mera joota hai japani

Prologue:

Japanese are a very hardworking people. So much so, that this sentence has become a cliche.

I have had the experience to interact closely with two Japanese in my lifetime. One is a monk of Ramakrishna Mission, Yamada maharaj as we called him at Deoghar Vidyapith. Though not engaged with our daily lives all that much, he was in high demand in the run up to our annual exhibition. Anyone having a trouble with electrical or elctronic gadgets made his way to Yamada maharaj, who seemed immensly pleased to help us out. That he was overworked during those days of the year is a massive understatement to make. Yours truly, as a representative of our group, had a chance of sleeping in the workplace, in bewteen some forced coversation, in case he did not feel offended woking through the night while we had a good night's sleep.

The other is a graduate student at OSU. Although, he is not a graduate student in our group, I had a chance to observe him closely when we were working on preparation for the qualifiers. Now, what preparation for PhD qualifiers looks like, with added resposibility of work and courses, only the one who have gone through it can tell you. But the way Munetaki Nishihara works is amazing. From taking cat naps at the workplace in between working through the nights to having to walk miles to get to school each day, only a Japanese could have done that.


Sentiment:

It is not for nothing that Toyota is the first company that came up with a commercial Hybrid Electric Vehicle. Anyone who knows something about automotive research will know that the US Big Three have been badly beaten by Toyota, despite years of bankrolling of HEV research is top US univs as well as decicated labs in the industry. So much so that Ford has decided to license the technology from Toyota for an undiclosed amount. This is on top of the fact that Toyota sells the largest number of IC Engine vehicles in the US.

It is not for nothing that Japanese are a proud people. Is that a cliche yet?