News from Abroad

Letters from NTT Researchers on doing research overseas

from Hiroshi Murase

I worked at the computer science department of Columbia University in New York City for one year starting last June. Life in NYC was very in-teresting. I adjusted quickly even though I do not speak fluent English, because many non-Americans like me live in that area and the atmosphere of New York is similar to Tokyo. Like Tokyo, the subway and bus system is very convenient. The only problem is many crimes happen in this area. For example, murder and robbery are not unusual things. A stray bullet even broke the window of another apartment in my building. It lodged in the ceiling, but no one was hurt.

The researchers at Columbia are very aggressive. It was a good experience for me to do research in that environment. It was also a good experience for my family to live in a foreign country. One of my sons went to kindergarten. He did not speak any English. Eventually he became skilled at reading body language or facial expressions without language. Anyway, he enjoyed kindergarten without any language help from us. It amazed me.

I would like to thank the postdocs at NTT who gave me helpful information about the U.S.A. before leaving NTT. Some information was a little exaggerated about the danger of New York. The most useful information was how to kill cockroaches. Actually, we ended up living together with lots of cockroaches in our apartment.

Naito Group
Basic Research Laboratories
3-9-11 Midori-cho Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180