T   A   I   R   A

Tsukuba Area International Research Association

(New Homepage: http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~weisburd/TAIRA/ )


TAIRA is a volunteer group that was formed in April 1996 in Tsukuba Science City with the goal of fostering communication among internationally oriented people in the area. While TAIRA was initially conceived of as serving the foreigners doing scientific research in the areas, it quickly expanded to include people doing work in such areas as economics and law, people with their own businesses, as well as including Japanese. It thus has truly lived up to its name of being international and the meaning of the Japanese kanji character "taira" that symbolizes fairness, evenness, and equality.

The TAIRA group revolves around two main activities. The strongest tie between the many people associated with the group is the TAIRA mailing list. The mailing list was established to allow each of the members of TAIRA to communicate with all of the other members whenever necessary by merely sending one message to the mailing list. The TAIRA mailing lists is one of the most active for foreigners in Japan. In the first 17 months of operation, the TAIRA mailing list has served about 1,500 messages to the nearly 200 people subscribed. The mailing list serves as a medium to announce everything from going away sales to parties, from getting input on Japanese ways to seeking help with a problem in Japan, and from solving research problems to trying to locate people. The second major activity of TAIRA is the monthly meeting where one or two people give a talk on their activities. These meetings allow people to discuss a variety of topics face-to-face. Meetings are announced on the TAIRA mailing list, the NSF-Tokyo mailing list, and the Science and Technology Action Group (STAG) mailing list.

The TAIRA group is run strictly as a volunteer effort with no dues or special formalities. The TAIRA activities are overseen by Robert Lewis, Associate Director of the Tsukuba Research Consortium (TRC). The TAIRA mailing list is hosted for free by TRC and the meetings are held for free at TRC as well. The meetings are run on a pay-as-you-go basis, with a fee of 1,500 yen per person to cover the cost of food and drinks. Information about TRC (location, activities, etc.) can be found at its WWW home page, which is located at www.trc-net.co.jp

Note: The venue for TAIRA meetings has been changed recently to the Techno Growth House. For more information, visit TAIRA's new homepage at: http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~weisburd/TAIRA/

The TAIRA mailing list can be subscribed to by sending a subscribe message to the automated TAIRA mailing list manager at the following address.

   majordomo@trc-net.co.jp

In your message, include the following text in the body [text] of the message (not in the title section).

    subscribe taira

Messages can be sent to everyone subscribed to the TAIRA mailing list by sending messages to the following address.

    taira@trc-net.co.jp

Inquiries about TAIRA can be addressed to Robert Lewis at the following contact numbers.

  E-Mail: lewis@trc-net.co.jp
  Phone: 0298-47-8711
  Facsimile: 0298-47-8900