Merry Christmas!

Spending Christmas at work wasn't all that bad. It was just like any other day at work, but I was filled with the same excitement as a little child, longing to get home from work to open the Christmas presents Santa left in my mail. I gave my colleagues a few home made gifts with knäck and lussebullar, which seemed to be appreciated (more than when I let them try Djungelvrål). When I finally came home from work, I spoke to my family over skype and opened my presents. I could at least see the white Christmas through skype, that must count, right? Risgrynsgröt with cinnamon and sugar was served for dinner. All in all, it was a merry little Christmas.

God fortsättning!

3.9 on the Richter scale

This morning I woke up of an earthquake. Quarter to six, an early morning call. It was just a small one, but the first I ever experienced myself. It felt like the ground was on a big, moving air balloon. Or a bit like I woke up and the world had turned into a bouncy castle. At first I thought it was a fever dream and it took a while before I realized that my bed was actually moving. I couldn't help but feeling a little bit of excitement, but at the same time it's scary. And they are expecting a big one in Kantō region soon.

Difference between Swedish news and Japanese

I am watching the evening news on TV. One news flash is about a car crash with a fatal outcome. The deceased are called by name. Next is a clip about karaoke, the people participating in the interview stay anonymous. Why this difference? Does it have anything to do with karaoke as a phenomenon or is it the English translation of the TV news? Or is this just the way it goes in Japan?

Ice, ice baby

Observation from real life: Hot water really steams when you run the tap in a freezing bath room. The same goes for boiling water in a Siberian kitchen.

The office

I guess some of you are wondering what I’m actually doing work-wise over here. To tell the truth, sometimes I do to. However, due to confidentiality reasons, I can’t tell you much. All I can say is that I’m doing research on thin film solar cells and hopefully the outcome of it will be my graduate thesis. Taking about confidential matters, often when I’m curious and ask something about the research outside my field, the reply from my instructor is that he can’t tell me, it’s confidential. Definitely makes me feel like I am part of the company…

Every morning I attend the morning meeting with my group of 12 people. It’s usually around half an hour long –all in Japanese! Sometimes there’s one graph or phrase I’ll understand, but usually I spend the time staring out in the office landscape with my mind blank. I have often heard people in Sweden complaining about open-plan offices. Well, here they are about 60 people in the same room, with desks facing each other and if you’re lucky a couple of shields dividing the room in two. That’s truly an open landscape of workers.

Often I’m surprised how much time my instructor can spend helping, or sometimes babysitting, me. He is also the leader of the group and one could imagine him having more important things to do than watching every step I take. Like last week, when he spent 2.5 hours with me in the clean room, while I was loading samples in a machine, starting the measurement by pressing enter and then unloading when finished.

Still, best parts of the day are the corporate song in the morning and the three o’clock exercise, radio taisō:

Cup cake upside down

Apple cinnamon cream cheese cup cakes. First try in my combined microwave and oven.

Inga konstigheter.

Counterproductivity

In many cases, Japanese people are very good att keeping their things immaculate and durable. Sometimes it comes as a great shock when you run across something from a different lifetime and it hasn't even got a single scratch to it. But as I was walking home from work today I burst out laughing as I looked into a lorry driving past. The seats were still covered in plastic from the factory, as expected, but to my surprise the driver was sitting there on his spotless outpost puffing on a cigarett... Tell me, what's the point with that?

On top of the mountain

So, I like living in Atsugi because the scenery with the big mountains and rice fields is beautiful. But Atsugi doesn’t have all that much to offer, so on the weekends I open my wings (or rather, take out my train-card for a round) to see something else.

Two weekends ago I climbed the nearby Mount Oyama- big mountain – together with some colleagues. A cable car took us up the first bit of the mountain, up to a shrine. Close to this shrine is an old hiding place, where the locals took their children to keep them safe during the war. The hike to the top wasn’t all that hard as the invitation had pointed it out to be (“please warm up sufficiently if you are not sure of your stamina”) and after about 1.5 hours we had reached the summit at 1,252 meters. Unfortunately it was hazy at the top, so we couldn’t see the long wished-for view of the ocean and the surrounding landscape. But it was compensated of the glimpse we got of Mount Fuji as the clouds dispersed. I really enjoyed being on an outdoor adventure for a change. And I have to admit my legs were aching the day after.

I’ve also participated in another company activity, namely a tree cutting day. Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like; we went into the bush and cut down a cedar tree, by hand, and then rounded off the day with a BBQ and some beers. The whole tree-cutting thing was meant to preserve the old technique of cutting down tress by hand. A pretty fun and chill day!

The past Saturday I went to Kamakura, a touristy beachside “town” (population 170,000) only one hour by train from Atsugi. Kamakura was the capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333 and is said to be a “ Little Kyoto”, with an enormous number of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Kamakura is also home to Japan’s second-largest Buddha image, 11.3 m in height, cast in bronze and completed in 1252. The town had a nice quiet feeling to it, even though it was weekend and the streets where full with people, and I really liked seeing a bit of the cultural Japan. As I walked down to the beach it turned out to be a Hawaiian inspired surfers spot. Still in the beginning of November, the water was filled with surfers waiting for the right wave to come. Next time, I’ll rent a surfboard (and wetsuit) and join them.

I’ve also visited Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan with 3.5 million inhabitants. It was less chaotic than Tokyo and had a nice Chinatown, which made you feel like you were somewhere else in Asia. And of course I’ve spent quite some time exploring the different parts of Tokyo: the shopping and entertainment districts Shinjuku and Shibuya – the latter famous for the huge zebra crossing, which is entirely covered by a horde of humans crossing as the light switch to green; Ginza – Tokyo’s 5^th avenue; Harajuku – expensive and trendy shopping streets with architectonic highlights; Akihabara – heaven for technique freaks; Kichijõji – centred on a big park and home to many small, new and trendy shops (one sold Swedish retro chinaware like Rörstrand and Gustavsberg, and even Bliw handsoap for ¥ 1000 a bottle, which is around 80 SEK (!). Maybe a future business?); Shimo-Kitazawa – described as “free spirited”, with small alleys filled with bars and cafés, and one second hand shop after another.

Do you want to see some pictures from my weekend activities? You will find them in my photo album!

My top 5 favourite Japanese sounds

1. Number one is unbeatable and hard to miss. It comes in as many varieties as there are Japanese. What I’m talking about is the [ääääääh]-sound, a conversation filler like [uhmm, aha] and the like. It’s at its best when exclaimed after someone has said something surprising and especially when it comes from a girl – then the [ääääääh] can be very high pitched. (To continue my course in Swedish sounds for you English speakers, ä sounds like the vocals in hair. Or at least it was the best I could come up with right know, anyone who has a better suggestion?)

2. The sound lorries make when they reverse and turn. It’s the voice of a girl and I guess she’s saying something like “sorry for being in the way and please watch out”, together with an extremely silly beeping sound. Ambulances also have the same type of sound, saying they’re sorry that they’re in the way. Maybe it’s inappropriate to say it’s hilarious, but it really is. Hearing this sound always puts a smile on my face.

3. The drunken, mumbly sound bus drivers make once in a while. It sound like: [Hasch, hasch… maschimasch… haschi, haschi… maschi]. I don’t have a clue what it means, but I sure like it.

4. A Japanese conversation, and especially when someone is explaining something to someone else. I like the rhythm of the language. I just wish I could understand it.

5. The ear-piercing sound you hear when entering a pachinko parlour (a pachinko resembles an upright pinball game and the parlours are filled with rows of them, and usually they also have a wide variety of video games). The sound is unbelievable, it’s loud and it’s chaotic and I can’t believe people spend hours in there. I wonder if there are any studies of the risk of developing tinnitus in a pachinko parlour?

The boss’s new gadgets

At work it feels a bit like the three of us “interns” are considered to be the company’s latest investment. We are the gadgets that the boss likes to show off with. But I’m not the one complaining, being one of the exotic Swedes I got to shake hands with a Noble price winner!

Dr. Shirakawa won the Noble price in chemistry in year 2000 for his discovery and development of conducting polymers. Last week he was visiting the company for a demonstration of their solar cells. He had been involved in developing one part of it. We were asked to join, and the explanation I was given was that he wanted to see us (or maybe, just maybe, it was the way I interpreted it). When the demonstration was finished we were presented as “our new interns from Sweden, who really wanted to meet you”. We bowed and said our [Hadjememachtee] (a polite way of saying hello) and then photos were taken and hands shaken and I was smiling big times. It was fun. He looked like such a sweet old man and he said it was an honour to meet us. Not too bad, ehh?

We’ve also had lunch with the boss himself, who is the holder of the Guinness world record of number of patents, and the chairman of the board. Nice, but formal occasions.

But there are also downsides of being the ones that everyone has to see. Once a month they have an in house conference and on the last occasion we were asked, 5 min prior, to stand in front of everybody in the conference room and present ourselves. Inside was all employees including all the members of the board, all in all between 600 and 700 people! I was so nervous I thought I was going to faint and I couldn’t hold the microphone fixed in front of me because my hands were shaking too much. But luckily it was a quick presentation. The backwash of the hole thing was that lunch was straight afterwards and I can assure you that it’s completely impossible to eat with chopsticks when your hands are still shaking from the adrenalin chock.

This week they had us listening to a lecture about electron spin resonance for 3.5 hours – all in Japanese! I couldn’t see the importance of that one. And just a 10 min break, without any fika (Swedish cake and coffee brake)! Well ok, I learnt one thing. With this analysis method they have concluded that as the price of tea (of course green) and instant coffee increase, the amount of free radicals decrease, thus expensive tea is more healthy than cheap. Very valuable knowledge.

I’ve finally uploaded some photos. As soon as I have some new photos I will upload them, so you just have to check out the photoalbum once in a while if you don’t want to miss out.

A day by the riverside

Sunday was a beautiful warm and sunny day, a typical Swedish summers day. We were invited to barbecue with the tennis team by the river. We weren’t the only ones doing this, many others had set up their barbecues and laid out their plastic mats and chairs and were enjoying it as much as we were. Some people were in the water fishing for their dinner.

The tennis team had done the grocery shopping, and they were packing up one thing after the other. We started cutting everything in nice little pieces and as the coal was warn enough we started barbecuing and then eating with the chopsticks straight from the grill. A very smart way to do it as everything will stay warm. We kept on eating for nearly 3 hours! Just small munches at a time, but it felt like the food supply was endless. The strangest thing they barbecued was something they called hormones, I think it was some sort of glands from pigs, yuck!

As I though we had finished it all, they started doing veggie yaki-soba, fried noodles:

All in all, I had a very nice and filling day in the sun!

About being an alien

Yes, I do feel like an alien sometimes. Like when it takes me 20 minutes to figure out which bottle is fabric softener and which is liquid washing powder in the shop. Or when I thought one of the guys in the football team wanted to shake hands with me and present himself, as he came crouching towards me with one hand reached out in front of himself. But in fact, he was only showing in a very Japanese way that he wanted to get through to pick up his water bottle, without bothering anybody on the way. And there I was, with a stupid hand reached out in mid air. Or when I time after other step over the slippers in random doorways that I think belong to someone else and hear voices behind me saying “no, no, wait, stop”, and as I turn around I realise I’ve missed yet another pair of slippers I’m supposed to wear to the toilet, or wherever I’m heading to.

But it’s okey. At least I have the certificate now, being registered as an alien:

Payday

Några frågor på det?

First impressions last

I’ve been here fifteen days now. And I’m slowly starting to realize that I actually live in Japan. One could think that it’s pretty obvious that you’ve moved far away from home when you can’t read a single thing, cars drive on the wrong side of the road, kids at the supermarket stare at you like you were from Mars, you’re scared to behave inappropriately most of the time, don’t know what to answer when someone unmistakably is trying to ask you something and you end up saying nothing and looking stupid. I’ve had the feeling that I’m in a dream or at least on holiday. But now it’s slowly getting to me. I actually live in Japan. Things I first found hilarious have started become familiar. And I like it.

Japan from above. I like how it looks very well-organised.

It first started at Narita airport. I was amazed by the big painted signs on the streets: smoking prohibited, please smoke at designated areas. I’ve been waiting for this a long time in Sweden. I actually asked my sister this summer when the first non-smoking music festival would come. I think it’s about time. It’s not prohibited to smoke in all streets here, but in Tokyo city there seems to be a lot of them. We saw a map in Shibuya (one of the districts of Tokyo) yesterday showing areas where you could smoke, and there weren’t many of them. The negative side of it all is that you might end up dining next to a table of heavy smokers. Because it’s still okey to smoke in restaurants and not all of them have non-smoking sections. So the Japanese government has a regulation they have to put some effort into before I’m entirely satisfied.

Next time my eyes where about to pop out was when we (I’ll explain later) arrived in Atsugi city. There on the street was an elevator for cars, rotating them and lifting them up to the car parc. Amazing! It looked like the automatic storage shelves for washed working clothes at SSAB, for you who have seen it. But the Japanese know how to save valuable space, that’s for sure.

Atsugi city is the location for the semiconductor company where I’ll be doing an internship for the next 6 months, which hopefully, if ends will meet, will be my graduate thesis of my engineering degree. When I said we earlier, I referred to Fredrik, who is a student at KTH in Stockholm, and me. We are three students here at the same time and Fredrik and me came here at the same time. I had only met Fredrik two times before we came here. Tomas, the third who fulfils our trio, and I have taken some courses together in Uppsala and he had already been here for two weeks when we came. We have turned out to be an excellent trio and I really like these guys. Both of them have been in Japan before and can speak some Japanese which is a big help for me, but I also think that it’s convenient for all of us that we’re not alone here. And they’re trying to teach me at least one Japanese word per day. They also teach me how I’m supposed to behave if I want to melt in as a proper girlish Japanese girl. Of course I made sure my mobile phone is pink and this weekend I bought the number 1 manga for girls, reading (or I mean looking closely to the pictures) it slowly so it looks like I’m actually reading it. And first train home I got some reactions from girls around me who glanced at my manga and gave me looks of liking. All to blend in among the others. I just wished I could actually understand what it is about. (And honestly I’m not only interested in what types of manga Japanese girls read but also the whole mind of Japanese people, both girls and boys; it’s part of exploring a new culture. If you try to understand how the Japanese think it makes it easier to understand certain situations. And I don’t honestly think I will mix in just by pretending to read the trendiest manga anyway. It’s what I’ve heard from others being here, it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve spent in this country. In the end, no matter how many Japanese habits you adapt, you will always be a stranger, you will never become Japanese.)

Atsugi city is a big city in Kanagawa prefecture, situated a little to the southwest of Tokyo. It is unclear if it belongs to the suburbs of Tokyo or if it’s just countryside. To me, it doesn’t matter. I’m glad I have a view over green mountains in the distance and that, instead of traffic, I can hear the cicadas play at night. And it only takes you 50 minutes to go to Shinjuku (another district in the centre of Tokyo city) by train. Work is less than five minutes away from where we live. We live in a house with what they call dorm rooms. I would call it a small apartment. It has one room with a bed, wardrobe and TV and a big balcony (compared to the boys, who live on the 2^nd floor and have a view over a garage, I have a nice view of the surroundings from the 5^th floor). In the hallway there’s a small kitchenette a bathroom and a washing machine. So there’s everything you need here.

It’s also fun to walk along the streets here. First you have an office building, next a block of houses, and then a supermarket, an industry, a rice field, a parking lot, a vegetable plantation, a house, another rice field, some more crops and then an industry. Everything is mixed up. And I’ve never seen a rice field with my own eyes before. Soon harvest is coming up, which I’m looking forward too. Maybe I get the chance to eat fresh rice?

Vending machine for 10 kg rice bags.

The company we work for is more than interesting. It’s a company that research and develop cutting-edge technology without manufacturing end user products (I know, it sound like a sentence taken from a booklet and yes, it is). The funding comes from the patents and licences they establish. The research is carried out in shifts, day and night. The company has around 700 employees and the mean age must be low judging by the look of people (even though it’s extremely hard to tell when it comes to the Japanese, they grow old with dignity). We start working at 9.00 every morning, but first we dress in the extremely bad fit, but reasonably comfortable, blue two piece company clothing. I wear size double L, the second largest, in pants and a jacket in size 9, the smallest. I look ridiculous. We’re supposed to be at our desks about 15 minutes before so we’re ready to start at nine. At ten to nine the bells ring and the company song, Blue Sky, is played in the speaker system so we all know that a new great working day is about to begin (don’t you worry I have the CD so I can play it for you when I get back). So far it’s hilarious, but soon enough I won’t even think it’s a strange thing having a corporate song, don’t all companies have one? We have 45 minutes lunch break at either twelve or quarter past, and of course the bells both ring in and out for both lunch shifts so you won’t miss it. At three it’s time for some exercise. To the tones of a piano and a brisk man counting and telling you what to do we can all get up, get a break and some more energy. But to be honest I haven’t seen anyone doing the exercise yet, except for the ones teaching us how to do it. At 17.45 the working day has come to an end and the bells ring again and we all go to get changed. And so far, none of us have had to work later than this, and I don’t think we’re expected to either. In between these hours notifications through the speaker system are heard several times, probably saying that someone is looking for a Mr. or Mrs./Ms. so and so. I still think it’s funny. And I almost know how to pronounce a polite request for someone through the speaker, even though I wouldn’t know what I was saying. I’ve learnt the most common lines I have to use during a day. In the morning you say [Åhajåå gosajmass] (a very Swedish pronunciation of good morning) preferably with a very long s at the end. At any other time during the day you exchange a well-intentional, but mumbly, [Otsukaresama des] with each other, which literally means “work harder”.

Except lunch, there’s also the possibility to eat dinner for the same price as the lunch, ¥300. In the house there’s also a barber with very reasonable prices and a shop, where you pick anything you want and scan your personal key card and the product and the amount will be withdrawn from the next payment. The shop holds everything from cup noodles, soft drinks, lollies and energy bars to stockings, sticky plasters and facemasks. My goal is to try all the different types of energy bars. Today I had one that said it contained banana (or at least that was my conclusion judging from the picture), it tasted very synthetic and almost like coughing medicine or was it the thing the dentist used to brush on your teeth when you were a kid? It’s very convenient whenever that chocolate monster in your tummy is roaring, even though I haven’t found anything like Cadbury’s or Geisha (they should definitely start importing them!) or Marabou. But so far, I don’t miss chocolate from home. I will tell you when I do and you can send me some.

The biggest surprise of them all came the very first day when we arrived. Among our 700 collegues there is one girl who has lived in Ransäter in Sweden, in the province of Värmland, and studied Swedish for one year plus another 6 (!) years at a university here in Japan! Isn’t that amazing?! The world feels so small sometimes. She speaks Swedish well, but sadly enough she doesn’t use her skills in her profession. I’ve heard it’s quite common among women who have studied at university here in Japan; they rarely work with what they’ve studied.

So that is just a little bit of what daily life here is like. I will tell you much more if you keep on reading. For all of you who fell asleep one or many times while reading: I promise that more pictures will come and I probably won’t write as much (but I can’t promise anything). I just had so much I wanted to say. The first impressions are the ones that remain.

An honest proposal

So, I like writing. But I am much better at writing in my mother tongue than in English. Not to mention Japanese. (Well, I can at least say it: [Nihongo wa chåttå…] which translates into “Japanese is a bit…”, saying in a polite way that my Japanese isn’t what it’s supposed to be. Just to clarify: I hadn’t studied a word of Japanese before I came here. (And å sounds a bit like a posh or, do you follow?)) However, it would feel unfair to all of you who aren’t fluent (in Swedish) just yet, if you had to translate every message through google translate. You would probably miss the point. So, here’s my proposal: I'll write in Swedish whenever I feel like it, but will try to write a majority of the posts in English. Ok?

En hyllning

Det började med att jag hade en diffus bild i mitt huvud, några ytterst få tankar som jag hade svårt att sätta ord på. Jag förmedlade denna vaga bild till min gamle gode, och inte minst kloke vän, Milky Way och han sa ”okej, jag ska göra vad jag kan”. Hur han gjorde är för mig ett mysterium, men av det lilla jag fick ur mig lyckades han fånga kärnan och det blev precis så som jag hade tänkt mig, fast mycket mycket bättre. För att tala klarspråk så fick han dit pricken över i:et, fast i plural. Så om ni händelsevis tycker att den grafiska utformningen är synnerligen skön för ögat, ska ni givetvis poängtera det för mig så att jag kan suga åt mig för att min diffusa bild var en sådan strålande idé, men samtidigt kan ni ju tänka lite på Milky också som kan det där med layout. För det är han värd.

Ps. Martin är bäst.