VS Branding in China

I read a Japanese economical book about the branding in China. This book treats the branding policy and tactics of global companies in China.
The examples this book treats are the car industry, the drink industry, the advertising industry and so on. I can learn a lot from these examples.

I can learn from this book that it takes a long time to spread the brand image. For example, Japanese has different images to Audi, BMW and HONDA in the car market.
For Japanese, the image of Audi is "reliable". BMW is "selective". HONDA is "unique". Each brand has their own character.
But for Chinese, these three companies have no difference. "Reliable" is the same image of them.
Why does Chinese think these companies have the same image? The author says Chinese people can't have the different images of each car companies now, because of the lack of the comsumer experience. For them, a car is a car. So, they don't have a special image for each cars.
To be more correct, they would have experienced the car without reliability made in their country. So, they would focus on the reliability of foreign makers.

For some Japanese, the image of Bentz is YAKUZA. Maybe, westerner is supplised that Bentz has such an image in Japan. But it's true. If you drive Bentz and change the lane, no car would interrupt you. I've never used my horn to Bentz in my life.

VS THE DA VINCI CODE

Why is this unspecial movie so cotroversial? This is my impression after watching THE DA VINCI CODE, maybe because of my lack of religious background.
Certainly I enjoyed this movie today, but I thought the description of each characters and facts were not enough. The original novel is a long story. So, it maght be impossible to pack the world in only a few hours film.
The key factor of the movie is SEX.
Religiously, it could be a big problem. But, culturally it is not. Now, anything about SEX are opener than before.
"Mona Lisa" is drawn on the book cover and the movie advertisement of THE DA VINCI CODE. But, it is not related to the story at all. It was surprising for me.
I heard thet the hair style of Tom Hanks was more controversial than the story. But, I didn't care for it.

Even though I think this movie is not special, I can recomend it.
Not only religious people but also the people to respect for any kinds of principle tend to seek for the authority, which makes battles among the people. The history of Christien is such a case. I think the westerb culture based on the history is most infulential on this world now, so we should study it more. I could learn many things from the movie.

But, anyway, I seem to have to read the original book. English book must be too tough for me. So, I will try Japanese-transleted book. Now, 5 million books are sold in Japan. It's a big sales. Of course, the book-shop people are very happy now. We are looking forward to THE DA VINCI CODE 2. It would be a cheaper story than the first one.
Mona Lisa beats a lot of monsters, and finds out a treasure. Hm, entertaining. Good enough. I can write the story.

VS Onshore Wind

The change of season is clear in Japan. Each season colors our life. So, we respect seasonal events very much. For example; In spring, we watch cheryblossams. In summer, we go to the sea. In fall, we eat very much (maybe, to prepare for winter -no food season -). In winter, we go to ski. "This is the seasonal menu!" is a popular advertisement in Japanese restaurnts.

I went to Enoshima beach to surf last Sunday.
For most people, May must be too early to go to the sea. But, for surfers, it's not early. Actually, the water is a little cold now, but our hearts are burning well enough. Watching blue sky and sea, we can't wait more. Surfer is a breaker of the season code.

The day, the wave was kind of big ,but a little random by the effect of onshore wind, which comes from a sea side to a shore side. The wave is sometimes big and sometimes small. That's why the wave condition was hard for the beginners. It also means hard for me! Maybe, my performance on the wave was not good.
However, by the support of my instracter, my surfing skill seems to be developing. I could sometimes catch the wave correctly this time. Training is important for anything.

To be honest, Enoshima beach is not a great place to surf. The wave is small an weak. In Kanto area in Japan, Chiba or Izu is a better place. However, Enoshima beach is a kind of brand. Many people come there. So, I heard that the openness to strangers is the culture of this area. On other beach, good wave points sometimes seems to be monopolised by the local surfers. Thus, strangers can't ride a good wave.
I've never been to other beach, so I can't judge which it's true or not, but I think the surfer's community in Enoshima is comfortable indeed.

I ate Mankin Gyoza after the surfing. I drank much water on the sea. So, to minus it, I had to eat an oily food. The raod to the real surfer is far away.

VS University Students

I graduated from University around ten years ago. When I was a student, I often went to a room of my seminar professer. We discussed about many things. I could learn a lot. It was a good experience. Moreover, I sometimes drunk with him and other seminar students. And, we played soccer and tennis. We went for a trip together.
After I graduated, I have been to his house at least once a year with my friends. My professer talks about recent interests, his university and his students. I talk about my job mainly. It is natural for me to keep in touch with my teacher.

Last week, I went to an University in Yokohama, which is my customer. After a job, I talked with a professor, about his seminar.
He said to me, " I had invited my students to my house before ten years. I arranged a wine party with my students then. We enjoyed together very much. But, recently, I don't have such an oppotunity. Because, the personality of students has changed. They don't want friendly-relationship with their teacher."

"Not all students. Some students still want it. But, they often lose the feeling of respect or politeness to their teacher. They treat their teacher as like a friend. They don't understand our relationship as it order to be. So, I am losing the motivation to have a better relationship with them."
He looked to give up something.

For me, the most interesting thing of what he said is this.
"Compared with male students, female students are more active and friendly to their teachers in their unversity days. They sometimes come to my room and talk about many things. BUT, after graduating, they don't keep in touch with me at all. On the other hand, male students contact me more often."

I think what he talked about is not only his case. The distance between universtiy students and professers seems to be becomig far. I've heard of same kinds of episode from other professers.
I don't know the reason why the relationship between students and professers has changed.
Shyness? Generation gap?
The reason is not important, but what I think is important is that we should have a skill or an experience to communicate with the people in a different generation. Looking at younger coworkers, I realise they are not good at talking with older people. They tend to be together with same age people. It's not a problem itself, but if it implies the lack of their communication skill, it's fatal.

VS Body Shape

Japan is between in spring and early summer. Basically warm. Humid rainy season will come soon. After that, we'll go into summer.
I checked a new surf shop in Atsugi. My surfer spirit became hot. I learned from the shop staff about various types of surf-boards, the character of wave in some areas in Japan, some surfing styles, the personality of Atsugi surfers and so on. I enjoyed talking with her.

I thought I had better make my body visually-good to go to the beach.
Six stomach muscules should be on a surf board?
I don't exercise recently, but I have been satisfied with my body. I am healthy. I am not fat.
But, I thought I should step on a haigher level.
So, going back to my home, I tried stomach execises soon.

I decided fifty-times execise everyday to get six muscles on my stomach.
It's May now. One, two, three months later, It's August, in summer. Then, my ideal body will arrive joust in time. Nice plan.

Good plan have to be followed by action. Of course, I did it.
I laied on a floor, and started stomach exercises. One, two, three, four, five.......
On the process, suddenly, I felt a storng pain on my stomach, which likely broke my stomach into six pieces. I stopped. I gave up. I got a heavy damage by my exercise. I would submit myself. I couldn't continue.
Gash! My muscule became weak! I was shocked.

To calm my body pain, I went to a bar. I thought cold beer is good, because I heard cool-down is needed after exercises. The day, I drunk earlier than as ususal. Maybe because my blood circulation became fast. My goal is far. But I have to reach it.

VS Copyright

I am a moralistic man. Moralistic man thinks everything naturally. He obeys only the natural order. So, his behavier is simple and easy to understand. What is natural isn't an important question. It's also not important that others wouldn't agree with what I think is natural.
For a maralistic man, Law is an enemy. It's too complicated, difficult to understand and usually boring. It's like a logical puzzle.It's far from the natural order.
That's why I am not good at legal things. When reading a newspaper, there are many articles about law. For example, a new company law started in Japan from this May. It seems to affect most companies very much. But I don't know it well, because It's a tough work to read such a article to make me sleepy.

However, I am NOT JUST a moralistic man. I am a moralistic "book-sales" man. So, I can't escape from a law related to my business; the copyright law. For my business, I have to understand it to some extent. I have to check my commodities for the copyright. Can it be sold for individuals or institutions? Can I sell it to schools, companies or government? Can I import it to Japan?
Before selling, I have to make these kinds of things clear. Cpoyright is a strong right like Patent. So, I have to understand it.

A school, one of my customer, is planning to publish the questions of entrance exam on their home page. They think it's very friendly for the appliers to the school. I also think so. But, now they are facing the problem of copyright. The problem is in exams for Japanese and English. They use many paragraphs from novels, esseys, articles in a newspaper and so on.
Any schools don't need permission from the people with copyright, to use the paragraph for their tests. But, when publishing the tests, they have to require the permission. It is more difficult than we think. Who wrote this article? Where does he or she live? How can I contact them? These investigations are very hard work. Moreover, even if we can contact the people with copyright, it is not certain that they will permit us to use their publications.
That's why the school's plan is stopping now.

In Japanese bookstores, there are red books whose title is a university's name. They are very famous books among high school students. We call them AKAHON, which is a collection of previous entrance exams of the unversity. I heard that this book could be illegal because the permission of copyright is not enough. If it's true, we can't sell such a book and many students could be in panic. Unnatural.

VS Reading

My Golden Week finished. I have to go back to my routine life. I think the recovery of my barin from holiday mood needs much time.

During this holidays, I finished reading "Elegy for IRIS" by John Bayley at last. As I wrote in this blog before, it was a tough work for me to read the book. Because I don't usually read this kind of love story. But, anyway, I made it. I was satisfied with my task. To be honest, I couldn't understand a lot of details in this story, because of my lack of English vocabulary. I could only trace the plot. However, it is okey for me. From the viewpoint of English study, or reading a book in general, it is a good experience for me to finish a book.

After finishing the book, I wanted to read another book. I thought the next book should be Japanese book, because I didn't have enough time to read English book during holidays, so I wanted to try an easier book. That's why I read the translation of "FOOLS RUSH IN" by Nina Munk.
This book was a business book. It treats the mergence of AOL and Time Warner, and the failure. I enjoyed this book very much.
The mixture of telecommunication companies and broadcasting companies is a big topic now in Japan. But, nobody seems to know what we should do next. In addition, I think it is not clear whether the mixture is good or bad. Too strong is the company governing telecommunication technology and broadcasting division?

“Freakonomics” is my next reading target. One million copies of this book is sold in US.
And, the Japanese translation is published recently. I think the Japanese version will be poplar too. This is a booksalesman's prediction.

VS Galbraith

If you have studied Economics, you would know the name Jhon Kenneth Galbraith. Today I knew from a newspaper that he died a day ago at 97 years old.(The news was a second or third top news.) I was a little shocked, because I read his book when I was an university student. Compared with other economical book, his books was unique and interesting. He used metaphor efficiently to explain the real economy, and made new words to describe it. His book treats economy, but his writing-style is like a novel. When I started to study Economics in university, I thought it was boring. But his book geve me a motivation to study it more. Studying Economics or Social Science helped me to think about everything in social context.

Fortunately or Unfortunately, the death of a person is a business chance of book-salesmen. I will bring a book-list of Galbraith to my cutomers tomorrow. He must be a giant of last century, intellectually and physically.