Conclusion

This is the last blog I need to write for the program. During the two weeks in Japan, I learned a lot though this trip. Just like I said, I think this is the best experience I’ve never ever had in my college life. I love the arrangement of the whole program. The schedule balanced the culture and business we’ve been learned during the trip. The knowledge I learned from the companies’ visit is very helpful. It is totally different than things we learned from book. I totally agreed with Dr. Singer’s opinion that people need to be open-minded, and we can work for this by traveling and reading. I may not work with supply chain in the future, but the experiences I got is can be widely used in all business fields and influence my future career positively. International business is very broad accepted with the globalization of the world. So during this trip I learned how much effort that the various companies putted when they got in a new market. I believe the approach can works in other countries as well.

For the blog, I think everyone in the program complained it before, because we want to explore more things in this attractive country rather than spend hours in hotel to write a blog. Nevertheless, at the end of this assignment, I was surprised that I found this assignment really helped me to rethink what we learned during the day, and what’s my opinion about the visiting. And during the class I found all the other members have the same idea with me. I really enjoy the time during this program, with this lovely group. I appreciate all the effort that Dr. Singer, Okuno-san and Nathan put in this program. I feel thankful that everything the Japanese Alumni Club did for us. Thank you, Dr. Singer. :)

 Group Pictures!!  LOVE EVERYONE!!!

Culture differences in someways

Based on my two weeks experience in Japan, I feel this country is very attractive for me. This is the only country that has remained such a lot traces of their culture. The mocha tea is originally come from China, but now you rarely can find mocha tea ceremony in China. It is very sad during the long period of developing the economic we ignored and even lost part of our precious culture. I am glad I still can watch the tea ceremony in Japan. This is forward the countryside, I feel thankful that Japanese kept this intangible material heritage.

Another feeling is about the kimono. Kimono is Japanese traditional cloth that people used wearing in the past. However, still now Japanese wearing those beautiful clothes to attend some activities; such as wedding, holidays events and some kinds of special meetings. China also has Chi-pao and han Chinese clothing, which are two types of famous traditional clothing in history. Nevertheless, nowadays people only wearing them for performance but not for holiday or celebration events. I feel sad about this because I really think Chinese abandoned a lot of culture treasures.

My classmates already mentioned a lot about Japanese always wait outside of the bus and watch until us left, and Americans never do this. Actually another interesting detail I found is during the visit, all the Japanese companies prepared the power point or brochures about the company’s history, value, culture, management methods or future blueprint for us. Only the 2 “American” Disney companies we got nothing except water and gifts. Also nearly most of Japanese companies prepared welcome slogan for us. Some restaurants and hotels did that as well.

 Women who performed the tea ceremony for us wore Kimono.

Me with Kimono.

The dinner and breakfast tickets with "MSU" on it. 

Hiroshima Peace Memorial

We went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial today. We spent about 5 hours on the way to got there and come back and only spent 3 hours on visiting. However I think it is very worth to do so, because it helped me to look back the World War II from another angel.

China suffered a lot though WWII, and most of the tortures were come from Japanese. It is known that there were 300,000 victims murdered in Nanking Massacre, so based on direction of “major medias” in China most of Chinese hate Japanese in some ways. Nonetheless, things are changing year by year. Young generations influenced by Japanese culture though the animation or other types of cultures, and become more acceptable to Japanese. That can be one of the reasons why I am here as well! Just like we discussed during the class yesterday, people need to be open-minded and see though one thing from the front side as well as the backside.

I was totally shocked when I heard the stories about the victims who dead at the atomic boom. Most of them were students from 10 to 15 years old. They worked for government to remove some buildings to make sure the city can endure the booms that enemies through from sky. None of them knew what would happened before the explosion happened. There are plenty of remains exhibited in the museum; clothes, pants, water bottle and even lunch box with burned rice and beans inside. The infection of the voice I heard from audio guide almost made me cry; it made me feel every bad things were just happened in front of me; war and death. They all were innocent people, why they suffered that kind of pain? I think I will never forget the black skins and nails showed in the museum, all of those things make me feel thankful for living in this peaceful era. Even though there are some countries still suffer the war at this time, things are become better and better because I saw a lot of people are fighting for peace. The picture showed at the end of the museum is a flower bloomed at autumn of 1945. Some people said in 75 years nothing would grow in this city, however, the strength of life are powerful. So people who surviving from the war are living with hope and courage.

 Analog type of mother and her children after the A-boom.

 The flower bloomed in autumn of 1945.

The beautiful sunshine over the ruin. 

Takenaka

We went to Takenaka's headquarter in Tokyo; it is one of the biggest company in Japan. Through the corporation report in 2014 I found the landmarks they've made during the whole 405 years since 1610. It is surprised me that Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Dome were build by them, and there are bunch of other famous buildings were build by them. They made a significant contribution to the process of society by providing those beautiful architectures. According to Takenaka's value: "Architecture's role is to create social assets that can pass down the culture of an era to future generations."

With the booming development of new technologies, they also contain a lot of sophisticated technologies in their buildings to make the work more efficient and the environment more comfortable for living. During the company tour, we saw a lot of amazing designs; the air can come through floors, and walls without any electronic devises. My favorite part is they try their best to make the sunshine through the glass walls. There are four devises at the top of the building to chase the movement of the sun, and glass walls are everywhere in the company. In my opinion, the sunshine can makes people feel powerful and full of energy. Japan is a country with the highest suicide rate in the world; I think employee work in Takenaka may have a good mood when they see beautiful weathers in the most of the day of the year.

Another significant part is their management method. Based on Takenaka is the Japanese company. It influenced by Japanese through many hundreds of years. During the company tour it was obviously a Japanese company; the working area were very quit, even there were some little groups are discuss something or have meetings in public working area, we barely hearted noises. It is well known that Japanese is a collectivism society, but I still felt surprised when I found there are no private working offices for top managers. Even their CEO is working together with other employees in "public area".

 The ceiling of their headquarter.

They have a complete system to recycle the trashes in a specific room.   

Hikone Castle

We went to Hikone Castle this afternoon. It is one of the four national treasure castles in Japan. During the trip I found all the inside structure are build by wood, but the whole castle still existed for a long time. How well Japanese did the maintenance during the years! Since we didn’t get tour guide and the museum was closed until June 1^st. I didn’t learn a lot about this castle, I hope I can learn more about its history and the decorations inside—I guess most of them are store in the museum. The other interesting I found is most of “Japanese Unites” have their own mascots. We saw mascots in companies like Fujitec we visited this morning, we saw mascots in government departments such as Tokyo Customs and Metropolitan Traffic Control Center, and even Hikone Castle this type of scenic spot has their own mascot! I guess the existing of those mascots may because of the animation culture of Japan. But I do not really understand the reason why Japanese are like those kind of cute characters that much.

Furthermore, I saw a lot of Japanese students visited Hikone Castle this afternoon. They look like higher level in primary school or junior school, were lead by their teachers and tour guides. This also happened in Tokyo, the day we went to Disneyland. But the age of students looks younger than students we saw today. I am so jealous of them because in China, schools rarely offer chances to students to go out by groups. I’ve heard from others before I went to Japan. Usually, Japanese schools organize their students to travel for study once a year, from kindergarten to high school level. I think the students always can learn a lot of thing during the trips. The trip to Disneyland may give a chance for them to play with their classmates and develop the friendship with them; it is also a way to release the pressure from students. The trip to Hikone Castles can help them to make that period of history more vivid. And some other types of “travel for study” can help students to expand their eye horizon, increase the knowledge about culture, language, and history or other types of knowledge in different fields. Based on the large population in China, I may understand that Chinese school want to avoid the accidents that may happen during the trip. However, like people cannot avoid the car accident by not drive cars if it can be helpful to our life. The things they need more consider about, is how to avoid the accident happen, but not avoid to organize students to learn things from real life.

 Hikone Castle's mascot.

 Hikone Castle's main building.

Student groups in Disneyland.