Dear Ken: Maybe you are interested in what your team saw and experienced in our district and what we observed. This file is meant to be read by you and your governor but please feel free to quote any part of it if you need in any occasion.
1) Club visits and presentation
They visited 8 rotary clubs in all. Two in each week. Their presentation was done beautifully in the welcome dinner party at which almost all host families, our district governor, incoming governor, rotary foundation committee chair and GSE committee members were present.
As Bob sent me the speech draft both in English and Japanese (translated by one of youth exchange student staying in your district) earlier, our interpreter utilized it to do the job perfectly. I faxed its copy to all clubs intended to visit.
I accompanied them in the 2 club visits of the first week. For the first club "Osaka-Chayamachi", this didn't work well because the interpreter hadn’t read the material well, however presentation itself was welcomed warmly thanks to its beautiful video execution. Presentation itself ended in less than 15 minutes while they were given 30 minutes in all and the rest was supposed to be Q&A time. I felt each member needed more time to talk about him or herself but using video rather than slides gave them time limits and no room of improving.
After the presentation, Q&As were expected. Someone asked the team about usage of computers among average Americans. Poor interpretation couldn't give the team the notion of what they were asking. I had to rescue the situation and Bob answered beautifully. I also added that this team utilized e-mail and file transmission very well sending report and digital photos to home. All attendants were impressed very much.
The second club visit was "Osaka-Midosuji". I was the interpreter because no one dared to be a volunteer. Bob did a great job referring to the club's donation to their earthquake struck sister club in Awaji Island of which president happened to join in the club meeting. This was ad lib and I think I could manage the situation. I don't know much about the other club visits. The success heavily depends on who will be the interpreter.
Ken, Japan is a Japanese-speaking country and not everyone speak nor understand English well even though they think they can. There exists need for knowing special terms in every aspects and the skill is very hard to acquire even for professional interpreters. However, all in all, your team gave very excellent impression on Rotarians in Osaka as far as I am concerned. They all enjoyed talking with your team very much. Before and after the club meeting.
2) Visit to city hall and meeting with the mayor of Osaka
The meeting was more than expected and lasted for 20 minutes. Our mayor referred to his school days in U.S.A. and civil rights movement in Arkansas. He said someday he would like to visit Little Rock. Bob gave a great answering speech promising his team's support for Osaka as the candidate city for hosting 2008 Olympics.
After the meeting the mayor gave each team member a gift and shook hand as witnessed by pictures I have taken and given Bob digital copies. (Osaka City has an excellent interpreter as a staff)
3) Jet-lag problem
Jet-lag brings run-out of batteries of team members always in the first week itinerary. However, west-bound jet-lag is said to be easier to conquer than going east, so one night's good sleep and beginning orientation in the afternoon of the next day would be appropriate for your team, we thought. But alas! Your team's arrival at Kansai International Airport on Saturday was 4 hours late due to door trouble in Minneapolis and the necessity to get permission again to fly on Russia. Unfortunately there was an auto- accident on highway getting to the hotel from the airport and it stole another hour from your team.
These situations must have given the team a tough schedule. Your team showed no sign of the fatigue or complaint to us in the week except slow walking of female members. They seemed tired of walking up and down on steps of our public transportation systems. I think I should have guessed when they asked a drink of coke to supply energy. Maybe we should have began our program on Monday from the afternoon and not from the morning.
Some one told me your team members were very tired after the first week program. The hotel stays in every weekend, 5 in all, were intended to bring recovery from the stress they got during weekdays and then very precious for them. I had told coordinators of each week to pick up team members in the late afternoon on Sunday. But our second week hosts wanted to pick up earlier and might have given the team an extra stress. On these situations our committee has something to blame and I regret that.
4) Itinerary in general
For the first week, we prepared programs to understand our social infrastructure very different from that of yours. Mass transportation system including private railway tocommute (Kintetsu), Shinkansen or bullet train system that travels 300 kilometers per hour and how the system is maintained, underground shopping streets and Osaka Bay Area Developments such as an aquarium which has world's largest water tank. Other itinerary included visit to city hall, a river boat cruise around Nakanoshima Island and historical site of Osaka Castle.
Subway lines were utilized positively for moving from a place to another. (That would be one of many causes of your team's stress in weekend).
The second week was a little bit relaxing. Visits to central research laboratory of Sanyo and Technological Museum of Panasonic were for High-Tech Japan. Visit to Nara, ancient capital of Japan not well known to foreigners as compared with Kyoto but always in the deep heart of Japanese people.
The third week included a visit to Daihatsu (Toyota-related small car and electric car manufacturer), Kyoto City bus tour featuring its famous golden pagoda, recently built world's longest suspension bridge, earthquake museum and Asahi Brewery. They also experienced a test drive of world's first mass-produced hi-brid car, Toyota Prius.
The team was invited to Bunraku puppet show to see some of Japanese traditional theater arts.
High-lights of fourth week were visits to "kitchen ware street", electronics appliance town, Osaka City University Hospital and talk with girl's college students. George and I took the team to Hiroshima in a one day round trip on 300 km/h bullet train.
We think we did our best in preparing the program in the short time frame of 4 weeks. This kind of tour is not possible without the aid of devoted rotarians in our district and this is Rotary. We just hope these programs were digestible by your team members.
5) Vocational Studies
I paid most of my effort to prepare best possible program for each of your team members.
For Bob, visit to Dentsu (for 2 days) would have given him a very precious insight for his business.
For Jerri, visits to Osaka University School of allied Health Sciences, Osaka Medical University, Osaka School of Medical Engineering and News Room of Mainichi TV Broadcasting Station. Jerri was welcome by all executives in these and also gave them very useful information on her vocation. I cannot help admiring this great lady.
Ross visited, besides various photo studios, Minolta Camera and Mainichi News Paper. At Minolta, he was highly respected as chairman of the company escorted him all day.
JJ went to many museums including Japan's most famed archeological research institute. I hope that she realize what a great opportunity she got thanks to Rotary.
For Kevin, I prepared 4 visits in the midst of so-called "Big Bang" in our financial world. They were visits to Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank (foreign exchange), Nihon-Seimei andAFLAC (life insurance companies), Osaka Stock Exchange (derivative transaction) and Tokyo Marine etc. (Property and accident insurance). They all treated him well with respect. I hope he understands that.
6) Host families and home stay
Each team member was allocated one host family for each week totaling 4. I think this gave time to exchange views on everything and get to know each other. All our host
families told me they enjoyed your team very much. Maybe they make eternal friends hereafter. I didn't notice frictions in your team if any. They behaved Ladies and Gentlemen before us. Yes there was a complaint from one of our hosts one day before the farewell party. But it was settled properly as I have told to Bob.
7) Summery
Americans and Japanese have different kind of culture and way of thinking. I dare not say which is better. To understand and know the difference is very important. We have to respect each other and should avoid misunderstanding from mal-information and from lack of communication. I hope your team saw and experienced our society as it is and write reports as indicated in Rotary's "Four Way Tests".
Shigeo Matsuoka
GSE chair, R.I. District 2660
