Capturing the Asian (Innovation) Opportunity

From s+b

See Strategy+Business article

“One thing Asian companies are not reducing is their interest in innovation. (See “Profits Down, Spending Steady: The Global Innovation 1000,” by Barry Jaruzelski and Kevin Dehoff, s+b, Winter 2009.) Asia’s emerging economies, particularly India and China, are following the pattern originally set by Japan and Korea. They, too, were once known for low-cost manufacturing and mimicry of Western design. Over the years, Japanese and Korean executives deliberately built up their companies’ design and manufacturing skills and became global innovation leaders in everything from cars to mobile phones to plasma televisions. Now, the Chinese government’s five-year plan includes a similarly deliberate emphasis on creating an innovation-oriented economy. India’s innovators, although they have less government support, are active in such fields as health care, finance, agriculture, and public–private partnerships. (See “The Innovation Sandbox,” by C.K. Prahalad, s+b, Autumn 2006, and “Not Just for Profit,” by Marjorie Kelly, s+b, Spring 2009.)

Innovation is usually born of need and opportunity. And Asia has some of the greatest unmet customer markets and societal challenges in the world, with its vast rural areas, huge demands for natural resources, significant environmental problems, and aging populations. Many Asian governments will rely on private-sector innovation to help meet these challenges. For example, after paying little attention to air quality during its initial burst of industrial development, China has announced a plan to become the leading producer of hybrid and all-electric vehicles by 2012. Companies whose capabilities dovetail with this green strategy could find a lucrative welcome. Meanwhile, Toyota is developing personal-care robots that can perform housekeeping and nursing chores, which it intends to target to Japan’s growing senior citizen population. For the same reason, the Japanese pharmaceutical firm Kowa has set up a joint venture with Teva, an innovative Israeli drugmaker, to bring 200 new drugs to market by 2015. If such innovations succeed, other companies may follow.”

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Updates!

Check out the updates page and see what I’ll be reviewing soon. If you have any suggestions just tell me. I haven’t decided, yet, on the next character. If you liked Ikuto, who else would you like to get to know more??? If you want me to review an opening, go ahead and suggest that too! Or a mangaka (I’m willing to read multiple mangas, whether it be adventure/ suspense to romance/ drama)! So go ahead and comment on what you want.

I will be doing Evan’s requests:

” bleach – hitsugaya, kenpachi

special a – Kei, Hikari, Megumi, and her guy. dunno his name.

btX… need I say more.

clamp characters specifically from: xxxholic, tsubasa resovoir chronicles

arina tanemura characters also. “

Also to keep up with what you’re reading you can join:

http://www.otakuzone.com/registration/index.php?sn=MTcyODV8YWlyYWlzYW5l

and also mangafox.com!!

If you love Kaichou Wa Maid Sama (KWMS) help get it back up to the top 5!!!

[Via http://hoshiihanashi.wordpress.com]

Harmonious

by Nao

yawa-ragu, yawa-rageru, nago-mu, nago-yaka(na), wa

Something valued in Japanese society is wa – harmony. Wa creates a mild atmosphere, that is, nago-yaka na fun’iki. Fun’iki is an atmosphere.

Those who are stressed out need something soothing, which is expressed as nago-mu or kokoro nago-mu. For example, they might need a place to relax (kokoro nago-mu tokoro or kokoro nago-mu kūkan), or art that soothes them (kokoro nago-mu geijutsu).

To be softened or to become mild is yawa-ragu. To soften is yawa-rageru.

Waon is a chord. Reconciliation is wakai, of which kai is to understand or to solve.

Wa also means Japanese. Japanese cuisine is washoku. Japanese sweets are wagashi. Japanese tableware is washokki.  Waei jiten is a Japanese-English dictionary like Kenkyusha’s New Japanese – English Dictionary. Ei means English. Jiten means a dictionary.

Wakayama is a prefecture whose capital is Wakayama city. Wakayama begins with the character.

First, draw the left-hand side of the character.

1. Draw the sweeping dot from the top.
2. Draw the horizontal stroke from the left.
3. Draw the vertical line from inside the first stroke to the bottom.
4. Draw the sweeping stroke from the previous strokes intersect.
5. Draw the small dot from the middle of the vertical stroke.
6. Start drawing the mouth. Draw the vertical stroke next to the arrow.
7. Draw the right-angled hook shape. Start the stroke from where you start the previous stroke. Turn the direction of the brush at the shoulder.
8. Draw the horizontal stroke at the bottom.

[Via http://calligraphernao.wordpress.com]

Latern Light and Japanese Culture

“We may simply have lost our appreciation for handmade goods.” Igarashi san has been making chochin paper lanterns in his small shop for his full life. His pa too, and his grandfatherand great granddad and even great, great granddad. The tools & equipment that surround him today, in reality, have outlasted his ancestors, their wooden surfaces worn smooth with age. Since the start of the Meiji time ( 1868 – 1912 ) Kanazawa citizens have been buying Igarashi chochin from the store, in the heart of old Kanazawa’s merchant district, near the back of the castle. The shelves are stacked high with superbly decorated lanterns – colourful spurts of colour peppering the dusty confines of the little workshop.

Chochin lanterns have a fairly long history in Japan – there is evidence of them being employed in temples in the tenth century – and were used essentially as a transportable method of lighting. Only occasionally used within, they typically hung outside a home, temple or business or else in the entrance, prepared to be suspended on a pole and carried before anybody going out at night. Igarashi-san reckons that at one time they were so commonly used there would have been been around 40 or 50 chochin shops just in Kanazawa. These days there remain only himself and one other local craftsman in the trade and the other fellow (Matsuda-san) has long since diversified, making traditional umbrellas his mainstay.

Making a chochin is a fiddly, fairly delicate procedure despite the attractively the attractively simple appearance of the end product. And, when asked what are the most important qualities in his profession Igarashi-san replies, his bright eyes dead serious, “patience and concentration.” The average sized lantern according to Igarashi-san, at roughly thirty cm across, can be produced at a rate of two a day by one man including most of the painting. However some actually huge ones have left the Igarashi shop over time – his biggest was a matsuri monster measuring five shaku (1 shaku = 30.3cm in the old Eastern measuring system ) in diameter with an intricate year of the rabbit design on it. The old lantern maker is realistic about the fact that people want cheaper, mass-produced, plastic covered lanterns these days – he even sells them himself – but he is assured in the certainty that a well-made paper lantern is a lovely thing, superior in several paths to these garish modern impostors.

“You can repair a good chochin,” he tells us, “you can replace one rib or fix a hole in the paper no problem.” “Plastic lanterns have no internal frame and can not be patched.” A paper lantern regardless of how well made lasts only about a year ( natural beauty is always fleeting ) while a plastic one might last twice that and cost half as much. On top of that, we as a society might have simply lost our appreciation for handmade goods. Price has become our main incentive as clients. We don’t care to understand how things were made these days, or who made them, or else Igarashisan would be the prosperous head of a chain of shops.

The walls of the Igarashi Chochinya and his ready-to-hand scrapbook sport countless monochrome pictures and press clippings showing a proud, broad-shouldered young man with robust, thick arms and a fetching smile showing off stylish paper spheres with matsuri lights glimmering in the background. Modestly showing us them, his warm, friendly smile only slips barely as he tells us that he is going to be the last of his family line making lanterns here.

To read more about travel topics, visit famouswonders.com and while you are at it, check out Mount Fuji.

[Via http://japan308.wordpress.com]

[TRANSLATED] Big Bang TV Guide December Interview

Big Bang- The group that will soon conquer the all of Asia, starting with Japan.

Big Bang has been busy with activities going back and forth from Korea and Japan. Their new single after 4 months, ‘Let Me Hear Your Voice’ is being used as the opening song for the TBS drama ‘Ohitorisama’, and is an R&B song perfect for winter.

GD: What makes the song attractive is the melody that’s like a whisper in your ears, and the stringed instruments in the background that fill up the atmosphere of the song.

TOP: Also note the lyrics that reflect the image of the drama.

The MV is about wanting to express how you feel to the person you love, and is definitely worth seeing. The Big Bang members, who always show a different side of them in each music video, also film their own love scenes.

VI: When I was performing as a solo artist in Korea, the concept was ‘sexy’ so I asked the director to put in a kiss scene in the music video. (laughs)

YB: I kept thinking to myself that it’s just acting since it’s I’m not in love with the other person, but it was still awkward and embarrassing.

DS: I’m the only one who hasn’t filmed a kiss scene yet! (laughs)

In Korea everyone’s busy with individual activities. G-Dragon released his solo album and stole the number 1 spot on the charts. TOP is acting in the drama ‘IRIS’ starring Lee Byung Heon.

DS: The fans loved Leader’s solo activities and so did I! His performances were really great.

GD: TOP’s drama is really exciting. Even when I’m in Japan, I watch it online because I want to know what happens next.

Big Bang has no time to rest, not with activities in Japan, Korea, and solo promotions. Are there times when you just want to run away from it all?

TOP: We really thoroughly prepared an escape plan once. But we failed. (laughs)

YB: If we ever run away, I want to go to Okinawa. But we’d get caught straight away so maybe it would be better to go to America. Just kidding, we’ll work really hard in Japan too so keep rooting for us!

thanks to sjay.x @ bbvip 

 

 

 

   

[Via http://ibigbang.wordpress.com]

Tiger Woods Girlfriends

Interest in Tiger Woods’ personal life has surged since his car accident last week fueled reports and rumors of an alleged affair with Rachel Uchitel.

More women have come forward claiming that they’ve have had affairs with golf superstar Tiger Woods. Jaimee Grubbs, the latest woman to come forward with allegations of an affair. Jaimee was a cocktail waitress in San Diego.

Jaimee Grubbs Says Tiger Sent Her Sexy Texts She met Tiger in Las Vegas in 2007. PHOTOS: Jaimee Grubbs’ Hot Photo Session Grubbs, told her story to the new issue of Us Weekly and provided sexual text messages she said she received from Tiger.

“I will wear  you out…when was the last time  you got (bleeped)?” one message read.

Another one from Tiger read, “Send me something very naughty…Go to the bathroom and take (a picture).”

Her story adds more fuel to the burning scandal that began when the National Enquirer published an exclusive story that Tiger was in a cheating scandal with Rachel Uchitel, a New York party girl. And while Tiger and Uchitel have both denied an affair, the Enquirer followed her to Australia, where she and Tiger were in the same hotel.

Before Woods married Elin Nordegren, he dated a law student named Joanna Jagoda. Jagoda from 1999 and 2000.

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[Via http://emptysuit.wordpress.com]

Fine

by Nao

hare, hare-ru, ha-rasu, sei

It’s about weather. Fine or sunny weather is hare or seiten. When the weather forecast predicts that tomorrow will be fine, it reports, “asu wa hareru deshou.” Hareru means to become fine or clear. If the sky cleared up after bad weather, you can say, “hareta, ” which is the past tense of hareru.

The verb hareru can be used for other things that clear up. Your heart and mind are examples. You can say, “kokoro ga hareru” or “ki ga hareru.” Ga is joshi (a particle) that follows a subject. The former means that your heart lifted; the latter means that your spirit is refreshed.

Suspicion is also applied to this category. “Utagai ga hareru” means that suspicion is dispelled. While hareru sounds passive, harasu means to dispel. The things you can dispel with the verb, harasu, are bad feelings such as suspicion (utagai), gloom (usa), and grudge (urami). We say, “utagai wo harasu,” “usa wo harasu,” and “urami wo harasu,” respectively. In these situations, we do something proactively to dispel them.

First, draw the left-hand side of the character.

1. Draw the left side of the rectangle.
2. Draw the upper side and the right side of the rectangle.
3. Draw the horizontal stroke in the rectangle.
4. Draw the lower side of the rectangle.
5. Begin to draw the right-hand side. Draw the top horizontal line from the left to the right.
6. Draw the vertical line from the top.
7. Draw the second horizontal stroke.
8. Draw the third horizontal stroke.
9. Draw the vertical stroke on the left.
10. Draw the right-angled hook. Turn upward at the end and make a thorn-like ending.
11. Draw the horizontal stroke in the middle.
12. Draw the lower horizontal stroke. All the horizontal strokes are parallel.

[Via http://calligraphernao.wordpress.com]