Solar Energy Education at Ishinomaki Commercial High School

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have the experience of visiting Ishinomaki Commercial High School again for my third time. After donating solar panels to Ishinomaki after the earth quake and tsunami Elkem Japan continues to take its corporate social responsibility seriously and following up the school. Yesterday we had our first lecture to students at the school about energy, environment and silicon with the focus on solar power. As my Japanese skills are still not at a very high level (I am happy if they understand me in the store..!) my part of the presentation was in English with translation from my very nice colleague Motomura san. In addition my mentor Yoshizawa san had the other half of the presentation about silicon. I think much of the information was very new to the students, but hopefully some will get more interested and perhaps choose to study more about this in the future.

 

As my first day at work in Elkem Japan was to participate in the opening solar panels donated by Elkem this was a very nice ending on my trainee period here. Ishinomaki has given me one of my strongest impressions from Japan and I will for sure remember it after goiong back to Norway. And who knows, maybe I will come back one time in the future?

Working in Japan

My period as a trainee in Japan is nearing an end, I have only two weeks left here and it feels surreal! Working in Japan has been awesome, interesting and also extremely challenging. Japan is busy and intense with the the working life of people and the big city Tokyo. But Japan can also be very harmonic and quite with traditional Japanese lifestyle as temples and hot springs which makes up for a really interesting combination. Japanese are extremely law-obeying, polite and I think they must be the best planners in the world. I have never felt so rude and loud as here! Working here is normally a step by step process, but once a deal has been made, Japanese are the most loyal and committed partners.

The number one word in Japan is quality. The rule of thumb is the longer the queue the better, as the quality then off course has to be prime. A college at the office here asked me: If you had the choice between two restaurants: One had a very long queue outside, but the rumor said it was really good quality of food. The restaurant beside it had a little lower quality of the food, but was still good and had no queue. Which would you choose? I, not being exactly fond of queues, would without a doubt have chosen the restaurant with a little lower quality to escape the queue. My Japanese college on the other hand off course chose to wait in the queue for the best restaurant.

It is now just a little over one year since the big earthquake here in Japan. It may not have caused damage for everyone in Japan, but everyone was and still are affected by it. This was marked with one minutes silence the 11. of March 2012 in Japan. Underneath here you can see that earthquakes was a part of everyday life in 2011, especially north east of Tokyo:

PVExpo

Last week PVExpo was in Tokyo. One of the great things about working in one of the biggest cities in the world (if not The biggest) is having close access to the marked and the research which is ongoing in this high tech country. PV Expo is Japans largest international exhibition for photovoltaics and Elkem was having a stand there. In addition to the expo for photovoltaics there were also other expos in the same area for Eco House, Hydrogen and Fuel Cells and Battery Technology. This is something that makes this area a place where some of the most interesting companies and new technologies are showcased. Not at least Elkem Solar! You can see the stand in the pictures below:

The expo lasted for three days where I was working on the stand, attended a seminar and tried to figure out who of the 600 stands in the different areas which had the best and most interesting technology for Elkem. The only problem is that almost everything is written in Japanese, and English is not always the preferred language spoken in Japan. I am of course trying to learn Japanese language myself, but I must admit that I am still a far cry from speaking Japanese in technical terms. As for reading, I now know how to read one of the Japanese written languages, the downside is that I have two more to go and one these languages is based on Chinese characters with between 5000 and 10000 characters used in daily life in Japan!

Just as a notice for anyone who thinks that winter/spring in Tokyo is very warm, take a look at this picture taken at the first morning of the Expo. Before I came to Japan I had heard that it was several years ago since last time it snowed in Japan, but on this day it was a real snowstorm. Together with the palm trees it adds up for a bit of a surreal view on this artificial iceland situated nearby the harbor in Tokyo city.

Earthquakes

On tuesday I felt two earthquakes while I stayed in the office. Both were situated in the same region, a little north east of Tokyo out in the sea. The first one was at 5.4 in strength, the next one was at 6.0 in strength. No tsunami warnings were sent out and the Fukushima reactors were reported to still be stable. The strength was of course a lot lower in Tokyo than in the epicenter, but it was still noticeable. I first realise that it was an earthquake by feeling a bit dissy, a little bit seasick, maybe like being on a boat. This is only due to the quite slow swaying of the building we work in when an earthquake of low frequency. The last one of the two earthquakes was a bit bigger than what we normally have, but not big enough that it was any scary. At least I got a video from it! You can only see a very small shaking of the plant we have in the office.

Even though this was not a big earthquake, it´s good to know that they take EHS seriously at the office and are prepared for bigger earthquakes in the future. Elkem Japan has actually moved office after the 9.0 earthquake in March to a safer building now. We all have a helmet (to put on if there is a big earthquake) underneath our desk. In addition there are blankets, water and some food stored in case of a bigger emergency. And as you may have read there is a 70 % risk of a big earthquake (over 7.0 in strength) hitting Tokyo within 4 years. Then it´s good to be prepared and on the safe side!

A regular day at work

Maybe one of you is wondering how a regular day at the office in Elkem Japan is. In that case, I will try to provide you with some information.

I can first answer some of the questions I had before I went to Japan about work culture:
-Do they only speak Japanese at the office? No, my co-workes are very fluent in English and several of them have lived outside Japan in English speaking countries for several years.
-Is it possible to go home before the boss goes home? Yes, but it is still a different culture for when it is ok to go home here compared to in Norway.
-Do they smile, nod and sai yes (hai) often? Yes. (And as you see, I'm getting affected) Especially in phone conversations.

Before I came to Japan I had been working in two different Elkem departments. My first trainee period was in production in Elkem Solar and my second was in the Product group. This was also in Elkem Solar, but I was there working more with research. A regular day at work differed a lot between these two departments and naturally, working in Elkem Japan differs again from this.

As the office of Elkem Japan is situated in Tokyo, one of the busiest cities in the world (but yet, very ordered), the rush traffic is pretty heavy. You have probably already seen the YouTube videos of the Tokyo metro in rush hour. In case not: you are in for a treat and please feel free check it out. I am lucky and do not have to use the metro in rush hour, but this is what I have learned to do if it is really full of people: Go in with your back first. Never use a backpack or go with any big luggage in rush hour. Try to not be an average Norwegian, but pretend you are thinner. Try to find a free space to breathe (here it helps if you are a tall Norwegian) until the next stop where you cross your fingers that there are more people going off than there are people coming on.

The work day here therefore starts at 9.30 to avoid the worst of this rush hour. The main reason is though that this enables us to have contact with offices in Norway within working hours for both Elkem in Norway and in Japan. The day starts with a short morning meeting where everybody at the office informs each other of what the program of the day is. In production in Norway morning meetings were also important and one had to be ready with information of the previous day's production. The difference is that in production the morning meeting started at 7.30, while in Japan one can sleep two hours more, but have to stay longer at the office in the evening.

Some weeks I'm only at the office, but most of the weeks I will have some days out of the office in Tokyo or somewhere else in Japan. I can be having a technical meeting, visiting a potential customer, promoting our product or maybe catch up on some of the latest research in the field. Sounds great, right? I know I'm lucky, but it's still hard work.

Underneath here you can see some pictures from our office and also a picture of me wearing a Japanese welcome gift from the two nice co-workers in the picture. Kawai desu ne?

Work and Life

Working in Japan is definitely different from working in Norway, even if it is the same company. Then again, I have a new type of job, new colleagues, new city, new language and, yes, a new culture surrounding me. Which of these changes which is greatest is hard to tell and I do not think it's even possible to take one from the other. Sometimes I really do not understand what's going around me, and sometimes I feel I finally have it in control, but then loose it in the next second. But I'm crossing my fingers for getting an increased understanding in the next four months, both at work and with my Japanese life. And as I have now learned in Japanese class, whatever is coming up, I will do my best:

Gambarimasu!

Here are some pictures from life in Tokyo: