Keep track!

Hey guys,
sorry for this small post.
Keep a track of this series on Japanese History. I am a bit busy these days, so won't be able to update the blog as frequently as i did throughout last week, but keep track. Something really big is gonna come up!
Regards,
P r a s a d....

A bit about Japan....

Well People,
now here is something about Japan, the country of my dreams(!?) and my area of specialization. Although i am a language expert, we need to study about Japan as a country too. Needless to say, learning a language without studying the country where it is spoken is useless. So let me tell you something about Japan.
Let us start with some hard facts. The Japanese Population is somewhere around 130 million. It is one tenth of Indian population. Japan is the second largest economy after the United States and Japanese automobile manufacturers like Toyota, Suzuki, Honda, etc. lead the world market. Of course, Japan is also famous for its high-precision instruments and even electronic instruments. Robotics is another field where this country has been pumping in a lot of resources and they have devised robots that play football, that walk on stairs and robot dogs which can help the visually challenged.
Let us have a brief look at Modern Japanese History. Modern Japanese History starts from the year 1868, which saw a major event called as Meiji Restoration take place. Remember "The Last Samurai" ? Well, the period depicted in that movie is exactly the one immediately after the Meiji Restoration. Actually from 1600 to 1853, Japan was a completely closed country. No Japanese were allowed to travel out of Japan nor were any foreigners allowed to come to Japan. Of course, interaction with the outside world was not completely cut off and limited ships from Holland, China and Korea were allowed to visit Japan. But in 1853, when American Commodre Perry brought his ships to the Bay of Uraga near Tokyo, Japan was jolted to reality. It got to know about the technological supremacy and in turn the military might of the United States, and had to listen to the U.S. demands. The demands were simple....open Japan to trade with the U.S. As Japan signed the treaty, more and more Western Powers forced her to sign treaties with them. There was difference of opinion between two factions of political leaders. One was supporting the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had kept Japan isolated for more than 250 years. Other was opposing the Shogunate and trying to bring back the Emperor into the power. The anti-Shogunate faction finally could carry out an uprising and in 1868, Emperor Meiji was restored to power. This was called as Meiji Restoration.
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan followed rapid westernisation and militarization simultaneously. Modernisation was complemented with Japanese eagerness to learn from western knowledge and Emperor Meiji sent a group of scholars to study the various systems of U.S. and Europe. This was called as Iwakura Mission.
Education was emphasized and you would be surprised to know that primary education was made compulsory way back in 1892. At the same time, the government also sold heavy and chemical industrial units to private economic conglomerates (called Zaibatsu) in Japan so that efficient usage of the resources was possible. With this, within twenty five years after the Meiji Restoration and Opening of Japan to the West, Japan had already started progressing on the path of Modernisation.
I guess this much is enough for today. I will continue this series as i think everyone will be interested in Japanese History. It is really interesting to know how a small country like Japan could become a formidable threat to the various big giants of the world in the first half of the twentieth century.
Looking forward to your comments and suggestions...
P r a s a d....

Broadband that you can trust!

Hi folks,
another post of fustration. I hope the blog is not becoming too boring for you all.
Well, as the name suggests, this is the slogan of MTNL. Earlier they called it "Mera Telephone Nahi Lagega". And now, as they boast about "Broadband you can trust", my internet connection is not active for 4 days of a week. And the other three days, it works in bits and pieces. And i wonder how these people can figure out the exact time when i am rearing to go and use the net. They are genius souls who continue to get saddistic pleasure by harassing their customers. And mind you, they do it with literally no regrets! I remember the day when i had gone to get my phoneline connection. These people were enjoying lunch. There was no board which informed us about lunch time or the office hours. We requested them to make the timings clear as people would be misled without knowing them. And then we heard this interesting converstion between two employees.
Employee 1: I wonder why they have so many complaints against us.
Employee 2: Yeah, and if they really do have problems, why do they use our connection. They better use the private ones.
Can you beat it ???!!! An employee of a company saying that he/she doesn't care about the customers. I was flabbergasted! That was the most ridiculous attitude i had seen till date. And that is the reason why our Broadband We can trust gives us such service.
Anyways, i think i need to call their customer care center and lodge a complaint. Or maybe i better change the ISP. In any case, they won't understand the importance of their customers till the company shuts down. There is so much scope to create awareness in our field of service industry. BPO is not the only key to our success. I guess stregthening the existing infrastructure and enhancing is also another important issue our country needs to tackle.
Anyways, i have learnt that we can't TRUST anything in this place. So we need to create that trust and work hard to preserve it. Hope we are able to carry on the good work.
Regards,
P r a s a d....

What is Interpretation all about???

Hi All,
i am back to the blog after 10 days. Now you all must be musing at the subject of this particular post on the blog. Well, the explanation is really simple. i was made to think about this particular question at the time of a recent interpretation assignment. And i can promise you that i mean all of it.
Well, as you all are aware i have also been involved in doing simultaneous interpretation too. I would like to explain both Consecutive and Simultaneous interpretation once again. Consecutive is the one in which the speaker says something, the interpreter takes notes and reproduces in another language. Simultaneous is one where the speaker speaks and the interpreter continues to talk, without any break, with a space of about one line behind the speaker. The difficulty of this task can be rated by the fact that the international rule for simultaneous interpretation is no interpreter is allowed to continue simultaneous interpretation for more than 30 minutes. If the process continues longer, the mental fatigue on the speaker lowers down the accuracy of interpretation.
So, back to the assignment. We were provided material about the international meet in advance, but some presentations were missing. Now when we were told even on the day of the conference that the presentations never reached the hosts, i asked myself this question. And my professor told me, "These are the professional hazards you have to cope up with."
Seriously, we need to educate our clients. The reason is pretty simple. If we don't understand what the speaker is saying, obviously the interpretation will be bad. With bad interpretation, the listeners will not understand the message of the speaker. So i would like to let you all know about the difficulties an interpreter faces and at the same time tell you all to talk with a slow pace when you are having an interpreter. All the management Gurus that we had were really speaking so fast that i literally was out of my breath when i tried to keep pace with them. It is really challenging and i do enjoy it, but not when the listeners are not satisfied.
Well, this was just a post where i let out my frustration against the extremely low level of awareness towards this profession.
Let me also tell you about something more. I mean this is my idea about which i want all of your feedback. I will be posting the same idea on other groups and other places on the net. Thinking about the street children of Delhi, i have thought of doing something. I would like to have feedbacks from all of you about this. Please don't hesitate to give any sort of inputs, no matter in what form they are. All of them are important! Looking forward to some nice ideas, if not on the Blog, maybe on the groups.
Well, it's late now and i have classes tomorrow as well, so will pack up my bags. Hope i am not lazy to skip writing the blog tomorrow.
Looking forward to your comments,
Regards,
P r a s a d....

Hi!!!

Hello Friends,
After a loong silence for more than 3 months, here i am, back again.
This time i hope i will be able to blog properly and keep the blog active. I guess this has been a very big problem for me.
Anyways, let me tell you about some more new things that i learnt in the last 3 months.
Let's start from my specialization, which is interpretation. Well, one important thing that i got to know about interpretation is that one should be well aware of regional languages as an interpreter.Of course, people will be having their own preferences, but what i found out is, in a country like India, you should be prepared always. In one of my recent assignments, i was made to interprete in English and Hindi. And the person who was talking was talking in Gujarathi. Then of course in South India, you feel clueless when the "Anna" standing in front of you starts with his "ANDU GUNDU" language. I mean it really sounds FRENCH! So to all the people interested in interpretation, here is one advice......Practice interpretation in at least two languages. One is of course English and the other is either Hindi, or your regional language. It helps!
Then about some new concepts. Did you know the concept of GNH? Just like GDP, the Institute of Bhutan Studies, Thimpu has devised a concept called Gross National Happiness and are working out indicators that will be stastically supporting this concept. Guess there will be people who will be interested in this concept. Give a search on Google and you will get many hits ;-)
Another thing is that you people should check out the trecks organised by Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam! We had just been there some days back and enjoyed every bit of the treck. And mind you our treck of two days costed us just 1800 bucks! Of course we were a group of 11, but i think even if there are two ppl, these trecks are really cheap.I will keep you all informed about these programs in coming posts too.
What more? I just saw "Rang De Basanti". I would say they are very inspired, but they couldn't put it properly. I mean the film totally disappoints you on the technical front and remains a mediocre one, not doing any justice to the potentials the germ of the film holds. Anyways, this post is not meant for criticism, and i would like you all to send your comments!
Nothing more....I'm tired.
Will keep blogging regularly now.
P r a s a d....