And so it has come to pass that my more-than-a-thousand days of service in Japan, is grinding down to the last 50 days or so. Truth is, a part of me does not want to go home because I have grown accustomed here and partially because of this global recession. But I guess all good things must come to an end. Oh well, extension talks are still ongoing but I don’t want to bet my money on it. I would love to go home now, spend a week or two resting in my province and then pick up on my personal life where it entered a hiatus just after I left for Japan.
Looking back, my almost four years of Japan assignment was pretty colorful. I can solidly say that I have made the most out of it, though I had scanty resource. When I left for Japan, I couldn’t read a single Japanese character, aside from hiragana and katakana. Now I write all my specifications in Japanese, and sometimes they are sent to different parts of the world. I guess it would be noteworthy here that in my job location, there was really a great need for nihongo improvement but my parent company opted not to give us full support on it. For some reason though, it was probably our fault too, why the training did not materialize.
As for verbal Japanese, my current team leader and senior engineer, probably sums up the strides I made to improve, in a very simple kampai (an act of cheering before drinking) which he shared in one of our parties. During that party, after one of my professional rivals started self-praising his achievements, my BEER-enabled-team-leader who is not really that outspoken, gently stood up, raised his mug and said. “This is for govz, who during his early days, can’t talk comprehensible nihongo. Zenzen wakaranakatta. You would have to buy a special dictionary to understand him. But today, it is at least for me, enough. Kampai.” All my teammates laughed, and shouted “kampai.”
Dont get me wrong though, Nihongo was not the only thing I came to japan for. Back then when I started, like any new assignee, I was afraid. I felt that whatever skills I possessed, was not enough. You see, I was not like those “HOPE” participants of my parent company. HOPE is a program aimed at fresh-graduates, training for a set number of months without having to tackle ongoing projects. An extended schooling system. But for me even up to now, just like my veteran friends now long resigned, it is nothing more but a mechanism to drive us out.
Unlike my HOPE foundation friends, vets had to study japanese while working. We had to study UML and other software stuff, while we were already tackling cross-platform compilation, kernel debugging and other stuff enough to make you pee in your pants. In short back then, people like me, seemed to have very little chance of success.Nahh, i don’t have any riffs with the HOPE participants. Some of them in fact, I have taken under my wing and have loved them like little siblings. And this blog aims not to judge my young friends. I am just concerned over a concept of what-my-biased-mind deems as a favoritism-system, wrapped in chocolate bar wrapping. Hmmm, a form of Children-Of-God cultic system, complete with serial numbers.
But nevertheless, here I am, I survived four years of Japan. I have so many wonderful stories to share, though I have to relate them in some form of cryptic stories. After all as an R&D engineer, I am required to carry my secrets to the grave. And with all humility put aside, to reach where I stand right now, should one come from where I started, is almost improbable. True, there are others like me, I mean those who survive japan, without nihongo. But what I am talking about is not surviving, it is excelling in a field which is not really your bread and butter, moreso that the communication medium is not the world-staple english language.
For the record, I finished a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering, from Don Bosco Technical College. I dont come from the “big-named” Philippine institutions like UP, Ateneo, LaSalle, Mapua and I guess every other institution that boasts of many scholastic records. My school is not so-so, but I guess my previous dean of college described it succinctly. “In Don Bosco, we do not require our applying students to be the best and the brightest of the land. However we hope that with the system we have, we can create good professionals out of them, worthy enough to compete, in a global playing field.”
Being ECE, I was not bred to understand scheduling algorithms, nor taught how to build time-critical embedded software. I was trained more on theory about silicon and germanium diodes, op-amps and yep the resistor color-bands. So in theory I cannot outdo the software ability of my fellow engineers with belts in software engineering. I guess what aided me in my career-shift though, was my genuine desire to be an engineer. Not in terms of a national licensure exam but in what i deemed engineering to be, in its truest and purest form. “Engineering is an extension of the creation process. When God gave man intellect, he gave him then the power not only to procreate but the power to extend and build wonderful things from the diverse raw materials God provided.”
I did not care about my software handicap though. I always made it a point to be as professional as I can get. And for the past four years here in Japan, my responsibilities had been blessedly varied. Its scope ranged from the simplest tests to multi-thread multi-process software application development. I had also been tasked, though miniscule as it may seem, to review certain parts of the OS, and had been pleasantly recognized as one of the engineers capable of developing network-protocol applications.
One fond memory would be dating back 2 years ago, during christmas time. When one particular module caused some erratic behaviour given a set of repetitive testing. It was a day before christmas and I received mail from one of the department heads requesting me to investigate the module. So there I was debugging it on the 24th 25th and 26th of December. When I was finished I presented four possible causes of the behavior, and the problem was not anymore at the application level but at the raw calls of the processor itself. They then implemented the fix. My Japanese senior, smiled at me and in a friendly casual manner said, “Now you can go home ….. for vacation, that is.”
Another would be during the time when I was selected to support 6 modules for a totally different platform because of the loss of one of the regular engineers. I was selected in front of three other veterans. During my first week, they tried to explain to me what needed to get done. And on that same week, I was able to find 4 not-my-scope bugs and got them fixed on the same week while I was studying. Due to the nature of the bugs and the fixes I built, one of the foremost engineers in the team didnt hold back when he said during our weekly meeting, “Tsuyoi na.”. It was a subtle professional admiration from a respected engineer. The same engineer later dubbed me as “segai ichi”.
On that same project too, I distinctly remember one particular problem we had, which reflected itself as a minor bug at first. Several people were already called up to handle the problem. Due to its complexity, one of my fellow engineers developed a guard to prevent the particular abberance. However, the entire team was not sold to the idea of the guard, without understanding its true nature. When the problem could not be reproduced with the guard in place, I asked personally the most senior of engineers if he can give me one day to find out which one was causing it. Like what I’ve said, trade secrets are trade secrets.
I got the job done.When all of us have almost failed to find the true nature of the abberation, God was kind enough to guide me in finding its true nature albeit losing all my energy for that day.
For another project, with my nihongo stranger than Steven Spielberg’s Amazing stories, my word already carried weight. There was this one instance when my team lead submitted to me a particular code to be implemented. I reviewed the code, found it wanting and submitted my own version within the day. To my surprise he sent a broadcast email asking everyone to follow my version. I also remember one time when one of my friends asked me for a code review. In the process I spotted suspicious commands outside of his code. I told him to report the problem to his superiors. Later that day, one of the heads, came to my desk and thanked me. All the codes got re-reviewed and revamped.
I have so many wonderful memories on and off the job here in Japan. But I guess, I will save some for later.
For now, I handle 2 to 5 major modules for my sub-group and together with two engineers, and 2 trainees, we are creating almost a hundred modules. Well I cannot disclose what they are but let us just say they are substantial to my overall goal of rebuilding my team’s dampened image, caused by senior officers who made the mistake of what-I-think was massive overselling and mistreatment of an embedded development process. Development with all due respect poses a different challenge as that of production, maintenance and testing.
What’s the point then of sharing these stories? Well probably it feeds my ego, but I guess I cant seem to fathom, why God has chosen this path for me. I am kinda confused why are all these things unfolding before me and what is it that I was destined to finish? Hmmm, I hope it pleasantly surprises me though. My growth in Japan was also non-linear, nihongo and software development were not the only things I grew stronger with. Some friends I have here, miss playing with me in the tennis courts. And I miss them too. Total strangers who watch me play sometimes repeatedly ask me when I can play again. I am not that good yet though. My good friend Jay can punish my ass anytime.
Simply put, thru this blog I want to express my profound sense of admiration and gratitude for my client, for giving me and my fellow engineers such wonderful sets of experiences and the trust that came with it. And for which I am eternally thankful. And in another aspect, all I am saying is that as individuals, or as a team, a holistic and logarithmic growth can be achieved easily in light of great adversity like this recession, or like a japan-assignment with virtually zero-level nihongo.
And even if this year ushers what seems to be a global economic meltdown, I hope we all seize the day(Carpe Diem!). We need to seize this opportunity to turn this immense adversity into a catalyst for growth, as individuals and as team members of our respective families, and professional affiliations. In the coming days, I am betting there will be more sacrifices to be asked of us in solving problems, in saving jobs. I am led to believe that we only have to be a ton more CREATIVE, to find a way not only to save the businesses but to save the needed cash flows of each and every member of the team.
And so, my last 50 days or so in Japan happens to be, in the truest sense of the word, crunch time. And if you understand what I am talking about, it is time to play clutch. And for all those hoping and working hard to get this economy fixed, I wish them well and pray for their success. From Mr. Barack Obama, Mr. Taro Aso, and Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, down to the old lady selling banana cue in Makati Avenue, I wish them all success in their fight for this heavy recession.
And to everyone, Good luck!