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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Are the Japanese Stubborn?

Recently the news about the Japanese car recall have drawn my attention. How have things gone wrong in these cases? Japanese car manufactures must have many international staff as well as American management. While they continues to be the leading car manufacturers in the world, their approach to this incident was so typical Japanese. And it caused misunderstandings and confusion in American users. This recall itself might not have been so bad if their highest management decided to appear in public earlier and open all of the information they have on the possible technical problems.

This is an article to show what is the typical Japanese decision-making process and the how different it is from an American one. The intention of this article is to point out the difference, not to evaluate or criticize.

In many cases of my involvement of international business, a Japanese company had been in this critical situation, even it was clear that Japanese made a mistake, they could not change their attitude and decision. Thus it resulted in either losing a huge business opportunity or it would make their counterpart so angry that they would not be able to further pursue the business relationship they had originally intended on.

Instead, American companies seem to be more flexible in accepting their mistake and change their decision or business strategy, saving their own business opportunity and, most importantly, the relationship.

If we can accept our own mistakes, the actions we need to take are relatively simple. We accept we made a mistake, apologize, and propose a correction. American organizations are good at doing this sort of correction. This flexibility may come from a religious principle of forgiveness. People make mistakes. Once a mistake is made, being flexible is much better than to stick to the mistake and stubbornly lose everything.

Now on the other hand, the Japanese approach is based on the "save face" or "lose face" concept. Japanese people tend to hate someone who cannot consistently keep their promises. They regard it is losing face. So they try not to accept mistakes so that they do not have to break their promises and lose face. Even if they know they made a mistake, they do not want to accept it because they will lose face by accepting it.

And they try to hide it. Then they try to modify it in a way publicly unknown to save face. This makes the entire process of correction very complicated. In many cases the business decision priority would be shifted from saving business to saving face by hiding the fact that they made a mistake. The end result could be devastating. It is a simple fact that they are not so good at saying "Oops, we made a mistake. Sorry."

In answering my own question, I have to admit the Japanese are stubborn and not good at apologizing, when it comes to accept their mistakes.

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Sunday, October 6, 2013

My First Trip to China

It was summer 2000 when I visited China for the first time in my life. It was almost funny that I have not visited China until then, because I have almost grown up with Chinese History Books. So the feeling of mine was like filling my own missing link.

It was when I was age 5, even before elementary school when my grand mother gave me this cartoon book called "Sai-Yu-Ki" - Travel to West-. That was the cartoon book about adventurous trip of a Chinese priest to Afghanistan and India to obtain Buddhism Book to China. In this book, of course more than half fiction, other than this priest existed in Chinese History and he traveled to India to get Buddhism book to localize Buddhism to China.

In the story, this priest accompanies three monsters guards, Monkey Monster, Pig Monster, and Sand Monster assigned by Buddha. They all have special fighting powers and skills. This was the story of Monkey Monster exercising his miraculous fighting power and skills, fighting against all odds and evil monsters to protect his master priest to safely bring Indian Buddhism Books to China.

This Monkey Monster grows in protecting his master priest, learning from his master, and practicing Buddhism. Going through all the fighting and adventure helping the priest's safety, he brings himself closer and closer to Buddhism principle and finally became Monkey God, as one of Buddha's protective guards, after he finished his mission to send his master priest to India.

In addition to this "Monkey God" story, there were a lot of Chinese Historical Books in junior and senior high school days, such as "3 Countries History" whereas 3 countries kings fight for unified China, "Sui-Fu" -Story of Private Organization fight against old and corrupted government-, so on and so forth. In this way, in addition to the fact that China is my wife's home country, I did not feel China to be foreign country for long time.

In that trip to China, my wife took me to Beijing, Great Walls, Anshan, Sheng Yung. I visited China several times since then. But, I have not visited there for more than 3 years now. My wife and I are planning to go to China coming summer. I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to see my wife's family and friends.

While my wife's favorite city is Shanghai, my favorite is Beijing. Beijing is old castle city. Its history goes all the way back 3000 years ago, when it was originally called Yan Jing. It is not just history, the food there is excellent and reasonably priced. It was my 3rd trip while waiting for our table is ready in world famous Peking duck restaurant, my Chinese friend offered me and almost forced me to eat Scorpion fry. It was weird, but it was not as bad as first felt. It tasted like shrimp.

In there, I can feel exactly how Japanese people before World War II felt so eager to get out of Japan to go and live in China. China has dynamism that Japan does not have. The country is definitely one of my favorites.

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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Do Not Let Anger Control You - 5 Harms of Anger to Remember

Do not you have an experience to talk to yourself, "Oh, I should not have said that", or "I should not have done that", after you told something bad or showed bad behavior to the people who you were talking to? Obviously there are moments when our emotion, anger, takes over our rationale and directly control our statement or behavior.

The most recent occasion I remember is my immigration process with INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service of the USA). It was long wait for my interview to be scheduled without any given specific reasons. When the schedule was set, my lawyer told me not be angry no matter what happened. I was laughing and told him not to worry. There should not be anything, which made me angry, I thought.

The interview went quite well. The officer was quite courteous and there was not a single moment of rudeness. The officer asked me to go back to the first floor and submit my picture for processing. I thanked him for the interview, he thanked me for my time. My wife and I went down to the window for the picture submission. The person in the window was not as courteous as the interview officer.

The lady at the window pointed out we did not pay for the processing and the picture is different from the one INS designates. Our emotion almost always catches us in surprise. Maybe I was too much relaxed due to the fact that the interview finished. I was so angry this lady is complaining about me that I almost yelled at her. It was quite fortunate that my wife detected my anger and pulled me back. I could curtail my anger and went out to take another picture in the photo shop nearby.

It might be true that the lady did not talk so friendly. But there should have been no reason to be angry. She was doing what she was supposed to do based on INS regulation and all I should have done is to take picture and give it to her. The most important that time was to submit my picture on that day, not to make friend with the lady in the window. As explained, the anger hits us more on non-substantial points. If I were angry and had an argument with the person in charge, I would not be able to submit the picture on that day and my immigration process would have further delayed. In this way, the anger does not do any good for you.

The worst emotion easily takes over your attitude is anger. Anger will take over your all logical thinking, change your face, change your tone of voice, and change your behavior. Can you think of anything which anger can benefit you? Even if you get some short time advantage because you showed your anger, negative reaction you are suffering may be far bigger than that.

In addition, anger gives you unnecessary waste of your energy. Sometimes, you get headache, sour throat from yelling, instability of emotion, which you need to spend some time to recover from. Anger deprives you of your peace of mind.

1. Anger can damage your social reputation

2. Anger can damage your relationship with you family, friends, and colleagues.

3. Anger can deprive you of power to make right decision.

4. Anger can damage your business.

5. Anger can deprive you of peace of your mind and make your emotion unstable.

The most important point is #5 above. Even if you could get what you wanted by showing anger, later on you may not feel peaceful about what the person, you were angry at, might think. Or you may even think that person may think about retaliating you for your anger. It may take you for more than a day or so to regain peace of mind or give up thinking. We all know that anger does not solve any problem.

It is important to manager your anger and keep peace of your mind.

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Sunday, September 22, 2013

3 Factors to Remember For Changing Bad Luck to Good Luck

It goes back to October 2008 when our family moved to the house for rent in west side of San Francisco Bay. Since my wife and I do not have a child, we were talking about keeping a dog. Because we were living in an apartment before this move, we could not keep any pet other than small birds. My wife always wanted a white dog, not too small, not too big. We have gone to shelter nearby and pet shops to check. We could not have found any dog we like, we have not adopted any dog.

When I had time, I was searching a white dog in Internet. I found a breeder who grows Japanese Spitz. They were showing pictures of their dogs. They were white like snow with big black round eyes. It struck me like a thunder and I liked them immediately. I showed the website to my wife and she liked them as well. We called the breeder next day and arranged a visit.

This is how we started living with our new family member, white dog "Xuer" (It means Snow in Chinese). It was April 2008. We made a big mistake in adopting her because our rental agreement for the house we rented did not allow tenant to keep a pet. We totally misunderstood because we did not have any problem bringing in our birds. Our landlady found that we keep a dog and asked us either we agree to pay double the rent, get rid of Xuer, or move out.

It was tough decision. But in short time, we decided that we could not get rid of Xuer. It also did not make sense to keep the rent paying double amount of rent. So, we started to look for new place to live quickly. Quite fortunately, my Japanese realtor found a good home with good price. There were so much competition and 60 offers were already made to buy the house. But we decided to offer and surprisingly we could get it. We were not the best price, but we could offer good condition of payment. Because it was our landlady side who wanted us to move out as one of our choices, she could not charge us full year rent. We notified our landlady and moved out May last year, 2009.

It was bank owned house, so we needed to repair here and there. But it was enjoyable because it is now ours not rent. We have lived here a little more than a year now. Now we believe that it was our white dog Xuer who brought us this good luck to acquire this house.

Now, please step back and think about it. It was Xuer who gave us hard time in living previous house. So, she was the one brought us bad luck. She was the cause for us either moving out or paying doubled rent. We could hate her. Or we could sell her. We seriously talked about that option, too. But by taking actions to quickly get out of such bad luck, we could buy the house now we are living. Now Xuer is the one who brought us good luck. All these could be sequence of coincidences. But we feel this told us something. Something we could turn bad luck to good one. There are 2 factors we can remember:
1. Having bad luck, do not panic. Try to change perspective. You will see different side or another angle of the happenings. Remember, "Every cloud has silver lining."
2. Do not give up. If you stop actions to solve your problem. The problem will stay there unchanged. It may keep staying with you forever. There will be something to do if you do not give up.
3. Some situation does not allow you to change back, like we could not change our landlady. But remember, if you keep your emotion stable, there are always some things you can do to make it better.

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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Karate is For Defense Only

If you are interested in martial arts, you might have heard that Karate is for defense only. There is no other martial art, which advocates this kind of anti-fighting nature. Martial arts are fighting skills after all. Still Karate developed in Okinawa advocates the nature of Karate fighting is only for defense. It does not just slogan, it disciplines the principle. Masters punishes to expel their student who used Karate for street fighting. It also says, "There is no first strike in Karate." Kendo", Japanese Sward art carrying same kind of spirits and principles, does not necessarily stop the first strike. Many historical masters of Kendo taught, "First strike will win the fight." Ancient Chinese eminent strategist "Sun-Zu" also wrote "Your victory can be almost always attained by first strike."

It has been mystery to me why Karate stress "No Aggression", "No First Strike", and "Defense Only" principles. There was a historical background that Okinawa people were deprived of all weapons developed Karate. Their skills, even the fact they practice martial art, must be kept secret from conqueror that time. But, it was not only the reason why they emphasize defense strategy rather than attacking techniques. The reason was that to master the martial art and acquire real strength, the defense art was the most important factor.

Mastering defense skills will complete the strength of mind. Once you acquire complete defense skills, and confident and comfortable to defend any kind of first attack or any attack, you have peace and stability of mind. "If you effectively defend, you fight well, and win." This is a quotation from the ancient Chinese strategy book.

Many Sumo (Japanese style wrestling) wrestlers who established unbreakable records in its history always had strong defense. Even their opponent suddenly change position or use tricky move to defeat them, they could defend this kind, or any kind of attacks, and could still win.

Famous Chess players winning world-class tournament always have strong defense skills and could defend attacks from their opponents I heard. They could have keep defending hours or days to complete their defense and win historical games. Strong players who were winning and record holders always have strong defense skills and strategy.

On the other hand, there is nobody who survived just for attacking strategy, kept winning, and last long only by the aggression. Napoleon Boneparte was an aggressor. He conquered Europe in short period of time. But Russian defended effectively until the coldness in winter gave fatal damage to Napoleon army. Adolph Hitler could not defeat United Kingdom who determined to defend until they defeat German Army.

This is not just for martial arts or wars. It is giving us very good lesson worth thinking for our lives. If you are not satisfied with your lives, relationship, or business, if you continuously feel defeated, feel helpless, and feel uncomfortable, it may worth checking and strengthening your defense strategy and skills.

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Sunday, September 8, 2013

Uncle Sai's Horse

The real title of this story in Japanese is, "Life is all like Uncle Sai's Horse." The story appears in an old Chinese philosophy book, "Huai-nan Tzu", which was believed to be published around BC 179 - BC 122 in Han Dynasty age. This philosophy book includes our ancestors' wisdom and considered to be influenced by Confucius, Legalism, Daoism, and Nature Mysticism, old Chinese main philosophies.

Once upon a time in China, there living was an old man, uncle Sai. He was making his living by trading horses. One day, his best horse ran away to the enemy country. Having no chance to get the horse back from the enemy country, his neighbor expected him to be sad and disappointed. His neighbor came to console him. Uncle Sai told his neighbors that this could be the beginning of good luck.

A while later, his run-away horse ran back to uncle Sai, taking many horses from the enemy country. His neighbor congratulated him. Uncle Sai said, "This will be the beginning of bad luck."

Having more horses than before, his son kept playing with horses. One day, his son, riding one of the horses came from the enemy country, fell down from the horseback and broke his leg. Again, when his neighbor consoled uncle Sai for the accident, uncle Sai said, "It will bring us good luck."

Later, a war against their enemy country broke out. Young people must have gone to the war and many of them died. But uncle Sai's son survived because he had his leg broken and did not have to go to the war.

This is a story teaching people not to be too sad, fearful, or panicky when a something bad happens. It could turn out to be good luck. On the other hand, when a good thing happens, do not be too much glad and excited. It could be a beginning of bad luck.

When in bad luck, do what you can do best without being panicky. When in good luck, continue to work hard and prepare for rainy days. This story originated in China brought into Japan around 5th or 6th century, it became almost like a Japanese story. Also it gave birth to similar saying in Japanese. Here are some of them.

The life is like a twined rope. Good luck and bad luck come in turn. Good luck gives birth to bad luck. Bad luck creates good luck. The one I like best is "Take the bad luck. Change it to the good one." This shows vitality of old Japanese who choose to take difficult decision and being successful.

We cannot be too panicky, fearful, or sad in bad luck. We do not have time for that. Control our emotion, accept the bad luck, and act in the way you believe to be right. Do not worry too much about what you are doing, right or wrong. If you continue to keep your effort and action in the way you believe to be right, soon you will be able to make it good luck.

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Sunday, September 1, 2013

Small Actions Can Change Your Life

Everybody has different definition of happiness. What is your definition of happiness? How do you think you can achieve your happiness? Do you think you can win lotto and become millionaire? Do you hope to be successful in business and make money? Do you dream of inheriting something big from your relatives?

You can be happy being with your family over the weekend in your busy schedule. You feel happiness watching your kids playing around in your yard. When your girlfriend smiles at you, you will be happy.

It was last month when I happened to pick up this Japanese book for self-improvement oriented. The title of the book is "50 Small Actions to Change Your Life". The book is a list of 50 small actions which author recommends taking. Each item has explanation of the author. Many of them are small good action to take.

The most interesting was the reason why the author wrote this book. According to the author, there are more powerful thing, which can change your life to the better direction than your talent, or education, or big sum of donation to your church, or any organization you belong to. He says the most powerful series of action to change your life is small daily base actions, accumulations, and continuation of them.

Here are some small actions you can take:

- Greet to someone you have never greet before. You should have 1 new person to greet in 1 new day.
- Take steps instead of elevator. You may meet someone you did not expect to meet.
- Stop asking your friend if you are special individual. Special person tends to believe he is ordinary person, not extraordinary.

The book consisted of 50 interesting items as above. All of his listings were interesting and I finished reading in a day. Also I cannot agree more to the author that if we continue to take good actions, at least one at a day, every day. It will change our life to the better way.

This book reminded me one story, which I heard long time ago. I hoped to share it here.

One high school drop out could finally find his job in a bank branch in a city of Japan. As a newcomer in the bank, his first morning work was to clean the entrance of the bank branch office. One morning, he found that front of neighbor house was also messy as well in the morning. Since it did not take him much additional work, he started to clean front of their neighbor house, too. One day, a old woman came out of the home, asked him to come into her home and have a cup of tea.

As this old woman asked, he walked into her home, where he met the her grand doubter, who was beautify, and the old woman asked him to marry her grand doubter and hair her business. This boy could hair very profitable business of Jewelry Trading and married beautiful wife.

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Sunday, August 25, 2013

Do Japanese Have a Tendency of a Double Personality?

Japan is an international country. Walking on the street in Tokyo, you will meet many foreigners, American, European, Asian, African, Oceania, from all over the world. Those non-Japanese people living in Japan know a lot about Japan. Sometimes they know better than Japanese do. Many of them live in Japan for business reasons, others do simply because they love Japan.

It is my pleasure to meet these people who are attracted by Japan and talk enthusiastically about what they like about Japan, as a Japanese born. Many of them talk about Japanese people as well. 90% of these people like Japanese people, too. They say that Japanese are polite, courteous, kind, calm, generous, and so on. Once in a while, however, I come across non-Japanese people who are either puzzled, confused, or disturbed by Japanese behavior.

Quite unfortunately, these puzzled and disturbed non-Japanese people are the ones who are closer to Japanese livings and Japanese people. Those are men and women who married Japanese. Others are ones work for Japanese company. I see problems with foreigner child who attend Japanese school, some times.

A Korean national woman once told me that she feels that Japanese tends to have double personality. She said to me that her mother-in-law invited her to her husband mother's home one time. Her husband's mother asked her relax, ask anything, eat anything, and be at home anyway she wanted. Her mother-in-law even told her feel home like her own. She was glad her mother-in-law is this much kind. She thanked her mother-in-law. Basically she spent relaxed time in her mother-in-law's home.

After she came back home, she was shocked to learn that her husband's mother is upset about her behaviors in his mother's home. Her husband told that his mother upset because she does not follow basic rules in somebody else's home. Her mother-in-law thinks she is rude, does not know how to greet, and not polite enough.

You may think that this kind of thing can happen to any culture to any people. It may be usual in-law problem. But, the worst was, when this Korean lady visited her mother-in-law again, her mother-in-law's attitude toward her was nothing changed and nothing unpleasant. She was smiling, asking her to relax and be at home. This Korean lady was totally confused by her mother-in-law. She started to think that her mother-in-law has double personality.

It may not be as serious as her case, one time my American boss expressed his frustration about Japanese management saying that they speak about long-term business strategy, but all they care is profit of that month.

You might have heard "Public and Private Concept" in Japanese culture. Original Japanese is "Hon-ne-to-Tate-mae". Every culture in the world has this concept. You do not wear pajamas to go to public place. You need to wear suits and tie going to office. But Japanese tends to separate public and private very strictly. This confuses non-Japanese people. Bad attitude in side of Japanese is that they tend not to tell to the person, they hide the feeling and keep smiling.

But, please do not worry. It is nothing difficult to cope with this kind of Japanese mentality. Whatever you hear from Japanese, if you keep your politeness and courteous attitude and stay inside of common sense rule in front of them, they will be amazed how good you are. They are not double character. They are a little more rule oriented than the rest of the world is.

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Sunday, August 18, 2013

What Song Zi, Chinese Ancient Strategist, Teaches Us

Precisely, Song Zi (Japanese "Son-Shi) is not a name of person. It is a name of a book. That is the textbook of art of War. This book was written around BC 500. Professionals believe that real strategist, either "Song Wu" or "Song Ping", was the author.

"Song Wu" was a commander who formed King's back palace army (Secret Service for the king) and taught the importance of discipline. "Song Ping" was a general in ancient China whose legs cut off from the lost war by enemy country. Legend says that he still fought and could lead his country to victory at the end.

"Song Zi" has several meanings in war history. There are several note-worthy advices with respect to the war. Before this book came out, people believed that to win or lose in a war was God will. That was why warriors pray for God so anxiously before war. "Song Zi" is the first book of war, which told people there are reasons to win or lose a war. Man Kings, generals, and worriers learned how to win the war and "Dos and Do nots" in war from this book. This is the first book in human history on art and science of war. World famous strategy and political elements "Ten, Chi, Jin" - Help of God, Advantage of Location, Support from People - appeared in this book.

2nd point is the fact that "Song Zi" is talking about the meaning of war. As a book of strategy, unfortunately, it does not deny war. It says, however, "War affects not only army and government of a country, but also people, food production, and national wealth. Therefore, the decision makers should not easily exercise this option."

"Song Zi" was The Textbook for famous generals in the history. It is said that Napoleon Buonaparte read it and used its strategies in many battles. Maybe the last person in modern history used strategy of "Song Zi" was Mao Zhedong in China. He used "Song Zi" strategy not to be defeated by Japanese Army in World War II, and win the battles against National Army lead by Jing Jie Shi.

This book categorizes various strategies in terms of location, number of soldiers, training, timing of attack, formation, and so on. All are about art and science of war.

This article is not to show you how marvelous "Song Zi" was, as a strategy book. This article is to draw your attention to the last part of this strategy book that mentions the ultimate and utmost strategy. Please remember that this book was written 2500 years ago. It says as final and ultimate strategy, after its 35 Chapters detailed strategies, as 36th Chapter, is not to fight to death but run away from your enemy to survive.

I hope one day there is no war at all on earth.

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Sunday, August 11, 2013

You Can Train Yourself to Be Happy

Human beings are born with emotions. Even newborn babies have their ability to express their emotions by smiling, laughing, and crying. Emotions from newborn babies are fresh, innocent, and admirable. They are straight to express their emotions to anybody and are not afraid of doing so. As babies grow, they encounter many things, good or bad. They learn how to maneuver their emotions for their favor. When they want their parent to buy them a toy, they beg, first, pout then, and cry if not satisfied.

At the same time, they begin to build a wall around them not to reveal their real sentiment. Young children, looking forward to a birthday gift, may be disappointed, because they are not getting something they wanted. They learn that their disappointment is big if their expectation is too much. They begin to control their emotion in the sense that they do not over-joy, not to be badly disappointed.

As they grow, it is inevitable to develop negative emotions. They may think, when they are happy, that they should be careful not to be over-joyful, because they know they might be disappointed if they are over-joyful. It seems that people become more negative than younger days, as they grow. As one gets old, he tends to believe that he was happier in his younger age. This seems to be the mechanism to cause negative sentiments.

Some people develop resentment, cynicism, skepticism, and depression. Instead, there are people who are always cheerful and happy. One may wonder why those people can be happy all the time. It may be their nature. They might have been born that way. Instead, however, they might have trained themselves to be happy instead of unhappy.

Even experiencing same occasion, one feels grateful, the other feels sad. A soldier, who lost his arm in a war, could be depressed by his loss. It is quite understandable. He could be, instead, however, glad he did not die in fighting, all because he lost his arm and sent back to hospital. Why does this difference happen? The ones who could be happy and grateful for the same occasion, which they experience, tend to train themselves to be glad and happy, consciously or unconsciously.

In the movie "The Matrix", Mophius explained to Neo that the feeling is only an electric signal which brain receives to feel. If one has negative circuit, he feels negative. If the other has positive circuit, he feels positive. Human beings are so well-built system that we can repair or rebuild our circuit in the way we want. If one trains his mind to feel negative, he becomes negative. If he teaches his head to respond positively, he drives him to be happy and positive person.

The training to make one happy person is quite simple. One can keep trying to take a look at the bright side of things. Every cloud has a silver lining. In one's saddest time or worst experience, one can pick something, which he can be grateful. It is easy to write this way, however. It is a different story if one can really do it. Again turning to the movie "The Matrix", it is as Oracle told Neo that knowing the path is different from walking the path.

The effective method of this training is to write "Gratitude List". If one keeps diary, he can use his diary to try this method. At the end of a day, we can open our favorite diary book and write about happy occasions we had on that day. One or two would be okay, but you can consider as many as possible. You need to think seriously what made you glad and happy. You may be able to use your PC or Blog, but some advised that hand writing is the best. In this way, your mind will be trained to look for happy matters and feel happy about whatever comes to your life.

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