1. Paul

    Lockman vs TUJournal: Battle for Twitter Supremacy

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    Saw a link to this tool while reading an SEO blog. It allows you to compare twitter accounts and statistics, so I had to give it a spin.  What better person to do a 'Twitter Face-Off' with than Professor Lockman?! Obviously I was trumped in tweets, followers and followees I'm a little interested in how it pegged ...
  2. Paul

    Users: Your Website’s Most Valuable Resource

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    I personally don't like the phrase "Web 2.0". It has some great meaning behind it, as outlined in our reading from Tim O'Reilly, but ultimately ended up as just a marketing buzzword. Other words have become simple marketing tools as well, 'social' for example. An app that lets me drop pins on a map to ...
  3. Mai Ueda

    Assignment #2

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    Reia 21 year old girl who goes to a music university in Tokyo.majors in Saxophone since high school (majored in piano till juniour high ).grew up in rich family and only child so they spend much money as they can for her.her hobbies aregoing cafesstudy...
  4. Mai Ueda

    Assignment #2

    by
    Reia 21 year old girl who goes to a music university in Tokyo.majors in Saxophone since high school (majored in piano till juniour high ).grew up in rich family and only child so they spend much money as they can for her.her hobbies aregoing cafesstudy...
  5. Mai Ueda

    Assignment #2

    by
    Reia 21 year old girl who goes to a music university in Tokyo.majors in Saxophone since high school (majored in piano till juniour high ).grew up in rich family and only child so they spend much money as they can for her.her hobbies aregoing cafesstudy...
  6. Mai Ueda

    Assingmemt #1

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    BTMM 2701Spring 2012the first assignment was to take pictures with different angles but there had to be the same object in those pictures.I and my cousin had a chance to see on january 22nd.we went to the grandparents' house in Bushi.( in saitama)which...
  7. Mai Ueda

    Assingmemt #1

    by
    BTMM 2701Spring 2012the first assignment was to take pictures with different angles but there had to be the same object in those pictures.I and my cousin had a chance to see on january 22nd.we went to the grandparents' house in Bushi.( in saitama)which...
  8. Mai Ueda

    Assingmemt #1

    by
    BTMM 2701Spring 2012the first assignment was to take pictures with different angles but there had to be the same object in those pictures.I and my cousin had a chance to see on january 22nd.we went to the grandparents' house in Bushi.( in saitama)which...
  9. Shinichiro Hamazaki

    Need Sushi Police Abroad?

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    The following article was written as an assignment for the Analytical Reading and Writing class.When the Japan's Ministry of Agriculture announced that they planned to certify authentic Japanese restaurants overseas in November 2006, many foreign media...
  10. Shinichiro Hamazaki

    Need Sushi Police Abroad?

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    The following article was written as an assignment for the Analytical Reading and Writing class.


    When the Japan's Ministry of Agriculture announced that they planned to certify authentic Japanese restaurants overseas in November 2006, many foreign media including The Washington Post, Financial Times, and The Independent reported it and criticized the attempt with the strong words like "sushi police"(Sanchanta) It was also condemned by the chefs around the world as "meaningless" (Lewis). This news drew so much attention that one of the officials of the Japan's Foreign Ministry had to admit finally that it became a "PR catastrophe" (Lewis). As Japanese food has become popular in recent years around the world, the number of Japanese restaurants overseas has dramatically increased. It is estimated around 25,000 by 2007 ("Proposal" 2) and would be 48,000 by 2009 (Faiola). Especially in the U.S., the number of Japanese restaurants increased rapidly to about 9,000 by 2006, which is more than doubled in the previous ten years. This increase is one of the reasons why the Japanese Government launched this certifying program. The Government strongly concerned that in the long run some of the restaurants might gradually damage the reputation of Japanese cuisine due to the poor culinary skills and knowledge about Japanese cuisine of the chefs working there and insufficient sanitary management in the restaurants. In order to maintain the original quality of Japanese cuisine and present the traditional Japanese cuisine correctly, the Japanese authority finally decided to tell the people in the world what the authentic Japanese food is through certifying Japanese restaurants outside of Japan.

    Before the Japanese Government actually announced the details of the certifying program, many critics who were against this idea opposed it saying that Japan does not have any authority to define and evaluate authentic Japanese cuisine that is once localized outside of Japan because Japan itself has localized many kinds of food from abroad. One of the main reasons for this is that what made sushi globally so popular is its adoption to the local food-tastes by the local chefs. According to them, California rolls with avocado greatly helped transform traditional Japanese sushi into more palatable food for ordinary Americans (Sanchanta). Seaweed rolls with smoked salmon and cream cheese are a typical example of the localized Japanese food popular in the U.S. (Faiola). Aren't these considered as "Japanese food"? After all, Japan itself is the country that has adopted many kinds of foreign foods throughout history. For examples, tempura, which is believed to be Japanese now, was originally from Portugal and ramen noodles came from China. Both were adopted into Japanese food long time ago and now became one of the most popular foods in Japan (DPA). Even today, spaghetti topped with mentaiko (spicy cod roe) is found at an Italian restaurant and a rice burger can be ordered at a hamburger shop (Sanchanta). The Washington Post even sees the plan as "another expression of resurgent Japanese nationalism" (Faiola). While adopting and modifying foreign cuisine from abroad, it does not make any sense for Japanese in telling the authenticity of their own foods and blame other localized Japanese foods outside of Japan. Food has changed and will change influenced by other food cultures. Don't they evaluate any creativity in fusion-style Japanese cuisine at all? (Actually, fusion is one of the popular cuisine styles in many Japanese restaurants in the U.S. today.) Overall, there is no merit for the Japanese restaurants abroad to be distinguished authentic or phony. As all the news shows, the notion that only the Japanese Government can tell what is good and what is bad is not acceptable outside of Japan.

    However, some restaurants, in fact, operate under the guise of a Japanese restaurant without offering essential ingredients for Japanese cuisine. As a whole, it may lead to misrepresent traditional Japanese culture and food. According to the survey on the Japanese restaurants in major 21 cities in the world done by the Agriculture Ministry for the Advisory Council for Japanese Restaurant Recommendation Program in 2006, most of the Japanese restaurants were ran by the private owners and on average, less than 10% of them were owned by Japanese or Japanese descents. The percentage of the chefs who has experience of training at a Japanese cooking school or working at a traditional Japanese restaurant as a chef is much less than that. The number of the chefs who were actually licensed back in Japan is very small. These numbers show that many of the chefs working at Japanese restaurants abroad do not seem to have had any chance to learn Japanese culinary properly. It can be assumed that a quite many of them just followed someone's example and studied by themselves. The same situation is also confirmed by Masashi Yamagata, who is the Vice-president of the All Japan Sushi Association and also a guest speaker at the Second Advisory Panel for the Japanese Restaurant Recommendation Program hold by the Agriculture Ministry in February 2007. One of the main activities of his national organization is to dispatch sushi instructors to conduct workshops and give lectures on sushi making all over the world. What he found there was the facts that many chefs only have very poor knowledge of how to prepare raw fish in safe and sanitary conditions. According to him, sanitary condition in the kitchen is the most important point in sushi making to eliminate the risk of germ and bacteria infection to raw fish. Germs and bacteria are usually killed by boiling or roasting, but since a sushi chef does not use fire for preparing sushi, he or she constantly has to run water while making sushi to keep his or her hands and the utensils completely clean. Sometimes Japan's hygiene standard conflicts with that in the foreign country. The members of the organization then have to solve the problem by adjusting the Japan's hygiene standard to the local circumstances and rules while maintaining the original quality of the food. For example, there were strict sanitation guidelines for restaurants in Los Angeles. They were required to keep their hot food in 60ºC (140ºF) or above and cold food in 5ºC (41ºF) or below before they serve the food to the customers. Sushi does not fit in these guidelines because vinegared sushi rice is supposed to be kept in 37-38ºC (98-100ºF) almost as same as the warmth of a human hand. In order to solve this problem, the members of the organization asked the health officials to ease the restrictions for sushi. As a result, they got an agreement that the health officials are not going to regulate it within three hours after cooking rice (the rice has to be discarded after that). This negotiation with the public bureau could not be done by any one but the representatives of the association that have the proper knowledge and culinary skills of making sushi.

    A sushi chef also has to know about many kinds of raw fish in detail to be able to control the quality of them. There is no way to share the kitchen space with meat cooking due to the risk of food poisoning or parasite infection. All of these are very basic knowledge for licensed sushi-chefs in Japan (280,000 chefs in 2007), but it does not seem to be widely shared with the counterparts outside of Japan where there is no such license required at all. If the workshops or lectures were given and the chef could receive the certificates, it may greatly help to improve the quality of the restaurant and as a whole raise the level of the Japanese restaurants in the area. Once food poisoning repeatedly occurs in some Japanese restaurants abroad, sushi may be regarded as something not safe to eat. That would be a nightmare for Japan and other Japanese restaurants in the world. Actually, many food-poisoning cases at Japanese restaurants have been reported in Moscow recently due to the insufficient hygiene management in the kitchen space. To prevent this kind of accidents, a certain type of certifying system to assure the basic knowledge and skills of original Japanese cuisine is desirable. In order to upgrade the quality of the Japanese cuisine abroad from the bottom, the Japanese Government started a certifying system for the Japanese restaurants abroad which provide low-quality cuisines and operate with poor culinary skills and insufficient hygiene management.

    Further more, the knowledge and culinary skills to handle and process raw fish are the basic requirements for the chefs working at Japanese restaurants. The Japanese Government can provide them in order to correct misrepresentation of the original Japanese foods. Indeed, Japan has already started acting on it and is producing the great results. The certifying program is actually very different from what the foreign news media reported. There is no 'sushi police' at all. It is a rewarding system to support overseas Japanese restaurants that need help. After receiving the Proposal for Japanese Restaurant Recommendation Program in March 2007, the Agriculture Ministry set up the NPO called the Organization to Promote Japanese Restaurants Abroad (JRO). Now it has set up its 18 branch offices with the local Japanese restaurants and food companies in major big cities in the world to support Japanese restaurants in the area. Currently it is building a worldwide network and helping to establish the Japanese Restaurant Association in each area. It has not launched the certifying activities yet, but has already started its mission to develop human resources for Japanese cuisine through conducting many workshops of culinary skills and hygiene managements of Japanese foods for the chefs and managers around the world. They have also held business conferences for developing new Japanese cuisine menu and helped importing Japanese ingredients from Japan for the restaurants ("Activities"). Although the activity progresses little by little, through these varieties of practical workships for Japanese-restaurants staffs, the quality of Japanese restaurants abroad will surely improve. As a result, the consumers also gain benefits from the activity.

    Moreover, Japan is not the only country that attempts this kind of certifying system. Thai and Italy also have their own certifying systems for the national restaurants abroad. The Thai system called "Thai Select" started in 1999 and the Italian one called "Ristorante Italiano" started in 2003. Both are very rigid and detailed, which may not be the appropriate examples for Japan to follow. On the other hand, the recommendation system called "Japanese Restaurant Upgrading Committee" supported by JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) has already started certifying the local Japanese restaurants in Paris. The reason it was set up is that there were so many Japanese restaurants that offer pseudo-Japanese foods and many French people believed that they were authentic. The committee gives the logo to the certified restaurants assuring that the restaurant offers orthodox and traditional Japanese cuisine. Through this certifying system, the restaurant can add an extra value to promote its business. Even it fails to be certified, the staff then knows which points need to be improved and has an incentive to get certified. At the same time, the certifying organization knows through consulting what the local restaurants actually need so that it can prepare the ingredients or give beneficial advice for them. The system always comes with the backup support for the restaurants. It helps and motivates those who have an intention to improve their cuisine and services. This is not a mundane inspection for all the Japanese restaurants abroad such as "sushi police." It is a rewarding system and doesn't conflict with the idea of localization of Japanese food at all.

    Among Japanese restaurants in the world, many of them seem to lack the basic culinary skills and knowledge of Japanese cuisine. To upgrade them and promote more high-quality Japanese foods, there are many things that a Japanese organization can do. One of them is to give lectures and workshops of the basic culinary skills, the knowledge of original Japanese cuisine, and the sanitary management to the chefs working at Japanese restaurants.  Under this system, they can recommend the restaurants as safe and high quality for the consumers. They are both good and beneficial for not only the chefs, but also the consumers to check the restaurants and Japan's exporting companies to expand their business. It may take a time to see the visible results, but this certifying system will surely bring much better food circumstances for the restaurant staffs, the consumers, and the people involved in this business. On the whole, introducing a national culture to the world is an essential strategy to raise the bar on quality standards of the national food in the world.
  11. Shinichiro Hamazaki

    Analysis on Dan Pink’s Speech at TED

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    The following article was written as an assignment for the Public Speaking class.


    Dan Pink, who is a famous career analyst, bestseller, and also known as an ex-speech writer of Al Gore, gave a speech at the TED Global 2009 conference in July, 2009 on "The surprising science of motivation." He gave a brilliant speech there using a variety of speech techniques and fascinated the audience within 18 minutes and 40 seconds. These techniques can be examined in four aspects: structure, speaking, phrasing, and interacting with the audience. The following analysis shows how effectively they are used to entertain the audience (Listening to his speech is recommended before read the following article).

    Dan Pink's speech has a good hook in introduction and a concise summary in conclusion. It is composed of roughly four parts: Introduction, examples, explanations, and conclusion. He starts his speech with a "confession," which is a great hook to draw the audience's attentions at the beginning. He then briefly tells his academic career that he went to a low school. Because of this information, he creates an imaginary situation with the audience on the stage as if they were in the court room ("I want to make case" and "ladies and gentlemen of the jury") so that the audience is forced to play an imaginary role as a jury to examine what he is going to say. He continues to remind the audience of this fictional situation throughout the speech. Presenting a speech in such a conceptual form can be too exaggerated or funny, but he has done it very intellectually without any negative aftertaste. He makes the audience laugh at least four times in the first one and a half minutes, which suggests that he was successful in making them relax and feel comfortable to listen to him. With the strong hook, he totally grasps the audience's attentions at the very beginning of his speech. He sums up his idea in the last one minute and ten seconds of his speech. In conclusion, he summarizes his speech in three points with the key words that he mentions earlier. Since the audience became very familiar with the key words by then, it was quite easy for them to reconfirm his idea in sorted forms. This brief summary and short conclusion leave strong impression to the audience.

    There are less content-related speaking techniques used in Pink's speech. For example, he makes the audience laugh at least 13 times in total (One in every one and a half minutes). There are several kinds of jokes he makes:
    1. Mismatched phrases. To say unexpected words or phrases contrasted to the previous words such as "George Soros and Friedrich Hayek" and "Mick Jagger."
    2. Irony or exaggeration. Jokes about American politics like "as we say in my hometown of Washington D.C., a true fact" and about American characteristics like "I'm American. I believe in free markets."
    3. Funny description or modification such as "some kind of touchy feely sociologist conspiracy."
    These jokes are not so relevant to his main story, but they produce the audience's responses each time and make the speech more interactive with the audience. Another speaking technique is to indicate the audience what he is going to tell next. There are three types of indicators in his speech:
    1. Simply indicating what he is going to tell next such as "Let me wrap up."
    2. Indicating to give examples of what he just said such as "Let me give you an example of …."
    3. Indicating that an important statement will come next like "And here's the best part."
    These indicators help the audience greatly to follow the direction of his speech and prepare for the next topic. The other speaking technique is short sentences such as "Doesn't work." He drops the subjects and other parts of the sentences so that he can save much time and keep the flow of the speech. The speech becomes more powerful. The audience also feels the quick pace of the speech and this forces them to follow the speech. This is one of the most obvious characteristics of his speech. It goes very well with his fast and energetic speaking. These speaking techniques make the audience understand his speech more smoothly and interestingly, which enable them to get straight to the points with fewer obstacles.

    The other important technique that Pink uses in his speech is phrasing. For example, he repeats important concepts many times ("candle problem" for six times) and repeats important points twice in succession ("three and a half minutes longer"). Repeating emphasized points make the audience feel that the repeated phrases are important and are forced to pay more attentions to them. To impress important points more to the audience, he also repeats same phrase patterns for more than three times such as "we can" and "maybe." They all work very well to leave strong impression to the audience. Another technique is rephrasing. He describes concepts in different ways such as "carrots and sticks" = "reward-and-punishment approach" = "If-then rewards." Similarly, he tries to rephrase abstract concepts with difficult nouns into more concrete and understandable examples such as "These contingent motivator" = "if you do this, then you get that." They help the audience to understand the concepts much easier. All these rephrasing techniques are employed in order to make the content easier for the audience to understand. Since the topic is abstract, rephrasing is done quite often in his speech.

    The last important aspect of Pink's speech is to interact with the audience. He often asks them using the confirming words like "Right?" for five times and "Okay?" for six times. They are said at the following points:
    1. Before unfolding the logic to confirm the premise of his story.
    2. After unfolding the logic to confirm the consequence of his story.
    3. Right after complicated explanation as reading quotes is done.
    4. Simply used as a tag question.
    By inserting these confirmations at each point, he tries to make sure that the audience catches up with him. They are stimulated to listen to him more carefully each time he confirms with them. He also asks the audience to think ("Think about …") and has an imaginary discussion with them ("Now some of you might look at this and say …"). He even regards the audience as groups of examinees in the experiment he is talking about and makes orders calling them "You." He uses these different methods to make a strong connection with the audience as much as possible. It is a good strategy to keep their attentions the whole time while making a speech.

    Because Dan Pink himself was an excellent speech writer, he uses many kinds of speech techniques so efficiently including imaginary setting, jokes, repeating, short sentences, rephrasing, and interact with the audience. There are tons of touching speeches on the TED's website, but I think Pink's is one of the most effective and successful speeches of all.
  12. Shinichiro Hamazaki

    Movie Review: Rashomon

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    The following article was written as an assignment for the Introduction to Film and Video Analysis class.A classic film still gives the audience today the strong senses of originality and sharpness it has even if it is black-and-white and was made a fe...
  13. Shinichiro Hamazaki

    Movie Review: Rashomon

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    The following article was written as an assignment for the Introduction to Film and Video Analysis class.A classic film still gives the audience today the strong senses of originality and sharpness it has even if it is black-and-white and was made a fe...

UMW Spring 2024 (Bond & Groom)

Welcome to Paul Bond and Jim Groom’s Spring 2024 ds106

Student Blogs

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