Delhi Belly

Exactly a year ago, me and my then roommate Matt, who just got back from his friend's weeklong wedding in India, were trying to explain the concept of Delhi belly to a Japanese. Staying true to Urbandictionary’s definition (Diarrhea or dysentery contracted from eating Indian food), I coined my own Japanese version—Deri-geri（デリー下痢）which literally means “Delhi diarrhea.”

But I’m not here to discuss my bouts with India’s gastronomic delights, mind you. I happen to think their groundbreaking dishes make the culinary world a better place (if only they'd consider hygiene in the kitchen). Rather, I am astounded at the fact that a year after being instrumental in coming up with the translation, I find myself having my own meta-experience right in the heart of New Delhi. Yes, I am in India, worshipping Shiva, half-naked in the scorching heat of the sun, mimicking the Sadhus and dancing to the beat of "Jai Ho" while also daydreaming of Latika from the movie "Slumdog Millionaire."

How did I wind up here in the first place? Let me retrace my tracks.

After nine months of over packed subways in the early morning commute, droves of men literally blanketing the streets with their black suits, and my growing intolerance for my boss (who made sure I take the fall for all his errors in judgment and personal maladies), Tokyo's appeal was walking on a tightrope. So off I went to renounce the daily grind and happily turned to an old friend for comfort—bartending.

I coerced the shaker to follow my every command, summoned the blender to do my bidding. From Mojitos down to Cosmopolitans, name it I made it into panty rippers!(Caveat ladies) But my temporary bliss blinded me from one glaring truth—the difficulty of making a living cutting limes and watching people get hammered with my crazy concoctions in the world’s most expensive city to live in. So left with no other choice, I had to tenshoku katsudou (転職活動 or apply for another job) while serving alcoholics from dusk till dawn. In other words, I needed a bailout and stimulus package to save me from my own economic woes. However, sadly enough, Japan would see to it its citizens receive front row treatment before even considering offering a helping hand to taxpaying aliens such as myself!

Anyway, going back to the story, all my efforts were leading nowhere and not a single job interview in weeks. As you can imagine at this point, my already dwindling faith in the faltering job market was further exacerbated by news of company layoffs and job offers to 2009 graduates being cancelled. Watching my unemployment record go on a two-year high was excruciating, especially when trips down to my favorite izakayas （居酒屋 or a Japanese style bar restaurant） in my neighborhood of Ebisu （恵比寿）costed me an easy $30 to $50. Desperate times were indeed calling for desperate measures.

So I picked up the phone and dialled a number I thought I've blocked forever into oblivion. No, it wasn't my insane ex who divulged to the general public our most intimate sessions of scrabble (What else did you think?) via Japan's biggest online message board (Channel 2, as popularized by the TV drama, "Train Man"). Instead, I called my old dubious agent who practically robbed me half of my salary from my previous employment. Since I knew that a hallmark of a great businessman is to never turn your back when money knocks, I swallowed every bit of pride I had left inside my broke ass and asked him to find me another job. Being the money-laundering greedy J-dude that he is, he gladly obliged.

He introduced me to this Tokyo-based BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) company who is planning to enter the US market by setting up anew or taking over an existing call center in my hometown, Manila. But because they wanted a guy with no strings attached (single and easy to transfer minus the hassles of family), fluent in English and Japanese, understands Japanese corporate culture (akin to the Pentagon's), and good-looking (ok that part I added), I was hired in an instant.

Currently I'm in India, enjoying the scenery (feces everywhere I go), while enduring the rigorous military, er, corporate training the company has designed for me. A month from now, I'll be in Beijing for yet another series of training with 95 teleweb, our subsidiary in China.

This picture was taken during my farewell party in Tokyo last May 2009. God I miss them all!

How to get sick in Japan

by Isaac Aquino

This is the first installment to the miniseries, "Death of an Eigyoman" (or 営業マン, literally meaning salesman), depicting the life of a new breed of salespeople unique to Japan. They walk amongst us, feed amongst us, and most of all, serve a higher being called capitalism. As a secret agent in quantum solace, I have immersed myself in the arts of deception, even trained to become one of them, and now gone undercover to expose the hidden lies that dwell amongst us.

In this edition of "Death of an Eigyo-Man", we shall delve into the rules of engagement when calling in sick at work here in J-Land. You will learn that compliance is key to any protocol in Japan, and that falling ill has its own set of SOPs or Standard Operating Procedures.

1) First thing you do when you wake up burning hot with a fever is to notify your sempai （先輩 or senior）without a moment’s delay and receive instructions on “how to tell” your boss you are sick.

2) In the early stages of your suffering, your sempai offers his wellspring of wisdom, recommending you show up for work first, then attend the chorei (朝礼or morning assembly) before proceeding any further to tell your boss of your already worsening condition. When the chance to approach your boss arrives, thus allowing you to ask permission to leave early for work, under no circumstance shall you say the exact words "sick." You must be eloquent enough to convey the meaning of “not feeling well” in order to get off the hook (God forbid you say anything else.).

3) If you think at this point you've been set free, guess again. Awaits you is yet another fun-filled exhilarating hour of team meeting, designed for the sole purpose of detecting any unfulfilled tasks which require immediate attention (even taking precedence over your dear life).

4) If after convening and a rigorous evaluation, no life-threatening emergency has been discovered (that is, aside from your dear life) and it is deemed perfectly safe for you to desert your post without altering the time-space continuum in your dimension, only then will your boss begin to feel your pain. And by this I mean listing down errands your ailing body CAN still perform before you make an exodus. After all, why not while there's still some fighting spirit left in you (right before your “spirit” departs from your body).

5) And then after dutifully carrying out those small errands while you march to your own deathbed, it’s only customary or part of business etiquette in Japan, to prove you are indeed sick and not out on a date with some hot Ginza hostess, by obtaining a medical certificate from the doctor’s office.

6) To the neophyte gaijin this may sound no daunting a task and differs slightly from a swift painless trip to the nearest conbini（コンビニ or convenient store). However, as often as they omit in travel books, getting a Japanese doctor to use his stethoscope on a foreign patient may require some coercing, which can get pretty messy without a proper hokensho (保険証 or health insurance). With that said, consider yourself lucky if a diagnosis does take place.

The first physician to set his eyes on me gave me such a bewildered look that was matched only by the sound of his terrified voice. He must have thought I was carrying some smuggled biological weapon from Resident Evil! Although I would never exaggerate how lethal my weapon of mass seduction is, this was outright ridiculous.

In the end, it took a total of ten excruciating hours to call in sick, and getting the much needed rest for yet another day of reckoning. Moral of the story: don't get sick in Japan. And if you do get sick, don't call in sick!

God bless health care in Japan!

A big blow

When the idea of blogging first entered my mind, I had only great intentions that were meant to inspire others and paint a picture of a world less horrific. But how do you remain positive with an economic outlook on the brink of a meltdown, job cuts causing your dear loved ones to drop off from the face of the earth one by one, (A certain friend of mine with all his riches and status is now facing eviction from his castle, his misfortunes brought by the worsening credit crunch that augur ill for people like you and me. I hope he’s not reading this.)?

 

Am I the only one shuddering at the thought of not only an economic crisis, but also a fuel crisis, an energy crisis, and most of all, a water crisis (although personally I think the list goes on to heart crisis, mid-life crisis, and short attention span crisis). Times like these, I highly recommend you don’t turn on the news, lest you want the harbinger of gloom pervade your hearts with even more melancholy. As for me, I have trained myself to be impervious to sorrow by administering a daily dose of The Daily Show, back to back with the Stephen Colbert Report.

 

So where am I getting at? Follow closely please…

 

Last week, aside from the victorious Barrack Obama being elected as the next president of the United States and marking the dawn of a new era, Japan hosted a conference themed “Tokyo International Conference for Sustainable Future”. In the hope of spurring new technological advances that will help better manage the environment, the conference gathered delegates from a vast spectrum of government representatives, environmental researchers and corporate executives. Speeches consisted of titles such as “Japan’s Energy and Environmental Strategy” by Harufumi Mochizuki, vice minister of the Ministry of Economic, Trade and Industry, and “Intel’s Solution to Reducing Environmental Impact” by Lorie Wigle, General Manager Eco-technology Program, Intel.

 

It seems that industries that have been keen enough in following booming market trends have often been rewarded with much deserved prosperity and a fair share of economic clout. Just as the Gold rush has blessed America with bling bling, and Black gold has showered oil rich nations with oil money, those who fully grasp the next generation of energy, shall indeed possess great unfettered power.  

Whic brings us to the new breeze on the block. 

Touted by UK TRADE & INVESTMENT as a new world brand, Suzlon Energy made its first debut as a small Gujarati textiles firm and now competes with the world’s top five makers of wind turbines. Proof positive that new rich countries like India, have the power to outclass even First World incumbents. I guess when Mom used to tell me to clean up my act and stop leaving footprints on the carpet; she was in fact referring to a bright future with clean energy and no carbon footprints.

Throughout history, it’s been evident that Formula One is not the sole sport where players try to outrun each other. Aside from arms race and space race, energy race has been around for quite some time. And now the rest of the emerging economies are finally catching on. 

Want to learn more about renewable energy? Witness how the world landscape is changing in terms of finding sustainable ways to quench a world thirsty for more power. Then stop making silly Facebook status updates, and tune in instead to my rumblings.    

  

 

 

 

 

Dabbling in Japan and the environment

My name is Isaac Aquino and this is my blog entitled, “Environmentally Japan” which coincidentally touches two of my fortes in life—Japan and advocating the preservation of our environment. Although in no way would I ever claim expertise, let alone authority nor jurisdiction over these areas of study, I am a proponent of sustainable value, or when economic, social, and environmental production becomes greater than the opportunity cost of all consumption.

 

So why start a blog when there exist literally millions of other more relevant blogs out there already contributing to congestion in cyberspace? Why don’t I just shut down my computer, conserve energy, and recycle my consumerist existence?

 

Put simply, content-wise I see a persisting lack in quality substance on the Internet. Plus this presents as an opportunity for me to provide a more-or-less accurate de

scription and a personal account on Japan’s response to climate change while sending a positive, galvanizing message offering suggestions to alternative ways of living. It is my personal belief that many are unaware of the perils that lie ahead if we don’t address or act on this pervasive issue.

 

However, since this is also a personal blog, please bear with me if my accounts are a bit biased, unfounded, and utterly unwarranted as I occasionally deviate and start sharing some of my travails in this little jaunt of mine in the land flowing with sushi and sake.

 

So before you ponder any further and cast me away into oblivion, allow me first to make a mockery of myself (please discontinue reading if the first two paragraphs have already done the job) in the shape of a short self-introduction.

 

Born and raised in the Philippines, I went to pursue fine arts in college but quickly changed course, which brought me to the shores of Japan. Having my fate at the mercy of nihonjins (日本人 or Japanese people), I was left with the choice of either be labeled as just another incapacitated gaijin (外人 or foreigner/alien) in an extremely xenophobic nation or differentiate myself by deciphering the language and understanding the finer nuances. I took the road less unraveled and enrolled myself in Ritumeikan Asia Pacific University.

 

While juggling classes and multiple arubaitos (アルバイト or part-t

ime job) such as cleaning hotels, watching girls in bikinis as a lifeguard, bartending, modeling for hair products, being type casted on TV as a banana-eating Filipino, and yes, the inevitable English-teaching, I somehow managed to finish school and earn a college degree in business.

 

Soon after finishing my formal education, I found myself holding on to basically nothing but a robust network of peers and alumni without any real work experience corporate-style. So it quickly dawned on me how possessing a management education didn’t necessarily mean I had an edge compared to those who didn’t.

 

Not knowing what the future held in store for me, I applied for a job. And thus began my foray into the world of business, as a white-collared worker or salaryman (サラリーマン) helping the government carry out its ostensible mandate to cut carbon emissions through the promulgation of environmentally-friendly products (specifically Japanese-engineered ones) and the development of eco-technology.

 

The Japanese government has committed itself to a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, and yet here I am witnessing the daily atrocities caused by the unsustainable lifestyle in this part of the globe (myself included). Well-known for their excessive attention to quality and detail, their dedication to perfection has also generated tremendous amount of industrial waste to be borne by generations to come.

 

To balance their ecologically disastrous race for economic world domination, they have deployed a series of environmental campaigns such as “Cool Biz”, “the 34^th G8 summit” which took place in Toyako (洞爺湖Tōya-ko, Lake Toya) and their very own “eco products”. As much as I give them credit for striving to attain a zero emissions society, a huge part of me remains skeptical. So let’s see where this leads us. Want to stay abreast with the changing times? Keep on reading.