japanese IT companies. Connecting Japanese anime creators with anime fans in the rest of the world. I would like to bring vitality to Japan and inspire Japanese society. That’s my dream.

Hiro’s links

GOOPA Inc.： http://www.facebook.com/GOOPA.Inc
ChargedConcept Co., Ltd.：http://www.facebook.com/chargedconcept
Launchpad：http://www.facebook.com/launchpadhq

Cuddly ABC：http://itunes.apple.com/app/id550972790

We’re not going to end here. We hope to help other areas around the world.

 
Interview with Angela Ortiz, who’s been supporting people in the devastated area in the Northern part of Japan since 3.11 Earthquake occurred, still continues. In this part, we tell you about her team’s long-term projects for supporting residents in Tohoku.