Greetings

I haven't written and sent "Honyaku Talk" newsletters to you in quite a while. I have much to update you on my recent activities as well as current events at Pacific Dreams, Inc.

I visited Japan last month to provide two seminars in downtown Tokyo. For the first seminar, held on October 24, I provided "HR Management Overview in the US for HR Professionals in Japan" at ANA Intercontinental Hotel Tokyo. This seminar was a joint seminar with Greenfield Overseas Assistance Co., Ltd., which provides US business Visa consulting and processing services for Japanese companies located in Tokyo. In the morning, the president of Greenfield, Mr. Takuro Ogawa, provided his seminar about current US Visa issues and procedures on B, E, F, J-1, H-1B and L-Visa. I did my HR seminar in the afternoon between 1:00 to 5:00 PM. We had about 20 people who attended our seminars on this day.

For the second seminar held on, October 25, I provided two different seminars: "US-Japan Hybrid Communication Method" for the morning and "US Sales & Marketing Updates" for the afternoon. These seminars were sponsored by STARBLOOM Co., Ltd located in Kyoto, which provides patent document translation services, owned and managed by Ms. Miyuki Miura. These seminars were held in Shibuya, where numerous Japanese digital companies are thriving in this area of Tokyo with technology advancement and enthusiasm. We had over 20 people who attended these seminars as well. I feel that we had a good sense of accomplishment and success for seminar events in Tokyo.

After finishing my seminars, I then returned Portland, OR on October 28. Usually, I stay in Japan for a week, and as you know, after staying a week in an overseas country, one becomes acclimated to the local time zone so I had to readjust to the US PST time zone again. In addition, it is somehow more difficult to adjust ones local time zone when returning from Japan to the US. With my jetlagged condition, I flew San Francisco early morning on November 1 to attend 48th ATA (American Translators Association; www.atanet.org) Annual Conference held at Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown San Francisco for three days. I enjoyed nice, comfortable weather for three days in San Francisco. I wrote my additional article about ATA Conference at Honyaku Kotohajime below, so I will skip ATA updates in this article here.

I have another business trip to Japan in a first week of December. My wife, Eileen, and I both fly to Narita on December 1 to participate SEMICON Japan as booth exhibitors. This will be the second consecutive year for us to have a booth at SEMICON Japan, which the world largest semiconductor industry exhibition staring December 5 at Makuhari Messe Japan Convention Center in Chiba for three days. I am planning on attend SEMICON Japan every single year over the decade.

Both this year and last year, we will have the same booth location in the Venture Pavilion at Invention Hall in Makuhari Messe. (Our booth number this year is V-6.) Because I felt success from having own booth at SEMICON last year, I wanted to do so again this year, too. Last year, I went to SEMICON by myself, so it was very hard for one person to do everything during SEMIOCN, so this year, I will bring my wife to help run the Pacific Dreams booth with me.

In additions to my wife's help, I have another source of help in Japan for the SEMICON. Our new partnering company, Team M2, Inc., will help our booth. Team M2, Inc. is an English Educational Publications and Planning firm located in Tokyo. Mr. Masami Morishima is president of Team M2, and obviously company's name came form his two initials. Since Mr. Morishima visited our office in Oregon this fall, we both felt that our companies would be an excellent match in terms of business area and company size. I also visited his office when I was visiting Tokyo this past October.

Finally, I would like to mention another seminar in Tokyo just before SEMICON starts. In cooperation with Team M2, Inc., I have a seminar on December 3 at seminar room of Mainichi Newspaper Company building in Takebashi, Tokyo between 1:00 and 5:00 PM. The title of this seminar is "How to Discuss Conversation, Write Email and Conduct Meetings Effectively in English". I have been very busy getting prepared for SEMIOCN Japan and my new seminar on December in Tokyo.

These are the last two-month activities and events, as well as upcoming events in December. I was not in the office much the last two months, but I am now settled down to do my work at the office in Wilsonville, OR. I will report what will be happening at my seminar and SEMICON, as well as other changes and new findings in Japan during our trip in December. Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend and see you again soon.

Ken Sakai
President

Ken Sakai
President

"Honyaku Kotohajime" (Beginnings of Translation) - No. 60
"48th ATA Annual Conference at San Francisco"

As I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter, I attended 48th Annual ATA (www.atanet.org) Conference between November 1st and 3rd for three days, held at the Hyatt Regency, in downtown San Francisco. I have attended the ATA Annual Conference for the last two years. The previous conferences that I have attended were held in the Westin Seattle Hotel two yeas ago. For the last decade, I attended ATA Annual Conferences every other year. Since this year's conference was held in San Francisco, which is a beautiful sightseeing spot in a thriving town with good public transportation, I thought it would be the largest conference ever in ATA's history. But once the show started, I realized that this year's conference was probably a little bit smaller than Seattle's conference two years ago.

Whenever I attend ATA, the most enjoyable thing is to meet with translators and interpreters face to face, as well as the other translation agency people during the conference. Again, I do not attend ATA every year, so for some people, I have not seen them in over four or five years. Also, I met several of the people who are constantly helping us with our translation projects. It was indeed a memorable moment to meet with actual people who have been working with us for quite some time.

Now I would like to think about why this year ATA was not the biggest show that people expected. First, perhaps many translators and interpreters are too busy to come to this ATA Conference. This factor would be a positive one for professionals, but I hope translators can come to ATA once a year to meet other translators and agency people to exchange information and receive external input during the conference. Since most translators work alone from their home offices, it is a refreshing opportunity to get out and connect with the outside world.

The second reason might be from poor business over the last year and so individuals decided not to come for financial reasons. This is somewhat of a negative factor. As matter of the fact, I have experienced a similar situation in the past, so this is a very understandable reason. San Francisco is a very popular destination and so hotels and foods are quite expensive relative to other US cities. Airfare also has been increasing recently due to the increased price of oil; so high expense spending is not easily done if business is not going as well as planned.

For various reasons, many translators and interpreters are unpredictable and so although many attended the Seattle ATA Conference two years ago, were not present at this year's conference. I wonder at the reasons for their absence and my best guess is that most agencies are extremely busy, which keeps them away but I think that some are suffering from economic concerns. However, these are just my own personal, assumed viewpoint of the situation.

Based on my long years of experience working in the translation business, I always have some anxiety for the translation industry. My concern comes from the fact that anyone who has ever studied a foreign language could potentially become industry competition. This is positive for newcomers because the translation industry does not have any entry barriers, but aggravating for established individuals and organizations in the translation and interpreting industry. It seems to me there is no mote whatsoever. The barriers to entry are extremely low for the translation/interpretation industry in relation to other industries such as industrial or nuclear power where the entry requirements are naturally extremely high due to significant capital investment as well as government regulations.

During the ATA Conference, I attended a session for translation agencies and at that session, the program facilitator asked how long different translation agencies had been in business. Out of 80 or so participants, the longest operated translation agency was over 35 years old. On the other hand, there was only one person out of the 80 that had been open for less than a year.

This means that there are fewer newcomers currently and demonstrates that an entry barrier to the translation industry have been built up to some degree. This new news and issues are significant to those in the translation/interpretation industry. Again, I wondered why fewer newcomers enter the translation industry. I think our industry is no longer appealing for most of business-minded people. Also due to technical advancement and development in the IT sectors as well as a lot of requirements for specific expertise, our industry has become much more sophisticated and polished nowadays, so that people see some definite entry barriers in front of translation industry.

Based on this trend of fewer newcomers, this industry will easily expose M & A (Merge and Acquisition). In addition, overseas major players in emerging nations within Eastern Europe and Asian countries could fire M & A. So in my personal points of view again, our industry is still dynamic and energetic industry for leaving a lot of space to grow from now on and future. But we have reached some degree of maturity, not worrying so much about newcomers in terms of the market pie. Rather we should ride on that dynamic wave and sail on a right current.

To me, it was obviously a very fruitful and valuable experience at the San Francisco conference this year. Next year's ATA is Hilton Disney World Hotel in Orlando, Florida. I would like to go to the ATA next year because this is also very nice destination and resort place. I should not make any negative reasons to prevent my participation to the ATA next year November, right after presidency election. Hope see you many of you at Orland, Florida, again! Stay in touch.

Ken Sakai
President
E-mail: KenFSakai@pacificdreams.org

Our New Employees

We have three new employees to introduce here at Pacific Dreams, Inc!

Isako Shibata came to Oregon to work with Pacific Dreams, Inc. over three months ago and is really enjoying living in America! Isako's hometown is Yokohama but she has spent most of her life in Tokyo, working as a translator and an English teacher in Japan. Isako has a variety of hobbies from watching American dramas to listening to music in her free time. Isako would like to improve her English skills to achieve her dream of becoming an excellent English translator and an international English teacher so she can travel the world translating and teaching.

Our new Business Development Coordinator, Chelsey Kates, has been with us now for about 2 months, working on promoting our cross-cultural seminars and business with Pacific Dreams, Inc. Chelsey received her degree in Japanese from the University of California, Davis with a focus on International Relations. Chelsey comes from southern California, San Diego and spends her time in Portland rock climbing, doing yoga, and listening to music. Chelsey hopes to further develop her Japanese language skills as well as learn more about Japanese business culture.

Valerie Murphy is our new Web Master and Proofreader, managing all of our exciting new website changes and double-checking all translations! Val is a graduate from the University of California, Davis, majoring in Design-Visual Communication with many high honors. In addition to working for Pacific Dreams, Inc., Val also gives her time to after school programs, spending afternoons with children from 3rd to 8th grade. Val enjoys doing creative activities, being an artist at heart, she spends her free time painting, sewing and writing. By working with PDI, Val hopes to improve her Japanese skills and learn more about cross-cultural aesthetics.

Pacific Dreams, Inc.
25260 SW Parkway Avenue, Suite D
Wilsonville, OR 97070

TEL: 503-783-1390
FAX: 503-783-1391