TJHamanaka's Blog

As my second blog post to comment on my other Comm101 classmates, the blog post by Joseph Hong’s “No More Cell Phones While “Driving” in California” caught my attention. As I was reading his blog post, I was very interested in the fact that it is still considered using a cell phones while “driving” even though the vehicle is fully stopped. California court has made a law that it is considered illegal to use cell phone while sitting in a vehicle seats even if the vehicle is moving or stationary.

As Joseph mentioned in his blog post, I definitely agree to that fact that cell phone has many application and functions that can distract people right away. People have to make sure they don’t use their cell phones while driving unless their cell phones are designed specifically so it’s allow hand free function.

To add on to his blog post, I would like to make a comment that many people still use their cell phone knowing that it’s illegal and their cell phones aren’t designed to allow hand free function. This can leads to the car accident and increase the rates of people dying from the car accidents.

Original Article

Japan’s economic continues to go downward ever since the earthquake back in March. Even before the earthquake, Japan’s economic was not great. Japan was a large market as exporter for food and energy; however, yen is very high right now that all the importers from other countries are importing less from Japan. For example, China was the largest market for Japan, but in May, exporting rate to China dropped by 7.7 percent.

I believe that Japan’s economic is not doing very successful because of their technology is advancing so quickly that human being can not keep up with all the advancement; therefore, they have many workers who can not manipulate new computer software, machine, etc. so they end up getting laid off and get replaced by people who can manipulate all the new technology. Not only the people who’s more knowledgeable, but all the workers who used to work in factories are now getting laid off because all the goods are produced by machine instead of handmade. In addition, Japan are having lots of factories outside of Japan such as China. I think hiring more Japanese citizens will be the first step to improve their economic.

Click HERE for the article

The external business blog that caught my interest was the blog “Retirement” by BusinessBlogger. This blog explains about how seniors these days have variety of choices after their retirement. The majority of the seniors make a huge changes after their retirement. For example, they can save up money for retirement and enjoy their life by traveling to places, they can peacefully live rest of their lives with their family, etc. However, the seniors also fear to feel lonely after retirement. To avoid the loneliness, they tend to work longer after their retirement age, 62-65 years old.

I personally think the government should give out some extra support for the seniors who require help, because they’ve been working so hard for the company. For example, financially or providing a location to socialize with other seniors.

This blog “Retirement” is very important to understand the current situation of seniors who have retired. It is not appropriate for business/government to not concern about the seniors after they retired. It is very important for them to keep concerning about their lives after retirement to ensure that they can spend a good lives after their retirement.

The company that I consider that to be entrepreneurial is Toshi Landscaping Ltd. which is a Japanese garden landscaping company owned by my father, Toshihiro Hamanaka. Toshi Landscaping started in 1997, Toshihiro’s first intention was to bring in Japanese culture into Canada. He has been trained to design and create Japanese Garden in Japan for 13 years, and has experience of making garden in Canada for more than 14 years.

I believe this company is entrepreneurial because it he started his own company with his own will, and he understood he had a very high risk to come to Canada. For example, he sold his house before he came to Canada; therefore, if his company fails, he had no house to go back. This company also provides a service of “Real Traditional Japanese Garden” that no other company in this Lower Mainland has. No other company owner has been trained in Japan to make a real traditional Japanese garden.

To check Toshi Landscaping Ltd. Website, click HERE

There are variety of restaurants that are open 24/7 in Japan for late night workers. Recently, those restaurants are becoming a target of robbery at night. Although, there are lots of restaurants in Japan that open late at night, “Gyudon” beef-on-rice restaurants belonging to Sukiya Chain has become robber’s favourite target. As its stated in the article, out of 71 robberies at gyudon restaurants, 63 targeted Sukiya.

There are several reasons Sukiya Chain became robber’s favourite target. First, they only got one worker to keep the costs low. Second, they have cashier with large amount of cash right by the entrance; therefore, it’s a perfect target for the robbers.

To decrease the amount of robbery, they are planning to strengthen their security by always keeping two workers working, change the cashier into meal ticket machine which will take much longer time to break into.

In my opinion, it will reduce the number of robbery for Sukiya Chain; however, the robbers will start targeting other chains such as Yoshinoya and Nakau. Which will cause the increase of robbery for them. To reduce the number of robbery they should do the same for all chains.

**All the information and picture are from the article**

As many people who live in Lower Mainland know that Translink was in-progress of new project, “New Skytrain Evergreen Line”. Evergreen line is planned to run a skytrain from Lougheed Town Centre in Burnaby to Coquitlam Town Centre via Port Moody. This project was expected to start back in 2010 and complete it in 2014; however, due to the lack of funding, Evergreen Line project has been stalled for years.

B.C. Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom explains they couldn’t proceed with the project because Translink couldn’t gather enough funding for the construction because their only source of gather funding is property taxes; which they can not raise the tax anymore.

I believe Translink should gather some funding as soon as possible to start the project. For the funding, they should figure some new way to gather the funding. For example, ask for sponsor, raise prices for other items such as bus pass, monthly pass, etc. Translink should have announced the project once they gathered enough funding; whereas announce it before enough funding and end up snubbing.

Click HERE to read the article “Evergreen Line construction could start ‘very soon'”.

*All information and picture are taken from the article*

I’ve read through many of my roommates’ blog which many of them were very interesting and I learned a lot from their blog. The blog post that caught my attention the most was Annie Luk’s Blog Post “iPod”. Annie’s blog post caught my attention especially because I also have iPod Touch and I was able to refer to my own personal opinion about iPod, iPad, iPhone, etc.

Annie’s Blog Post “iPod” gives her personal opinion about the article “Should Apple kill the iPod?” that Apple shouldn’t kill all the iPod because it was their most popular device that everybody knows. Instead, they should get rid of the models that are becoming less popular.

I definitely agree with Annie, Apple should not kill all the iPod because iPod is going way beyond the consumers’ expection and it is a wonderful device for consumers to get familiar with Apple product. For example, just as Annie mentioned, iPhone has too many applications and all sorts of extra functions even though the consumer’s only requiring a basic calling and texting plan. Therefore, consumers can’t get familiar with its products; however, iPod is a perfect product that consumers can get to know Apple’s product.

McDonald is the world’s largest fast food restaurant through out the world. I am pretty confident to say that everybody has eaten McDonald before, or at least heard of McDonald before. I personally like McDonald since I was little and I still do continue to eat McDonald. Now in Japan, they intend to shut down hundreds of outlets for the following year to increase their profit they’ve lost from the earthquake in March 2011.

Mr. Harada, Chief Executive Officer, said “We want to close a few hundred stores next year and we expect to increase sales the year after that” (Quote taken from the article)

In my opinion, it may be true that it can increase its profit by closing hundreds of outlets. However, the high unemployment rate will increase due to the shut down; which is another problem that Japan is currently going through. High unemployment rate is caused by Japan’s advancement in technology. All the industries require less labor because all the products are produced by machine. By shutting down the outlets, they will have some gains, but also have losses that can lead into serious problem.

Click HERE for the article (Informations and pictures are provided from here)

This past many years, we’ve been hearing the words such as  “Green”, “Environmentally Friendly”, etc. due to the global warming. One of the main cause of global warming is all the carbon dioxide produced by automobile. Now in Japan, Toyota has invented new vehicle that is the most frugal hybrid vehicle on global market.

This vehicle is called Toyota Aqua. Aqua will be introduced in Tokyo Motor Show in December and expecting to start selling in January 2012.

From the past, the most frugal hybrid vehicle was also from Toyota, Prius. Prius has the rating of 32km per liter; however, Aqua has the rating of 40km per liter which beats all the frugal hybrid vehicle on global market.

The invention of Toyota Aqua will clearly influence the automobile industry. Also, Toyota has been putting effort into being environmentally friendly and invented many other vehicle such as Prius. I believe these invention will make the world much more environmentally friendly and definitely will lower the amount of carbon dioxide produced a year.

To read the article “New Toyota Aqua Gets 40 km/l – Debuts At Tokyo Motor Show in December”, click HERE. (Information and pictures are provided from this site)

Due to the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan back in March, 341 firms went busted. These companies were located in Tohoku and Kanto region. From these firms being busted, Japan has ¥612.3 billion (approximately 7.9 billion Canadian Dollars) and 6,376 employees in debt.

I’ve personally heard all the disasters and debt that Japan is going through from Japanese news too.

Following are pictures after a disasters:

From these disasters, not only the Tohoku and Kanto region, but western Japan is also having a business problem. Tohoku and Kanto region has many factories that produce parts for electronic device, power tools, vehicles, etc. Therefore, the factories in western Japan can not produce as many products anymore since all these parts can not be produced and western Japan do not have source to get the parts. Not only factories, but farms are also damaged and Japan can not produce as many fruits, vegetables, etc. as before; therefore, the price for these foods will rise.

Their economy will become even worse because they can not export as many products as before, and even if they do export it, each products’ prices are higher than before disaster occurred.

Click HERE to read the article.