With the end of February came an abrupt rush of warm air, and suddenly I find myself going to work without long underwear or gloves. Â It is hard to believe that winter is over. The cold season always seems to last the longest for me – even longer than the humid Japanese summers. Â So with the warmer weather comes more pleasant walks to and from work. I’ve even seen some plum trees blooming, which means the cherry trees can’t be too far behind.
These past few months have brought some news to my company, in both the good and the bad varieties. Â First the good news – the company was able to land a huge contract for New York subway cars, and it looks like they’ll be keeping our production lines running in our American factories for the mid to long term. Â This was a huge event for the company, and it means that they were able to hold off lower priced Chinese competition from the coveted New York metro market – the biggest market in North America for train cars. If they can turn a profit on the subway cars it will do a great deal to keep everyone happy with the financial results.
However recently there was some unexpected bad news. Â A Japanese customer discovered some defects in the train trucks (the frame that rides over the wheels and supports the train car body) and these defects were traced back to problems with our company’s manufacturing process from almost ten years ago. Â These trucks are vital parts of any train and the defects had the potential to lead to a derailment of the Japanese bullet train – the crown jewel of Japanese technology and a symbol of Japanese pride. Luckily the defect was discovered before anyone was hurt, but unluckily for my company it was the customer who discovered the problem, not our own quality control teams. Our company is on the hook to replace all the affected trucks, which I heard was a substantial amount. This will mean a big hit for the balance sheets, and that always makes stockholders nervous.
So this odd balance of very good and very bad news in such close proximity has caused a bit of confusion at work, with regular employees not sure how this will affect their jobs and their futures.
In times like these, my policy is to just focus on doing my own job to the best of my abilities, and so I’ve been teaching up a storm at work. Kind of like a teacher/psychologist I help the students deal with all this news and try to give it a positive spin where possible. Now my class schedules are winding down for the end of the term, and I’ll start with a whole new group of students beginning in April.
Usually Kuniko and I take the time between terms to do a short trip somewhere – but this year we decided to skip it. Kuniko’s belated birthday trip will happen next week, and so I’ll use that trip as sort of a mental page turn instead. Â We’ll be taking the aforementioned bullet train to Fukuoka, in Kyushu. Â Our top priority is food – I think Kuniko has a plan for us to eat about five meals a day while we are there for the weekend. It will be my first time to Kyushu, and traveling in Japan is always a stress-free and easy experience so it’ll be nice to just relax and enjoy the change in scene.
We also managed to nail down some other trips this year. In July we’ll head to America again, this time to spend a week with my folks in Glen Ellen, do a little wine tasting, and see what the area looks like after the big wildfires last year. Â Then in August we’ll be off to northeastern Europe for a couple of weeks. We’ll fly from Osaka directly to Helsinki, Finland, and then make short stops in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and finally end up in Warsaw, Poland before flying back to Japan. The trip will be interesting from a traveler’s perspective – we’ll be traveling by plane, ferry, and bus during the journey through six countries.
I’ll try to write up our trip to Kyushu when we get back – along with some food pictures to show what we saw, ate, and conquered. More soon!
