I was just at Ujuku's website and was looking at his message board. So many messages about "sorry for overdue dispatch". Some of them are like two weeks plus overdue in being "dispatched". I hope the couple are doing alright! Maybe the orders for the Pilot M90 is driving them up the wall. Maybe they are running all over Japan grabbing every M90 in sight just for FPN'ers ;-)

[Edited again for inconsistencies. My English skills are going down the drain. Wow! If I read slowly what I wrote I see many grammatical errors. You have to excuse this 1/2 native English speaker. :-) ]

dispatches- what a neat word, never thought of a letter as a dispatch.

K

Well, two more invoices went out today (actually 10/11 Japan time). So, a little more inventory has trickled in... patience will have its rewards.

I feel somewhat sorry for the guy - I think the press on FPN has gotten him a lot more orders than he expects an I believe that selling pens is a side business and not his day job (I may be wrong).

Anyway, I have never had any problems with him, he's a great seller and well worth the wait or delay - someone you can really depend on.

Yes, I too have heard selling pens is his side occupation. I wonder what his main occupation is. For some reason, I seem to recall that he raises ducks and chickens. Is he a farmer with some interest in fountain pens? :-)

Has your invoice been sent yet or are you one of those "overdue dispatches"?

I'm still waiting. It's good though. I recent received quite a few new fountain pens. The M90 can wait for US Thanksgiving time or Christmas. It'll be a nice little "surprise" right around the craziest time of the fall quarter in the academic year!

Actually, the poor guy is going to have to convince Pilot that he has 50-odd orders to fill, and that they should provide him with that much stock. That's a hard thing for a little guy in Ehime province to do. (It's the western end of Shikoku, and a long way from Tokyo)

I suspect that Pilot are a little under-prepared for the demand, too.

Anyhow, he seems to have dispatched everything he'd been paid for, now. I guess the wait for Pilot continues...

I generally deal with Mrs Yamada in Japanese, which reduces mis-communication somewhat. They come across as genuinely nice people, and I've always found them to be a reliable seller.

... and the M90 was totally worth the wait!

Hi,

He runs a Juku, kind of like a cram school. I haven't spent time looking, but the last time I looked, the webpage of his Juku was down, so I am not sure if he still runs it or not.

Dillon

I've got an order that needs to be "dispatched". He gave me a date of dispatch and it's about two weeks from my order date. I'd say they are really busy.

A juku eh? I heard about those before. I never went to one but my primary school education was quite intensive--much more so than American primary schools (those lazy bastards!) ;-) We had comprehensive exams every other term (3 terms to the year) beginning Class 4, or what Americans call Grade 4. In essence, I ran my own juku (studied until midnight even at Class 4) or else I fail at school and be sacked!

....? I would take that as an insult, but it is true. And, att the risk of sounding about 50 years older than I am, I remember that. Maybe not grade 4, but defniately by 5 or 6. Now, my brother is in 5, and it is just too easy.

By the way, I am 18. My school district has changed a lot.

As for Ujuku, all this talking on them being genuinely nice people and good people to deal with makes me want to order something from them even though I neither want another pen right now (at least not one they provide), nor have the money to get one.

-Nkk

Haha Don't doubt the power of the emoji (emoticon) such as ;-) after my statement a couple of posts above



Yes, I've dealt only with Tadashi. He seems quite nice. There was a short period when I was emailing him back and forth and knowing that he had a hard time expressing himself in English, I used a web translator and put both English and Japanese on the email. I told hime he could reply directly in Japanese and I could either use the web translator or if that failed ask several friends who speak Japanese. I have a couple in Japan and the U.S. who speak Japanese. Oh...then the email from him started flying back and forth--several times a day. He found it amusing that I didn't speak Japanese but he could write to me in Japanese and I would understand what he was talking about. Hahah He's humourous that way.

I know that you were joking, but the sad thing is that it holds some truth.



That is good to know for when I decide to buy something from him. I have a couple of friends who are relatively proficient at Japanese, so that should work out well.

-Nkk

Heh. That would have confused him! Machine translation is particularly difficult between English and Japanese, as this sign proves beyond any doubt:



If you click on the image, you can get the original Japanese on my Flickr site. The relative clause is responsible for many difficultties in translation, including this one.

One has to know the limitations of electronic translation. Given that, when one writes in English, use short and simple sentences. There are many ways to write simple English sentences that translate well to other languages using electronic means. One just has to be mindful of that. Tadashi seems to understand the email I wrote to him

For example, instead of writing:

I would like to know whether or not you have received the payment that I sent you last week.

write,

I sent you the payment last week. Have you received the payment?

I agree that machine translation should be used with caution. I've seen presumably machine translated Japanese that do not make sense or downright rude on their message board.

I don't really like the machine translation much. It's useful if you want to try to understand something in another language, but I don't think it is too useful for communication purposes.

One time, my mom who knows Chinese and English and I who knows English, some Japanese, and some Chinese went to play with the machine translation software on the web. The software made a lot of mistakes, and we got a lot of laughs out of it.

For fun when I was younger, I would type something into the machine translator in English, then I would run it through a few times, first converting it to Italian, then back to English, then to Japanese, back to English, then to Chinese, and once I got it out in English again, I would it read back to myself a few times.

Dillon

Sure but there may be no other alternatives. Ever since I knew that Tadashi is slow to communicate mostly because he has a hard time expressing himself in English, I ask him to reply in Japanese. And guess what? His replies come quite quickly that way.

I should have phrased it more clearly (Notice that I am not disagreeing with what you said last ), you can use it to understand what someone said. I just don't think it's a good idea to send out reponses or answers using the machine translator though. (E.g. someone sent you something in Japanese, you turn that into English using the machine translator-->this is ok) (E.g. You write a response in English, then you run it into the machine translator to produce and send a reply in Japanese-->not always the best idea)

Dillon

So it is OK to use it to translate from but not translate to? But how are the two different???


Kurt

Well....what I do with Tadashi is I write it in English, then let the web translator translate into Japanese AND THEN, I mail him BOTH English AND Japanese versions and he can choose to read whatever he wants. I'm sure on both sides we understand that machine translation has its limitations so both of us understand that there are going to be some funny errors and we are not going to expect great etiquette from the machine translation. But, it certainly facilitates with communication and expediency

That's an excellent idea, TH, giving both languages--certainly it must help when a person isn't fluent in one of the languages. I also wonder if Tadashi uses the translator back to English. Like what Dillon said, it might be interesting to try it out to see if it gets badly (or humorously) mangled.

In corresponding with me, he writes back only in Japanese. I actually wrote to him to say he is welcome to write only in Japanese knowing full well that one of the reason that he responds less quickly is because he is not fluent in writing English. I also said to him that if the web translator did not work for some of the things he wrote I will just ask a friend to translate. I have several friends in Japan and U.S. who speak and write fluent Japanese. And indeed, there was one time when I was asking detailed information about the distribution of the M90 that the end portion of his letter made no sense when machine translated. I received help from my friends in no time :-)

Have you guys seen the new message on Ujuku's M90 reservation page?

He must be swamped with impatient customer emails!

Poor guy...

Gee, am I glad I ordered quickly ...

I bet it is a wave overtaking him of all the orders. SOmetimes I guess being too popular is a problem as well.

Kurt