My Close Encounter with Fuji-san

The trip to Mount Fuji (Fuji-san) from Tokyo took about 2 hours of driving. Fellow Srikandi (STF 1984-1988) Sabariah Mohd Yusof and her husband (and not to forget their two children) kind heartedly invited me to join them in the trip. We were lucky enough to capture the beautiful view of the so-called “poetic” mountain from Tokyo itself due to the clear and dry weather. The symmetrically perfect mountain was fully covered with snow, offering a stunning view from afar.

Fuji-san is accessible from all sides, 360 degree and 365 days a year. It can be assessed by all modes of transportation, by car, by train (via Hakone), or by public bus service (direct from Shinjuku Station, Tokyo). On daily basis, many private tour buses make entry to the ski-resort areas around the mountain, bringing tourists from all over the world.

It occurs to me the substantial economic benefits that a country could enjoy by developing a site as an international tourist attraction. Economically, tourism industry is one of the cost-efficient industries with wide industrial linkages (tour operator, public transportation, hotels, food providers, gas station, recreational providers, ski-rental, etc.). There is no fixed cost as the tourist attraction is supplied by nature. The variable cost will be in terms of maintaining and developing the surrounding area. The greater the number of tourists visiting the place, the lower will be the average total costs, easily achieving the economies of scale.

We entered Fuji-san from Lake Kawaguchi area, one of the famous 5 lakes near the mountain area. The surrounding area benefits substantially from the reputation of Fuji-san as a “must visit” tourist destination in Japan. There are various tourism services such as the Fuji-kyu Highland Entertainment Park, and the Kawaguchi Lake which offer various recreational activities such as boating and fishing. There are many nice and cozy restaurants near the lake area, where you can dine and enjoy the magnificent view of Mount Fuji. All sort of hotels are available, from 5-star hotels to budget motels, depending on your budget. The shops around the area have excellent collection of gifts and stationary items. The Japanese are crazy over onsen – public hot bath. A lot of such services can be found along the road side. I can also see several eco-tourism.

We went snow-boarding (snow bo-do (ha3x) in Japanese) at Fuji-ten Snow Resort. We met with people from Indonesia, China, some Caucasians, among others. What makes people from all over the world to take the efforts to have a real view of this mountain? Followings are my thoughts:

Accessibility - The most important factor in promoting a tourist destination is accessibility. You can have an outstanding tourism product, but if it is unaccessible, only the adveturous ones will step foot there.

Promotion – Mount Fuji is being promoted as one of the “must-visit” destinations in Japan. The effort to promote Mount Fuji as a tourist destination is a concerted effort by all parties – the Government, the private sectors and the Japanese people. There is a very close association between Japan and Mount Fuji.

Memorable service – There are many beautiful parks with clean public toilets around the area. For Muslims, this is important since it would be convenient for us to take ablution and perform solat in the park. Talking about Japan, there are vending machines selling cold and hot drinks everywhere, even on Mount Fuji itself! More importantly, in Japan, customer service is exceptional. The people are nice too. The nice experience of visiting Fuji-san is a pleasant experience that I will share with anyone who is visiting Japan.

Driving and Attitude

The news on road accident occupy the local newspapers in Malaysia almost everyday.

I ride on the bus to go to work everyday during my tenure in Japan. As I rode on the bus, I observed every single movement very closely. One aspect that triggered my interest in this context is how attitude relates to road safety.

In Japan, the bus services (as well as other modes of public transportation) are very efficient. More importantly, the people who provide the services serve “from their hearts”.

Japanese bus drivers are very friendly. I mean really friendly that I doubt you will find similar ones in Malaysia. Let me give you several examples.

As you board on the bus and pay for the ticket, the driver would say “thank you” (and if you know some Japanese, the thank you is much longer than any other languages that I know), give some bow and a smile.

When it’s the time to move (right on schedule), he’ll close the door, and the first thing that he would say is “We are moving now, please be careful”. The bus moves right on time, and if you are late and the door has already closed, not once that I saw that the bus driver will re-open the door. He has to ensure that he moves right on time so that he will arrive at the next stops right on time as well.

Many of the drivers are extra nice. Some even remind the passengers “we are moving now, please be careful” after each bus stop. What this means is that, the reminder is not just part of the required speech, but it comes from the driver's concern so that the passengers will be aware and careful whenever the bus starts to be in motion.

You can just imagine how careful he is when he drives since he is very concerned and keeps on reminding the passengers to be careful at all times.

Tell me if ever in your life riding on a public bus in Malaysia that you came across this little experience of mine? It is actually very difficult to hear the "macho" voice of the Malaysian bus drivers unless the drivers suddenly feel irritated and start babbling over the traffic jam or a slow vehicle in front of the bus.

The fact that the busses move right on time is a very critical factor and reflects the precision culture that the Japanese are well known of. Moving right on time would ensure that they do not have to rush to the next destinations, thus reducing the pressure on the drivers themselves. Once they feel less pressured, they are more alert, more relaxed and enjoy the tasks that they are doing. More importantly, they do not feel iritated over small matters.

No wonder road accident is a non-issue in Japan.

Bumpy Ride Ahead for Malaysia in 2010

As reported in The Star (29/12/2009), the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) executive director Datuk Dr Mohamed Ariff Abdul Kareem was quoted as saying that the Malaysian economy is expected to face a tougher and more challenging times ahead in 2010 as the US economy may be heading for a deeper recession.

Being the global economic powerhouse, it is no doubt that the economic conditions in the US economy have significant bearing on other economies throughout the globe. This is particularly true for a very open economy such as Malaysia. As such, the Malaysian economy is very fragile since the ups and downs of the economy are mainly dependent upon the economic situation in the US. While it is true that a significant proportion of our exports are shipped to the US, there is an urgent need to somewhat reduce our dependency on the US to market. I wonder what happened to the long on-going efforts to diversify our exports to the non-traditional markets? Haven’t these efforts bear fruits yet? Conventional wisdom has it as “diversification reduces risk”, and that is exactly what we need in this context.

On a more positive note, according to Dr Ariff, evidence clearly showed that Malaysia was out of recession as the economy is expected to register positive growth in the 4th quarter of 2009, and this would probably continue into 2010. For the whole year of 2009, Malaysia is expected to turn in a better-than-expected performance at -2 to -3%. For 2010, growth is expected to be closed to 4%.

Despite the expected modest growth in 2010, the economy is set to face several challenges amid the backdrop a still-weak global economy. First, the modest economic acceleration needs to be further strengthened by more fiscal stimulus, which many countries could not afford. Second, there is a concern of a fallout effect from the asset bubbles in China and many East Asian countries. Third, some countries have been printing money to finance their deficits and this could later results in inflationary pressure.

Continuous fiscal pump-priming in times when domestic and external demand are weak is a reasonable policy precsription, in my view. It is indeed timely for Malaysia to further improve its basic infrastucture such as buiding roads, up-grading the ports, more schools and hospitals. One area that needs special attention is improving the rail infrastructure. In this context, Malaysia should again turn to Japan to further develop and expand the rail services. These public projects could be financed by domestic sources since currently, we do have ample liquidity in our system. There is an urgent need to expand our basic infrastructure so as to increase our capacity for greater economic activity in the future, thus gradually reducing the over-reliance on the US economy. Of course there are issues such as efficient implementation of the public projects, but theoretically, fiscal pump-priming would go a long way to support the economy during weak economic condition.

On the monetary front, interest rate is expected to remain low due to the need to support the still-fragile economy.

Photos from Japan

After about 2 months in Japan, I wish to share some photos which reflect the memorable events that I went through in this "Land of the Rising Sun".

Leaves turning yellow during autumn near Meiji University

Busy day for the workers

IDE-JETRO building where I am attached to for 6 months

My Office

The view from my apartment at Makuhari-hongo

Sitting at the main table; seen here with Puan Sri Noraini-the wife of Tan Sri Muhyiddin

and Tan Sri is standing beside her

Watching the ultraman show near Tokyo Dome..wish my son Shamil is here

Ultraman, please rescue me!

Oh..Ultraman Nice, you are my hero!

Beautiful illumination at Tokyo Dome

Impressive work-of-art

My Views on the Islamic Banking Industry During the 2007 US Crisis

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout&cid=1234631361330

IDE-VRF Study Tour, Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu, 10-12 December 2009

The IDE-VRF study tour in the Kumamoto Prefecture has not only been beneficial, but also a memorable one. Among others, I learned about inspiration, effort, and commitment towards a vision. Kumamoto is a city full of vision, and everyone in the city is inspired towards achieving the vision. For me, Kumamoto is essentially a reflection of a true Japanese work culture where hard work, good planning, perseverance and honesty pay at the end of the day.

We arrived at the Aso-Kumamoto Airport at around 11:30 am. It rained the moment we arrived, but time was always on our side due to good planning and full cooperation by all members of the tour. After checking in at the Kumamoto Hotel Castle, we had lunch at the nearby arcade. After having lunch, we took a ride on the City train to the Kumamoto Prefectural Government Office. We were provided with a lot of materials on the Kumamoto Prefecture that helped to enhance our understanding about the social and economic activities in the prefecture. We were told about Kumamoto’s “dream” to become a designated city by April 2012 which would offer more autonomy and financial resources. The prefectural government is fully supportive of the Kumamoto City to become a designated city as it would provide overall benefits to the area. While the dream and vision were being presented, the challenges in achieving the vision were also highlighted.

It was still raining the time we went back to the hotel. After resting for about 45 minutes, we gathered at the hotel lobby for dinner. We had dinner in a very cozy near-by restaurant and we had a nice and tasty dinner with a lot of food to eat. The night ended at around 8:45 pm with everyone being reminded that the next day program would start at 8 am.

The day started early on the second day of the study tour – 11/12/2009. After having breakfast, we started the journey to the Kumamoto Dairy Co-operative Association in Toshima, which is about 40 minutes drive from the hotel. We felt honoured to be received and briefed by the Chairman himself, Mr Takatoshi Yoshida. Mr Yoshida highlighted several plans for expansion and how the market perceived their products. At the same time, he also highlighted several challenges that the co-operative faced in doing the business such as the custom procedural complications in expanding overseas.

Our next destination was the Kumamoto Prefectural Kikuchi High School which was established since 1908. The school which had its centennial celebration last year was recently re-built by incorporating the eco-friendly concept. In fact, the school is aiming to be the first eco-friendly school in Japan. As such, the school featured, among others, an internal wood finishing and a solar-generated electric supply system.

We had lunch at a road-side restaurant named Joyfull Restaurant on our way to the next destination. We arrived at the Kumamoto Water Science Museum right on time at 2:00 pm. Here, we were enlightened on how the Kumamoto city, which also being known as the “City of Water” is blessed with the supply of natural underground water. We were told that the underground water of Kumamoto is special and even healthier due to the fact that the Aso Mountain has erupted three times throughout its history, providing layers of nutritious minerals being absorbed into the water supply.

From there, we moved on to our last destination which is the Kengun Water Source station. The Kengun Water Source supplies one-fourth of the Kumamoto City water supplies, or specifically, 60,000m3 per day. According to the source, there are about 35 water-pump stations and only two has natural mineral water springs, and one of them is the Kengun Water Source station. At this station, there are 11 wells, of which seven are natural spring water and the rests are driven by pumps.

After a long day of study tour, we arrived at the hotel at around 4:50 pm. At 6:00 pm, we gathered at the hotel restaurant for dinner. Again, the food was nice and everyone seemed to be concentrating on the food and drinks since we were given exactly 100 minutes to eat as much as we could at the buffet dinner.

On the last day of the tour – 12/12/2009, we had to check out by 8:15 am and leave our luggage in the bus. Our first destination is the Kumamoto Castle, one of the three most famous castles in Japan. I was impressed with the detailed and magnificent architectural design of the castle which was built more than 400 years ago. Each and every aspects of the castle were built with detailed planning to meet specific objectives. For instance, the outward curving stone walls around the castle area were specifically designed to repel invaders. The castle which was built by the warrior, Kiyomasa Kato, stand the test of time, reflecting Japan’s growing pains, the struggle that the forefathers went through, to become a matured society and culture.

After about 1:30 minutes at the Kumamoto Castle, a 1:40 minutes ride brought us to another human genius masterpiece called the “Tsujunkyo” stone-arch aqueduct bridge which was built based on the reverse siphon principle. Located in the Yabe town, the stone bridge was built in 1854 to solve the draught problem in the area and provide irrigation for the nearby farming area. Today, after about 156 years, the bridge is still being used to provide irrigation for about 250 acres of rice farm.

We had a seafood lunch at the nearby restaurant and after that, we were so glad to be able to enjoy the magnificent view of a waterfall which Mr Ueno has suggested us to visit. However, it was such an endurance testing journey to view the fall since we had to climb up and down small steps which were quite challenging for some of us.

Dr Salina H. Kassim
IDE Visiting Research Fellow
November 2009-April 2010