VS World Travel Fair (1)

World Travel Fair 2006 was held last weekend in Odaiba, Tokyo. This fair is produced once a year by JATA, Japan Association of Travel Agency. Because I heard that it is not only convenient for getting together the travel information, but also good for knowing a lot of diffrent countries' culture, I joined the event.

Each country has its booth in the exhibition area. At first, I went to Iceland booth with my friend Akira II. He is planning to go there this new year to experience minus 30 degrees. His problem was not his crazy desire but the lack of the information about the country. Fortunately, he could have a chance to talk with the persons who know the country very well. In winter season, the country's social infrastructure is freezed, therefore it becomes difficult to move freely. But he could know some bus routes are alive even in winter. His desire will be satisfied next year.

I visited China booth soon. I went there many times before, but I know only a small portion of the huge country.
China booth was divided into the smaller booths of many cities and areas. So, total China booths were as very big as the country itself.
I talked with a chinese staff in Shandong booth. Shandong is located almost between Beijing and Shanghai. She explained the city was the hometown of Chinese old philosopher, Koushi (This is Japanese pronunciation.). However, because we all didn't know his philosophy, we talked about famous beer, Thin Tao, which is made in the city. The beer is programmed rationally to fit to Chinese foods. Maybe, we talked about a kind of science matter then.

In Nepal booth, I talked with the staff about the country's political situation. This year, an inside war happened there.
For me, Nepal politics is very complex and difficult to understand. It was good to hear from the staff that now the social situation is peaceful.
Through the inside war, the king of Nepal lost thier political power, then the people in Nepal is discussing whether the king system should be left or not. I recommend the stuff to make the king just only a symbol of the country. Needless to say, it's the same system as Japanese emperor.

The most disappointing booth was UAE's. Now, Dubai is one of the most developing cities in the world. A learge number of oil money is coming to the city. I herad that my company will make a branch there. It means I can possibly work in the city, so I wanted to know it.
The booth was very crowded and there was a long line. I waited on the line for a long time. But, all I could get was just the hotel informations.
My impression is that not only UAE booth but also other Arabic countries' were gorgeous but not appealing. To be honest, within my short-time experience, compared with other countries, I thought they don't have enough skill or idea to introduce themselves to the people who don't know them at all. Still now, for me, they are secret. What different from me do they have? What same things do we share? I couldn't get them in the fair. Should I work in Dubai someday to know them more?
Hm, maybe it's a good idea.

(To be continued.)

VS Labour Market

Japan and Philippine had recently the agreement to open their labour market a little. Japan will get one thousand philippene nurses in two years. I heard that the hospitals in Japan don't have enough nurses now. So, I think the agreement is very good.
Now the population in Japan is decreasing, so my opinion is to open the labour market in Japan more to foreigners. We will need to get more labour power from foreign countries, and actually we know foreign workers have already been necessary in some industries. I hope Japanese government will have such agreements with much more countries.
For the agreement with Philippine, it doesn't seem to be an enough one. The worker from Philippine have to clear some high barriers to enter Japan; for example, the workers have to have a Japanese language lesson for a long time. I am not surtisfied with such barriers, but I can understand step-by-step immigrant policy is good for Japan because we aren't familier with immigrants. However, needless to say, the step should be accelerated.

VS Reprinted books

Most people wouldn't be familier with reprited books, even if they like to read books. Every year, a lot of books are published, sold, bought, left over unsold, thrown away and at last to be out of print.
The existence of such books were once forgotten, and the time had passed, and then one day somebody found out these books on a shelf in a dark library. If the somebody is a publisher, he must think about the possibility of printing and selling it again.
That's why a lot of reprinted version of books are published every year too. One of the important jobs in my book-sales is to sell these reprinted books.

I knew an university (it's my customer) has a large number of rare books in their library. These books were preserved in a special room in the library. Most people in the university didn't know the existence of them. They had not been used and read by anybody except for a few librarians for a long time.
Luckily, I am a book-salesman. I could have a chance to go to the library many times, and enter the special room several times. One day, I heard that the people in the library have the desire to introduce their collection of rare books to the public. So, my company offered them the plan of these books' exhibition. They recieved our offer soon.
Next year, the library will have the book exhibition in my company's gallery in Shinjyuku. They will exhibit a lot of antique books and photos for Japan study. Most books were published in 19 centuries, and written by the foreigners visiting Japan.

Now, I am recommending the people in the university to publish these rare books. But, I and they know it is so difficult to sell such special books though easy to reprint. If the sales is bad, they have to hold a lot of stocks in their warehouse.
So, I am offering them to publish digital version of these books. I think it's a good idea because they can escape from the risk of stock. As Google is doing, the digitalization of books is a big trend now. The technology itself is not special. The most important thing I think is what is degitalized.
Now I am not sure whether they are interested in my offer.
But I think these books are worth read by many people. It's a good business chance for them, and for me.

VS Cat Killer

Thinking about the world-wide risk of terrorism and complicated problems related to it, this topic is a good example of how Japan is peaceful. Now in Japan, not Human-killing but Cat-killing is a hot issue.

The issue began with an economical newspaper.
A Japanese novelist wrote an essay on it. She said in the essay that she killed a baby cat.
To be more precise, she has a female cat, and the cat had a baby cat. She, the novelist, throw away the baby cat near her house. Maybe the baby cat was dead after that.
Why did she do such a cruel thing?
First of all, she doesn't want to have more cats in her house. In this case, most cat owners make their cats sterile.
But, the novelist thought it was a bad thing. She thought her cat could have a right or something to experience bearing.
So, she permited her cat to become pregnant and bear a baby. However, she doesn't have a desire to have more cats. So, she threw away the baby cat soon after it was born.

As we can easily imagine, many people reading her essay started to criticise her soon. She doesn't have or know the spirit of animal protection!
But, some people started to protect her.
Now 400 thousand cats a year are killed in Japan. Why can we criticise her?
And more radical suporter says we have to think about human abortion first. Abortion is a legal human-killing. Why do we have to think her behavier is a big problem?
Suporter's point is that we have bigger problem before criticising her.

For me, the surporter's point is like a illegal parking car driver's excuse. "Other drivers do the same!" or "No parking space! It's the failure of city design!"
I can understand what they say, but first of all, the problem is you. You shouldn't be an annoying car driver, and a neighber. So, we shouldn't throw away a baby cat near our house.

The novelist has started to object the criticism to her in a magazine. I don't have an interest in this issue much more, so I don't read it. I am worrying that Japan is too peaceful.

VS Long Board

September is a good month for the people who want to start surfing in Japan. During summer time, the sea was heated by the high air temparature. Thus, now, the water temparature becomes very high. It is warm and will be kept until November( till the end of Fall). We can paractice to surf very well in the season.

At last, I bought my own surf board today.
It is a long board, 9.2 feet. The body color is cocoa, and the edge is cream with a thin yellow line.
Until now, I rented a surf board. Because I didn't know what kind of surf board is good for me.
But, I decided what is best for me today.
My surf life launched out on a new stage.
I bought it in my favorite surf shop in Shonan beach.
The board is cool and a little retrospective.
But the shop's staff said it look "delicious".
Ok. I name this board Delicious.

I rent a space to keep my board in the surf shop. It costs \5000 a month. I can keep my wet suit there too.
So, I can come to the surf shop without anything, and play surfing anytime I like. It's very convenient.
When I used Delicious for the first time, the wave was weak as usual in Shonan beach. But, I sometimes could catch waves very well. I don't know it's because of my skill up of surfing, or because of the new surf board. But anyway, my first riding on Deicious was good. I think we can be good partners.