JSCE Newsletter No.16, September 2004

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Committee

NewsletterNo. 16 September 2004

LOOKINGAGAINATTHEOn May 2003, JSCE issued JSCE 2005,
which states the new plans of reforms for JSCE. Its
main aim or theme is “to enrich necessary functionsof JSCE in order to contribute to the society.” In
this reform plan, it is stated that “the targets oftoday’s civil engineering sector is to understand theminds of citizens and the issues of the society inorder to provide social infrastructure services andsolutions based on these understandings.”
Civil engineering activity seems to becomprised of following three functions.
① Mission and Policy: Basic policy and ideals
for infrastructure development② Technological Development & Engineering:Technological development to build necessarystructures③ Management: Integrating Mission & Policy
with Technological Development.
Civil engineers are expected to handle
these three functions masterfully. However, thereality of Japanese civil engineers’ activities seems
to be focused on “technological development andengineering.” After the World War II, there was anurgent need to restore devastated social
infrastructure. It is true that, then, most civilengineers had to focus all their energy to “buildingstructures.” However, their inclination toward thisdirection eventually caused to distort and curtail thereal functions of civil engineers. It may be said thatthe loss of public confidence was a result of thecollapse of balance among these three functions.

Infrastructure dev.

Mission & Policylca &ni nt g
ch me inTe lop neerve ide E ng

Civil Engineers

ntio tuc menrt
ns ge
C o an aM

In order to regain public confidence in theconstruction industry and restore real missions ofcivil engineers, it is essential that we, civilengineers study the systems of society, the systems
m a n a g i n g t h e s o c i e ty , t h e p r i n c i p l e s a n dmovemen ts of the econo my and so forth.
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MISSION

OFCIVIL

ENGINEERS

No one would object when one says that aperson is a social scientist, and therefore he/shecannot understand the technical matters of civilengineering. However, we, the civil engineers, arenever allowed to say that we are civil engineers andtherefore we cannot understand social matters.
Shunji KUSAYANAGI,
Chairman of the International Affairs Committee,
JSCE

The 3rd CECAR REPORTThe 3rd CECAR, organized by the Asian
Civil Engineering Coordinating Council, ACECC,
was held in Seoul from August 16 to 19, 2004. The
conference attracted as many as 1046 participantsfrom 17 countries, including 255 participants fromJapan.
The
participants
fromindustries,
governments and academics exchanged the cuttingedge information on sustainable development in theAsian region.
A keynote lecture by Dr. Kim Myung Ja,
Korean former minister of environment, waspresented after the opening ceremony of theconference, followed by a special lecture by Prof.
Yutaka Takahasi, which entitled ‘Civil Engineering
Picture Book Series.’
Besides a special lecture from each
ACECC member, parallel sessions with 10 different
technical tracks, poster sessions, two special forums,
young engineers’ sessions, and student essay
contest, were organized. The number of papers
from JSCE was 52 among the 137 papers in total,
which shows JSCE’s outstanding contribution tothe conference. The last day of the conference wasassigned to technical visits.
Between two special forums, the forum
titled ‘Great Mekong Sub-Region’ was chaired byProf. Kusakabe. Speakers from Laos, Cambodia,Thailand, and Vietnam reported the necessity ofcooperative development of the region. Anotherforum, ‘New Trends in Asian Industries,’ chairedby Prof. Kusayanagi, gave the opportunity topresent current construction trends by 4 Japaneseopinion leaders.
At the presidential meeting on August 16,Prof. Morichi, President of JSCE, expressed theimportance of joint international efforts in theAsian region as well as the importance ofmembership expansion. The summary of the1

JSCE Newsletter No.16 , September 2004
presidential meeting combined with othermembers’ reports is under preparation and will beshown on the ACECC website.
It was also decided that the next 4th
CECAR would be held in Taipei in May of 2007
hosted by CICHE (Chinese Institute of Civil andHydraulic Engineering). The next step has just been
started.
By Kenichi HORIKOSHI, Taisei Corporation

FINDING A JOB ABROAD
Looking for a job abroad? If you are, here
are some tips on how to find a job abroad. First, forforeigners who are about to graduate from collegesor just looking for a job in Japan, it would be best
to ask either the administrative department of yourcollege or the “Tokyo Employment Service forForeigners”(http://www.tfemploy.go.jp/index.html),
which is one of the Public Employment Security
Offices under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Health, Labor and Welfare.
Now, for Japanese who are seeking jobs
abroad, there are several ways to find a job abroad.
First and easiest would be to visit either Yahoo
Japan or Yahoo USA. In Yahoo Japan, there is“Jobs” under “Business.” You may find what youwant by Key Word Search or by Categories of Jobs
in the area of “Overseas.” Similar site is offered by
Yahoo USA which may be better for those who arelooking for a job in the USA or internationally. Itshould be noted that, for civil engineers, mostconstruction companies or consultants either preferor require a licensed engineer that is Professional
Engineer (PE). You may check out what arerequired to be licensed as PE in the USA at “JapanTechnology Transfer Association” (JTTAS,
http://www.jttas.or.jp/). PE is also useful for findinga job at International organizations. Internationalorganizations often have vacancies for civilengineers. For example, the United Nations
Development
Program(UNDP,http://www.undp.org/) lists job openings at “Jobs.”
The Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD, http://www.oecd.org/home/)
also offers similar sites.
If you rather want to teach at universities,
say in the USA, you may try the websites of theuniversities you are interested. They certainly offer“Employment” sections in which they list current
vacancies. For example, as of July 20, 2004, theDepartment of Civil and Environmental
EngineeringatStanfordUniversity(http://cee.stanford.edu/faopps/) invites applications
for a tenure line faculty position at the AssistantProfessor or untenured Associate Professor levelfocusing on Sustainable Development of Buildingsand Infrastructure. Do you want to try?

The 6th Int’l Summer Symposium
TheSixthInternational
SummerSymposium organized by the International
Activities Committee of JSCE (Chair: Prof. Shunji
Kusayanagi) was held at Saitama University on 31July 2004. The Summer Symposium is held
annually so as to provide an opportunity toexchange information and ideas on various aspectsof civil engineering among international andJapanese students and engineers. Its objective isalso to promote international exchange and mutual
understanding between international communities
and Japanese students and engineers. The SummerSymposium started in 1999 and has had a highreputation as a valuable opportunity for exchanges
among students and engineers in English. The Sixth
Summer Symposium was partially funded by theInternational Scientific Exchange Fund, JSCE.
144 people attended the event (84international students / engineers & 60 Japanese).
Keynote lectures were given by Dr. Chi-Tso Changfrom Sinotech Engineering Consultants, Ltd.
(Taiwan) entitled “Tunneling in loosely cementedsand layer/stiff clay – Lantan Tunnel” and by Prof.
Kusayanagi, entitled “Looking again at the missionof civil engineering and civil engineers in Japan.”
There were a total of 90 technical presentations
from 7 areas in civil engineering. The symposium
was brought to a close with the Get-Acquainted
Reception where there were lively and friendly
exchanges between the participants.
The "Certificate of Excellence" wasawarded during this reception to 14 speakers fortheir outstanding papers and presentations. The
award winners are: Ryosuke Tanino (SaitamaUniversity), Dionysius M. Siringoringo (Universityof Tokyo), Rabin Tuladhar (Saitama University),Muhammad Waheed Sarwar (University of Tokyo),Phung Dang Hieu (Saitama University),
Mahadevan Pathmathevan (University of Tokyo),
Manuel Builes (University of Tokyo), Katsuyuki
Ichiba (Saitama University), Kali Prasad Nepal(Tokyo Institute of Technology), Tuenjai Fukuda(Chuo University), Kamal Babu Adhikary (SaitamaUniversity), Ha Minh (Saitama University), BilalBakht (Saitama University), Sunethra Kanthi
Gunathilake (University of Peradeniya). TheSymposium closed with a promise to meet again at
the Seventh International Summer Symposium tobe held next year.

By Hiroshi SUDA, Obayashi Corporation

By Yasunao MATSUMOTO, Saitama
2

Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

JSCE Newsletter No.16, September 2004

UniversityAfghan Reconstruction- Reporting from Hazy Kandahar In keeping with the resolution made at
the International Conference on Reconstruction
Assistance to Afghanistan (Tokyo, Jan. 2002), thefirst full-scale development assistance from Japanbegan in Kabul in April 2002, followed byKandahar in September 2002.
Kandahar City is a trading crossroad
between Afghan’s capital city of Kabul, Iran andPakistan and it is located in the southeastern regionof the country. Dust from the desert and unpaved
roads makes the city look hazy all day long.
A part of the assistance consisted ofimproving the 8.4km unpaved main road that runs
east-west of the city. This “main road” had widthsof 16m to 26m with partial gutters. The road had
been important for the industry and for people’slives. With no alternative route, the construction
was carried out while securing passages for alllarge trucks, cars, bicycles and people.
We hired interpreters during theconstruction activities. Their skill was at the highschool level at best. And for most of them, it was
the first livelihood they have acquired. In thebeginning, both sides were full of suspicions; theinterpreters were worried whether they will get paid,
we were concerned whether they could do their job.
Their lack of experience presented some challenges
initially in that they would express their own
opinions instead of explaining what was actuallysaid, and would even persist that they were right.
However, after a few months, they seemed morerelaxed. In the beginning, they could not evencomprehend the simplest of jokes. I realized thenthey had been too desperate to survive that they had
forgotten to relax and have a few laughs, and I felt
as though I witnessed another scar of the war thatlasted over two decades.
Kandahar is an extremely conservative
region where a complex love-hate relationshipexists even among the local Pashtuns. Since thelocal contractors were willing to hire laborers only
through relatives and their local community, eventhough there were many unemployed in town and agreat number of returnees in the outskirts, weexperienced a shortage of hands. I wondered if thisstrong distrust of outsiders was the result of thelong history of turmoil.
There was no construction work to be
had anywhere in Kandahar for a long time.
Contractors that approached us were mainly
returnees from Pakistan with few experiences
during the last decades. The construction started
with a total lack of equipment and most of the raw
materials were not available locally. And so there
was no choice but for the local workers to begin thework solely by hand. At that time in Kandahar, theU.N. and other international NGOs had not yet
provided full-scale assistance except for small-scale
humanitarian efforts. Therefore, our construction
activities generated high hopes that, finally,
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something good is going to happen. Although there
was some grumbling over the slow pace of thework, which was entirely carried out by manuallabor, and the difficulties and inconvenience
experienced by the residents or shoppers, theexpectation that this is just the beginning of moregood things to come saved us from more harshcomplaints.
There was no testing equipment for
construction in Kandahar; therefore, we had only
our experiences in similar work overseas to rely onover the quality control. Later, we brought a manualcompression test machine from Pakistan, which did
more than what it was intended for. The testing andthe machine were something entirely new to localengineers; it served as a stimulus to make themmore interested and motivated to improve the workquality.
When we started the construction, there
were no commercial banks in Afghanistan. We hadto bring cash worth several hundred thousands ofUS dollars from Japan until money transfer to theAfghan Central Bank in Kabul became possible inNov. 2002. Thus, we gathered the contractors
without bank accounts to Kabul every month tohand them the pay, which sometimes amounted to500 thousand dollars. To make things worse, thecentral bank could not prepare the entire amount in$100 bills and so had heaps of money in $5’s, $10’sand even $1’s piled up on the desk to rival scenes
from gangster movies.
Soon after the construction began inearly December 2002, Ramadan began. And afteralmost 2 months of holiday, in April we faced
another difficulty: the sand storm. In worst cases,visibility was lost few meters ahead. Once thestorm has passed, the construction seemed to makeprogress. But soon after, in July, the temperatureduring the day neared 50º Celsius and our work waslimited to the morning hours.
Despite all the difficulties, theconstruction was completed in September 2003. It
took 9 months to complete what would have taken
5 months in a regional city in Japan. However, we
do feel proud of our achievement, considering that
we embarked on this project one year ago with noprior information whatsoever.
At present, the road is used extensively
to the point where traffic is congested. To thevisitors, Kandahar might still seem a hazy town.
But the fact is that the amount of dust dramaticallydecreased after the road paving (even we weresurprised), and we are certain that the residents
have noticed the difference.
The reconstruction work continues to thisday. Our team is still in Kandahar building schools
and working on new projects, in certitude that thecity will one day become an oasis once more.
By Shozo KAWASAKI,
Pacific Consultants International3

JSCE Newsletter No.16 , September 2004

A Professional Walk through
Uncharted Waters of Japan

V. ANBUMOZHI
School of Frontier Sciences
University of Tokyo

I am from India and got my first degree
there. Prior to joining the PhD program in
Agricultural-Civil Engineering at the University ofTokyo in October 1992, I had lived in Thailand forthree years working for my Masters degree at theAsian Institute of Technology. Since my advisors
there were from Japan, the process of Japaneseknowledge transfer had impacts on me even before
coming to Japan.
I worked hard for my doctoral studies. The
professors and students of the laboratory were kind,generous and resourceful and helped me a lot bothprofessionally and personally. Research andeducation in Japan are some sorts of self-study. The
process undertaken with team spirit and theknowledge transfer takes place through intensive
interactions with laboratory members. During thosedays, I also acquired the cultural awareness andsensitivity needed to interact successfully both
inside and outside the university.
In Asia and around the world, Japan is
known for creating a high productive system ofmodern technologies with traditional cultural values
ingrained in its management. I benefited from it
when I joined Pacific Consultants International in
1996 to work as an Engineer. All of my seniorcolleagues were so generous in imparting their vast
knowledge, sharing resources and international
experience to sharpen my professional expertise.
My three years stint there had also improved myJapanese language skills greatly. In addition toones’ professional knowledge and talents, in Japan,
language skills help any foreigner to live and work
more comfortably as well as to qualify himself forsuitably undertaking additional responsibilities
when demands arise.
In 1999, I rejoined the University ofTokyo as a faculty member where all of mycolleagues are passionate about internationalizationand its global benefits. How ever, I came toacademia from development business where I
observed – in Japan, both communities and thepolicy makers are devoted to the power ofknowledge and learning from one another, whicharecriticaltoachieve
successful
knowledge/technology transfer. During these years,
I became a strong believer of working philosophy
that we can best build human capacity by creating
enabling environment in which local knowledge isallowed to flourish and is fused with international
knowledge and where people learn from one
another as they also innovate themselves. Are4

Japanese academia, professional societies andbusiness communities ready for it? How are thecontributions by international students or expatriate
professionals valued?
One hundred years ago, USA hadinteresting parallels to Japan. America on that day
and today’s Japan are in dire socio-economic straitsof globalization. Increased flow of overseas
students and professionals to support integrated
economic activities become unavoidable. In thosedays of uncertainty, the world, from the American
perspective was a place of promise, but at the sametime a place of risky adventures. In my observation,
today’s Japan faces similar flexibility. Japan frets
over the consequences of integration and the valueof the contributions of foreigners. There may besome early doubts about the impact and power ofintegration and internationalization process but
those doubts can be erased by the proof ofprofitability that American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE) now enjoys. American academia
and business now accept international personalities
as integral parts of their system. Openness andinternational character of current knowledgetransfer challenges the national boundaries. With
ready access to information, individuals,professional societies and business community areempowered to make choices unencumbered by thecurrent powers. Never before had national identities
meant so little. Academia or businesses are nolonger Japanese, American, British, Chinese,
German, or Indian. They are internationalsocieties/companies
withtrans-nationalresearchers/employees and global students/clients.
So, what JSCE should do in this regard and how
Japanese and foreign knowledge is to be integrated
to inform actions and influence global changes is an
open question.

PublicationsARTICLES (From June 2004 to August 2004)
Recommendations for Design and Construction ofConcrete Structures Using Electric Arc Furnace
Oxidizing Slag Aggregate, JSCE, July 2004, Pages
53, Price: JPY2, 100-, ISBN4-8106-0478-0 C3051
Concrete Library International No. 43, 2004.06,
JSCE, June 2004, CD-ROM, Price: JPY3,150-,
ISSN1347-2119
For all orders, contact:
MARUZEN Co. Ltd., Export Department
P.O. Box 5050 Tokyo 100-3199 Japan
Fax: +81-3-3278-9256
E-mail: t_kaneko@maruzen.co.jp
Send your comments, suggestions and contributions
to: iad@jsce.or.jp
JSCE Website: http://www.jsce.or.jp
Editorial Board:
Public Relations Subcommittee,
International Activities Committee, JSCE

Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp