whycare in Japan

Golf, Sex & Leadership

2008-04-16T00:51:00.003+09:00

Today, we have a guest lecture Joseph Lee who is semi-retired, Professor in Drucker's Grad school & is a partner of KPMG.

A funny guy, he pulls a lot of jokes in his lecture. "After this class, you may not remember most of the lecture, but you would remember me as the guy who told that unfunny joke".

Here is part of the lecture which I find very useful and I will remember

What do golf, sex & leadership have in common?
1. People who often talked about it are often lousy in it.
2. Many books were written about it, but people who read it never improves
3. It takes other people can tell whether you are good at it or not.

Niigata Bust Pudding

2008-04-13T22:18:00.002+09:00

Only in Japan.

On our way to Kanazawa for Sakura viewing, we stopped at a few rest area for toilet break and for some shopping. At the first stop, I had just woke up from a short nap. Still blur, I went to the toilet and then to see what are the things they sell at the store.

Most of the things sold in the store are very normal, nice looking candies, pies or cookies. However, suddenly my eyes fell on this item.

It says "Niigata Bust Pudding". I was wondering, are they misspelling the product (they often did in Japan). However, they even have a sample of the box opened, which is the same below.

Open the box, you will see a woman with big bust, wearing pink bra.

Then, you can unhook the bra from the front.

And ta-da!!!! 2 nice looking pudding for you to enjoy. Yes, you can eat or taste that pudding.

Fully opened box, with 2 real pudding, spoon & honey!!!!

All these are just for 347 yen, or RM10 :P..... worth it!!!

Prof John's Stories: Foot Injury

2008-04-12T17:27:00.003+09:00

Prof. John told me that his feet has a fractured bone. Therefore sometimes when he walk, he will feel an acute pain between the ankle & the balls of his feet.

He relate the incident back to few years ago when he was in Tokyo. He had to give lecturers in Tokyo, therefore he had to wear formal attire with leather shoes. And so happen he walked almost 1 hour back & forth to find a shop. When he reached back to his apartment in Tokyo, his feet started to complain, calling out in pain. He ignored the pain.

However, nothing much happened until recently when the pain at the same position kept coming back to him. When he went to doctor & took X-ray, he found out that there is a small piece of bone fractured at his feet, therefore causing the pain.

Now, he wear sports shoes most of the time, always cautioning people of walking too long on cement with formal shoes.

Spring Color

2008-04-06T22:35:00.000+09:00

Spring is here. Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. Everything is supposed to be colorful and so should be the hair color, not just black. That's why I've decided to color my hair.

Saloon in Japan is so EXPENSIVE. Haircut costs 4000 yen (RM120) (with discount 2000 yen or RM60). The cheapest in Japan is 1000 yen (RM30). Around my school, the cheapest is 1600 yen (RM 50).

With all these exorbitant price, I've decided NOT to cut my hair and color them in Saloon. I bought a box of color from Jusco and with help of friend, colored my hair brown.

And it turned out so good that many people say it looked nice on me. Ben, Charles & me, 3 MBA guys colored our hair this term.

When they asked about my hair, I always replied, "It's Spring Color".

Sunset, the Golden Moment

2008-04-01T18:18:00.004+09:00

My room is facing west. This means, everyday, I am able to enjoy the magnificent view of sunset.

Now I understand what is the golden minute that all photographers talk about. The most beautiful moment of every single day last justs 4-5 minutes a day. People traveled for hours from cities and paid hundreds of dollars to see these sunset.

Now I have the privilege to enjoy these moments everyday. These are what they called the golden minute.

Click on the images to enlarge

Sunset in the autumn

It's Spring

2008-03-28T02:42:00.003+09:00

Few days ago, birds start to chirp, waken up from hibernation. Insects start to fly into my room.

Winter finally ended. The peak was almost 2m of snow. The whole walkway from dorm to classes were covered in snow. I was looking at the autumn pictures and the scenery is so much different. Winter is so beautiful and I'll miss it.

To this one

Soon the confinement would end and I'll be able to cycle to Koide and all the other places

Malaysia General Election

2008-03-28T02:16:00.002+09:00

March 8th is Malaysia's General Election. Being so far from Malaysia, it is almost impossible to get the latest information 5 years ago. However, Internet changed everything.

I know that it would be election when my friend MSN'ed me at 12pm, just minutes after the announcement were made. Many of my Malaysia friends didn't even know about it at that moment. The geographical distance from Malaysia was made so small.

Days before the election, news, commentaries, articles, predictions and rumors appeared in blogs, news sites and political party websites. Even though heavy censorship and news blackout happened in mainstream media, all news are available online.

On that night during poll count, me and a few friends started MSN chat starting at 10pm. Soon, many more people got online, and we started a 10 people online conference chat. We have people from UK, Japan, China, Penang, KL, Taiping and Ipoh, all discussing about the latest news, all of us scurrying around websites updating each other on the latest results. We were the same group that used to chat face-to-face in mamak in Section 17 when we studied in UM. The only difference now is that we cannot see other's face, but the quality of conversation is still the same. I could imagine listening to each other's voice.

Soon, I've started another MSN group, with 8 of UC's ex-staff. We have people from Sabah, Penang, KL and me from Japan and continue until 3am.

Condolences

2008-03-20T23:20:00.000+09:00

Our economics Professor's mother has passes away, and today he flew back to Sri Lanka to attend her funeral. Over the weekend, Manisha made a condolences card to be passed to him when he come back the next week. I was the 2nd person to write on it.

We used the passing method to distribute the card to everyone. Once you get it, sign it & find another coursemate who has not signed & pass to him/her. Soon, the card reached back to me again in the kitchen & I passed it to Yoichiro, a Japanese.

We struck conversation, he was quite surprised that we made the condolences card. According to him, Japanese would not send such card when someone has died, because it shows disrespect to the person whose family member passed away. I explained to him that in the west or other countries, it is courtesy to send the card to show that we cared for such person.

Such a difference in Japanese culture.

21st Century Family

2008-03-10T02:07:00.002+09:00

This is Manisha, the modern mom in our university.

We went together to the Muikamachi Snow festival with several others. On the way back, we asked her why we haven't seen her son who's staying with here in campus for so many days. She said her son went back to her country in India.

On our way back, her phone rang. "Hi Elish". Her son called from India, "Mom, I don't know how to do this homework, can you teach me?". "Ok, show me the question using the phone (3G Camera phone). It's not clear, point it upwards. OK, this is how you should do it... ... ... Do you need that book? I'll order it through Amazon and have it sent to you."

Her son Elish has been traveling alone from Singapore to Japan, Tokyo to Urasa, Tokyo to India all by himself. We ask if she's worried if her son get lost. She said no, because her son can always call. Furthermore, using location based service, she can know her son's exact location at any time.

Here in Japan, everyone is using the latest technology to its maximum potential and I'm surprised how an ordinary parent in Japan has been using the technologies so much, Internet, video call, GPS etc.

Prof John's Stories: Fall into snow

2008-03-04T14:59:00.002+09:00

In the gym, Prof John was telling us to be careful during winter. Every year, someone will surely fall down to drain and die. In the winter, snow got so thick that it's almost impossible to differentiate drain from the normal flatland.

2 years ago, they found a body of a local people in the Urasa river. John said that the people must have drank too much, and then when they go piss, they went far away from the rest of the group, ventured to loose ice on river bank and fell into the river when the snow collapses.

Therefore it is always a good idea to stay as far away from river banks as possible.

Prof John's Stories: Cross Country Ski

2008-03-04T14:45:00.004+09:00

Prof. John is an athletic man. He said that he used to ski a lot in the winter. Not just normal skiing. He did Cross Country Ski. That means he opens up new paths in the snow, up & down the hills, make sure the snow are compact enough to for support.

Try opening ski path in places like this.

Those who have ski would know how hard it is to open a new path or going uphill. And John would do this everyday in the winter, same path, during the lunch time, alone. It is very dangerous to divert away from the path you created because you might fall into deep places which couldn't be seen in the snow.

One day few years ago when it was almost spring, he said he has diverted away from his original path that he made over the winter, and then suddenly fell 2m down into a well. Luckily the well still have snow inside it. If not it would be a 5m fall.

He got out with only some bruises and no major injuries.

Prof John's Stories: IUJ was underwater

2008-03-04T14:37:00.003+09:00

Came back from Urasa's supermarket in IUJ Bus & was sitting beside Prof. John. He was started to tell stories on how the spring is about to come, where birds would be singing.

When we almost arrive in IUJ, he started to show me a patch of black trees in the middle of the fully snow covered, white mountain. He mentioned that it was one of the very first Buddhist temple site in this area.

Why do they build it so high?

Well, simply because last time, the whole Urasa & IUJ was underwater. That's why a lot of ancient buildings were at the higher ground. That's why there are some places called Prawn Island, this Island, that island still exists around these area.

Everything in the pic was under water!!!

He added that if we go near the hills, we are still able to see the shoreline now. OK, i'll go search for those shorelines in the spring.

Prof John's Stories: People die falling from roof

2008-03-04T14:27:00.003+09:00

It was almost the end of winter. Workers were seen today clearing the ice that has been accumulated on top of the roof.

In gym, John told me that every year without fail, there will be people die falling from the roof top while clearing the snow in around Urasa, Muikamachi and Koide area.

Considering the small population in all these area combined, it's interesting to see the high death rate for such a unique kind of accident. He added on however, that the locals have been clearing snow from roof for ages.

However, the only difference is that now people fall into cement to their death, while the last time, people fall into soil and survived.

Professor John

2008-02-08T14:06:00.000+09:00

This is Professor John,Welfield. We call him John, because he's not our professor.

I first heard of his name when I jogged & talked to the locals on my 2nd day here, they asked me whether I know John-san or not. They said that he always go and chat with them.

We can be certainly sure to find him in the gym everyday without fail at 6pm. Everyone who goes to gym knows him. Everyone who eats in shokudo knows that he specially orders butter toast for lunch.

However, what I will remember him is his stories. An Australian, he's been in IUJ for 15 years. He knows many stories that were untold and unknown stories to many of the students here, which I will post up in the future.

Chinese New Year

2008-02-07T21:25:00.001+09:00

First time celebrating Chinese New Year away from family with mid-term exam the following week!!!

Around 20-30 Chinese in IUJ from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, US, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and others, came together to have reunion dinner in SD1 lounge.

Charles from Taiwan, me from Malaysia & Chin Yung from Taiwan/HongKong/Singapore. I just forgot that I was not supposed to wear black.

Each of us came with our own country's dish. 30 of us came up with 25 dishes

I made the famous Malaysian Bak Kut Teh. Just put in pork, garlic, some mushroom & boil with the essence and it's ready in 30 mins.

We have snacks, mandarin oranges, beer & soft drinks, just like what we have back in Malaysia.

One thing that I learned is that in China, making dumpling is a tradition. And the dumpling is made after the dinner, where everyone is supposed to help roll the flour into thin dumpling skin, put in some meat & wrap it.

This is how we make the dumpling's ingredient before the party started.

Of course, everyone helped and tried even non-chinese. Many were first timer.

And we found a way to punish those who wore black.

IUJ Ski Day

2008-02-02T19:58:00.000+09:00

What's that....
IUJ's student society, called GSO, organizes the IUJ Ski Day every year. For ski, normally there are 2 things we have to pay for, the ski pass & the equipment rental. GSO negotiates bulk discount from the ski operator & from the equipment rental. I paid 2500 yen (1500 for ski pass + 1000 for ski rental).

On that day...

IUJ bus took us to the Hakkai-san ski resort, which is just 10 minutes away. However, Ben drove us there instead since the first bus left earlier than we thought.

Reached the ski-area, I immediately go to the equipment rental shop to get my ski equipments, buckle up & started skiing.

Start Skiing...

We take the ski lift to reach the top. The lift here takes much longer time than Urasa's ski to reach the top. The first difficult part of the ski is to get down the ski lift, since we are supposed to start skiing to get down the lift.

Actually we were quite a nuisance for other visitors, because we don't know how to get on the lift, occasionally the workers have to stop the lift to let us get on & stop again when we fell while getting off at the top of the hill. Our incompetence created such a long queue for those who wanted to get the lift up.

The Hakkai-san ski is supposedly to be easier than the ski-area in front of Urasa station, where I ski the first time. True enough, the slope was gentler and the view is much nicer. First 2 rounds, practice rounds. I fell many times over. Anyway, after 3 rounds, I stopped falling and able to ski all the way down. Completed around 20-30 rounds the whole day.

Ski is not easy. It takes at least 2 times just to get the hang of it. So many of the first time students they were just practicing whole day at the bottom of the ski resort, without taking the ski lift up.

One student, first timer, went up without knowing what to expect and took 2 hours just to get down, when normally it takes us 2 minutes to reach the bottom and have to queue to get up again.

More pictures here

Ski Day

Things to do in winter

2008-01-25T19:28:00.000+09:00

There's nothing much to do in the winter. Roads are blocked, weather is freezing cold. The activities in the snow are different from other season. Here are some of the things that we can do here, such as

1) staring at trees

2) trees,

3) and more trees

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4) or write in the snow

5) or unsuccessfully make a snowman

6) sleep in the snow

7) or make your own ice kacang

Snowshower

2008-01-24T20:25:00.000+09:00

Urasa 浦佐, where IUJ is located is known for heavy snow. Even though the temperature is just 1 deg C, snow is heavy. Everyone's bragging there's an unbelievable 3m of snow 2 years ago, a record in many years. However, there's only 0.5m of snow last year, which is almost equivalent to no snow.

This year, I prayed for more snow, hopefully 4 or 5m. Then I'll just climb out from my friend's window from the 2nd floor.

Last week it was snowing non-stop and the snow went up to 1 meter high, covering almost everything.

The roof of our dorm was totally covered with snow

and so is the whole university

From outside ......................................... From Inside

Even cars ...................................................... and bicycles

This is how it looks like in the middle of the snow

Thai Chinese

2008-01-19T16:35:00.000+09:00

Me: Are you a Chinese?
Thai (proudly): No, I'm a Thai Chinese. Thai first, Chinese second. I can only understand a bit of Chinese.

Here in IUJ, we meet a lot of people from all over the world and we communicate freely. A large percentage of students are from Indonesia. A lot of us are Overseas Chinese (Indonesia Chinese, Thai Chinese, Malaysia Chinese etc).

Overseas Chinese are not really considered Chinese evidently when there was a 'Chinese' gathering, only China Chinese were invited. The rest of the Indonesia Chinese, Thai Chinese, Malaysia Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong Chinese, we had our dinner separately. OK, no big deal. Most of us can't speak China Chinese anyway and we Overseas Chinese communicate in English.

However, most most of them prefer to be addressed as their own country's citizen, like the Thai Chinese, who refer themselves as Thai first, Chinese second.

This is so contrasting with Malaysians, who would very much want to distance ourselves from our country. Malaysians say "Chinese Malaysian" with Chinese first, Malaysian second. Wonder will we have a day when everyone would tell others proudly, we are "Malaysian Chinese", Malaysian first, Chinese second.

Snowshower

2008-01-16T16:23:00.000+09:00

It has snowed continuously for 5, 6 or 7 (I've lost count) days now...

Snow is so high, it covered cars, rooftop and walkway. Everything is white now.

Snowing, everything blur

Trees standing in the middle of the snow, naked

The gym and the ski jo at the back

Evening view of the snow

Snow covering cars

Campus in snow

More photos uploaded here
http://picasaweb.google.com/chinyankeat/Snowshower/

Dean's List

2008-01-11T15:58:00.000+09:00

Results for last term released. Got GPA 3.82 / 4.00. Wow... that's quite good I said to myself.

The ranking was
H : 4.00
H- : 3.75
S+ : 3.50
S : 3.00

But then... hey, how come I got H- for my 'Financial Accounting'? The grade was supposed to be top 10% student receive H. I got the 6th highest (79.3%) in that course, trailing the 5th place (80.0%) by just 0.7 points. Just with that additional 0.7% in 1 subject, I'd be able upgrade my GPA to 3.87, making me in the dean's list!!!

How unlucky. I'll be cursing myself for the rest of the term.

Heavy workload, MBA 1st year 2nd term

2008-01-11T15:48:00.000+09:00

Winter term for MBA students turned out to be the heaviest in the entire 2 year course. Marketing and Economics turned out to be the 'killer' subject. We would have to read at least 100 pages for the 2 subject every week in addition to the case studies, quiz and homework.

My initial plan was to switch to Elementary Japanese 2 from Basic Japanese 5. However, 5 morning classes a week in elementary was too tough. So I skipped taking the qualification test altogether.

Hopefully I will survive this term.

Woman with scarf in Japan

2008-01-10T15:39:00.000+09:00

It can always be sure that when you see a woman wearing scarf in Japan, she must from Malaysia or Indonesia. Just strike a conversation in BM and you will be able to know either Indo or Malay. I have started a few conversations (always with BM first) with a few people wearing scarf and it turned out all of them are from Malaysia.

In Ikebukuro while waiting bus back to Urasa, saw a lady wearing scarf talking to a guy in Bahasa Malaysia (not Indonesia). Ah... Malaysian.

It turned out we came back on the same flight and the guy, Asryn was staying in a town just 40 mins away from Urasa. He was in Japan for the past 6 years studying and working and went back to get married and brought his wife back to Nagaoka. Wow... what a story.

End of Winter Holiday

2008-01-09T14:55:00.000+09:00

Coming back to IUJ is a chore. My flight is in the afternoon. I didn't realize that I would arrive in Tokyo at 8pm, clear custom, and then take 1 hour train to Ikebukuro and then rush for shinkansen / bus / train to Urasa.
I have given up all hope of coming back to Urasa at the same day, until I found out the day before the flight that I will be flying on 11am and reach Tokyo at 6pm, leaving me with 4 more hours to catch the last bus.
The nice thing in Japan is that... you can plan your journey way ahead. All the train schedules for EVERY train station & bus are always accurate up to the MINUTE!!! If the schedule say that there is no train, don't pray that miracle would happen.

On 9th, my MAS's MH070 was delayed reach Narita at 7pm. Then the custom has introduced new regulation to take photograph & fingerprint of all foreigners, delaying my departure from airport by another 1 hour. Luckily I was able to rush back to Ikebukuro by 10, and took the last bus at 11:30pm, and arrived in Muikamachi at 3am with Ben there waiting for me in the snow to pick me up back.

Had class next day.

Flea market

2007-09-16T00:45:00.001+09:00

Cheap 2nd hand fridge, fan, carpet, bookshelves are up for sale. Bought a fridge for 5000yen (RM150), fan for 500yen (RM15) and bookshelf for 2000yen (RM60). Got a very good buy on fridge and fan, because I was the first in line, waiting for the door to open, rushed in and hugged the fridge that I wanted. However, the bookshelves had run out of choices and the expensive bookshelf are the only good ones left.

In Japan, throwing stuff away can be expensive.
Refrigerator costs 6000yen to be thrown away.
TV: 4000yen,
Air cond: 5000yen,
Washing machine:4000 yen.
After buying, I thought, damn. Throwing away that fridge costs more than buying it!!! No wonder people would give away these stuff for free in Japan. Even cars are available for free.

Fridge: 5000yen : GOOD BUY!!! (6000yen to throw away)

Fan: 500yen: GOOD BUY!!! (500 yen to throw away)

Bookshelf - 2000 yen: Bad buy :( (500 yen to throw away)

My new assets :D

Online shopping

2007-09-16T00:44:00.002+09:00

I know that getting a bicycle is the only way to get freedom here so that I do not have to rely on the bus to get to town or anyway. We went to the bicycle shop in Urasa to look what are the models available. However, to my disappointment, the bicycles there are without gear & is around 20k yen range... which is very very expensive. The cheapest is a 2nd hand 6000 yen bicycle, but it's small.

That night, while talking to several 2nd year students, they said I should go online to buy the bicycle. However, shopping online in Japan means surfing Japanese website, which I don't really know.

Anyway, I went on to go search for bicycles, spent the first hour going around the Japan Internet, found several sites selling bicycle before found Yahoo Japan. The 2nd hour wasted on learning their online shopping site conventions. Finally I know what everything means through the Firefox plug-in, I spent the 3rd hour learning on how to fill up the online forms with name, phone number & address.

At the end of the 3rd hour, I was so tired I just click Confirm to confirm the purchase & wait for the bicycle to arrive

First day shopping

2007-09-16T00:44:00.001+09:00

2nd day in IUJ, we went to Urasa to shop for our food. Urasa is the nearest town, around 3km from IUJ where shop actually exists.

First thing... there's a very strict schedule for bus leaving from IUJ to Urasa and from Urasa back to IUJ. The bus leaves on the dot, accurate up to seconds. There is a limit on how many people can actually board the bus, but even if the bus is full minutes before the schedule, the bus won't leave. The driver will still stay until the scheduled time before driving off. This is the Japanese working attitude.

There are several supermarkets around here, which we called them "supa".

This is the most common place we buy our groceries, vegetables, ramen, milk etc. Things in Japan are really really expensive. A pack of 4 Fuji apple would cost 400yen, which is RM12. RM3 for 1 apple!!!

Packaged food are more reasonable. At least 1L of milk costs or 1L of orange juice 100 yen (RM3), chocolate bar costs 70yen (RM2)

The second shop which is called Musashi, which means 634 in Japan, mostly sell hardware & daily goods. First day shopping costs me 2000 yen, which is around RM60 O_o

Urasa is really small. On the map, which is A4 size, we can walk from one end of the map to the other end in just 15 minutes. The 2 shops are just across the street.

I would need a fan for my room, since it's still summer and days are still hot at 30 deg C. However, simple fan costs 2000 yen (RM60) puts me off.
1 Spoon costs 100 yen (RM3)
1 plate costs 300 yen (RM9)

I still can't get comfortable with the price here yet.

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 4) - University Placement

2007-09-11T01:00:00.000+09:00

Result of Interview

OK, after more than 1 month wait, I got this letter. I was so surprised, because I thought I have flopped the interview. Even the interviewer slept.

Anyway, now here's the hard part. In 1 month, I will have to submit a checkup report and letter of acceptance from the universities.

For the checkup report, I'll just need to go to hospital, give the doctor the list of items to check on my body & send back the report.

However, for the letter of acceptance, I have problem. I'm getting an MBA. In order to be admitted, I'll have to sit for the GMAT, the prerequisite for any MBA programs. For this exam, I have paid RM1000 just to sit for the 4 hour paper. Anyway, GMAT is not a very hard exam, just do the sample papers which can be bought from bookstore and you will be ready.

At the same time, I emailed the university on the result of the nomination for their assistance to get the Acceptance Letter from them. Well, taking into account the time to post the documents & for them to post back, it could as well take as much as 2 weeks, leaving only 2 weeks for them to process. So I sent them the scanned soft copy & send through courier.

Just in time, I got back the confirmation letter & all the documents & able to submit it to the Japan Embassy.

Welcome to the land of automatic

2007-09-06T22:14:00.000+09:00

4th September, first day in Japan. Arrived in Narita Airport at 7am together with 2 other Malaysians who would be heading to IUJ as well. The Monbusho staff waited for us & gave us a bit of allowance.

Here I met another Monbusho scholar, from Vietnam and together we traveled.

We took a 1 hour train from Narita to Tokyo, where we spent 2 hours waiting for Shinkansen to take us to Urasa. We sent our 30kg of luggage using the courier service, which cost each of us 1600 yen (RM 48). It's quite cheap comparing the efficiency of the service provided. They said the luggage will arrive the next day.

We took the famous bullet train, Shinkansen from Tokyo to Urasa. From the outside, it looks like a normal train. From the inside, it still looks like a normal train, but you cannot stand. However, when it runs, it's so fast that the picture taken is blur.

At 2pm, reached Urasa, where the IUJ van is waiting for us. There were 2 other people in the bus. Being courteous, we ask whether we should close the the van door.

They said "no, it will close by itself". "Welcome to the land of automatic", said the other guy and truly, the door closes automatically.

Monbukagakusho Scholarship Statistics

2007-09-05T23:14:00.002+09:00

Here's a bit of statistics on Monbusho Scholarship for Malaysian.

http://www.mlab.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/%7Eylfoo/Monbusho.html

If you look carefully, for postgraduate scholarship which I applied, around 621 submitted the applications. almost all of them are shortlisted, but a few couldn't make it.
Out of the 518 who sat for the exam, 20% or 107 are shortlisted.
Of those 107 who are shortlisted, 30% or 34 are nominated, successful.

This means, since I am going for the interview for every person who i see on my left & on my right in the embassy on the interview day, one of us will get this scholarship. 544 applications for 34 places which work out to 6% of the people got it.

In contrast, compared to undergraduate, 712 applications for 5 places which work out to ONLY 0.7% of the people got it.

So if you are undergraduate, your chance of getting the scholarship is really really small.

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 3) - Interview

2007-09-05T23:14:00.000+09:00

Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho:MEXT) Scholarship 2007 - Notification of Interview

This is the hardest part of the application.

On 17th May I got the letter for the interview. On 23rd June, I will have to prepare everything. I have 1 month to prepare all of these

- Completed application form. I have actually handwritten on all the 4 sets of application form. 8 pages of each form, times 4 = 24 pages of handwritten stuff. That's a lot for me since I have not used the pen for such a long time. These days people type on computer mah...

- List of 3 universities that offer your course (If you have done preparation as I mentioned in Part I then you can skip this). Choose your university carefully. This would be the final list and if you get, you CANNOT change that university! Choosing hard university will give you a hard time, because you might not be admitted to top universities such as Tokyo University.

- Finalized Field of Study. The last chance to write carefully what you wanted to study. The decision of your scholarship will be based on this very much.

- Certified academic records (go back to your university to certify all your certs, degree & transcripts)

- Recommended from university principal & employer. I have problem for this one. I left university quite some time and the principal don't know me anymore. Getting recommendation from my employer will tell them I have intention to leave. This is a very hard thing to get. But anyway, I got both of them.
For the university's recommendation, I went back to my university with a sample of the recommendation letter which I wrote myself, tell him the story why I need that recommendation, let him copy it again & sign it. Getting a professor should give more weight, but I can't confirm this. I just get one of the professor to write it anyway
For the employer's recommendation, I told my manager about it & I'm glad he's more than happy to write it for me. Later I found out he is also leaving the company!!!

- Other documents... should be easy to get. Read the instructions in the Instruction Page 4.

OK, 4 sets of each documents, prepared. I'm ready to go for interview.

NOT.... Interview is not easy. I got 30 minutes to present yourself or all your hard work preparing the documents wasted. So... I actually went all the way to learn back my Japanese, write some sentences, memorize it, write down all the possible questions & answers.

Now, i'm ready to go for the interview.

I went to Japanese embassy, dressed smartly & 2 hours earlier, just to prepare myself mentally. I went into the embassy half an hour earlier than scheduled, expecting to wait. Suddenly, a lady said, since the other candidate is not prepared, I can go inside first. What a shock, as I was still not really prepared yet. Anyway, I went into a room with 6-7 people sitting in front of me. One of it is a Lecturer in UM, representative from JASSO, alumni, representative from the industry, and a few others. They started questioning.

Some of their questions are...
"... why do you choose this course..."
"... what you have done in your undergraduate's thesis..."
"... what makes you choose IUJ as your university... "
"... what will you do if suddenly IUJ has insufficient fund for your scholarship..."
and all sorts of questions.

30 minutes went on and I actually didn't do well in the interview. My talking was so boring that one of the interviewer slept. I'm not sure it's because of me or because it's just right after lunch time. I went home without much expectation.

Here I have attached all the Instruction & the application form for this stage

Instructions
Instruction Page 1

Instruction Page 2

Instruction Page 3

Instruction Page 4

Application Form
Application Page 1

Application Page 2

Application Page 3

Application Page 4

Application Page 5

Application Page 6

Application Page 7

Application Page 8

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 2) - Sitting for written exam

2007-08-03T12:50:00.002+09:00

UPDATE: Link for the 2007
Postgraduate English Test,
Japanese Test A,
Japanese Test B,
Japanese Test C

Soon after submission is over, JIS will inform only Successful applicants to sit for the written exam.

I'd say... Don't worry.

MOST of the people who submit the application will be called to sit for the exam, unless you are really not qualified such those over 35 years old. JIS won't penalize you over the small mistakes in your application. However it's good to be careful with your application.

Don't worry too much if you don't know Japanese Language. Several of the Scholarship recipient including me didn't sit for the Japanese Language paper. What they want is someone who is eager to learn Japanese Language & culture.

Nomination of Written Examination

Map to examination center

In mid of April, my first ever letter from JIS & I'll have to sit for the exam on 7th May 2006.

The nights before the exam, I was thinking what kind of question would be asked, essay? Comprehension? I prepared myself all the way for all sort of questions.

On 7th May morning, I was in Confusion Secondary School together with almost 1200 other people!!! The whole hall is packed. There are 3 papers, English test (Paper 1), Japanese Language test (Paper 2 & 3).

When I got the paper I was so relieved that they only asked English language questions including grammar, comprehension etc. Objective. If you don't know, just select a), b), c) or d).

So to all applicants, please brush up your English language. With >1000 applicants, even 1 point counts.

I understand that different country have different country have different set of questions. Some have Maths questions, general knowledge, science, etc etc. Some previous recipients also mention the written exam is more than just a language test.

Test was over in 1 hour.

See the little scribble in the top of the paper? On your desk where you sit for the exam, there will be a piece of identification paper that will write down your name, IC number & other identification on it. There is also a notice that states that you have error in your application form. Most of the applicants will have some error in their application. So?

Just go home prepare correct your application. If selected to the next stage, fill in the new application with the corrected answer.

Next: Part 3 - Interview

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 1)

2007-07-25T01:13:00.001+09:00

I was introduced to Monbukagakusho Scholarship by my friend, Zadli in CNY gathering 2006. I was interested and I immediately Google about it.

I'll go in detail on the application procedure and hope this guide will be able to help other people in applying for the same scholarship.

Application for Monbukagakusho scholarship normally opens end of February (ie during CNY) & closes on 31st March.

Here's what we got from the website

There are a few scholarships available
- Undergraduate Student
- Postgraduate (Research Student)
- Young Leader's Program (YLP) - 2006 only
- Japanese Studies & Teacher Training - 2006 only

Young Leader's Program and Japanese Studies & Teacher Training are not available every year. Anyway, I'll talk about Postgraduate (Research Student) scholarship first as this is the one that I'm receiving. I'll talk about the other scholarships later.

1) Start Early
Even though the application have not start, you can start by researching on the university that you intend to apply. One of the question in the you have to write in the application is Field of Study & the Study Program in Japan in detail.

If possible, write to the professors in the university about your intention to study there. This will give you an big advantage if you are selected for the interview.

2) Find at least 3 universities that offers the course you wanted to apply.

3) Download the past year's application form & try to answer the questions in the application. Question number 7, the proposal for your study in Japan is the hardest to answer, but is the most important question as well. Answer 1~6, 8~9 makes sure you are qualified. Answer no. 7 is the one that makes sure you get selected.

Think of it, the committee goes through more than 1000 applications and with almost everyone qualified, the committee can only judge you by how you get this question correct. It can take weeks to come up with a short but persuasive & effective answer.

When submitting the form, do keep a copy of what you have sent, because you might need fill in another form again based on what you submit in the initial application

Next: Part 2 - Sitting for the written exam

First Post

2007-07-23T01:01:00.000+09:00

For most people, going to a foreign country to study or vacation is one of their dreams. What more if we can go to a place for study & vacation, it's like the greatest dream come true.

For me, I have my chance, thanks to Monbusho scholarship, I am able to study in Japan for the next 1 year & 9 months. I'll be going to IUJ for MBA course in September 2007. However, I'd have to admit that I am sad to let go a lot of things which I treasure here.

3 things I promise myself that I will do in Japan.
1) write a blog of my wonderful experience in Japan
2) climb Mt. Fuji
3) run in Tokyo international Marathon.

Having said that, item 1 is done & I hope I will continue to post about studying in Japan.