The end: Goodbbye Japan! I will Miss you!

It was hard to say goodbye to Japan and everyone in this group. Japan brought me much unforgettable experiences through friendship and culture tours, which have lifelong affects to me. I can not forget each conversation with my professors, other participants and alumni, even some unknown people I met in Japan. Because of interaction with them in the two weeks, I adjusted my personal values and changed my understanding of life with being clearer of what I should pursue in my rest of life. Honestly, to have a distinctive experience on my resume and making my class schedule more advanced was the only things that first motivated me to go to Japan. However, after this trip, I found that the most valuable things were what I learned by listening to personal stories from other people and how I adapted to different culture, rather than academic and career purpose.

Every participants have different stories which allow me to re-think my purpose on the way of life. We were studying in as an international group, in which people come from different countries and cultures. They always shared their own stories with me during the trip. On the train returning to Kyoto, Dr.Ross introduces his family by showing his daughter’s pictures to us and told the stories about his family. Although some points I did not understand, I could feel how important family is for him. After listening to his stories, I began to be more concentrate on family because they always brought supports to me during difficult time. Furthermore, I also was influenced by how open Ashley is to different culture and what Theresa told me about the communication skill in western style. In addition, I was glad that William could share his stories of how he had a spark of interested in Japanese culture and what he made him so confused in Asia. There are still a lot of conversation with other participants that I could not write down all of them. Anyway, I treasure their generosity when they share their experiences with me. Their stories made me have new understanding and perspective on friendship, family and culture.

During trip, I participate in group discussion and plant tours more than when I was in school lecture because of encouragement from Dr.Ross and other participants. I can read poems in Hiroshima mesuam, ask question in plants tours and have discussion with my partners. I have to say that my confidence of speaking English has been much improved in Japan. Although I only knew two words in Japanese, I can go anywhere by take train, shikansen and the subway because I have already figure out how transportation system work and what the signs means after the two weeks. In last day, I took the train with wei hsu and wenbin to return to Tokyo. And we went to see Fuji Mountain by taking train. The fact proved that I could get involve in life in Japan if I understand their characters and love for Japanese food.

We form deep friendship in short the time. The trip in Japan made my 2009’summer different because of you guys. I tried to record every moment during Japan. This is why I was working hard on blogging. I will miss last the night in Japan we hung out together and our last meeting outside the hotel. I believe that I had build a lifelong friendship with you guys.
Japan 2009, I would miss you!

Day 11:Custom of Kobe, Boat Tour, and Plant Tours

Through more than one week of plant tours and culture visits, we have already been familiar with how warehouses work and had basic understanding of Japanese culture. Today is our last day of plant tour in Japan. We will visit Kobe custom, port of Kobe and two warehouses. Because of final tour in the trip, I pay more attention to today’s plant visits so that I can grasp every point and detail from tour guide.

After spending long time on the way, we arrive in Kobe Custom, where it's our first destination today. As I known before, custom serves was a key government department to monitor international trade and prevent illegal exports and imports. In China, customs are rarely open to the public, so this is my first time to visit the customs. In the beginning, we watch the video in a multi-media room so that we can have basic understanding of Kobe customs which was divided into 4 parts: coordination, customs clearance, investigation, and enforcement. Taxation of goods and custom clearance are most important tasks for Kobe customs. The tour guide told us that there are different policies of taxation on products in order to control amount of imported and exported goods. For example, rice has the highest tariff which is 6000% of its original price. In addition, custom also prohibit contraband goods like drugs and guns, and counterfeit brand-name products. In gallery, we are taught how to differentiate fake and real goods. One of staff in custom told me that real goods usually are heavier than fake one, which is an easiest way to recognize the goods.

After lunch, we head to the port of Kobe and the board a ship. The boat tour was really exciting for me and we had a meeting in a comfortable reference room, which is my first time to have a meeting on a ship. Port of Kobe is distribution base of Japan, which provides port facility such as berths and public ware house around the port. Some of the super-large cargo shipment depart are parking along with harbor. We can view massive crane on port, which move containers from cargo ships to harbor. All of cranes are made in Shanghai and there are many containers from China, which reflect close relationship of international trade between Japan and China with globalization. Because of financial crisis, there still a lot of cargo ships parking along harbor because of international trade tend to decrease. The most different thing I saw in the port of Kobe is that most of the islands around the port was artificial. Obviously, Japan lacked some of the resource and land, but they use limited resource to create second gross domestic production in the world. Advanced supply chain management help Japanese companies to reduce their logistic cost, labor cost and also allow them to save resources.

The most impressive part of today was the plant tour in Nissan where it's near the port of Kobe. It is really astonishing to me how efficient inventory management of Toy R us is. By scanning bar code, products are automatically stored in certain racks through continuous flow line. The process from receiving, putting away and storing is done in short time. Viewing how products automatically store in racks made me feel like i was in a movie . It is unbelievable. By talking with Dr. Ross and director of warehouse, the most important point I learn here is how different partner in supply chain works together and benefit from each other corporations. In this case, Toy R us has three partners in its supply chain which are warehouse provider, equipment provider and shipping company. The corporation with their partner help Toy R us to manage its inventory efficiently.

Day 10: Hiroshima

There were only three days left in the trip of Japan. Hiroshima was our last destination of culture tours and it left me most impressive image on this trip. Today, we also woke up so early and toke the train to Hiroshima where teem with grief, anger and pain from the Japanese. Hiroshima was known for most people dead due to first atomic bomb dropped. We visited Hiroshima national peace memorial hall and Hiroshima peace memorial park. Before this tour, I supposed that Hiroshima visit would be a boring tour because I had already known the fact by reading textbook in my high school history class. However, I was completely wrong and the pictures, texts and videos displayed in museum extremely shock me. The Hiroshima visit allowed me to change my views on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

I only knew that the city of Hiroshima was underlying victim to the world’s first atomic bombing, but I did not know how cruel the atomic bombing was. In fact, the bomb killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and the entire city was virtually leveled. In addition, many of those who managed to survive suffered irreparable physical and psychological damage and suffering from the after effects still today. People lost their family in the atomic bombing and they did not know why they suffer this tragedy on this time point. I used to think that Japan should take responsibility for atomic bombing on Hiroshima because they attack Pearl Harbor first. However, after listening to audio guide and viewing some cruel picture in the museum, I was aware of the fact that innocent Japanese citizens should not be sacrifice to the war. They also were victims of the war. As what I learn in textbook, one was to point fingers on another one. According to my opinion, there were no absolutely fair judgments on war. We should ponder history by ourselves, but not only learn from textbook. In the museum, it described unbiased history and encouraged peace making to the world. I was admired by Japanese’s attitude when they did not put down a censure opinions on atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Every country would make mistake on the decision of launching the war, so we should be tolerant on history, which will bring peace for our next generations.

In the afternoon, we toured the memorial park which allowed us to be closer to the fact of atomic bombing. A tour guide told us that the areas around Hiroshima would not been grown up for about 70 years. We also saw one building survived from the blast over the bridge. This building, namely atomic bomb dome, served as a memorial to people who died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After witnessing the building, I could feel how people is suffering from atomic bombing on the land which had experience a mass destruction. However, the tour guide was peaceful and objective when she depicted what happen in the event of atomic bombing without anger and blaming. She only stated the suffering from the war and emphasized the restoration of the city in past 60 years, which attempt to encourage peace to the younger. Eradicating the enmity from past history was fairly important to our generation and encouragement of peace. In the end of tour, we met a group of elementary school students around a monument and took pictures with them. They fold paper cranes and put down around monument in hope of peace, which shows their desire of peace. This should reminds people that only peace could bring smiles to people.

At the end of tour, we attended a short presentation that allows us to read the poems written by survivors. I was struggling when I read “My Daddy”, one of moving poem which describes her pain after losing her father during Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After this tour, I gained new understanding of wars and realized that peace should always be at the top of our goals in the world.

Day 09: First day in Osaka, Himeji Castle

Like other days in Japan, we were rushing to move luggage in the trains and subway. Also, we woke up so early, packed up our stuff and moved from one city to another city. On the way to Osaka, I realized that our trip was close to epilogue, which made me felt upset. I hope that we could be together forever because we build a deep friendship in short time, only two weeks! This made me to treasured every minute with other participant in the rest of trip. Although our schedule was so tight, we were clear on our goals which were culture adventure and business tour. Today absolutely was significantly culture portion of our trip due to our tour in Himeji castle. For every culture trip in Japan, it is avoidable for me to compare culture between China and Japan. This is because I was familiar with Chinese culture and there also were influence between China and Japan. Undoubtedly, Himeji castle is a good example for comparisons.

Today was raining, but it is so cool for us to witness Himeji castle under the rain. This was the greatest architecture I have seen in Japan. It was amazing for me that this project was designed and built in 15th century of Japan when there were no advanced machines like our current period. Himeji castle served as prototypical castle of Japan, which contain rigid structure, defensive feature, and gardening design. The exterior design of castle is grand with stone foundation, whitewashed wall and delicate garden. In the interior design of castle, most of things were made of woods, which were elegant. There a was confused maze to access the main building of the castle. We had to walk along with spiral pattern around castle and climbed up narrow stairs to the top. This was a complex defensive system and the gates, baileys, outer walls and moat were organized. It is difficult to find out path and gate to access the top of building. According to Dr.Londo’s explanation, this approach allowed the instructors to be watched and made them hard to enter the core of complex. It was an epitome of architecture feat in ancient Japan. After viewing Himeji castle, I was remind that there were similar lay out to Forbidden City in Beijing, my hometown. There also were confused path inside Forbidden City and several walls were around the main building. A moat was in the outermost of Forbidden City as defensive function. Similarly, both Himeji castle and Forbidden City were located in the center of city and the other buildings were constructed around them. We could clearly view both layout of Himeji and Beijing being extended from their controller’s building from level to level. The hierarchy of society was reflected by layout of city. Emperor always lived in the center of city, which indicated authority and social position.

Japan was similar to China in its ancient culture and tradition. However, Japan has fairly fast development after Second World War. In this trip, I realize Japan had already been much more advanced than China in culture protection, education and technology. They had similar construction performance before, however, I had to accept that Japanese are more concern for their culture promotion, environmental protection and sustainable development than China. There are long distance for China to catch up to the pace of Japan. This is why I came to Japan to learn about their advanced management and culture.

Day 08 : Culture tour in Kyoto

Kyoto!! It was one of the important culture site in Japan. Although we had arrived in Kyoto yesterday, we just began our real culture trip here today. The first time I knew the term of “Kyoto” was when I read the news about Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto has really important position of environmental protection in the world. However, after listening to Dr.Londo’s lecture, I knew that Kyoto use to be the capital of Japan. There were a lot of ancient building which reflects the traditions, religions and rituals. Although I like neon light and shopping areas in the big city like Tokyo, I am also interested in the culture experiences in Kyoto. Obviously, religions and traditions are significant parts of culture. As a buddhist , I try to explore how different Buddhism between China and Japan. It is also interesting for me to view the attitude of religion in Japan.

Today, we took the train to Nara and toured Todaiji Temple and Kasuga Shrine. These two places represented two important religions in Japan, which are Buddhism and Shintoism, and most of Japanese believed in them. Depending on basic introduction from Dr.Londo, the arrival of Buddhism in Japan is ultimately a consequence of the first contact between China and central Asia which occurred with the opening of Silk Road, while Shitonism is thought of as the indigenous religion of Japan. According to my research on google, Shitoism is like Taoism in China, which is folk religion on country. Actually, the word Shinto was adopted from the written Chinese (神道). Shintosm and Taosim have similar thought, which both refer to sprites and gods, focusing on philosophical path or studies. Obviously, Japanese culture was greatly affected by Chinese culture.

In Kasuga Shrine, there was orange arch in the entry of garden and tame deer walked around. By listening to short discussion with Dr.Londo, the orange arch was one of the key symbol of Shitoism and the Deer refer to god. Shrine was around by woody paths and the stream. Every item and building inside the Shrine was elegant and delicate. This made me feel peaceful. It was lucky for us to witness a traditional wedding in the Shrine. About half of Japanese participate in traditional marriage ceremony, while half of them prefer to western ceremony. There was similar situation in China.

However, in Todaiji temple, there was different style of building and layout from Kasuga Shrine. The only word could be used to describe Todaiji Temple is “great”. There is Great Buddha Hall, the largest wooden building in the world and the world's largest statue of the Buddha. The garden of Todaiji temple is fairly clean and organized. The layout and designs of the temple was symmetrical, which reflect the thought of encouraging balance in Buddhism. Todaiji temple is similar to Buddhism temple in China because there also was a buddhist temple, named Yonghe temple, in Beijing, which was as large as Todaiji temple.

Dr. Londo told us that Japanese have multiple believes in which they engage in the different religions in various of stages. They were born in Shinto way, and married in Christian style, then died in buddhist tradition. It is completely different from China. Chinese prefer family tradition and local custom in the big events of their life. They would not choose religious way for their birth, marriage and funeral. Therefore, different areas have distinctive way for their big events like marriage and funeral. After the tours in Todaiji temple and Kasuga Shrine, I realized that there were similar traditions, religions, and customs although they have somewhat differences. Japan the neighbor of China and they are affected by each other. This is why I love Japan very much.

Day 07: From Tokyo to Kyoto

Tokyo, where was my first destination in Japan, which brought initial understanding of Japanese culture and distinctive business experience to me. Today, it was our midterm for the trip, but I had to say goodbye to Tokyo, my favorite city in Japan and then moved to Kyoto. When I left, I just realized that I began to love this city although it has crowed city layout and high consumption. I love Tokyo without any reasons because of the special feeling it gave me, which is hard to be explained by using words.

We woke up so early today and moved to Kyoto by train. On the way to Kyoto, I am inspired by good teamwork in this group. Because we had to carry up so many luggages on the train, team work made it possible to move some many luggage. I was really glad to be able help my classmate to moved their stuff on train station. surprisingly we could apply the logistic theory on our teamwork. This made me understand that good application of logistic theory could allow us to work efficiently. In addition, I was so glad to know that we had free time after the check in to our hotel because our schedule was so tight and we do need time to take a rest. However, we did not spend a lot of time in hotel, we took our chances and went out to go shopping and explored Kyoto. We were fascinated by everything in Japan!

Depending on my initial observation, Kyoto is fairly small city by comparing to Tokyo. Subway system in Kyoto is much easier to figure out than Tokyo. There is less population than Tokyo. In the afternoon, I went shopping with Theresa, Amy, Mashawn and Wenbin after lunch. We went to the main shopping area in Kyoto. Although Kyoto is a smaller city, there are still more people there than in East Lansing. It is amazing for me that girls can walk long timeless when they go on a shopping spree . We almost spend more than 4 hours shopping!! Even though this was the longest time I spent on shopping, we had a fantastic fun time. Theresa and i finally found out our favorite green tea ice cream in the pretty coffee shop. This made me enjoyed that afternoon even more although I was exhausted.

I was exhausted so far, but had so much fun with other group members. We spent our limited time to explore most of Japanese's culture and business experiences. We also went to lots of parties together in Japan. In addition, my respected for Dr. Ross whom always had motivation on his job. I think he also was tired like us, but still led us to our plant tours. Our group always was well organized under his leadership. Also, he always encourages us to get in another culture. This is really important for us, especially for me whom still has language barriers in discussion. Dr.Ross not only is our professor, but also is our friends. Thanks

Actually, we were moving from the current capital to ancient capital of Japan. Even though i had a little understanding of Japan through research, it can not match up to the real culture experiences we had in Kyoto. First time I known the term of “Kyoto” was when I read the news about “Kyoto protocol” trip!

Day 07: Warehouses

Today is the busiest day in our trip of Japan so far. We visited three different companies in one day and studied a lot of supply chain management in the part of warehouse. This is what I expect because the plant tours provide us opportunities to learn how supply chain operates. Even though I am still tired today, I am so excited for companies visits because we can visually and practically understand different types of warehouses by visiting DHL, KRT, and IACT.

First of all, we visited IACT in the morning after 30 minutes of driving to Narita international airport. I am impressed with the big and organized warehouse of IACT which located in Narita cargo terminal. Because Narita cargo terminal is important in Asia’s cargo transportation, it involves organized layout and efficient operation. Cargos are storage in different areas according to bar code and they were stacked on different pallets. We could find out information about certain cargo and their tracking by scanning the bar code. This really improves the efficiency of the operation because we can find the location and information of cargo by scanning the bar codes. Plenty of the labels and signs on the cargos also left deep impression on me. These label and sign allowed the workers to move and storage cargo in the right way.

After lunch we took a plant tours in DHL and KRT. Both of them had long history and rich experiences, which provide us deeper study in supply chain management. DHL provides value added services and offer inventories management for different companies such as ERICSSON and FUJITON. Warehouse of DHL is large which allowed great potential for capability of inventory management. DHL was impressive because there are only a few people who could manage such a big warehouse, reflecting their high efficiency and ability. DHL also emphasize on the flexibility of inventory capacity, which allowed them to provide various services.KRT look like a traditional Asian company. By my observation, its worker and staff really pay attention to their task because safety concentration and efficiency are required in some occupation. Furthermore, KRT focused on building good relationships and networking with the other companies such trucking companies. This will reduce some costs of their operation.


After the plants visits today, I realized that companies operated their business by using different strategies. This diversifies my perspective on supply chain management.