Here is the official website for the renewal official site for the GMBA at Doshisha Business School.
Here is the International Students Website for the Global MBA at Doshisha University.
Japanese lifestyle & culture from Kyoto | ||
I would like to introduce the real Japanese life style and culture from
Kyoto to the people living in Japan and different countries using this
weblog. Even small things that have happened around me would help to describe our
life in Japan. Please leave any comments when you visit my site because
it could be very helpful for this weblog. By Yasuyuki Kanaoka from Doshisha Business School |
||
*Click any photos to make them bigger. |
Here is the official website for the renewal official site for the GMBA at Doshisha Business School.
Here is the International Students Website for the Global MBA at Doshisha University.
Posted at 10:12 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (19)
Posted at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)
I had a chance to give a presentation about "Internet Marketing" for the Internship student of HEC School of Management, Paris, France at Doshisha Business School. This program is held by KCCI (Kyoto Chamber of Commerce). After my presentation, we could discuss with him and other faculty member of DBS about differences of Internet marketing between two countries.
Posted at 03:02 PM in Internet Marketing, MBA course, traditional crafts and culture | Permalink | Comments (23)
The exchange student program for 2009 of our rotary club has been started. As I am a chairman of the International service at our club, I organized this program and many people involved it for two students who come from our sister club called LaHabra Rotary Club in California in the US. They arrived in 19th of July and are staying until 01st of August for two weeks program. Here is today's schedule. I believe they enjoyed our program so far.
Courtesy Call for Takarazuka City Mayor Ms. Tomoko Nakagawa
Visit temple and shrine called Kiyoshikojin in Takarazuka
Japanese traditional tea ceremony
Rotary Club Meeting
If you are interested in this program, please refer our club website as follows: Click here!
Posted at 10:54 PM in Rotary club | Permalink | Comments (10)
I went to Tokyo to have lectures at the University of Tokyo last weekend. The lecture will be continue until June next year, so I have to visit Tokyo several times during this period. So far I am enjoying the lecture related with the legal guardian authorized by the family court. I have been working for the family court for about four years as a government bureaucracy. This course at the University of Tokyo is very useful for my part time job. I also enjoyed the campus such as the Sanshiro pond, Clock Tower called the Yasuda Lecture Hall and the other historical buildings.
Posted at 11:01 PM in life, Travel | Permalink | Comments (15)
I have just created the video sharing site at YouTube as a new site for the Global MBA Program at Doshisha Business School. Please enjoy videos of faculty members from many countries.
Here is the new website at YouTube.
Posted at 10:47 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (15)
We had a press conference for the launch of the new Global MBA at Doshisha Business School (DBS). The conference started with a speech by the President of Doshisha , the message from the Dean of DBS, and an introduction of the head of the Global MBA. This course is going to start from September of this year and 23 students from 17 countries have been chosen to enter as the first students of this Global MBA course.Finally, we had many questions from the reporters of paper. Here is the one of the articles of the press conference this time. (Kyoto Shinbun on 6th June, 2009 in Japanese only)
Posted at 11:13 AM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (16)
I have just created my first video of the Global Kakushin Juku at Doshisha Business School. "Global Kakushin Juku" is a class of business education for Kyoto craftsmen and and craftswomen for the new leaders of Kyoto traditional industries at Doshisha Business School. Please have a look and feel free to give me some feedbacks.
Posted at 10:51 AM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (7)
I have just created my first video for Doshisha Business School. Please have a look and feel free to give me some feedbacks.
Posted at 05:10 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (3)
I had a chance to visit the maintenance factory of ANA at Osaka Itami Airport with the Rotary club. We visited three factories, which maintain planes B767, A320, and B777 to see the maintenance carried out by the general mechanic, re-painting and the checking of all parts of the airplane. They say that it takes several months and the cost of maintenance is approximately 100,000,000 yen, excluding the cost of parts or replacement parts. As normally these factories are not opened to the public, we were so lucky to have an opportunity to inspect them and take photos.
Posted at 11:31 PM in Rotary club | Permalink | Comments (5)
DBS welcomed eight new international students from spring 2009. Four international students talked together at the common room of the business school. The three of them come from Taiwan, Thailand and Mainland China. The other student has already studied for two years at this school. He was giving information about classes and student life at DBS for the new students. For new students, there are many things they have to do for their new school life. There is a new environment for them here in Kyoto, Japan and a completely new life style. Some help from students who are already studying here is very important and helpful for their new life at DBS.
Posted at 01:28 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (13)
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Posted at 11:53 AM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (2)
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DBS (Doshisha Business School) had three guest students from Shidler College of Business at The University of Hawaii (MBA). The meeting was held at Doshisha Business School with guests from Hawaii and four DBS faculties, students and alumni for two hours. At first we each introduced ourselves, about our background and majors and discussed about the unique features of each of our master theses on the MBA. At lunch we had very good time talking about many things such as business, economics, politics and education from different perspectives in different countries of origin, and as MBA candidates we could talk freely with the two DBS faculty members. After lunch the guests had a tour of our facilities with some DBS students.
Posted at 11:05 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted at 11:22 AM in Rotary club | Permalink | Comments (4)
Posted at 11:06 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (62)
Around 80 students from universities across China visited Doshisha Business School (DBS). This is the forth time for students to visit from universities in China and we hope they had good time in our Business School getting to know about the education curriculum and the atmosphere of our university. In the morning, the Dean, Prof. Harukiyo Hasegawa of DBS provided the welcome speech, and the next speech, “Introduction to Kyoto, Doshisha University” was provided by Associate Prof. Ou Qian, Associate Dean for International Affairs, Doshisha University. After the introduction of Doshisha Business School (DBS), a trial MBA class, “Marketing Seminar”, was provided by Prof. Hiroshige Hayashi from DBS. To present the students' perspectives, “What one international student thinks about DBS” was introduced by Mr. Sheng Wang a foreign student at DBS. Finally, a “Lunch Party” was held for the visitors with Doshisha students who have experience visiting and learning at Fudan University.
Posted at 10:52 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (7)
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Posted at 10:37 PM in traditional crafts and culture | Permalink | Comments (25)
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I have quite a lot of things to do at the end of the year and at the beginning of the new year here in Japan. We cleaned our whole house especially we did the places which we normally don't care very much about such as cleaning the back side and rails of windows, for caps of the lights in the halls and other details in our home and garden. On the first day of the year, "Gantan", in Japan, many people traditionally go to pray at a Shinto shrine or Buddhism temple with family members or friends, after eating "Osechi" which is traditional Japanese food for the new year. It consists on meat and vegetables which can be kept for several days at the beginning of the New Year. We also went to the nearest temple called "Nakayama Temple" to pray to the god for good luck of our family members and myself.
On the second day of the New Year, I went to our relatives house with my wife and my son. This is my wife's original home and almost ten relatives met together. We played table tennis and table games with our children. We had a good fun for the family event once a year. Next day, 3rd of January, I went to eat crab at a nearby restaurant with my family members. It has been also our family event every year for four years. Depending on families, different events are available for the New Year in Japan, but many people go to their home towns and spend several days for the New Year with their families. How were your year end and New Year events in your country?
Posted at 11:23 PM in traditional crafts and culture | Permalink | Comments (3)
We could have about 10 minutes of video interviews with Professor Gordon Redding from INSEAD in France and Professor Raymond Loveridge from Said Business School, University of Oxford in the UK at 2nd floor hall of DBS. They talked about their classes at DBS which will start in autumn next year. I could learn many things from the two faculty members from a different perspective and we discussed about the Global MBA program of Japan in the future even thought it was only for a short time. Those video interviews are coming soon.
Posted at 02:03 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (1)
Posted at 02:02 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (0)
Two faculty members who are teaching on the GMBA next year visited DBS for the conference called “The Euro-Asia Management Studies Association (EAMSA)”. EAMSA held its 25th Annual Conference from Thursday 4th to Saturday 6th December 2008.ttp://www.eamsa.org/conference2008/
Just one day before this conference, we could have about 10 minutes of video interviews with Dr. Glenn D. Hook from the University of Sheffield in the UK and Dr. Joop Stam from the University of Twente in the Netherlands at our library of DBS. They talked about their classes at DBS which will start in autumn next year. I could learn many things from the two faculty members from a different perspective and we discussed about the Global MBA program of Japan in the future even thought it was only for a short time. Those video interviews are coming soon.
Posted at 01:37 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (1)
The Kyoto Imperial Palace (Kyoto Gosho) is one of the imperial palaces of Japan. Today is the first day the buildings inside of the Palace are open to the public for autumn this year. We came here to take some photos of the changing leaves (red leaves) in autumn for the new Global MBA website of DBS. This palace is located in the center of Kyoto city and is just next to our university named Doshisha University, so it is very convenient to go to there from our working place. It is within walking distance.
We didn’t know that it was open. We could say it is a lucky chance because it is open for only five days in autumn every year. By chance we could take many photos inside the palace with its historical buildings and beautiful Japanese gardens. So many people, including those living local and travelers from many areas of Japan and other countries came. Actually, it is a very nice season to travel in Japan now.
The main hall is called “Shishinden” and the beautiful Japanese garden is called “Oike-niwa”, where there is a garden and a pond. The imperial palace has been located in this area since 794. The Palace building itself, is one of the oldest and most important buildings in Japan, and has been destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times over the course of its history. It has been destroyed and rebuilt eight times, six times during the 250-year-long peace of the Edo Period.
Posted at 12:12 PM in visit Kyoto | Permalink | Comments (3)
There are two purposes for this trip to Shanghai and Xi’an for me. One is to attend the meeting at Shanghai Rotary club and the other is that I give a presentation at Xi’an JiaoTong University. The presentation was hosted by the MBA program of Xi’an JiaoTong University (MXJ) and seven speakers gave their presentation including two professors from DBS and MXJ.
I had time for a 30 minute presentation and 10 minutes for Q&A. My talk was entitled “Attractive website for the niche market using cutting edge technologies web2.0”. In the presentation, I wanted to say that the “Internet is good at niche market” using the Kakushin Juku case and Global MBA case. After my presentation, I had several interesting questions. I enjoyed this presentation and was rather less nervous this time because this was the second time to give a presentation at this university since last year.
After this symposium we were invited to a Chinese style dinner party by MXJ faculty members, MBA students and PhD candidates from Xi’an JiaoTong University. On the last day of this trip we had an excursion with some people to visit the historical place of Kukai, who is an important person to spread Tantric Buddhist in ancient Japan. I will post an article about Kukai later.
Posted at 11:38 AM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (0)
After I visited the highest observatory in the world here in Shanghai called “Mori Building”, which is 492m high and 100 stories high and I made an inspection tour of the powerful city of Shanghai in the day time. At the same day, I participated in the meeting of the Shanghai Rotary club in China meeting on Tuesday night at the Regal International East Asia Hotel. It was the 2nd time for me to visit this historic club meeting, which is the 2nd oldest club in Asia and I found the number of members is increasing to around 70 members consisting of only foreign passport holders. I was so happy to visit this meeting because they were so welcoming me when I visited about four years ago, and this time also they welcomed me, so I donated some money to thank them for the happy time and I made a short speech. I was surprised to hear that they have 10 to 20 visitors from all over the world each time. I could meet many people and enjoyed talking. I also find the many differences between their club meeting and ours. At the beginning they say the four tests, there is no song, they have a talking “spot” where they talk about new things like we do in Japan, they give donations called “happy time” and “sad time”, then there is dinner time where we can chat with people at the same table. I talked about Shanghai Rotary Club and they asked my purpose to visit I told them that I will give a speech about the Internet at Xi’an JiaoTong University in Xi’an a few days later. If I can I would like to come here again to see the lovely people in this club.
Posted at 11:59 PM in MBA course, Rotary club | Permalink | Comments (0)
We, MBA website project staff, have just launched our global MBA site of Doshisha Business
School today. Thank you so much for your co-operation.
http://gmba.doshisha.ac.jp/index.html
As I informed it by using this weblog before, we have been created this site since September this year. After it takes about two month and more, the first launch has been released today. I was wondering if several mistakes could be hiding somewhere even though we checked many time by several people. Please let us know if you find some of them. Anyway have a look and feedback any comments about this site to create it better.
Posted at 11:26 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (1)
We, MBA
website project staff, had two interviews with faculty members who will be teaching
on the Global MBA (GMBA) course in English next autumn in 2009. Both faculty
members explained about their study area, their lectures and current issues
which are happening now in the world. The first faculty member was Professor
Noriko Hama who is a famous economist as well. She talked mainly about the
economic crisis that is happening now in the world and explained about what
should be the next move by the Japanese Government.
The next faculty member was Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi who is a specialist of “System Dynamics”. For the GMBA, he is teaching about environmental issues and sustainable business modeling. These two experiences of interviewing faculty members for the “video syllabus” were very impressive for me and I learned about some important academic issues even briefly. Those videos will be launched on the GMBA website next month.
YouTube video of Prof. Noriko Hama is here.
Posted at 12:08 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (0)
Three of us, an English lady, an Australian guy, and myself visited the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages), which is one of the three major festivals in Kyoto. About 2,000 people, dressed in exquisites costume from the various periods of Kyoto history, participated in the parade. The procession winds down from the Old Imperial Palace to Heian-Jingu. Each era consisted of several hundred people with costume and animals such as horses and cows, as well as flags and floats. They were so beautiful and gorgeous. I like the group of females and children wearing nice clothes called Kimono. Quite a few visitors came from many countries in the world to see this festival in the nice cool weather of autumn after a hot and humid summer. Our purpose to visit Jidai Festival is to take photos and create articles about festivals in Kyoto for the new website of the Global MBA at DBS to introduce various traditional cultures in Kyoto. After about one hour after this parade started, it suddenly started to rain, so we decide to go to a Chinese restaurant for lunch near our school building.
We had to take a quick meal which was called “Chyka-don”. This is rice in a bowl topped with meat and vegetables in a Chinese style. We ordered a quick lunch because we were in a rush for our next appointment. Ordering the same meals for everyone in the group is very Japanese demonstrating the “Group oriented society rather than the individual in Japan ”.
Posted at 12:05 PM in traditional crafts and culture | Permalink | Comments (0)
My relationship with him started with us being classmates on a Ph.D course at Doshisha University and by chance we graduated from the same university in a Osaka. Even so I was so nervous before the interview because it was my first experience of asking someone something on video in Japanese. In addition he is so famous as a Japanese business person. However he talked to me honestly and replied to every question that I asked him. I was very happy to have been able to get an interview with Mr. Nishiguchi this time.
Posted at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
I went to
the stadium to see my son’s Ping-Pong match for the first time. It was the
match for select candidates of high schools for the next prefecture’s match. He
had a chance to win the match with a single and fortunately he won both matches
with straight victories. Finally, his school took third place in this area.
I can see a
difference between son who is relaxing, playing video games, studying at home
and son who is concentrating on sports with club members in out of the home.
The coach of his Ping-Pong team at school said that his role as a vice captain in the team was to
provide emotional and physical support for the captain and communication
between seniors and juniors. I talked with the teacher for the first time, and
we talked about many things such as the match, his team, team members, and his
attitude at school club. I told him that my wife and I wanted him to choose
tennis when he entered junior high school because our family members play
tennis in his elementary school. Since there already many members in the tennis
club, we thought he might not hit balls at all.
Finally, he decided to join the Ping-Pong club. He started to enjoy playing Ping-Pong and he could participate in a lot of matches from the beginning and he was selected the team captain of his junior-high school club. Now I think it was a good choice for Ping-Pong and he learned many things from the sport.
Posted at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Since last year, I have been using “YouTube” to show my videos to the public. At first I started to launch the five videos regarding Kyoto traditional industries, such as Yuzen Kimono printing, Sushi, woodblock print, Kiyomizu ceramics, traditional fans from a class called “Kakushin Juku”at DBS. After six months as I mentioned before, I got more viewers than I had expected. Recently, I uploaded several videos of Doshisha MBA Alumni video interviews. All of videos have introduced with English title and English subtitle for traditional crafts or English speaking for the Alumni interview. Therefore I believed that most of the visitors to my site in YouTube are coming from foreign countries, but I was not sure which countries they do actually come from.
Then, I found that YouTube has a statistics function called “Insight” in which various statistics and data are available. For instance, which countries the visitors come from and how old they are, how many times the video has been watched, how they find this video and also *what is the popularity of each scene by the graphs and maps. I am now analyzing those data to create a better website using those videos.
*The ups-and-downs of viewership at each moment in your video, compared to videos of similar length. Above the average line, your video is hot: it's retaining more viewers than average and they may be rewinding to watch that point again.Below the average line, your video's gone cold: viewers are not rewinding or may be leaving the video faster than the average
Posted at 10:33 PM in Internet Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0)
After the visit, I introduced them using a weblog in English and posted the videos on a video site with English subtitles called YouTube. After six months, I was very surprised to know that these videos had around 1,000 to 2,000 views by visitors from all over the world, which was much more than I had expected. Although theirs is a niche market of Kyoto traditional culture, to their sites many people throughout the world were interested in watching their videos and wanted to create links and some people left comments and gave feedback. I had links on our YouTube videos to the main Kakushin Juku website. I could check how many visitors there had been by the data from the website on Google Analytics everyday.
Using those methods which I have already used on the “Kakushin Juku” website, I have begun to create the website for the Global MBA at DBS with some team members. At first, we started the “Video Project” taking videos of current students and exchange students from overseas who are studying at DBS now, as well as alumni who graduated from DBS. In addition, we took videos of recommendation messages from faculties at well-known overseas Universities related to DBS for research programs and internship programs, such as UC Berkeley, Cambridge University, Xi’an JiaoTong University, the University of Edinburgh, etc. These messages might be attractive for students who are going to come to or who are interested in coming to study at DBS.
After I started the “Video Project” which gives welcome messages in English to International students, I realized that so many people were willing to cooperate and participate by giving messages in English about their unforgettable experiences at DBS for the new course called the “Global MBA Course”.
At the same time, we are preparing a colorful website to introduce things “About Kyoto”, such as global firms located in Kyoto, and Kyoto culture, including traditional festivals, temples and shrines, local culture, nature, and the four seasons. This information will help you to imagine your student life after entering DBS.
I think that the website should answer the following important questions “Why Japan? Why Kyoto?, Why Doshisha? For people who are thinking about coming to Japan, our website should tell you what you could get from classes and classmates, and what kind of lifestyle is available for international students. Kyoto, in Japan has many facets. Some maybe curious about the high technology in the many world famous Kyoto firms and some may like Japanese Subculture such as anime, video games, comics, fashion, or traditional culture, including arts and crafts. Also, some people are interested in Japanese food such as Sushi, Sashimi, and healthy traditional Japanese dishes. Some want to know about how Japan has developed its economy so rapidly after World War II. Some, besides their study, want to enjoy the nature of the four seasons “ Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter” including the cherry blossoms, changing leaves, and snow, etc.
We have just started to create an attractive website, but we have already had some ideas, including how to get visitors from all over the world to look at our website and how to get many visitors to visit often. We should use the important new functions of the Internet, such as video, weblogs, virtual communities, and analytics on the Internet. This is the so-called “web2.0” method. I want to use those methods for our new website for the “Global MBA”.
Posted at 11:54 PM in Internet Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0)
Our club, Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club, Hyogo in Japan held a party for the 30th Anniversary of the club's foundation. Many guests were invited from mainly Hyogo Prefecture areas in Japan including the Takarazuka city mayor, district governors, district past-governors, sister club members from Matsue Higashi Rotary Club and a lot of club members from different Rotary Clubs. The guest and club members enjoyed the main attractions, such as the video letter from our sister club in the US, local support activity for the little league team in our city, and a show by a student who is our Rotary Yoneyama Scholarship Foundation student from Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region and her friends. The concept of this party is “Hand made”. Usually, we invite famous singers and people who are good at giving speeches, but this time we decided to make our own party “by hand” and create the attraction using unique ideas and hospitality to have the guests enjoy themselves and celebrate our 30th Foundation Anniversary with us.
I was involved in creating the video letter from our sister club in the US called La Habara Rotary Club, which has been our sister club since 1982-1983. We visited this club to record messages from some of the people there including their current club president and past presidents in June this year when the Rotary International Conference in Los Angeles was held with our club members. The guests at the party really enjoyed the messages from our friends in the US.
Posted at 03:34 PM in Rotary club | Permalink | Comments (3)
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I had permission to join the Business Interpreter Class at the Interpreter School called Inter School in Osaka after receiving good results in my summer course. I am very happy to be in this course because I want to be an English interpreter someday either as volunteer or professional after my retirement.
I learned a lot in my Business Interpreter summer class. The managers and board members are always very busy, so the interpreters do their work efficiently without any needless words or sentences in order to make the translations as short as possible. Also we don’t often need to say the “Subject” in Japanese. However English speakers say some subjects in sentences such as you, I, we, he, she, etc. The proper way to say in Japanese depends on who you are talking to. This is called “Keigo”, which means polite way in Japanese. In the class, I also learned some techniques which are called “Shadowing” or “Following”, “Reproduction”, “Dictation” and those for the “Interpretation” from Japanese to English and English to Japanese.
Sometimes, I have to interpret for the purpose of volunteer activities such as showing around exchange students from our sister club inLos Angeles. This is a function of the rotary club, which I am a member of. I enjoy these activities and it gives me high motivation to learn those skills at Inter School.
Posted at 11:03 AM in English conversation | Permalink | Comments (5)
We asked Mr. Shinmura to make a video message for the international students of the Global MBA at DBS which will start in autumn of next year. He was an alumni who graduated from DBS in 2008. He is one of the managing directors and a member of the board at Ganko Food Service CO. LTD. The firm has more than 100 Japanese Sushi restaurants across Japan. Especially, the restaurants in Kyoto are unique because the company bought a traditional huge old house with a beautiful Japanese garden and recreated it into a restaurant.
The customers from overseas and from Japan enjoy going to the restaurants, having an experience of Japanese traditional foods with Sushi, and after meal their go to the nice garden of the restaurant. The garden has a waterfall, traditional ponds, and lots of different trees which are very unique and can be seen only in Japan. The prices are reasonable with including the drinks such as beer, Japanese hot or cold Sake, and wine, etc. He started to work in this firm when he was a university student as a part time job and after several years, he became a managing director and a board member, CFO, CIO, and CHO.
He said in the interview that he enjoyed the business school "Kakushinjuku Project" which is a class for traditional craftsmen and craftswomen to who are supported by the business school which provided an MBA education. Mr. Shinmura was inspired and got many hints from the class and used those in his business. For instance, one of the lectures, Mr. Kawabe who is doing CG (Computer Graphics) Yuzen using the patterns and designs from Yuzen Printing which is the traditional painting method of Kimono, Japanese traditional dress. Mr. Kawabe was growing up in Kyoto surrounded by lots of Kimono due to the family business. He learned this skill and used the patterns and designs which have been inherited for several hundred years by their ancestors. He had the idea of using elements of Kimono design in different materials and items by creating digital data, such as a swimming suites for Synchronized swimming, bags, clocks, and umbrellas, etc.
Mr. Shinmura got this idea from Mr. Kawabe and he wants to use elements of Japanese food, including Sushi, in Japan to use at Japanese restaurants overseas for expanding their business overseas. He told us at the end of the video about this dream for his future.
Posted at 12:02 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (0)
Since last month, we have started to prepare for the create on of English website for the new course of Doshisha Business School (DBS) in Kyoto, Japan, which will start from next autumn. I am one of the members of the project team to create the website for mainly for overseas students who are interested in coming to study here at DBS. To achieve this purpose, it should be an attractive website and dispatch lots of messages why in DBS, why in Kyoto, and why in Japan? in a different ways. I think the recent trend is often called “Web 2.0”, in which information is dispatched from individuals such as students,faculty members, alumni at university using video, photos, and weblogs, etc. through normal websites and community sites called SNS (Social Networking Services). I would like to create such an infrastructure for the English website to dispatch various information to the world to show, how Doshisha Business School is attractive. Not only nice are there facilities such as its modern building with excellent security, a 24 hour library with wired and wireless the Internet access, individual lockers, a gym, and the coliseum style class rooms, but also there are a variety of students who come from many world famous industries in Japan such as Omron, Kyocera, Panasonic, Sharp, Japan IBM, Microsoft Japan, Kyoto traditional industries and many entrepreneurs.
First of all, we started to take videos of the alumni who have already graduated from DBS and asked them to give us as many messages as possible. At the same time we asked of messages from the faculties who support us from overseas universities is the format of video messages of discussions with several faculties. Next, we are going to create a web blog by the students, alumni and faculties and also a photo slide show to the demonstrate student life in Kyoto, Japan, in addition to general information. Please have a look a look at video we have already taken messages from several alumni and exchange students from Asian countries. These Google Video lists include those of traditional industries’ as well. We have already made video interviews with Mr. Sanda from Kyocera, Mr. Shinmura from Ganko Food Service, and Jennifer, a Chinese exchange student in 2008 from Xi’an JiaoTong
University. The new videos of Mr. Ishimoto, Mr. Awano are coming soon.
http://jp.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=pokejapan(YouTube)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=pokejapan&emb=0&aq=f# (Google Video)
We sincerely welcome anybody who wants to give a messages on our video message project. Anybody is welcome, if you have graduated from DBS or are now a DBS student who speaks English fluently or not. Please do not hesitate to contact us. Your message can help to create the future of DBS.
Posted at 02:19 PM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (2)
I asked to take a video interview in English from the person who was a 1st year alumni of DBS so as to show it on our new website for the new course, the Global MBA. Now he is working in Kyocera, which is the one of the well-known global firms in Kyoto and works at the international sales division. This time I asked the following question in English instead of a native English speaker.
1. Please introduce a little bit about yourself including what you do.
2. What did you learn at DBS?
3. What are the most impressive things at DBS?
4. How did you enjoy it besides studying at DBS?
5. How do you use the things which you have learnt at work?
6. What will you do in the future in your business or in your private life?
7. Please give some messages to the international students who are interested in studying at DBS. Then why in Kyoto, Japan?
I asked the above questions and he replied very nicely and confidently, based on his work experiences. He provided feedback to us and recommendations for the international students who would like to come and study at DBS in Kyoto. He recommended taking an MBA course in Kyoto because Japan is one of the economically important countries in Asia, more important through Globalization and Kyoto has lots of well-known international firms such as Nintendo, Omron, and Kyocera, etc. The video is coming soon on the new English website of DBS.
Posted at 11:32 AM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (4)
In Kyoto, five beautiful bonfires in the shape of Chinese characters, “Kanji”, which are used in Japan, are lit on the mountainsides surrounding the city to send the ancestral spirits that had returned to this world back to the “Other side”. This is an ancient folk festival that marks the end of Obon, and is believed to be a time for the dead to return to the spirit world. The name of the festival is Okuribi (送り火), the Buddhist Festival of the Dead. This festival has been continued for more than 300 years in Kyoto. Here is the list of five mountains and the characters of each of the fires.
First of all, the “大” (Dai) fire was started, which is the largest character at 8:00PM. It was so large and clear to see. Ten minutes later, two characters “妙・法” (Myo/Ho) were lit at the same time in the same direction. Then the “舟形” (Funagata) fire was started, but we wondered why the boat was in the mountain. I think it will send the spirits to the spirit world by boat. Finally, the other “大” (Left Dai) was lit. This is the same kanji character as the first Dai, but the shape is a little different from the other and it is located on the other mountain further away from us. According to the news paper of the following day this, one of the four major festivals in Kyoto, had around 100,000 people visit from many places in Japan. Fortunately, we could really enjoy watching the five fires in the four mountains from the hidden place which had very few people in the extremely hot summer in Kyoto.
1. Daimonji (大文字), the character meaning "large" or "great:"
on Daimonji-Yama/Higashi-Yama, Nyoigatake at 8:00PM
2. My?/H? (妙・法), the characters meaning "excellent law"
on Matsugasaki, Nishi-Yama/Higashi-Yama at 8:10PM
3. Funagata (舟形), the shape of a boat:
on Nishigamo, Funa-Yama at 8:15PM
4. Hidari Daimonji (左大文字), again, the character meaning "large:"
on Daihoku-San, Hidaridaimonji-San at 8:15PM
5. Toriigata (鳥居形), the shape of a torii or shrine gate:
on Toriimoto, Mandara-San at 8:20PM
I had a chance to see the Daimonji Festival for the first time from our university, Doshisha in Kyoto. We could see four of all five of the fires from the roof of one of the buildings of the university with three Chinese students and two of them were exchange students from the MBA course of Xi’an JiaoTong University in China.
I would like to introduce about two articles written by the exchange students, after they participated in this festival as follows:
A Beautiful Poem of Summer Night (written by Jennifer)
I stand for the China Xi'an JiaoTong University international exchange students arrived at the Kyoto almost 3 months. In this period of time ,I except felt cross- culture, the most unforgettable experience was caught up with the Gozan no Okuribi (五山送り火), more commonly known as Daimonji (大文字), is one of the iconic festivals of Kyoto. It is the culmination of the O-Bon festival on August 16th.
I and my friend set out at 6 PM on August 16th evening , left for the DOSHISHA Business School where have arranged with Mr. YASU. On the way to DBS, we saw above the bank of Kamo River crowded with people who expect to the Gozan no Okuribi would start at 8 PM. It is completely different from the usual peaceful atmosphere.
We mounted the steps of the highest building of DOSHISHA University, standing the roof, was waiting for the Gozan no Okuribi starting. Starting at 8PM, the giant bonfires were lit, each with a distinctive shape. Three of the fires form giant Chinese characters, and two form familiar shapes. Its represented for Daimonji (大文字), My?/H? (妙・法), Funagata (舟形), Hidari Daimonji (左大文字) and Toriigata (鳥居形), respectively. When the fire was taken turn to light, the entire night sky was illumined by the firing form giant Chinese characters. We surprise for the magnificence of the Daimonji, just taken many photographs, wanted to record this beautiful scene.
We gone through the process of Gozan no Okuribi, at the meantime felt the Japanese attach importance to the tradition. From numerous local populaces on the way, to the local mass media reported on regarding the Gozan no Okuribi, I was aware of respect for the traditional festival by Japanese. Although the Japanese economy is very developed, the Japanese actually want to develop the state economy with retaining themselves culture! Therefore, compare with their economy, Japanese take proud of own country culture. My Japanese classmate told me when I just arrived at Japan: KYOTO will happen to the Gozan no Okuribi after 2 months. Please remember to look! Whenever my Japanese friends mention to the Japanese culture, they easy to break through his primness, becomes exciting. The Japanese respect the tradition, inherit the tradition, and willing to discuss and propagandize their country tradition.
To be honest, when we saw the beautiful scene of Gozan no Okuribi, It is remarkable that not only lit several piles of fires. I hear of the Kyoto Government was framed the strict bill to control the urban district building (The highest construction not to be allowed to surpass ten floors), in order to the field of Gozan no Okuribi vision would not be disturb by the modern construction. And the human were responsible for lighting on the hilltop who kept the kindling and firewood piles already two days and nights. These laborious works is the service personals. They were volunteers, do not gain the rewards. Therefore such one holiday's inheritances, from the government apparatus to the populace, have made much effort together. Thence more and more people could able to see the Gozan no Okuribi. This is precise performance that the Japanese inherit historical.
I would remember forever: On the August 16th 2008 night, the Gozan no Okuribi cut through the night sky of KYOTO, the flaming firelight looked like a beautiful poem of summer night.
I should thanks to Mr. YASU and other Japanese friends provided us for arrangement. Thanks a lot!
Some experience and feelings of Japanese Daimonji festival (written by ZhaoWeiJia)
I was invited by Mr. Yasu to visiting Japanese traditional festival?Daimonji, I‘ve no idea about this festival at first, just for curious I went to watch this ceremony.
From their introduction, I knew that Daimonji festival is one of the famous ceremonies in Kyoto of Japan, and we watch the whole process of ceremony in a very special place, where is an excellent view for watch the fires, so that we can see all of the five giant bonfires are lit on mountains surrounding the city. It signifies the moment when the spirits of deceased family members, who are said to visit this world during O-Bon, are believed to be returning to the spirit world. The most famous?and the first to be lit?is the character dai (大), on Kyoto's Daimonji mountain. The other four fires are lit at five to ten-minute intervals, and by 8:30, all the characters can be seen. Each bonfire lasts for 30 minutes.
When I knew the fire lit just for ancestors, I feel a little shock, not only because Japanese pay much attention on this festival, but there are so many Japanese whom came from different area for joined in the ceremony. In china, we have some ceremony for memory ancestor, but few of the citizens participate in it, what a sharp contrast
From these kinds of Japanese ceremony, I feel the conformity culture again, because most of the Japanese attach close importance to the traditional culture, and some of them wear Japanese traditional clothes to watching the festival. In my opinion, Japanese government and citizen dedicate themselves to keep traditional culture, they keep the old shrin so well and they keep so many traditional festival and ceremony. Japanese is the developed country which the world’s second largest GDP and famous for high-tech technology, but they keep their traditional cultural so well and deeply impression generation by generation, I think it is a really interesting and thought-provoking phenomenon, of course, this point should be learned by Chinese.
At present, china in a rapid development stage, especially after 1980’s economic reform, for strengthen Chinese economic, government and citizen introduced a lot of western management way, these new western thinking and behavior way, its really lashed Chinese mind. Of course, after economic reform, Chinese gain a outstanding achievement, not only in economic area, but also in political area, which promote Chinese status in the worldwide. Meanwhile, Chinese throw away lot of traditional culture, more and more Chinese young generation like the western festival but not Chinese traditional festival, they also don’t like traditional cloth such as cheongsam, more of young people prefer to jeans or sexy T-shirt.
Maybe Chinese government realized something wrong, so changed some modern festival days, try to keep traditional festival day, which for keep traditional culture and educate young generation, let them learn more Chinese history and culture.
So, for me, we should learn the high-tech technology and advanced management way from Japan, we still should learn more how to management a country’s culture and how to keep the features.
Posted at 10:16 AM in MBA course | Permalink | Comments (1)
We have been holding interviews with junior high school students near our office for four years. This volunteer activity is one of the local services of our Rotary Club, Takarazuka Mukogawa in Japan. They select one firm from the list of 36 occupations and visit the firm which they are interested in visiting. I asked them why they chose my company and they said “We are interested in Internet businesses which will be more important in the future.” At first I explained with some questions about our online shop, such as our products, the structure of our industry, strategies, difficulties and the difference between real shops and virtual shops. They prepared questions about the occupations as follows:
1 What do you do?
2 When did you start to think about your job?
3 Why did you choose your current job?
4 What is the interesting part of your job?
5 What is the difference between students and adults?
6 What do you recommend doing for the future when you are high school students?
I replied to those questions from my experiences in about one hour. They asked many questions besides those. They said most of them have never thought about their occupation because they don’t yet know what they can do. I was the same in my high school days, but it's important to start to think about it even if it changes later. It is helpful to decide what major they want to take in university as well.
Posted at 10:43 PM in Rotary club | Permalink | Comments (1)
I was invited to the Rakuten Expo 2008 by Rakuten Co Ltd, which is the biggest Internet online shopping mall in Japan, because our shop has its 10th anniversary this year on Rakuten. Rakuten started the shopping mall business in 1997, one year after we decided to have a shop on Rakuten added to our original online shops. In the Rakuten Expo 2008, we had a champagne party with several shop owners or representatives from shops which started in 1997 and 1998. I was surprised to hear that there were only 39 shops now, as even Rakuten had about 25,000 shops. In 1997, they started 13 shops and had 6 staff members including CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, who is the founder of Rakuten. I only met him a few years ago, but yesterday we talked for a while along with some of the board members who used to be my company’s consultants. Just ten years passed, but many things have changed such as more user online shopping, broad band access, shopping by mobile phone, competitive markets etc. They say their strategy would target the global market and an online shop by mobile phone. I am interested in their global market strategy as they have a very good shopping system called RMS which is able to compete with the overseas Internet firms. Also we had the experience of having sold many things to overseas markets.
Posted at 09:17 PM in Small business | Permalink | Comments (3)
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