pokejapan@kyoto

The exchange student program

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!

ANA’s maintenance factory visit

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.

Horse racing experience

I had a chance to go to the horse racing in Takarazuka city on a sunny Sunday. This is the third time to go there as one of the events of the Rotary Club. Usually, I am not interested in gambling including horse racing, but I like the special room here to spend the day. This room is located on the top floor of the building of the horse owners and the view from the room is very nice and the whole track of the races can be seen. We could see the goal and wide screen in front of our building. I bet a small amount of money and had the chance to win several times from twelve races. Betting was confusing because of there are many ways to bet such as betting on horses, on groups, for 2 or 3 horses in order, or regardless of order. I tried several ways of betting by asking someone who knew well enough it. But it was so difficult to get more money than the amount I had bet. Though I lost, I could enjoy the unusual event.

Guests from Thailand through GSE program

We had five members of GSE, which is the Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange, in Takarazuka city in Japan. As a chairman of the International Service, I arranged a Takarazuka tour for them with other members. After we picked up our guests from their hotel at Sanda city and took a train to Takarazuka, we enjoyed a Japanese lunch at “Ganko Sushi, Takarazuka”. 

Then we went on a backstage tour of Takarazuka Revue visiting the several departments such as the the costume department, stage design, electricity and tools department, and we saw a rehearsal. This atmosphere was tense because the next day was the opening day. They enjoyed this tour because the Takarazuka Revue is so beautiful and played by only women, who are selected from across Japan and who practice singing and dancing very much for plays. Then, they attended the club meeting to meet our club members and each member made speeches which I translated. They gave us very warm hearted and good speeches from bottom of their heart. Then we enjoyed a drinks party later at the same hotel. It was a long day for us but we could understand the differences between countries and cultures through this Rotary activity. 

Here is some information about GSE, refer to the Rotary International website:

The Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for business people and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.

Giving a presentation to junior high school students

I was invited to the Sasayama Rotary Club, which is a rotary club located in the middle of Hyogo prefecture in Japan and in the same direct as the rotary club which I belong to now, to give a speech about my internet business. The audience were 1st and 2nd year local junior high school students who are 13 to 14 year-old boys and girls. This symposium was held by Sasayama Rotary club to invite professionals of 10 different occupations including a professional baseball player, hospital management, entertainment business worker from the Takarazuka Review, a designer, internet business worker, kindergarten manager, beauty salon manager, etc., for students to think about their future occupation. After the opening ceremony about 200 students and several professionals and staff were divided into 10 groups. I gave a lecture about online shopping and the web consulting business including website of university. About 20 students came to hear what I had to say and they answered my questions correctly. For instance, they gave me better answers about what is the difference between an online shop and a real shop than I expected, after I explained about the system of the online shopping business. I hope that this opportunity could be helpful for them to think about their future occupations. 

Rotary Meeting at Shanghai Rotary Club

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.

   

30th Foundation Anniversary, our Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club

Our club, Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club, Hyogo in Japan held a party for the 30^th 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 30^th 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.

     

Professional student interviews

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.

The Exchange Student Program 2008 started

Since 1982 our rotary club, called Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary club in Japan, has had a sister club, La Habra Rotary Club, in Southern California in the US. Every year we have continued to do an Exchange Student Program for two or three students. This year, 2008, two university students from our club just left Japan yesterday. I have been in charge of this program almost every year since I joined this club in 2000.

I had some e-mails from La Habra Rotary Club members with photos of the students from their first day in California. They arrived there safely and they are enjoying lunch, swimming in the pool, seeing many people and discussing the differences and similarities between California and Japan as well as looking around the neighborhood of their host family with Rotarians and their family members. The email from a host family member says that they met a person who is the sister of the host family, who played a character named Kimmy Gibbler on a television show called Full House. Full house was a popular soap opera from California and it was well known because they used to broadcast it for eight years in Japan as well. Anyway, the students are going to stay about two weeks in California and are having a lot of experiences. I am so happy to hear they are enjoying many things in a different country away from their families.

  

Foods in the US

I was getting bored with eating a hotel breakfast every morning. It was nice for the first two or three times, but it was getting tiring to have the same food seven times. However, I took different American food for lunch and dinner, which are different from those in Japan and enjoy many kinds of food here in Los Angeles. The best of all was the Southern California BBQ, which is one big beef steak, steamed corn and salad. The beef steak was not so soft for me, but its taste was so good and the steamed corn was so soft and tender. The hosts of this party, which was held in the backyard of one of the members' houses, cooked more than sixty steaks and more than seventy cornhusks for more than fifty people at this party.
The other day, we went to a sports bar and by chance we saw the round of Tiger Woods on the final day of the US Open Golf Tournament. I enjoyed watching golf with a big portion of a steak sandwich. I used to enjoy steak sandwiches for lunch in Australia, but now I'm doing so in the US. A sandwich in this country is so big!!, but this time I ate all of it without a problem since it was so nice. On the next photo, look at this big potato! This is bigger than spareribs. In the US, the portion of all foods is much bigger than in Japan.
During our stay in Southern California, we went to a Japanese restaurant three times in eight days on our trip. When we went to Little Tokyo in the city of Los Angeles, we chose a Japanese restaurant. One of our members ordered a sushi called California Roll to share with the other members. I did not expect it would be so nice, but actually it was very different from our sushi because of its color and it had a beautiful taste. I couldn't find out what it had on the inside. To tell the truth, I really like Japanese food and Chinese food but not so much the food from other countries. However, this time I realized that American food was very tasty such as steaks and hamburgers, but people said that I should have tried IN-N-OUT Burgers once.

    

  

Visit to Southern California

I have just come back from L.A. in the U.S. I have been in the U.S. for eight days at the same place called La Habra, which is located about a fifty minute drive from the city center of Los Angeles. My main purposes of visiting La Habra with our Rotary Club members were two things. Firstly it was to meet members of La Habra Rotary Club, which has been our sister club for twenty-four years, although we have never seen most of the members, but we know each other through our Student Exchange Program almost every year for many years. The other purpose of my visit was to join the International Convention of Rotary Club. I made a plan for this trip with my friend in the club in the U.S and tour members. We had a really good time while we were staying there, because they had prepared so many wonderful events, such as a Southern California BBQ at one of the member's houses with more than fifty guests and other parties with dancing, playing golf, swimming, Disneyland, hot rods and several events of the Rotary International Convention. We also enjoyed visiting the members' working place at the University called CSUF, a huge hospital, a lawyers’ office with twenty lawyers, a large rubber firm, a beautiful motorbike and parts shop and a successful insurance company etc. On the way back to Japan, we talked about our next meeting with our friends in La Habra Rotary Club in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Backstage tour of the Takarazuka Review

 One of the members of our Rotary club is working for the Takarazuka Review as a stage artist. This is a famous review in Japan because it has been operating for more than 90 years and is only for single ladies. I asked him to show the backstage of this review to me and our exchange student, who is a student of the Rotary foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship to study at an overseas University. She is going to learn at the Sorbonne University in Paris in September and is giving a presentation about Takarazuka City at the Rotary club in Paris. For me, I am attending the Rotary International Meeting in L.A. in June and giving a presentation at the sister club, named La Habra RC in L.A. to introduce our club and our city, Takarazuka. In this backstage tour, many actresses and staff are very active and some of them rush to change their clothes for the next set while others relax by talking cheerfully with co-workers. We were surprised how polite they were at greeting us naturally. Also we leant how to create the stage from the several pictures he drew of the real stage sets on paper. They are so huge and beautiful and looked real. Since this is the third experience of the back stage tour for me, I am getting to understand the reason why it has lots of strong fans and has continued to operate for many years.

http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/english/tg_stage.html

 

Two speeches for two consecutive days

I finished two speeches yesterday and today. Yesterday, I gave two lectures at high school in my city. The title of a lecture is the reality of the internet business and what is online shop? This is the forth time to give my lectures to this high school in order to understand what is work in the society for them. I hope that some of students who had my lecture would be interested in the internet businesses. I think that it is important for students to know the realities from a person with experience of its job.

Today, I have just finished making a speech at Rotary Club which I belong to for about seven years. This is the third time to make it for our club members. The theme of my speech is my experience of a part time graduate school student at MBA and Ph.D. course. On the speech I said that the balance for work, study, family, hobby, sports was quite difficult and it is hard to keep my health good some times. After my fifteen minutes speech, some of members said to me that it was good. I was little nervous about its contents and time before my speech, but I am happy now.

http://www.hibari.jp/weblog41/2007/12/post_249.html  High Shool Lecture

Visiting Professionals Program

I had the visitors of five junior high school students at my  company from the nearby school. Their purpose of the visit is to learn about jobs from professionals. This program has been continued for several years by cooperation between the school and our Rotary club. There are two programs a year, such as junior high school students visit companies, or organizations such as a lawyer's office, hospital, account office, theater, tennis school and invited the speakers of various kinds of occupations to the high school at the same school which is located in the same city.

They would like to learn about the e-commerce (electronic commerce) from our company. At first I introduced about the history of our company, like what we did, what we are doing now, and why we did. There are different e-commerce like online shopping, online mall, auction, gathering, banking, ASP (application service provider), contents contents selling, etc. I also explained about online shop mainly to understand the structures, advantages and disadvantages comparing with the real shops. Finally the students asked me many questions.

I think to learn about jobs and society when you are students is important to decide their future after leaving school, and also why you have to study at home. I would like to contribute my experience for students to learn about jobs and society through this programs and the other programs like internship from junior high school University as much as possible.

Exchange students program with LaHabra Rotary Club 5

This is the last night, so tomorrow they are going to leave Japan. I hope they enjoyed our programs with our club members in Japan. We went to the fireworks in Takarazuka city which was our club located. We reserved the seats on the best place to see it and the fireworks were so beautiful. 45 minutes passed so quickly. We had lots of ash of the fireworks, because it was held just above us.

Exchange students program with LaHabra Rotary Club 4

Today, it was quite busy day for us. Five of us, who were two US students and three Rotary members including me, went to Kobe　and Awaji Island by car. At first we went the lawyer's office for one of our members and we had inspection of the public prosecutors office after visiting the district court in Kobe. Then we went to the Kobe beef　restaurant and took a ferry from Akashi to Awaji Island. In Awaji Island,　we visited the memorial building of the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on Jan.,17th in 1995. The students had experience of the demonstration of　the earthquake ride with me. It reminded them the LA earthquake about one year before this earthquake in 1994, when they were children.

Exchange students program with LaHabra Rotary Club 3

I arranged to go to aquarium in Osaka today with Brad and Chris, who came from LA as exchanged students and five Chinese MBA students together. After enjoying the aquarium which was the biggest in the world, then we had lunch at Okonomiyaki restaurant. After enjoying Osaka, The Chinese students have been separated into two groups and five of us went to my office to have inspection our company and said hello to our staff members. I had a nice day for refreh with students from two different countries communicated　in English. I thought that English became the International language and I realized it very useful  communication tool again.

Exchange students program with LaHabra Rotary Club 2

I have met the exchange students from our sister club in LA at the club meeting of our Rotary Club in Takarazuka city for the first time, since I had met　on Sunday. They were so healthy with little suntan, even if it was so hot and humid summer now in Japan. They have been to Nara which is the one of the oldest city and famous for huge Buddha They said it was most impressive thing that they had done in Japan so far, and been to Golden temple and Kiyomizu shrine in Kyoto, etc. In this week, they are going to city hall for the courtesy call to the Takarazuka-city Mayor and go to the professional baseball stadium tomorrow night.　Also, we will have a BBQ party on Saturday night at the one of member's house. Today, they have attended to our club meeting and made a good speech each of them and I have interpreted to Japanese for the other club members and guests. I hope they enjoyed our meeting and could have lots of experience while staying in Japan for ten more days.

Exchange students program with LaHabra Rotary Club

                                         Yesterday, the members and their families and I, who are members of Rotary club (Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club) in Takarazuka, went to the Kansai International Airport to pick up two college students from California. We have been continuing this program for more than 20 years. Almost every year, we have accepted several students and our sister club; LaHabra Rotary Club accepted our students each other.

     It was passed more than one and half hours at the airport, but we could not find them at the arrival gate. We asked the staff in the information counter, and she said that all bags had picked up already and she also said that name of passengers were not informed to anyone, even if their families. So only we can do is to ask the announcement to call them to the counter we were waiting for. Finally, we could meet them and asked the reason why they had taken for long time to go out, because they were trapped the immigration due to no name of place of staying in Japan and this small trouble had been getting bigger.

     Anyway, we were happy to see their healthy faces and who were traveling for 17 hours via Taipei from Los Angels. After having the orientation at Takarazuka Hotel, they moved to the first accommodation for one of members’ house.

     Their schedule is two weeks staying in Japan, including visiting many places in Kansai area, such as kobe, Kyoto, Osaka , and Tokushima. I will be charge of visiting aquarium in south part of Osakaand short trip in Tokushimain Shikoku Island. This story will be continued.

Last meeting at Rotary club

     Today, I attended in our Rotary club last meeting and party in June for this financial year. We have 46 members and the average of age is 63.8 years old. I am one of the youngest member in our club. I have joined this club about 6 years ago. I was mainly international service chairman and a member. Our activities of International service are various.

  For example, We went to Vietnam and Cambodia for the donations at the hospital and making library with the other clubs in the same area. Also, we have continued 'Exchange Student Program'  with our sister Rotary club in California in the US. There will be held the Rotary International Conference in L.A. in 2008, so we start to talk having a tour to visit our sister club and to attend the International Conference in L.A.

A pen with a seal

    Today, I went the Rotary Meeting at Takarazuka Hotel. Every Thursday I must attend the club meeting for one hour. Normally, in the first day of the month, we have celebration about the birthday of members and members' wives and the club give you a small present for you. June is the month of my birthday. I don't want to say exactly my age on the weblog, but it is over 40 years old. The average of age of members are 63 years old, so I am one of the youngest members in our club. Anyway, I have gotten a pen with a seal (signet) for a present, which is useful, because you use seals quite often in Japan. This is simple seal printed just sir name in Chinese character with red ink.

    A seal is used as sign you have seen the papers or agree with the contents of the papers, instead of signature in Western style in documents, next to your printed name. Also, I use the company seal on the documents of company, such as agreement papers, contract with the other companies, nex to your name and company name. And also it is always used in banks. When you open your bank account and withdraw your money without a bank card. In Japan, a seal is necessary to use for the private and official cases and use different seals depending on cases. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(Chinese) 

What is the Rotary Club?

   I have joined the Rotary Club about 5 years ago. Our club name is Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club. It consists about 50 members, and all over the world we have over 1.2 million members in 168 countries. In Japan, 2,232 club and about 100,000 members. The Rotary club has been started in 1905, Feb in Chicago in the USA. We have 100 years' anniversary last year.

   The International Service is one of our impportant activity. Our club has sister club 'LaHabra Rotary Club' in the US for over 20 years. Mainly I have the role of contact with members of this club in the US. LaHabra Rotary club is located in North East 1.5 hours driving from Los Angeles. We exchange two or three students every year one after the other for 10 days in the summer holiday.

   When they come to Japan, they stay in our city Takarazuka and we take them to Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, Osaka, Shikoku, etc. They really Enjoy US and Japan while staying in overseas, because almost fist time going to abroad with out their families. We enjoyed beer garden with them at the Japanese summer night last year.

  http://www.lahabrarotary.org/

                                          

  http://www.rotary.org/

Exchange student program with sister club

In our Rotary club, we have exchange students every year for more than 20 years between our club 'Takarazuka Mukogawa Rotary Club'and 'LaHabra Rotary Club' in California. This is the picture about 3 years ago. We presented them 'Yukata' like 'Kimono', but only for summer time and Japanese sandal. As I was the chairman of international service, I organized the ceremony of club party and translate to Japanese for English they spoke. They stayed at host family's house every 3-4 days and have excursion around Kansai area such as, in Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Himeji, Kobe, Tokushima, and Takarazuka. They learn Japanese life and enjoy their staying in Japan with our club member and families.