My Opinion this week(66)
Let's join to English Forum
In the BizTech Forum held by Nikkei BP Publishing Company, there is
a Forum called "Hello! BizTech Forum". Members of the Forum and some
new comers get together to exchange greetings and to enjoy various
conversation everyday. In this "Hello! Forum" , one other board called
English Forum has just been opened recently where members can exchange
messages and write comments in English. The board has just been opened
and we don't see how popular it will be, but the first reaction from
members seems to be good.
In old PC communication service such as Nikkei MIX and others, there
were a number of such English boards, but they did not last long as a
matter of fact. In NIFTY Serve forums, there still exists such English
board and a great number of messages are uploaded everyday. But only
very limited number of members participate in such forum. English is
still very difficult foreign language for Japanese not only to read
but also to write.
Since the development of Internet following PC Communication network
service, English is becoming more and more important for any users.
It is necessary to read and write in English whenever they access to
any foreign sites. Some people use some translating softwares. Translation
from English to Japanese may be all right but translation from Japanese to
English is not quite reliable yet. In order to utilize the advantages of
Internet to the fullest extent, users are asked to be versed in English
as much as possible. It is good idea to learn English through Internet
in various way. To use this kind of English Web. Forum is one good way,
I believe.
I am writing this "My opinion this week " every week both in Japanese
and English for I have Japanese pages and English pages. It is quite a
good practice to write them in English once a week. I can learn a number
of English vocabularies and key words relating various recent topics.
The other good way to learn English is to participate in such English
board in such public forums as BizTech Forum. I must keep writing some
messages in English everyday regardless the volume is large or small.
Each participants can teach and learn each other through the exchange
of the messages in the board.
One of the important point to join in such board is that participants
are not so anxious about mistakes in grammars. It may be necessary
to consult dictionary whenever we face problems but we should not become
too nervous. Spelling is the most important point to be careful about
but any spelling miss can easily be corrected by standard English word-
processing software these days. If series of proper words is used in
the sentence, the intention and the contents of the message will be
communicated without much difficulty.
It does not make sense that non-English speaking people like Japanese
complain about the fact that English is now main language used in
Internet. We should learn English and receive and issue information
in English as much as we can.
Any of the readers who are interested in learning English will be
welcomed to English Salon of BizTech Forum which has just started
recently.
1998/5/7
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(67):
One to one fishing
On May 8, I visited Nakatosa-Cyou of Kouchi Prefecture to make a
speech for some group of people. The theme of the speech was
"Communication in Networking Society". The presentation itself went
well. I stayed at the hotel run by the town together with attendants
to that Forum and enjoyed the dinner party in the evening. One of
the main dishes for the dinner was the bonito tataki cooked in the
garden of the hotel. Tataki is sashimi, a sliced raw fish, the surface
of which is burnt by the straw fire.
Tataki was good indeed compared with the one sold at super market
these days, because bonito fishes were very fresh and cooking method
was so unique.
This town is famous for bonito fishing and described as the bonito
country in the brochure of the town. People make living by fishing
bonito. They catch bonito fish not by nets but by fishing poles and
hooks. In other word, they catch fish by fishing pole one by one.
I knew the one by one fishing method before but I just wonder why
they use that kind of method. One to one fishing seems to be a kind
of inefficient as we see it. But I understood the reason why they
use that method through the brochure of the town.
Why they don't use nets to catch fishes? That's seems to be more
efficient. There are two reasons why they don't do it. The first
reason is that fish will hurt each other which spoil the taste of
the fish if nets are used. The second reason is to protect natural
resources of bonito fish. If they use fishing net, they may catch
too much. There are many of such examples that precious natural
resources have been lost due to such large scale net fishing. In
order to avoid the situation, they have used one to one fishing
method.
In relation with that fishing method, I remind the recent marketing
approach in business. That is one to one marketing, as it is called.
So far any marketing approach was so called mass production, mass
distribution by itself. The needs and favors of customers differ
entirely each others. One to one marketing is to develop goods and
service which fit to those different needs and favors of each
customers. One typical such example is PC sales these days. Some
manufacturers are now starting on order production and delivery.
They produce PC on order after deciding specification of each
customers.
Following to such on order production, they don't need to have any
extra inventory and to avoid the chance to have any excess inventory.
Customers can get the product which exactly meet to their specs they
wanted. Customers satisfaction will be much higher. And such production
system become possible through computer network system. In other word,
it is network system which make one to one marketing possible.
We enjoyed this kind of talks with people attended and various
delicious foods and drinks in the party in that evening.
1998/5/16
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(68)
India's nuclear tests
India forced to make underground nuclear tests twice last week. It
seems that India tried to make this tests just before the comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty(CTBT) became effective and they demonstrated their power
to Pakistan, their neighboring enemy. They intended to show their power
to the international society so that they became a strong country in
the world in along with other powers. 80% of domestic opinion supported
this tests this time.
On the other hand , international world strongly criticized the tests.
However, it is only Japan and the United States that showed strong
attitude announcing some concrete economic sanctions against India. Most
of other major nations including France and China expressed the regret
but they are very prudent to take some concrete counter measures including
economic sanctions against India. Why not? It is natural that those
countries such as France and China cannot take any strong measures for
they did the same kind of nuclear tests before.
India's leaders and people should learn now that such demonstrative
action itself will have no meaning at all in the international society
any more. The best way to let them learn this is that they would be
punished by some strong economic sanctions or any others means from
international society.
Prime Minister Hashimoto announced economic sanction to be taken to
India by himself just before he left for the Summit Meeting in England.
It is natural that Japan showed such strong attitude at this time. It
seems that the reaction at this time is much faster and decisive
compared with the time when France and China made the nuclear tests.
But that is quite all right.
Needless to say, Japan and India is closely related each others in
terms of history, cultures and religion. India is the country where
Buddhism of Buddha was born which was transferred to Japan in 6th
century. Mahatma Gandhi's principle of nonresistance have greatly been
accepted by Japanese people in the way of thinking. The principle of
nonresistance are more for Japanese people than the principle "an eye
for an eye, tooth for tooth" in the old testament of Christianity.
It is very regrettable to see that the power politics has been shown
in the country where such a great man as Mahatma Gandhi was born. Such
a narrow nationalism is totally against the current tide of globalization
and unification of global society today. It is regrettable to take such
action as economic sanctions to stop that kind of violence. But the
international society cannot help taking that kind of solution at this
time.
It is possible that Pakistan would start the same kind of test to
cope with India's demonstrative action. But we have to stop this by
showing some strong sanctions against India. In the Summit meeting
an announcement was made to blame India for the test, but it is
requested that International community should now send very strong
messages and take several strong actions to stop such violence against
India.
1998/5/23
Tadashi HAYASE
English Home Page
Japanese Home Page