Of Rice and Zen I'm going to Japan tomorrow... shit the bed Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 0 6648

Articles from Of Rice and Zen

Day 626: Nishida arrested, Nova cash injection may not arrive 2007-10-13 04:21:00 Your writing often has unexpected results on your friends. Yesterday you described the shady share dealings that were intended to slightly prolong and then utterly doom Nova. You thought your teacher friends would take this as a sign to realise that the rot runs deep and walk away.Instead, for some people it had the opposite effect. Aside from a few sick calls a lot of teachers have rested back on their fear and are waiting for Nova to produce another paycheck after the British Virgin Island funds exercise their equity warrants on the 24th. One friend, who has mercifully found other work already, went in today and found 8 kids classes on his schedule. That's a full day. You appreciate his work ethic, if not his employer. Some teachers don't seem bothered that the last fax again lied to them. Nor do they seem to mind that it would't have come to them in advance at all if it wasn't for AAMs insisting that Sahashi show a little decency and be transparent for once.What wasn't ...

Day 626: Sahashi and Nova cronies set to strike it rich 2007-10-12 12:04:00 Back a few months ago, it was reported that LDP member Nakayama Yasuhide, “accompanied…president [Nozomu Sahashi] of language school chain Nova Corp. to a meeting with Osaka Mayor Junichi Seki amid a court battle over the company’s refund system.”The story was covered by the Asahi hereAfter this Nakayama said he was merely rushing to the aid of a supporter, but not attempting to influence anyone. Welcome to the Orwellian world of double think. That's like saying yes I picked up a gun and fired at the enemy, but I wasn't trying to hurt anyone.This page shows the roster for the Institute for Internation Communication Foundation. Google translation screws up the first name, Nozomu Sahashi. The tenth name on the list is Nakayama Hideki. He is related to Nakayama Yasuhide, and just so happens to be the President of Ginganet.For those who don't work for Nova, Ginganet is the wing that provides video-phone technology that Nova sold to students to allow them to "study abroad at ...

Day 626: Sahashi fax says Nova teachers will not be paid 2007-10-12 10:58:00 You check your email before bed and realise the Nova world has blown up. To confirm everyone's suspicions, branches today received a fax informing them they would not get paid this payday. That in itself has already guaranteed a mass walkout and presumably the end of Nova.Add to that the fact that most teachers who have done their research knows that the vastly insufficient British Virgin Islands cash injection won't arrive until Oct 25th at the earliest. This fax would seem to be another in a long line of fob offs that simply will no longer fly.You wonder if Nova will still have the manpower to open its doors if the teachers who know the situation walk away and only the noobs remain. Then you see the following email from Nova in Boston. "Today we received word from our management in Japan that instructor salaries due to be paid on Monday, October 15th will be delayed until Friday, October 19th. We can also report that salaries due to non-teaching staff on September 27th still ha ...

Day 625: Australian Minister says "Nova will fall" 2007-10-12 05:58:00 You use your day off to try and get a little distance from the Nova news. You cycle through Omihachiman with S and find a cycle lane leading to Lake Biwa. From there you find 808 steps leading to Chomei-ji, a temple on a mountain over-looking the lake. From the peaceful temple at the top you look out across Japan and remember why you have always loved it and why you think you'll never leave.Neither can you convince yourself to ignore injustices and awful business practices and trudge on like a good little serf. You have never been one to sit back and trust to authority. As such you get home and check the newspapers to find Australian Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer going on the record in Australian newspaper The Age to say:although the company had not "completely fallen over yet", it would "fall over", leaving 1,300 Australians financially stranded in a "very expensive" country. "We'll provide them with consular assistance if they need it," he told ABC radio. "If they ...

Day 625: Gaijin killed Nova 2007-10-11 21:04:00 You look at the math of the equity warrants and realise that if the two funds exercise their options they could stand to make a profit. Ken Worsley wrote:EDIT: 10/11 23:00 Nova issued a ‘corrected’ version of the document explaining this deal on October 10, and a second correction on October 11. The corrected version states, “????????????????????????????????” I put it, “The warrant holders are not limited in the exercise of their warrants.” Adamu put it, “There is no limit on exercise of the options by the option holders themselves.” Seems that we’re in agreement here, there is no limit to how many warrants can be issued in a given month, and Nova may be in a position to receive the full value of the exercised warrants (about 6.4 billion yen) anytime after October 24th. This changes the course of possibilities somewhat, but most likely will make the possible set of outcomes no better for the company. Mor ...

Day 624: Nova warrants don't cover wages 2007-10-10 22:49:00 According to Bloomberg Nova's warrants can be exercised 10 a month. They sold 200 so this makes 20 months until all the warrants are exercised.The report says Nova stands to make ?6.4 billion in total. Spread over 20 months this make a monthly total of:?320,000,000 (three hundred and twenty million yen).We have already established that teachers' wages alone are a billion yen a month. And this money cannot possibly arrive until after October 24th when the funds are legally able to exercise the warrants. That's a long while after payday and the amount is not sufficient to cover a fraction of Nova's operating costs or debts.So just where is this money going to be used? Answers on the lease to a new apartment.Technorati Tags: aeon, ALT, baka gaijin, chain school, drunk, eigo no sensei, English teacher, engrish, face training, gaijin, gaijin memoirs, ganbatte, geos, izakaya, Japan, Japanese, Japanese food, JET, Kansai, Kyoto, memoirs of a gaijin, meta, Misasagi, nihon, nintendo ...

Day 624: Nova Shiga losing teachers 2007-10-10 21:41:00 You turn up for work and new girl Mandy tells you she was the only person here on Wednesday. She had five kids classes in a row. She was shaking mad and she walked out. A warm wave washes into your chest and your cheeks contract of their own accord. Nova relies on people accepting shitty treatment with a silent whince.She tells you new guy Mich has a ticket home for today. Your eyebrows hoist themselves up and your jaw falls open. You wonder if this is another wild rumour. You didn't know he had a home. You tell her the funny American Rob has found new work. You feel suddenly inflated and happy. Your friends are looking after themselves and are no longer working for free at a company that has shown them nothing but contempt, lies to them, steals from them and is bringing young people over to Japan to a company bankrupt in every sense except the declaration. Lives are being ruined and the death of this evil empire will begin the healing process for many.Between lessons you ...

Day 623: Nova has fun with maths 2007-10-10 03:18:00 We might be heading towards some turbulence. In a fun new lottery unveiled today Nova have divided the ¥70 million they received from selling equity warrants to Virgin Island companies who specialise in bankruptcy, by the average teacher's salary of ¥250,000.This gives us a staggering 280. That's the number of teachers who Nova can afford to pay if they don't use the money for:- the office rent- the (stolen) teachers' rent- the (stolen) health insurance- the late staff wages- the missing bonuses- the teachers who quit and were not paid- the suppliers- the bank loan- the advertisers- the student refundsDo you feel lucky? Could you check the oxygen masks again please stewardess?Now let's look at a hypothetical 4,000 teachers at ¥250,000 each. That gives us a bill of ¥1,000,000,000 (a billion yen).Let's add 2,000 Japanese staff at ¥200,000. That gives us ¥400,000,000.That's 21.42 times what Nova has made from selling equity warrants. And that's just to pay salaries. F ...

Day 623: Nova sells equity warrants 2007-10-09 18:31:00 The same day the General Union requested METI take immediate action to save teachers and students from the imminent Nova implosion, METI ordered Nova to pay refunds to its students. This is of course completely fair. On the other hand it is as much help as telling a man he should remove the large spear in his head.The story is also interesting as it makes clearer the source of the 'saviour' that may guarantee your next paycheque. Nova has been issuing equity warrants to companies in the Virgin Islands. A warrant is a security that entitles the holder to buy stock of the company that issued it at a specified price, which is much higher than the stock price at time of issue. Warrants are frequently attached to bonds or preferred stock as a sweetener, allowing the issuer to pay lower interest rates or dividends. They can be used to enhance the yield of the bond, and make them more attractive to potential buyers. They can be transformed into shares for one year from Oct 24th.Nova pl ...

Day 623: Nova President sends another fax 2007-10-09 04:03:00 A story from Shukan Gendai (a Japanese magazine) translated by Let's Japan reaffirms rumours that Sahashi was in hiding after making a killing from dumping Nova stock.The amount of money involved is startling. Assuming that approximately 5,000 employees are owed roughly 300 thousand yen each, the amount in arrears tops more than 1.5 billion yen. News of this has made its way overseas to countries such as Canada and Australia, where a large number of instructors come from, along with reports that offices there will be closed in order to stop the situation from worsening.On top of that, it has come to light that students who have completed the paperwork for their refunds have yet to receive them. According Katsuji Yamahara, chairman of the Osaka-based General Union, which is supporting the teachers, “The amount of unpaid refunds is expected to be in the tens of billions of yen.” He also noted that if this money isn’t returned, it could turn into the largest consumer disaster since ... President

Day 629: Nova promises rejected by JASDAQ 2007-10-06 23:24:00 Below is the list of measures Nova submitted to JASDAQ in a desperate bid to protect its stock (not its employees and customers, where measures should've been taken long ago).Install full-time officer in charge of disclosing information.Establish a public relations and investor relations department staffed with experienced officers.Strengthen authority of officer in charge of disclosing information.Directors of subsidiaries to promptly report on decisions made.Executives to promptly report on transpiring events.Implement in-house training for executives on disclosure practices.Promptly report stock transactions of the company.Establish an internal regulation system.Establish a system of corporate governance.Monitor progress and accept guidance via a department of auditors.In short the list says we promise to tell you next time we've been bad and we'll try to install the kind of checks and balances that most companies have in the shape of a board of shareholders to keep Monkeybridge ...

Day 629: Kanazawa Nova closes with added delusional psychosis 2007-10-06 23:02:00 The poster above claims that Kanazawa Nova has "moved" to another location.The punchline is that the location given for the "new" branch is in fact Al Plaza, where a Nova branch already exists. The poster is straight, old-school propaganda and an attempt on Sahashi's part to deny he's closing branches. Presumably this would only fool prospective students who were new to the area and had never noticed the Nova in Al Plaza before. Or perhaps the mass delusion is beginning to show.This guy certainly sees the funny side.Technorati Tags: aeon, ALT, baka gaijin, chain school, drunk, eigo no sensei, English teacher, engrish, face training, gaijin, gaijin memoirs, ganbatte, geos, izakaya, Japan, Japanese, Japanese food, JET, Kansai, Kyoto, memoirs of a gaijin, meta, Misasagi, nihon, nintendo DS, Nova, photos, pikki, podcast, shiga, shrine, teach english, teach in japan, teacher, teaching English, temple, Yamashina ...

Day 629: Sankei Shinbun reporter emails Memoirs of a Gaijin 2007-10-06 22:29:00 This email came to me from a reporter from the Sankei Shinbun. She has some useful information for teachers who are being evicted.Hello.Iam a reporter for the Japanese news paper the Sankei Shimbun, and I 've been covering the NOVA incident since spring and I have already reported about more than 50 schools closing (or merging as they say) and many foreign teachers being asked from their landloards to move out.The deadline for Jasdaq papers is due tomorrow and anything could happen to NOVA. IT is troubling for students and foreign teachers and also the japanese staff who have stayed on ship until this last moment and extremely angry about the poor management of this public company which is (was ) supposed to be the leader of the english industry.Whatever happens to nova tomorrow I will be covering a story, and I need as much information as possible.If you have any genuine information on what is happening at head quarters or in any other areas, I would appreciate if you could please ...

Day 629: AACE cancels dealings with Nova 2007-10-06 22:16:00 I return home from a birthday break to Guam to find out the Nova news. It seems that Nova asked us all wait two weeks for a big announcement hinting at a potential investor. This was always going to be unlikely, but the content of his announcement was: "we're late paying refunds."This has got to be one of the most hilariously, stupidly ironic meta-statements of all time. We're sorry this message comes two weeks late, we just wanted to say we're running a little behind. So in short there is no news. There never was a statement to be made. Nova is just trying to keep people at their desks to keep the doors open with continual "bear with us" style faxes that are typical of a company in trouble.The news from non-Nova sources is that a well-known recruitment agency, AACE, has ceased its dealings with Nova. Most staff members in the Melbourne, Australia offices were former NOVA employees, along with Joane Grimaldi, the author of this email.AACE AnnouncementTo all current instructors ...

Day 624: Nova schools evicted in Ritto, Omihachiman and Hikone 2007-10-03 02:03:00 Nova block trainers in Shiga confirm that first Ritto and now Hikone and Omihachiman schools have been handed eviction notices. They will be open for the time being, but the process of closing those schools has already begun. It appears the managers and staff are not always aware of the evictions.Nova's expansion has been rapid due to the use of upfront point payments being used to open the next new branch. While expansion lasts, the students at the new branch buy tickets, that money is used to open the next branch and the process continues. However the negative press in 2007 and the METI restrictions halted expansion which has slammed the break on new students and therefore income. Nova's debts have racked up fast and they are now coming back to haunt them.Further eviction notices from Nova accomodation have been handed to new teachers in Kusatsu and Minami Kusatsu. If you are a Nova teacher in Shiga, living in Nova accomodation and wishing to remain Japan it would be wise to lo ...