Setting Up an Office in Tokyo

So a little background on what I do for those who don't know. I work for a company that makes systems diagnostic tools for vehicles. These are scan tools they make to the specifications of their clients for checking the systems within a vehicle works. One of their main customers is Isuzu, who are a Japanese truck manufacturers that exports all over the globe. Because of this they wanted a person to be on site in Tokyo as Isuzu's main contact, acting as customer liaison and project manager. That's me. The only problem...well a few problems really...is that the company I work for didn't have an office set up in Tokyo and I was completely new and needed training. So I began training about 7 months ago and it's been a mix of on-site work, meeting the team in Isuzu while also setting up the office in Japan because I have the time and organisational skills to do it. If you want something done right, do it yourself. (Unless you don't know how to do it then you ask someone and learn to do it!)

So that's been the bulk of my job the last few months, finding out how to set up an office from scratch single person to use including work visa. That's the main issue really, in order to be able to get a working visa in Japan I need to work for a company that has a company registered to Japan. So we need to register our company. But it cannot be through a virtual or home office, it has to be a physical location with 4 walls and a door, which is actually surprisingly hard to find for a single person when the branch office won't be generating any revenue (as most small offices still seem to cost $2000-$3000 a month including utilities, receptionist services, common area with refreshments, and phone/internet rental).

To say the least it's been interesting and actually quite enjoyable researching the process with the help of JETRO, and finding knowledgeable people to help (which I have found in the form of scriveners who are much better than the lawyers the company were previously looking into). I have almost all the research complete, I just need to check over some details to do with tax and get confirmation to what my company want to do before I can begin the process of setting up the office, registering the company, applying for a visa, finding an apartment and then moving there. I'm hoping this will be done in September. So that's my plan for the next few months.

Well Laid Plans - Job Training and What I've Been Up To

This is a follow up from my previous post Job Training in America - November 2013

It’s been a long time since I last wrote an update with work and Japan and everything. The last time would have been written at about the end of November 2013/beginning of December and now it’s April 2014!! As always things didn’t exactly turn out the way I had expected or planned.

I should probably start with what happened after my trip to Detroit last year. The meeting with the Japanese went well although I was heavily embarrassed by my lack of ability to explain things in Japanese. So I decided to take lessons as soon as I got back to the UK to learn/practice business Japanese. I started that in January after Wes came to the UK for Christmas and it went pretty well. They were private lessons which were expensive but I got what I paid for and found it useful considering I didn’t have much time (or money) for lessons. Together with the lessons I practiced Japanese in my free time with Memrise, listening to business Japanese courses and general study. I didn’t do as much Japanese as I’d hoped/planned though. (I had aimed to get N2 vocab revised by the end of January and that still hasn’t happened).

I’d previously said it would take 3-4 months before I was in Japan, well THAT didn’t happen. The plan was that I would go to Japan in January/February to begin the research process for setting up the office and the move (costs etc), although with another quarterly meeting with the Japanese. Not only was the meeting not in January or February but after a month of bugging them for a date they turned around and said “you organize it”. So that’s what I did and it’s the beginning of April and I’m in Japan in said meeting. Hazzar! This is why I’ve not moved here yet. I haven’t even been able to begin researching the costs because it’s taken so long to get this far. That and boss wants me to train myself more before I move. So it looks like at this rate I’ll be moving to Tokyo in August.

So what I’ve been doing for the last 4 months since Detroit is work from home translating and studying Japanese while learning the company projects and process. Besides work, when I realized I’d have plenty of time before moving to Japan, I took the opportunity to make a load of cosplay I’ve been meaning to do for a while and to go to a few cons and events I hadn’t been to in a long time. I also spent the time playing on a lot of the games I’d been meaning to play on but haven’t had time/been out of the country. It was good to actually have the free time to do those things, but I do think I much prefer an office environment so that I don’t have any distractions and have a clear distinction between work and play :/

I have ALSO started up another blog teaching people how to teach themselves Japanese! It's called J-Talk Online (as in Japanese Talk Online). So been spending a lot of time not studying myself to help other people study. It's called productive procrastination and I've really enjoyed helping others with their Japanese so I don't care too much that I've been neglecting my own Japanese.

I feel like I’m complaining a lot, but I’m mostly just taking everything one day at a time. It’s frustrating when things happen at the last minute or I don’t have much communication for the American company as what I’m supposed to be doing or what’s happening within the company. But it’s also really nice to have the freedom, trust and responsibility (and money because as of January I’ve been getting paid! Yay!) So this job is having its ups and downs, although these are mostly ups, and it’ll lead to a lot of new things I think. Unless that plan goes to pots as well!

Job Training in America - November 2013

I'd written this at work in November 2013 but didn't realise I hadn't posted it! Woops...
This is a follow on post from the previous one First Business Trip to Japan and America Job Training

It feels like I’m doing a master’s degree in my company with Project Management and Japanese in the Automotive Market. I’m serious; I have spent the last month doing practice translations, learning automotive vocabulary (for Japanese and English), researching the company, interviewing people, writing up my findings, getting it corrected and just now gave a presentation on everything I’ve learnt. I got feedback from the entire team on what I should word differently and everyone brain stormed ideas for what I should learn next. Which is still a lot and I only have one week left here. I was going to be leaving this weekend, but the Japanese are visiting and so we thought it would be better for me to stay the extra week to sit in on meetings. It was actually my idea. I really enjoy working here. The work’s interesting and the people are nice. It’s just freezing cold and I can feel myself turning into an introvert not seeing people outside of work (besides Katie at the weekends).

Although I did see Wes last week for Thanksgiving, which was super nice. It was good to be with him again. We went to the cinema twice, played games with his friends, watched movies, cooked food, and got to spend Thanksgiving with his aunt, mum, brother and granddad. I miss him already. It sucks that we aren’t in a short distance relationship. I was really hoping that after Japan we would be, but alas governments suck and force us apart because neither of us can afford to live without working and he can’t work in the UK and I can’t in Portland where he is. But he’s looking for a job in Tokyo and because he’s so amazing, I know he’ll get one and we’ll move there together and it will never be long distance again.

So next week the Japanese come here and then at the weekend I go back to the UK. The plan is that I’ll be working/training from home as well as organizing the office for Japan and my working visa. What’s annoying is that it’ll be another 3-4 months before I’m in Japan, which means that long away from Wes (except for Christmas) unless we can afford another visit again. Perhaps if I come back to Detroit for more training?

The World of Durarara

Edit: This post was moved from another blog that I deleted. This was originally posted 24/5/2011

In December 2010-January 2011 I lived in Tokyo for a month and while there there was no way I could pass up the oppatunity of seeing Ikebukuro, the location of one of my favourite anime. ^-^ These are some pics I took and some scenes from the show. 楽しんでね！

Fun at Toyosato K-On School

Edit: This was moved here from another blog of mine that I deleted. This post was originally from 28/1/2011

Oookay, so this was a severly delayed blog of nerdy fun but I was distracted by...shiny stuff probably ^^;; Either way I thought it would be nice to put up some comparison pictures of K-On to the school the anime was based on which I visited last December. I've already put most of these (and more) on facebook but it certainly doesn't mean much unless you have a context to work with. So for those who have and for those haven't watched K-On, here are some print screens of the first episode (in order of how they apeared in the anime) and my own photos of the same scenes (not that I tried to get them exact or anything, I didn't even think of doing this until afterwards). Oh, and if you want to (even if you're not bothered) I suggest watching the first ep just...because
http://www.animeseason.com/k-on-episode-1/

First Business Trip to Japan & America Job Training

In June 2013 I'd begun looking for a job and was approached by an American company who I began having a few interviews with. By September I'd got into a good position and had travelled to Detroit, Michigan where they're based. Things went well and later in the month I went on a business trip to Japan to meet the team in Isuzu that the American company work's with. I meant to post this sooner but I didn't...

September 22nd (20:52 UK)

It's weird that I'm going to be going to Japan tomorrow for one week. Really doesn't feel like it. Probably partially because I've never been to Japan for less than 4 months before! Also I'm absolutely sh**ing myself right now. This is gonna be a challenge I think and a big test on my Japanese skills. I have no confidence in my business Japanese abilities and I've been told I might have to interpret for one meeting. I'VE NEVER INTERPRETED BEFORE! D: And have no idea what the meeting will be on. I might have to take the guy who's organising it aside and ask him nicely not to leave me interpreting for any meetings because I honestly don't know the company or the field specific lexis well enough. The problem is he's a really laid back guy who's attitude is very much *shrug* "yeeeaaaahhh suuuurrre it'll be fiiine!" Which was nice when I was in Detroit but not so much now because he doesn't quite grasp that I have no business Japanese experience. Which is fine because I can work on that while I'm training including JLPT N1 practice that should get me up to scratch, but right now I don't feel like I'm up to that scratch.

I'm just trying not thing about it. I will take things as they come and deal with them when I need to deal with them. I can only ever try my best and possibly a bit harder than my best and see how things go. Flight's tomorrow. Let's do this.


September 23rd-28th

The business trip itself is now a bit of a blur. I'd never been to Japan for less than 4 months, so it was a bit surreal going for less than a week. Which meant I didn't have much time to get over the jet lag so was incredibly tired the whole time. It was me, George who was my guide in Detroit, and another American employee. We met with the team they deal with in Isuzu and I got a large stack of business cards (everyone introduced themselves at the same time so I forgot most of their names). We basically has long meetings (all in Japanese) that I could kind of understand. My main problem was I didn't know the American company or their dealings with Isuzu that well so I didn't know the context of most of the conversations. And jet lag meant my brain just wanted to sleep the whole time. The other guy couldn't understand Japanese at all so I think he was pretty bored although he was getting some work done on his laptop and George summarised their conversations. Oh yeah! I didn't have to interpret anything! Well nothing meetings wise, I did help out when we were out getting dinner and lunch. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
At the end of the week we had a day free so I took the opportunity to visit a friend who lives in Akihabara and he showed me around (which resulted in new comics and figurines that made me very happy).


After I got back from Japan life got...not very exciting. I had nothing to do and spent my days mostly watching TV series and playing video games. I did study Japanese everyday for a while but became de-motivated. I went to Canterbury to see friends when I could and made a cosplay to take to a convention. But the loneliness and boredom was driving me a bit crazy. Actually very crazy.


Job Training in Michigan - First Week

So two weeks ago I finally heard back from the American company about dates for training. I had hoped that I would get training before Halloween (so I could spend Halloween in the US) but that didn't work out and I got here Sunday 3rd November. With 3 weeks in Detroit for training, 1 week in Portland for Thanks Giving with Wes (yay), and another week of training before going back to the UK on the 7th. I'm hoping they'll start paying me at that point and I work from home until we get Japan sorted, or I might have to come back to Detroit for more on sight training. As always it's all very up in the air, but I think it'll be worth it.

My first week is over and I feel so much better. I feel less crazy and more motivated. The job is incredibly interesting and I'm really enjoying it so far. The position is basically project management so I'm having to learn everything about the entire company which means going to each employee and finding out what they do and how the system works from their perspective. It's mostly databases along with software and hardware programming rather than the technical/mechanical side of vehicles. It's an interesting system and I'm pleasantly surprised how quickly I'm grasping it (although there's still a lot more to do). As for the Japanese side of thing I've been translating a few e-mails of people trying to work out problems for practice and as I said it's not really technical stuff but there's still a vocabulary list I'm building up and need to work on before next week.

Everyone at the office is incredibly nice and supportive. We go out to lunch together every day and they get very excited about taking me to different restaurants in the area and have me try new things (like deep fried gherkins/pickles). They work incredibly hard and are amazingly smart, and are great at explaining things to mean and making sure I understand it.

So it's Saturday now and I'm just being lazy. I need to go to the shop and get some food and some other stuff, and then I'll be going to see my first ice hokey game with a lady from work. Then tomorrow I'm driving over to Katie's and we're going to go see Thor 2. *squeee*

So things are slowly working out and I feel more sane now that I've started working a full time job. I guess more news on the whole training trip and Thanks Giving later on.

UPDATE: I wrote the follow up but forgot to post it >_< Here is is

Engaging in a Larger Online Discourse

I apologise for going on a tangent and not talking about my travels to Japan but this is an issue that's close to my heart and I feel is important and relevant to myself, the people around me and my community at large. Also this will be VERY long (especially if you include all the videos) so feel free to skim or not read at all :)

As well as being a woman, bilingual, bisexual, anime fan, cosplayer, avid book reader, sci-fi/fantasy fan, lover of films and comics, I am also a gamer. Out of all these identities (and others, as we all have many identities) I do not identify myself as a feminist (although some people might think or classify me as one). I simply believe in equality, trying to the best of my ability to stop injustices, and that if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all! Critiquing is fine, but just being nasty for the sake of being nasty doesn't make sense to me. (The last one's not a popular belief online). And due to the fact that I am a gamer and I do believe in equality and the right to critic I've become quite interested in the larger online debate surrounding Anita Sarkeesian and her videos Troupe vs Women in video games.

Many people in the gaming and general online community will have heard about her so I won't repeat what everyone knows. (If you don't know what this is all about just click here)

Last week I came across the video "Do Video Games Need Anita Sarkeesian's Feminism?"

I loved this video so much that I put it on my facebook to share with my friends. One in particular loved it so much she put it on her facebook. The response that she got from her friends (in the US) compared to my own (in the UK) was surprising to say the least. One in particular was very negative saying:

Guy: "Sarkeesian is a liar. She acts like shes this video game expert but in reality she knows nothing. She acts like theres some sort of conspiracy against women in gaming and overly exaggerates the way woman are treated in games and fails to realize that there are more video games with positive female protagonists than she realizes. this guy says that everyone should be free to express there ideas but unfortunately Anita disables the comments section and rating system. This guy is an idiot!"


This began a very, very, very long discussion which I feel is important for people to see (and I will post it at the bottom if I can if people do want to read it). But for now I will sum it up.

This person's (who we shall call Guy) arguments were as follows:

• Anita Sarkeesian is a liar (based on this video)
• She is not a real gamer (based on the fact that she is a liar based on that video)
• She has no experience in the subject she is talking about
• She and other femenists are forcing their views on the industry 
• They (Anita and feminists) do not belong in the gaming community
• Feminists who claim to be harassed are just responding to opposing opinions
• Anita is not a true critic because she disabled her youtube comments
• There does need to be more female protagonists in games
• There are already a large number of games with women, and who are not sexualised
• Masoganistic games like GTAV shouldn't be taken seriously because they are a satire of society
• There is sexism in the gaming industry
• Sexualisation of women in games does not perpetrate rape, abuse or sexual harassment
  
  He also posted these videos to back his opinion (make of them what you will): 

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfkS9YS_T0k
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJeX6F-Q63I

His comments and arguments got me very angry. Although I agree with a few of his point that there needs to be more female protagonists, and there are games with women protagonists already (although I would argue these are very few and often not well known ones), I did not agree with most of what he was saying.

I decided to engage back. But my arguments fell on deaf ears and we essentially went around in circles.

My counter arguments:

• Anita might have told a class of University students and her lecturer that she did not play games because she wanted to be respected. I myself have done the exact same thing, hiding one identity to gain more respect in the academic and professional world.
• Lying about one identity in a certain social situation does not make that identity invalid.
• She has proved again and again in her videos and on her site that she has the experience to talk about this.
• She is not forcing her ideas on anyway, she is simply criticising the image of women in many (not all but many) games as a whole.
• Who can say who has the "right" to be in a community or not? (The irony of this one is that this defence of 'them vs us' is addressed in the original video I posted Why Gamers Need Anita)
• Anita disabled her comments due to the 24/7 abuse and harassment she received (as shown in this video)
• There is not a lot of funding that goes into games with female protagonists due to the belief they won't sell as well as male driven ones (as argued by penny-arcade)

Our conversation then spilled over into a one-on-one discourse between myself and him on my friends facebook wall (which she was fine with because her Masters is based on the perceptions on gender in games so this was perfect for her research). At this point I was no longer angry, just amazed and bemused by this person's point of view. I had never come across anyone like him in person before and found his beliefs quite baffling. 

Our one-on-one discussion began today with this video where a man calmly breaks down MrRepzion's arguments slating Anita, and discusses why they are wrong. (MrRepzion's videos are the ones Guy mostly used to back his point of view). Our discussion, as I said, went in a bit of a circle with us both re-instating our views and arguments that I listed above.

I made the statement that Anita's videos were relevant because women are abused every day in the gaming community (as proved by Anita's own experience of abuse and others)

This was Guy's response:

" "And women every day are abused by men in the video game world", I find that completely hilarious. I dare you to go out of your relatively comfortable life as an American citizen and go to an Islamic country where woman are truly abused. You along with most modern feminists need to stop trying to point your fingers at video games and look at the real problems facing society. But of course you don't want to look at the real problems and continue to bitch and moan about video games because its much easier to do than to go out of your way to actually help." 

So apparently criticising something or someone and engaging in a larger online discourse is "bitching and moaning" and that means we are not addressing "real problems" in the world. Because of course the issues Anita is discussing are not "real issues", and that the abuse women get for playing games or speaking out is not a "real issue".