Saratoga News

Saratoga Sampler

Mary Ann Cook

Saratogan sends his impressions of Japan via a Web site

OSAKA CALLING: If you'd like to learn what life in Osaka is like, a weekly update from a local young man is as close as your Internet connection. Saratogan Beau Fernald, son of Toby and Barry Fernald, writes a weekly journal from Osaka, featuring computer-scanned photos which he takes. Beau is living in Osaka for a year in an intern program, working as a computer software engineer for Super Station Inc. His Web site is www.superstation.co.jp/osakalife/.

Some of Beau's impressions include his take on the street-stand grills serving takoyaki, balls of fried dough with octopus meat in the center. "The aroma was delicious, and the cooks spun the little balls in their cups with ease [before cooking them on a large griddle]."

Though the sauce accompanying this dish was so strong that it initially turned his stomach, Beau now considers this snack "a highlight of local cuisine."

Raised yellow lines on the sidewalks help guide the blind; vending machines are ubiquitous and outdoors.

Cars are driven right into shrines in order to be blessed. New Year's is perhaps the major holiday, and visitors to the shrine of Yebisu, one of the lucky gods, should pat his statue on a spot where their own bodies need healing, such as "improving qualities like cleverness with a pat on the head."

Beau studied Japanese for a year as a senior at UC-Berkeley. Graduating in electrical engineering and computer science in '97, he applied for the JETRO-sponsored internship through the Engineering Cooperative at Cal. (JETRO stands for Japan External Trade Organization.) JETRO pays half his salary, and Super Station, a small multimedia software company, pays the other half.

ALL AT SEA: College students and Saratogans Christin Murphy and Lindsay Dosch both spent fall semester at sea. But that's just their geographic state, not their state of mind. Both were part of the Semester at Sea program offered by the University of Pittsburgh, Pa.

The trip is a wide-ranging one, covering several continents during more than three months of travel. The ship accommodates 600 students, presumably studying all the way, what with classes held on land and at sea, conducted by selected faculty. Students earn 12 units for the semester.

Avid sportswoman Lindsay snowboarded in Spain, scuba-dived in Vietnam, rode horseback through the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and said the trip was the most wonderful thing she's ever done. She's a junior at the University of Colorado in marine biology.

Whatever field she eventually chooses, it's bound to be outdoors. Her parents, Nancy and Bill Dosch, may not see much of her, except on the fly. She already has her summer vacation planned: She'll fly to Florida and explore the U.S. on the way back. She also wants to backpack through Europe before long.

PRIVATE HARVEST: Peggy and Dick Valentine, like many of their neighbors, have turned into vintners in their retirement years. The Valentines bottle cabernet sauvignon each year, supplying themselves, family and close friends.

They've been producing wine since '93, have won some half-dozen red ribbons from Santa Clara and other county fairs. They've won second place every time they've entered, coming within a nose of the top prize. "We just wanted to see how we'd measure up," Dick says.

They do all the work themselves, except at harvest, crush and pressing times, when friends and family are pressed into service. The wine is bottled under the Valentine Vineyard label from grapes they planted in 1990.

ETIQUETTE SURVIVAL KIT: There must be a renewed interest in manners, if recent articles and the success of The WorkShoppe on Big Basin Way in Saratoga are any indication. The WorkShoppe has been in operation for two years, teaching manners to children and teens, adults and businesses. Now owners Lyndy Janes and Sue Fox have come out with a series of videos called The Etiquette Survival Kit, on sale at Domus in Los Gatos.

Teen Dining and Social Etiquette and A Place at the Table are now available, and the Adult Dining Etiquette video is due out any day now. The teen video covers such hallmarks of gracious living as tricky foods, posture and phone skills. Janes is an image consultant and former model, and Fox runs the business end of the company.

Corporations that deal with other cultures, Pacific Rim cultures in particular, tell us that manners, the niceties that show respect for each other, have assumed more importance of late. What with Silicon Valley going global, computer geeks need to tweak their etiquette acumen along with their software.

It ups their self-confidence and helps business when they feel as at ease at the dining table as at the conference table, Janes and Fox maintain. Classes are taught at Sent Sovi in Saratoga and Maddalenas in Palo Alto. The number is 741-8307.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]