Of Rice and Zen I'm going to Japan tomorrow... shit the bed Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 147 6211

Articles from Of Rice and Zen

Day 648: Nova's demise make BBC front page 2007-10-26 05:33:00 When you return home from Tokyo you find waiting for you an email from a Guardian journalist who'd like to call you to talk about Nova's demise. It interesting that just before the collapse the English press took an interest in what was happening. The Canadian and Australian embassies and press have been very attentive to the situation compared to other countries. It sometimes seems the foreign press have forgotten there are Brits here at all, but then it's hard to imagine what difference exposure anywhere could make now.You meet some friends in Yamashina and discuss their various plans and endeavours. The information coming from Hello Work offices appears to be as varied and unreliable as that you find on the internet. One ex-colleague is advised to resign, others advised to wait. One newbie who had been going to work every day oblivious to Nova's situation not only became part of the problem as far as most sensible teachers are concerned, he also left his brand new keitai i ...

Day 648: Nova personnel confirms, "Nova's over" 2007-10-25 23:08:00 A warning on TV says a typhoon is coming your way from Osaka. So true. You receive an email from Harry that came from Stephen Farley, the head of personnel in Western Japan. Nova branches across Japan are closed and teachers are now unpaid employees whose services are not required. The message is refreshingly human in tone. It's interesting to think that finally you may begin to see messages from Nova that are no longer necessarily steeped in misinformation:Well guys, all good things must come to an end. No branches will be open today. Instructors should not go to work. We are translating 6 pages of information that will be posted on our website www.nova.ne.jp this will be the only place where instructors can access information - I will try to get it put on the teachinjapan blog as well.Stephen FarleyGroup Leader, Personnel Quality Control Group West JapanOverseas Office ChiefNova CorporationTechnorati Tags: aeon, ALT, anders lundqvist, baka gaijin, chain school, eigo no sensei, ...

Day 648: Nova closed, 4 executives resign, Sahashi removed from power 2007-10-25 20:56:00 On this day, 648 days after you arrived in Japan, chapter one is over. Nova is dead and your Japanese story is about to change beyond all recognition. You wake up to read on the Japanese news that as Nova has failed to turn around the remaining directors met and removed Sahashi. In Osaka they reportedly passed a vote of no confidence to oust Sahashi, who failed to show up for the meeting. It appears Sahashi's fixation on shady stock deals was the final straw. After removing Sahashi from power the directors then requested the government provide them with regeneration cash under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law.You quickly mull over the possibility that you might see one more paycheck before the claws of Japan clammer for their dues. You are pleased to see that Sahashi is history, but you were somehow expectant of a more public and profound punishment for such a roundly disliked man. You had no idea Lundquvist and co could assign themselves that much power.Mr Watanabe, Ms. Yoshisad ...

Day 647: Nova directors stand down 2007-10-25 13:13:00 You go to Tokyo for two days to search for Sahashi. It was clear before you left that the equity deal was arranged on the basis that at least some would be sold on the 24th. The dream figures thrown around could only be reached if the stock price was over 35 yen and all of the warrants were exercised. Despite desperate efforts to ramp up the share price, it managed a pitiful but inflated 31 yen. When you get home you read that the Nova equity warrants were inevitably exercised, but the 400 used (200 by Rich Peninsula Trading Limited and 200 by Tower Sky Profits Limited) only raised the paltry sum of 70 million yen. That's not enough to pay for pancreas surgery 349 Nova teachers had to undergo after laughing too hard at the last "your wages are coming soon" fax from Monkeybridge.Perhaps the owner of an English school should concentrate on providing quality English lessons and not on manipulating the stock market in a too little too late attempt to free up cash which in no way retu ...

Day 644: Anders Lunqvist has quit Nova 2007-10-22 14:19:00 You realise the pins are falling fast when you read on Sankei News that cofounder of Nova and top ranking foreigner in the company Anders Lundquist has resigned. The significance of this loss, along with the many branches that are falling apart in front of your eyes, is immense. You've noticed that a collaborative and supportive teacher network is springing up around you, and it is a good opportunity to take it upon yourself to distribute information and try your hand at translation. You're confident someone will be happy to add to and improve whatever you add to the discussion.With this in mind you attempt a translation of the news story and wonder if the dawn is really coming:What Now For Nova?Nova, the cnveniently located English school that offers quick "study abroad near the station" lessons by native English speakers (based in Osaka and headed by Sahashi Nozomu) has expanded rapidly and its financial situation is rapidly deteriorating. On the 22nd of October foreign instruct ...

Day 643: Nova in damning TV news report 2007-10-22 08:53:00 Your cellphone has proved a valuable weapon when trying to arm yourself with knowledge about Nova's situation. Trying to choose the best course of action requires access to a lot of stories from a lot of Nova colleagues. Today you wake to a message from Harry who has found a fax from a seemingly autonomous member of staff. After reading the fax you realise that branches are acting without any centralised control whatsoever. No messages are filtering down from the mother ship. Nova as a company has ceased to exist.You also realise that if this member of the Japanese staff is representative of the majority, you must fear for their grasp on logic. She shows no understanding of the scale of the situation and actually makes reference to Nova's "recovery". That she expects this to happen when the company has a squalid name, no new customers, months of debt and a president mired in deeply suspect share deals is genuinely worrying to you:To instructors who have come to work today,I re ...

Day 643: My Nova school is gone 2007-10-22 08:05:00 You're on vacation with a friend visiting from England. You wonder whether Nova will still be around when your vacation's over. You realise that so many short-sighted teachers are thinking of their salary and not about the bigger picture involving late bank loan payments, stolen rent, stolen health insurance preiums and a company that has shown utter contempt for its foreign employees. Everyone who is not actively forcing Sahashi to declare the inevitable bankruptcy is your enemy. You wonder whether if they realise they are buying time for a man you consider to be a criminal.Bourne, a colleague from Shiga, sends you a link to a Japanese news story. This story that's clearly talking about Nova president Sahashi Nozomu:October 21, 2007 13:33The suspect this time is believed to have some connection to Haruo Nishida, who was arrested on 30 September in accordance with the Commodity Exchange Act.The charges being brought against the alleged suspect Nishida, more accurately, fall und ...

Day 641: Nova braches closed without authorisation 2007-10-19 11:00:00 You read a message on Facebook:Kristin Fruin (S.F. State) wroteat 1:36ami'm on government kids in tokyo, setagaya ward and i received word tonight that the board of education has canceled its contract with nova and will no longer be using alt's from nova starting october 31st... take with that what you will...And another:Heather Falenski (Denver) wroteat 2:02amHello everyone,I am very sorry to hear that you did not get paid again this month. I was scheduled to depart on October 30th, which obviously is not going to happen anymore. I got a call from the SF office informing me that they will most likely be shutting down in a week or two.You're surpised at how many final straws Sahashi's camel can carry. You wonder if it's self-perservation, stubbornness or delusion.You read the news that Nova branches are being closed without authorisation from Sahashi and upper management. You marvel that Japanese staff and upper management are taking brave and meaningful steps to speed up the in ...

Day 639: Nova teachers increase the peace 2007-10-17 14:38:00 It's 4am and you've stumbled on a little gazebo of quiet in your life. You feel like shells have just stopped bursting. You realise you have been a little harsh on the people around you suffering the death of Nova. You've been unfairly spongebathing them all in the same tub. You had been thinking about the childish flame wars that have been dominating Japan teacher forums that could've been used as valuable resources for sharing information. You had found most message boards frequented by foreigners to be full of spite and bickering, especially in comparison to their Japanese counterparts. You had previously thought this was about as useful as wanking for peace. But you realise there's a lot of anger around here and people are finding whipping boys wherever they can.You take a longer look at this weeks emails and you can see now that people really have pulled together. Hands across Japan. You thought "free love" had been replaced by "commercially funded online social ne ...

Day 638: Nova sued again 2007-10-16 22:18:00 You find the following the quote on Japan Today:"Japanese people have DNA more suitable for rice than bread. Japanese society must abandon the its postwar dream of eating a steak as big as a shoe."You mull this over for a while. You knew that Japan looked up to America after WWII, but you had no idea about the shoe steak thing. You check Nova's stock price and see that it has fallen to ¥29. You decide to check for Nova news to see if anything new has been reported that might nudge Monkeybridge closer to the end of the branch.On Mainichi News you find a story saying that more students are in the process of suing Nova for their illegal refund policy:Oh NOVA! More English students sue chainThree more former students of the beleaguered English conversation school NOVA have sued it over repayment of funds for cancelled contracts.The group of three filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court demanding that the Osaka-based conversation school chain repay a total of 1.46 million yen bec ...

Day 638; Nova in Yomiuri Weekly 2007-10-16 10:46:00 Shawn from the excellent Let's Japan website has translated the Yomiuri Weekly article that has been bandied around the forums. It seems that finally, months after teachers and their families started the discussing the scale of the devastation and seediness of Novas dealings, the Japanese mainstream are finally revealing the truth. You notice that at first the Japanese press tend to err on the side of caution, but once someone has broken the story the floodgates open and every network works overtime to out-scoop the competition. You wonder if anyone but Nozomu Sahashi think the company has any kind of future.You wonder if the public shame will have any effect on Sahashi or if he is truly gone without a trace. Here is Shawn's translation:Nova in Flames: President on the run and 8 million missing shares.A flood of students canceling their contracts and cash flow problems has Nova mired in shady stock transactions. And 8 million of Nova founder Nozomu Sahashi’s shares, worth 300 m ...

Day 637: Nova stock plummets to ¥33 2007-10-16 04:12:00 There has been a little coverage on the news today of the Nova General Union strikes. The strikes seemed well-behaved and good spirited, but you wonder if it'll be enough pressure for the President to declare bankruptcy. You suspect that the economics alone will soon become enough of an incentive to do that.You remember being told by the staff that at Nova potential students first register their name, address and other data before finalizing their contracts. An official application to the school is made several days later, after the details of the contract are decided upon. However, Nova told students who wanted to quit that they could not use the cooling-off system, claiming that the day students registered their data was the first day of the contract.You remember thinking that illegally tricking people into thinking they've lost their cooling off period is something no staff member you know has ever expressed any moral ambivalence about. Maybe they thought that was how business ...

Day 636: Nova podcast unleashed, adoring readership lap it up like mana from heaven 2007-10-15 04:25:00 And today A did podcast, but not for himself, oh no. Today A did podcast because he realised for the first time just how much his public needs him thanks to a dearth of emails from his scared and adoring children.To cheer you up in times of woe the mysterious A is proud to present to you... Of Rice and Zen - Podcast 25._____________________________________Hi to whoever you areI just want to say thanks for your website. I have found it extremely informative, particularly re Nova.Its the first site I turn to now as I know you have already filtered out the bullshit and just report the facts. Having to read through the petty squabbles on gaijinpot to find information is exhausting, so thanks.I am a Nova teacher who up until yesterday was attending as per usual. I decided before I left work last night that it was time I took some kind of action. So, I filled in a General Info form advising the staff that I wouldn't be attending work until the 20th - after our pays are supposed to come ...

Day 626: Nova unemployment insurance card 2007-10-14 05:31:00 Before you fall asleep you notice Allblacks on the Let's Japan forums has found his unemployment insurance card and kindly given you permission to display it. In charming alarmist fashion Nova will snottily fax you your unemployment insurance number, but will be pleased to tell you in capital letters that they DO NOT REISSUE YOUR CARD!!!111FFSPhDYou recieve emails from friends in Osaka telling you that the payroll section of Nova is currently being relocated due to eviction. The company's so clearly coming apart at the seams that its tragic, but so many newbies around you have no choice but to go in to work and hope for the best.You requested your unemployment number some months ago and ensured that everyone around you do the same. You realise that without Nova's hanko in the right box on the right form you will probably never see a penny. This is Japan after all, the country Franz Kafka tried to live in for five minutes and then because, in his words:the fucking bureaucracy's ...

Day 626: Nishida linked to Nova deal 2007-10-13 23:10:00 This is a link to a Japanese news story that implicates Nova in illegal share dealings, with the recently arrested Nishida Haruo. The implication of the final line is that Sahashi is poised to assist crime syndicates in the laundering of their money in a bid to gain capital for himself/Nova. Although Nova is not named in the story, the description is clear enough:- an ailing company- a share price that fell to 15% of it's 2007 high- several high profile scandals this year- recently sold massive amounts of new stock via equity warrants to two companies in the British Virgin Islands for a large cash injectionJapanese journalist friends usually only publish a small percentage of their findings to avoid speculation and libel. The rest of their findings are often passed on to bloggers like myself. For the news to have published this information about Nova implies they are fairly certain of the squalid nature of the deal. As a Nova teacher you should be prepared for the eventuality th ...