• Question: Did you enjoy going to Japan, was it helpful for your work?

    Asked by Foxy to Rebecca on 16 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 16 Jun 2015:


      I loved Japan. They have a really great work ethic. The one thing that is most important to Japanese people is that they are self-sufficient and they take a salary home to support their family. As long as someone is earning money doing a job, the government will support them with anything that they can’t afford, like healthcare or repairs to the house. Everyone is so helpful and honest and love to share their hospitality.

      It helped my work a great deal in two main ways: (1) I learned a new approach to the science because their company does things differently to a company in the UK and I got to see their manufacturing (which no-one in the UK has ever let me see before!). So I learned a great deal about science and got to try things out on their really fancy computers. (2) I got to meet people! The Japanese find face-to-face meetings really important. They often told me that they don’t speak English, but they do, they’re just being modest!! I got to meet people who have published some of the work that I read every day, or that I reference in my own work, so they are quite famous in my area – that was really cool. So networking, making contacts for the future, meeting people face-to-face, was really important.

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