zemi （ゼミ）

As I explained in a previous post, in Japanese universities you have something called a zemi. Its basically a seminar of around 10 students studying/researching an area of their major the professor is particularly interested in. So in the business faculty you can take zemi on corporate finance or strategic management for example, and in the faculty of law you can take zemi on family law or french law and so on. These seminars usually begin in your third year of college and finish when you graduate. This means that if you pick a crappy zemi (translation: crappy professor), you’re not going to have a good time at all. Very few people change their zemis because the professors take it as a personal insult that you don’t want to study with them (even though they probably suck for some reason or another). This is bad for obvious reasons; what if the professor isn’t what you expected, what if you don’t like the zemi content after all, what if you don’t get along with your zemi-ten or fellow zemi students (as they call them at Hitotsubashi)…Plus, your zemi becomes a big deal in your academic life; you might meet once or twice officially and for a long time (typically three or four hours straight), and you meet outside of class too, for group projects etc. You typically have a ton of work to do for the class. The zemi is also where you write your senior thesis, or sotsuron (卒論）.

So it is understandable that the zemi selection process is a big deal for all the third years. When they apply, they list three or four zemi in order of preference. They then have to go in for interviews with the professors. The professors can do the interviews in many different ways; they can do it one-on-one, or, if they’re really tough they can have all the fourth years (the previous year’s third years) also interview the students. Just imagine walking into a room where you have the professor and ten to twelve of your senpais seated in a semi-circle and they all start interrogating you. Remember, the hierarchal system is firmly in place, so the senpai can and will be aggressive/patronizing/just plain mean to try to weed out the students they think are not good enough. I’ve only heard of a few instances when this has actually happened, but I don’t really see the need for it at all.

When it comes to the selection process, there are usually two ways used. One way, is to pick students who have the best grades (that should be fun). The other way which is more commonly used is to choose students who vary in personality and ability to make for an interesting two years. Luckily, my zemi was like this. I was in a zemi for corporate strategic management and we had a good mix of people. I made really good friends with some of them, and some of them I couldn’t stand. Two people I got along with were these two guys; one of them a goth, and the other a guy who obviously grew up listening to alot of hip hop (he’d bob his head when he’d speak to the professor, who was fascinated and appalled at the same time).  Funny thing was that they’re best friends. There were also a few girls in the zemi I got along with. There was however a girl I couldn’t stand, who on the first day of class told me and the other girls in a conspiratoral whisper that she “comes to school on a motorbike”. The other girls were very impressed by all this… but then she added that she doesn’t want us to tell anyone because she wants to maintain her kawaii or “cute” image and didn’t want to be thought of as unfeminine. Unfortunately, she was completely serious. There were some other guys who had never met/dealt with a foreigner before and were very intimidated. It’s understandable, but towards the end, I really wanted to scream everytime they averted their eyes or whatever when I talked to them…it was really frustrating.

Anyway, while the zemi was okay and the professor great, I didn’t really enjoy the subject matter since I had already taken the subject matter as a freshman. Moreover, we were reading an english textbook and our weekly assignment would be to translate an entire chapter. Its a ‘teaching’ method that many Japanese professors use in their zemis. It was a great chance for me to improve my Japanese but I wanted to learn something new too. So I joined a fuku zemi or second zemi to study innovation management. I had always found the subject matter extremely interesting, and the professor had studied at MIT. It also turned out that he was my first zemi professor’s senpai and they had studied with the same professor and even written a book together. I had made the right decision because there are no seminar-style classes at Wharton on innovation management and the professor and zemi-ten were just great.  

Bottom-line: if you are ever in the situation where you have to choose zemi, ask around and see which professors are good and which are terrible. Some zemis are known for being really chill and some for being very challenging. It depends on what you’re looking for.

welcome to hell: japanese banks

So if you’ve never had the japanese banking experience, you’re in for a real treat. First of all, they’re only open five hours a day (from 10am to 3pm) and never on weekends – thus the working week for a Japanese bank teller comes tooooo a grand total of 25 hours a week…

Oh and never mind that the ATM machines are cleverly located inside the bank and also have their own ‘business hours’. As a result, if you wanted to withdraw money during the weekends or when the ATMs are ‘closed’ you have to go to the ATM machines at a convenience store and pay a fee. 

It gets worse: as it is Japan, there is of course, online banking…however, you have to pay to use it. @$#?@?!?!

Lets just say that customer service is not their forte.

Also, a quaint little feature of the banking system in particular and the legal system in general is that most people still use their hanko, or stamp/seal instead of a signature to verify important documents. This is freakin 2007. How do you expect to be taken seriously if you’re still using seals??

Anyway, I opened my account at Sumitomo in February and although I got my bankbook immediately, by June I still hadn’t received my bank card. There were (as you would expect) multiple visits to the branch during which I displayed varying degrees of anger depending on the weather that day, but to no avail. In the end, I had to keep going to the bank tellers to withdraw money with my bankbook.

Now, this is where things get exciting. When you want to withdraw money you fill out a form with your signature (or seal) and secret number and submit it together with your bankbook. The teller checks the book and the number and then, get this, compares your signature to the sample signature you gave them when opening your account. Of course, if you’re using a hanko she compares hankos. Now, since when are bank tellers handwriting experts? And notice that they don’t ask for freakin ID? ID!! You’d think it was common sense. But nooooo.

Once, the teller thought the signatures didn’t match. I very patiently told her that I could show her ID if she’d like. What did she do instead? She called her girlfriends (other tellers) over and they had a ten minute discussion about whether or not my signature was legit? I honestly thought I was being punked.

END

internet

So as I mentioned a post or two ago, we don`t have internet in the international house at the moment. They had promised us that it would be ready by the end of last month, but of course that counted for nothing. We`ve tried opening individual contracts with internet companies but were told that we couldn`t (goodness knows why). Not only is it a total bummer that you can`t check your mail whenever you want to, but its a real disappointment－ I mean you come to freakin Japan, and you go to its best business school and voila no internet.

All this being said, its definitely been entertaining watching the administration squirm as we complain (we are not japanese, we are obnoxious gaijin, we`ll let people know when we`re pissed). The first instance was at the i-house welcome party which was mysteriously held a month after school started. We had a nice relaxing evening – they brought in two koto players which was neat and gave a few speeches; nothing too exciting. But then, one not-so-bright administrator brought up the subject of the internet and it just so happened that he was unlucky enough to have Ben, a guy from australia who is especially pissed off about the whole thing, sitting right smack in front of him.

It was pure entertainment. The administrator goes “we are working as hard as can to close a contact as fast as possible” and Ben interrupts him “when?”

The poor guy wasn`t expecting this of course:

Administrator: as soon as we possibly can.

Ben: when?

Administrator: I can`t possibly tell you exactly…

Ben: what day? when?

This went on for a few minutes and is a good example of a feature of Japanese culture that can frustrate you to no end – you can never get a straight answer, especially when you want it the most (Ben never did find out when).

Next there was a welcome party held for all then incoming exchange students, not just the people at i-house. This was hosted by all the big shots at the university: the pres, the vice-pres etc. As it was sponsored by Toyota, there were many big shots from over there too.

Tangent – After we had a group kanpai (toast) and everyone was mingling, I had the singularly unpleasant experience of meeting the ex-president of toyota u.s.a.. I was standing with a guy from germany and a girl from taiwan. He comes over and brings with him a little man who I suppose is his sidekick. Pres. introduces himself to me and tells me that he lived in the states in English. His sidekick then adds “he was president of toyota usa you know”. Good for him. Pres. then introduces himself to the german guy. Brownnoser san then adds “he created the lexus brand”. I must add here that the big boss actually beamed (yes, beamed) with every word that came out of the shrimp`s mouth. This continued for a few minutes and in all this he didn`t see it necessary to introduce himself to the taiwanese girl – a glaringly obvious slight. In the end I introduced her myself and she was bestowed with a slight incline of the head and a grunt. Charming. End of Tangent.

Of course in a bureaucratic system sending the message straight to the top is always more effective than a bottom-up strategy. Since all the big shots of the university were there having a good time on toyota`s budget, we thought it would be a good idea to let them know that we were surprised, that unlike our universities back home and contrary to our expectations, hitotsubashi`s international house is not hooked to the internet.

Needless to say, it did the trick.