KAYABA TECHNICAL REVIEW No. 66 APR. 2023

Essay
Account of Residence in Indonesia
SHIMENO Yoshirou

1. Introduction
I was sent to PT. KYB Hydraulics Manufacturing Indonesia (hereinafter "KHMI") located in Indonesia in
October 2015 and worked for the company as an expatriate for about six years and eight months until my repatriation in June 2022. During the expatriation, I definitely
experienced various things. In this essay, I've written
several episodes I remember rather freely like a collection of short stories. I will be happy if you take time toread them.

2. Indonesian is the Second Easiest Language in the World
When I asked the then President of KHMI "is there
anything I should prepare for expatriation?", I was told,"First of all, learn Indonesian to be able to have conversations in everyday life". Before expatriation, I took an
Indonesian course for about 90 hours. The teacher was a
Japanese who used to live in Indonesia for quite a longtime and taught me not only the language but also local
culture and customs. This information was very usefulfor me to live in Indonesia during my expatriation. One
thing that particularly impressed me in the Indonesiancourse was the phrase "Indonesian is the second easiest
language in the world" as seen in the title of this section.
Probably when my learning came to a deadlock, theteacher abruptly told me, "Indonesian is the second easiest language in the world". This phrase was followed by
the question "What do you think is the easiest languagein the world?" I answered, "I think it's English", because
it is widely used as an official language in the world. The
teacher gave me an unexpected answer full of humor,"Unfortunately no, the correct answer is your mother language". Those were the teacher's words to encourage me
to have confidence since Indonesian is the next easiest
language to your mother language that you are familiarwith.

3. No Orders
In October 2015 when I moved to Indonesia, the Southeast Asian Region including Indonesia saw a significant
slowdown in demand for construction equipment. Only
less than one year had passed since KHMI had started operation. During that time, the company had no product delivery at all in some months partially because it was able toproduce only one model of construction equipment. I wastold by the President as soon as I arrived at KHMI, "Youdo not need to report to duty on Friday since we've just decided to make Friday a no-work day to reduce production".
I then recalled those days when I had joined KYB as a
newcomer. When I reported to work at Gifu South Plant
which was my temporary workplace in that July, the General Affairs Manager told me that, "Those who have been
assigned to Hydraulic Engineering should take a paid leaveon next Monday. Full-time employees belonging to Hydraulic Engineering will be off for lower production, but
trial employees will not be covered". History was repeated.
The words of the President made me feel insecure about
the start of my work in Indonesia which would begin witha no-work day for lower production. I managed to switch
my mind by recognizing the situation as "I will only riseup from the current worst of times" and then started towork.
On those days on which workers had nothing to directly produce, we provided group education. But we almost
ran out of suitable topics for lectures. Workers were under accumulated stress as they continued taking lectures
sitting in a classroom. We thought it better that workers
should do some physical exercise and then decided to ask
them to develop a futsal ground on an expanded space ofthe premises for nearly half of each working day. I also
tried to take time to work together with them in developing the ground so that they could recognize me. Finally,
the futsal ground was properly completed, and I sometimes found employees playing futsal after work. However, as they gradually came to work harder with overtime and a two-shift operation, the futsal ground fell into
disuse and eventually fully deteriorated. While I regretted
the deterioration in spite of our efforts to develop theground, I also felt happy with the increase in production.

4. When You Are in Trouble...
I sometimes feel acutely aware that an important thingin living in an unfamiliar place is the link among people.
KHMI operates a welding process using CO2 gas. One
day, a rectifier installed on a CO2 gas cylinder had a failure, which interrupted the gas supply resulting in a production shutdown. We informed Gifu South Plant of thefact, but they replied they did not use the rectifier used by
KHMI because their gas supply system for welding wasdifferent from ours. We then had to manage to obtain arectifier of the same type in Indonesia. Since the target
equipment was a product made in Japan, the Indonesianstaff were at a loss with no prospect of obtaining the― 47 ―

Account of Residence in Indonesia

equipment. Then, I happened to recall the face of a person from a trading company from which we bought hydraulic fluid and welding wires. When I got in touch withhim right away, he told me he would check it out quickly.
After just a few hours, I was informed that he would senda unit that had just arrived at the airport out to us. Thanks
to his arrangement, we successfully minimized the line
shutdown. After that, he helped us over and over again
when we were in a tight corner. We are gratefully obliged
to him.
Indonesia saw the outbreak of COVID-19 around April
2020. Its Delta variant raged in July 2021. Under the circumstances, we exchanged information about COVID-19
with our customers, suppliers, and friends and acquaintances, and then cooperated with each other to manage toovercome the difficulty. We finally did it thanks definitely
to the network of people we had built. The pandemic reminded me anew that networks are so important for expatriates working far away from Japan.

5. Delivering Products to Customers
KHMI manufactures hydraulic cylinders for construction equipment. The company has only one assembly
line. In order to avoid the risk of delay in delivery due toequipment failure or other trouble, KHMI operates theplant with a certain amount of product inventory on hand.
However, in the event of a major equipment failure involving part replacement during a period with many orders, I had to spend several days feeling uneasy until the
repair was done. If I found the inventory having gradually decreased in the course of making rounds of the plant,
I checked out the upcoming delivery schedule in the nextmorning meeting. I was often waiting for replacement
parts to arrive at the plant while trying to figure out until
when we would be able to continue delivering productswith the existing inventory. That was quite stressful indeed. When the parts arrived and we completed the replacement work to resume production, I felt very happy
together with the local employees. I breathed a sigh ofrelief when I heard the production equipment starting to
make a sound. Then I went back to work in the office.
A hydraulic cylinder consists of about 40 kinds ofparts when they are counted by item number. Naturally,
the cylinder cannot be assembled even if only a single
part is missing. In the morning meeting one day, I wastold that the production schedule had to be postponeddue to a lack of seal parts. A seal product is generallycompatible with other counterparts as long as they are
identical in size. Unfortunately, the seal part we used had
no other counterpart of the same outside and inside diameters. I heard that, if the next sea freight arrived as scheduled, the product delivery would be made with no problem at all. I knew things would usually get harder undersuch a situation. In fact, the freight was delayed as expected. Our staff from Production Management eventually went out to the forwarder's warehouse to meet the arrival of the container at the warehouse and receive thenecessary parts from the container. They hurried back to
KHMI to bring them to the assembly line and managed
to successfully deliver the product at the last minute by
the delivery time.
Another experience I remember was a local supplierranking for delivery performance announced at a suppliermeeting of our customer. In addition to the conventional
announcement of quality failures and worst suppliers, theresults of their evaluation of delivery performance wereindicated at that meeting. As I was confident that we had
never delayed a delivery, I tried to find the name of
KHMI in the list from the top one by one, but I couldn’t
see it. I finally found our name around the middle of thelist. Actually, the customer evaluated suppliers by marking their delivery as "on time", "early", or "delayed".
KHMI had certainly never delayed any delivery but
showed a relatively high rate of early delivery. This was
the cause of the lower than expected rank of KHMI.
Then, first of all, we interviewed the customer to hear theevaluation criteria, successfully identifying, among theinformation provided by the ordering system, the parameters used to determine whether a delivery is late or early
along with the reference date. Next, we looked back at
the delivery performance in the past to investigate possible factors leading to the evaluation results of "early" deliveries. The investigation revealed that KHMI moved
forward some deliveries in order to raise the loading efficiency of motor trucks, which were then evaluated as"early" deliveries. KHMI originally operated the plantwith a certain amount of product inventory on hand andthe customer was located around only 10 km away fromthe KHMI plant. From these reasons, we determined that
we could make delivery on time by transporting the products of the models in the quantity as instructed by the ordering system in auto trucks we arranged every day. With
this new delivery system, KHMI actually had to deliverproducts more often. So, we changed the forwarder toanother located in the same industrial park as KHMI for
freight cost reduction and then started to make deliveries
according to the exact delivery date, item number andquantity instructed by the customer's ordering system. In
the next supplier meeting, KHMI won the No. 1 prize foron-time delivery with 100% delivery achievement. I'mvery glad to hear that KHMI still continues to achieve
100% on-time delivery.

6. Clothing, Food and Living
The first is "clothing". As you know, Indonesia is located in the tropical zone right on the equator. The year
can be divided into two seasons: rainy and dry seasons.
Since there are almost no daily temperature variations
throughout the year, you do not need to change clothingby season. Still, a big and famous Japanese apparel shopthat I often found in shopping malls in Jakarta sold down
jackets and clothing with functions such as moisture absorption and heat generation during the Japanese winter.
While these products were definitely convenient for me
to temporarily go back home in the winter to Japan, I
doubted if Indonesians really needed to use these goods.
The winter in Japan generally corresponds to the rainyseason in Indonesia. In the rainy season, the average temperature is slightly lower than that in the dry season. I actually felt the intense sunlight in the dry season and chillyin the rainy season. Taking into account these changes inclimate in Indonesia, I had a hunch that's why such winter clothing was in stores even in Indonesia.
The next topic is "food". Many Japanese-owned companies had branched out into Jakarta where I lived andaround the industrial park in Bekasi where KHMI was― 48 ―KAYABA TECHNICAL REVIEW No. 66 APR. 2023

located. These places had a variety of Japanese restaurants. Some of them directly bought airfreighted seafoodfrom the Japanese market. As I describe in detail in theparagraph for "living" later, after work I used to take dinner at a Japanese restaurant in the industrial park before
going back home because the Jakarta suburban area often
had traffic jams. That restaurant served a variety of Japanese food cooked by the full-time Japanese chef. I went
to the restaurant almost every night on weekdays. The
Japanese meals in the restaurant always appealed to me
and conversations with familiar Indonesian staff there allowed me to refresh my mind.
I often had Indonesian food for lunch after playing
golf on weekends. I looked back on how I had been playing while eating Satay (skewered meat; salty or marinated chicken with coconut milk is popular) or Tahu Goreng(fried tofu). It was common practice for me to finish off anight of drinking with Nasi Goreng (Indonesian style
fried rice), Me Goreng (Indonesian style fried noodle), or
Soto Ayam (curry-flavored soup with chicken and rice
vermicelli, sometimes containing rice). What I personally
loved was Sop Buntut, which is a rather light taste, spicy
soup made with oxtails. You may take Sop Buntut withplain rice and add Sambal (chili sauce) or lime to enjoy
taste variations. This is one of my recommendations, although I did not eat it so often.

approximately 40-minute ride to report to duty using aneasy-to-drive highway, but heavy traffic jams frequently
occurred due to traffic accidents or heavy rain. Somepeople say that Jakarta is the world's worst city for traffic
jams. Particularly, three transportation systems were under construction at that time: the Jakarta-Bandung highspeed railway, the Jakarta-Bekasi-Bogor suburban railway, and the Jakarta-Karawang high-speed railway.
When roadworks related to these lines were conducted simultaneously in the same area, it often took over threehours each way for commuting, which really frustrated me.
The car I used in Indonesia was not equipped with anavigation system. When I was involved in a traffic jam
or moved to a place I did not know, I used map applications, which had evolved with the spread of smartphones,
to figure out the best route or predict the time to arrive at
the destination. These applications were very convenient
tools but required me to take care when driving on an unfamiliar open road. This is because, while map applications indicate busy traffic in color, I was often caught in a
traffic jam where cars could not move an inch even after
selecting a "busy" route along open roads rather than a"jammed" route. While Indonesian highways cannot be
accessed by motorbikes, its open roads are available forboth four-wheeled cars and motorbikes. On an open roadwith a traffic jam, cars certainly could not move at all, but
motorbikes could drive through the jam. This apparently
causes the map applications to indicate that this road is"busy". In spite of this precaution, one of my good memories was of working together with my driver trying toreach the destination by giving navigation instructions to
him with my smartphone in one hand saying, for example,"Turn left at the next corner" and "Go straight for a while".
Looking back on the expatriation period, the person withwhom I spent the longest time was my driver. I really
thank him for getting me to various destinations safely forover six years.

7. Birthday

Photo 1

Sop Buntut (in the right bowl)

I think that most Japanese like the typical taste of Indonesian cuisine. However, those who are not fond of
spicy food (like me) should be careful of some Indonesian dishes because they use a good amount of red pepper. On the other hand, most Indonesian beverages taste
sweet. Even coffee and tea are very sweet as they areserved with sugar already mixed in as standard. When ordering, I needed to ask them to give me a "non-sweet"
drink.
The final topic is "living". I lived in an apartment in
the center of Jakarta for all the six years of my expatriation. The 1st to 3rd floors of the office and apartmentcomplex had a small-sized shopping mall including Japanese-operated supermarkets, Japanese restaurants, andramen shops. I never felt any inconvenience during mystay in the apartment on holidays.
The industrial park where KHMI is located was about
40 km away from the apartment. It was "normally" an

In Japan, the person whose birthday is celebrated usually
receives birthday presents from their family and friends. In
Indonesia, on the contrary, the person whose birthday iscelebrated usually gives presents or buys food for theirfamily and friends. Since I had learned this custom before
my expatriation, I asked local staff to order a pizza delivery
for my birthday before my first birthday after being sent toIndonesia. On the day, when I was back at my desk after amorning assembly, I suddenly heard a voice singing theHappy Birthday song and saw a staff member approachingme carrying a birthday cake. All members in the office celebrated my birthday. I still remember that I was very surprised because I had not expected such a celebration at all
while I was overwhelmed by the great joy of being a member of KHMI. Thereafter, all staff members continued tocelebrate my birthday every year with a birthday cake they
had prepared.
In the last year of my expatriation, I wanted to give thestaff a gift that they could use for a long time. Indonesian
people generally bring a drink bottle ("my bottle") totheir workplace or a place to go out. So, I gave a plastic
drink bottle as a gift to all employees, drivers, janitors,
and cleaners working in the premises of KHMI, expressing my gratitude for helping me so far.

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Account of Residence in Indonesia

commemoration of the 100,000th cylinder, we decided to
exhibit it in the entrance lobby along with the first massproduced cylinder that was already being exhibited. We
also decided to post the name of all 95 employees (including retirees) who had been involved in the production of the 100,000 cylinders beside the actual cylinder.
We asked them to make a banner to indicate their name. I
am very proud of having been present at this memorable
event that added another page to the history of KHMI.

Photo 2Birthday cake and KHMI staff on my birthday inthe last year

Photo 3

The 100,000th cylinder (gold color) and banner

8. The 100,000th Cylinder

9. In Closing

KHMI rounds up actual production every month. At
the beginning of 2021, we had almost achieved a total
production of 100,000 cylinders. I was deeply moved by
the fact that we had managed to accumulate productionin spite of many different things happening up to then.
Hoping to hold a company-wide celebration event, I
came up with an idea. How about a quiz event for all employees to ask them "What model will the 100,000th cylinder be?". We listed up all possible models that could be
produced at that time. Individual employees were supposed to vote for which model would be the 100,000th
cylinder. Actually, only I had known about which cylinder on which day would be the 100,000th cylinder basedon the planned and actual daily production data. Still, I
was looking forward to finding out what model would be
the 100,000th cylinder along with employees as the production schedule might change due to an abrupt change
in orders for instance. Finally, the 100,000th cylinder was
the model that was being produced most at that time, andwhich had been voted for by the highest number of employees. The prize money funded from my pocket was
divided amongst those employees who voted for thatmodel before the end of the 100,000th Cylinder Quiz. In

When I was sent to KHMI, there were three expatriates including me. I was the only expatriate when I was
about to be repatriated. In those days, I was in charge ofa wider range of operations and had taken on heavier responsibility. Now I would like to appreciate anew theKHMI employees, who were always cheerful, for supporting me in continuing to work for KHMI until the end.
I also feel that I was able to grow as a KAYABA personnel in such an environment where expatriates had to definitely do whatever they had to do.
On the other hand, I regret that I could not visit theWorld Heritage and other famous sites dotted throughout
Indonesia partially because I was working on weekdays
and went for golfing on weekends as well as being an expatriate away from my family. I hope I will visit Indonesia again with my family to enjoy the local culture before
I forget the language and will take the opportunity of introducing the living environment during my expatriation
to my family.

Author 

SHIMENO Yoshirou
Joined the company in 1999.
Management Manager, Sagami Plant,
Hydraulic Components Operations
Took present post after repatriationfrom KHMI in June 2022.
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