Blog

My superstitious act for good luck: visiting Fushimi Inari ⛩. The shrine, Fushimi Inari, is known for good business and household. To talk about why it’s this shrine, technically it has to go back to the connection with the priest Kukai, but it’s too deep to mention the details so I omit it on this post 🤣 It’s been 4-5 years since I started visiting the shrine to wish for good business every year, it’s partly because my mother loves Kyoto though.

Many residents in Japan visit shrines to wish for good luck even though most of us are free thinkers (me too). It’s a religious activity but the aspect as a part of Japanese culture — customs — is stronger.

It may look weird to make a wish on things you will need to put in efforts yourselves to make it come true. However, many visitors are not just leaving things to the Enshrined. I believe, rather, they are promising the Enshrined their efforts, so that results come. Likewise, I visit the shrine and I’m happy with performances so far.

Due to the accelerated digitalization during the pandemic, more freelance linguists have gained a closer/easier access to end clients in terms of workflow/process. I’ve had an impression that it eventually causes clients to expect more than translation/proofreading from linguists.

Partly it’s a chance for us as freelance linguists to scale up businesses but at the same time it’s important now more than ever that we equip with the knowledge and skills to satisfy their needs with our offering like one stop service, which we are still able to accomplish working with peers as a team. Just a piece of ingenuity brings another exciting opportunity.

Everyday learn by doing. I appreciate my team members for their help on projects we work together.

The G7 Hiroshima Summit will be held between May 19-21. Takeshi Miyahara, our chief, is going to support the summit to the best of his ability during the period. We hope the ministers and other delegates, and all other invited participants enjoy the stay and have a fruitful time at their meetings.

The other half of excerpt journal (2/2) from my talk 🗣 at JTF Translation Fest last October has been published 📥 (in Japanese)!

Promo: https://x.com/jtf_translation/status/1625672020389416961
Journal excerpt (2/2): https://webjournal.jtf.jp/2023/02/13/6459/

The first half (1/2) can be accessed from the below shared post 📄

Excerpt journal of my talk at JTF Translation Fest (1/2)

The live-streaming event “Takeshi’s Valentine’s chit chat with TMP members“ was successfully closed! 👏 Chit-chatting about translation businesses and my ideas while making scones was my first time and a very interesting try. (And I was relieved that I could bake and show well-baked scones at the end). I sensed many potentials in this kinda new-style talk show rather than just talking about translations and the businesses💡. I have been planning a cooking party, where peers can also enjoy networking with others, for 3 years since the pandemic. I’m sure it would be another interesting event like this time.🍽

I’ve got an interesting offer from Translation Marketing Project (TMP), where translator peers network and discuss work-life balance and marketing activities. I am going to talk on their YouTube live streaming (“Takeshi’s Valentine’s chit chat with TMP members”).

A TMP member in the disguise of a famous Kansai Comedian will bombard me with questions about translation businesses, and I answer them. Meanwhile, I also bake some sweets. This is the first time for me to take part in such an interesting event but I’ll do my best for successful baking (no, the main part is the talk).

Event Page: https://valentatinesweetsandtranslationtalk.peatix.com/view

I had an opportunity to give a talk at JTF Translation Fest last October and a part of its excerpt journal (1/2) has been published within JTF newsletter 📥 (in Japanese)! The other half (2/2) will be published next month.

Promo: https://x.com/jtf_translation/status/1615574192665276416
Journal excerpt: https://webjournal.jtf.jp/2023/01/16/6326/

On social media platforms, I’ve seen some negative outlook toward the translation industry from the standpoint of freelance translator but it still depends on how we act, how we do business, how we adapt ourselves to the state of art technologies and I’m therefore not pessimistic about my job, or it’s not a time to think pessimistic about it yet. With this in mind, I gave a talk of freelancing translation businesses and of chances spread out in front of us. Other than real-time tweets, I haven’t received feedback about the session but I hope my talk encouraged peers in some way and gave some hints for their own businesses.

a happy New Year 🎍

On Twitter I asked colleagues about
#whatyoutranslatedin2022
and #whatyouwouldliketotranslatein2023.
(in Japanese though: #2022年に翻訳したもの
and #2023年に翻訳してみたいもの)

Make new year resolutions related to translation businesses and look back on your great achievements with these hashtags, to keep up your motivation in the new year 🙂 👏
Especially with the latter hashtag, I wish colleagues all around the world a fulfilling, happy, prosperous New Year 2023 ♡(人>ω•*)ｶﾞﾝﾊﾞﾛｳｳﾈ

In 2023, I’ll try looking for more opportunities to join in translation projects of:
– fashion-brand related contents;
– a business book (marketing, management, accounting etc.);
– accounting related software/manual etc.;
– LGBTQIA related contents;
– Tourism in Germany;
– Websites of consulting firms and their services

Tell me about a beloved snack in your city. Do you sometimes have them for break? Can you introduce and/or do you recommend it to people who visit your place? I can name several local snacks that I’d tell people to try but let me introduce one of them, which recently made me say “Wow.” 😋

Hiroshima, where I live, has a maple leaf shaped cake called Momiji manju 🍁. It had used to have only one flavor, pasted beans in two different textures: mashed or smooth, then got 5 different assorts including custard cream, chocolate, matcha green tea flavors. The businesses extended to these 5 flavors sometime around 1984 which is my birth year actually. I wasn’t a fan of the snack, and it is said many local people don’t have them for nosh, but voila, now they have even more different kinds of flavors like yoghurt, strawberry milk, blueberry, lemon, pumpkin and more (now about 30 kinds as far as I know!). Many of the businesses that produce and sell Momiji manju cakes were founded between 1900 and 1970, so more than 50 years ago; and they are ever creating new flavors to entice customers to try! Their efforts of (flavor) diversification are inspiring.

The other day I happened to see a variety of them in a shop and found relatively new flavors: pione and banana cream and I liked both flavors very much. It’s not a bad idea to always have several pieces of the cakes ready for spontaneous afternoon tea… 😝

I’m not a fan of wearing a mask 😷 It’s apparently not comfortable to keep wearing it a whole day, I admit. Good, it’s now more optional to wear or take it off these days, when walking outside 🚶　and/or not talking, while still being courteous to others especially indoors. Nevertheless, I still wear it, otherwise take it off where it’s fine. Although it causes some stress on face, to have a little fun with wearing a mask even if only slightly, I sometimes wear… this kind of… a mask (see pictures) ฅ^•ω•^ฅ.

Putting aside the doubt if I have courage to wear those types of masks traveling in Europe for instance (these amusing masks may be widely/more accepted in Asia?), I find it interesting that these businesses go on well and now a wide variety of amusing masks can be found at shops. Getting into a niche (?) market like this through translation businesses would be interesting…😆