Saturday, March 10, 2007

Early Bird

What time do you usually wake up in the morning? You may say it depends on what time you go to bed. It is true.

About a dozen years ago, a Japanese woman, a prestigious environmentalist as well as a simultaneous interpreter, published a bestseller book titled, "You can do everything you want by waking up 2 o'clock in the morning." She describes herself "a common household wife" who turned into a interpreter in two years while doing child rearing. But you should not be deceived the word "common," because she has a graduate degree from Tokyo university, top-notch in Asia.

Setting aside her academic background, however, according to her book, she always goes to bed 8 o'clock in the evening and wakes up 2 o'clock in the morning. This is why she can make use of even 4 hours for her own affairs before every other family members wake up.

I was impressed by her way of living, but I cannot do the same thing. But I agree with her idea of making use of morning time. It is true that increasing numbers of companies in Japan are holding a morning in the meeting rather than in the evening. They say it helps employees work more productively.

As for me I usually wake up 5 o'clock in the morning. I spend one hour doing meditation and Seicho-No-Ie's Holy Sutra reading, which provides me with spiritual enlightenment. In other words, these make up a vital spiritual training for me that enables me to see a brighter side in my life and every man and woman as a child of God. After these conducts, I spend time keeping a diary, watching a movie with a portable DVD player in English, or studying English by using other material. Morning time is said to be compared to gold of the day, I completely agree with this notion.

-TA

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Intercultural Communication

In the end of last month, we had a Delegetes' Conference, at which Seicho-No-Ie movement policy for 2007 was disclosed and discussed by mainly Japanese leaders with a dozen of world leaders. As a member of the International Department of our organization, I took care of those representatives from the U.S., Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan and Germany.

After the Conference, I joined some of the members and went to a sushi restaurant. What the background of them and the languages available are as follows:

 Japanese American who lives in California
    ---- English, Japanese(very little)
 Japanese German who lives in Germany
    ---- German, English, Japanese(to some degree)
 Korean who lives in South Korea
    ---- Korean, Japanese, English(listening only)
 Japanese who lives in Germany
    ---- Japanese, English
 Japanese who lives in Japan but has lived in the U.S.
 for 10 years
    ---- Japanese, English
 Japanese who has lived in Spain for study
    ---- Japanese, Spanish(to some degree)
 And me, who lives in Japan with no experience living
 abroad
    ---- Japanese, English...

We all enjoyed cheerfully talking about sushi and so on. Sometimes the German told us how to call a name of fish in German and some of Japanese encourage westerners raw fish. I believe it was a precious time for all of the participants.

Some say that difference is a source of conflict, but I don't think so. Through this experience, I become more confident that difference is rather a source of abundance.

-TA