Hello Everyone, Japan is about to move from spring time into the rainy season, which is the most depressing season in the year. What kind of seasons do you have where you live? May in Japan begins with a series of public holidays, and many companies and schools close for a whole week, known as “Golden Week”. The harvest of fresh tea picked on the 88th Night is a famous event at this time of year. This is the 88th day from the end of winter and the beginning of spring, and this year it is on May 2nd. Traditionally this has been the perfect day to start the harvest of new tea. Fresh green tea sprouts cover the tea plantation in this season. The tea picked at this time is the most fragrant and fresh of the year. With a lower caffeine content than later harvests it is less bitter, and it contains more theanine, which gives it a sweet taste with more umami. You should try this special green tea if you have the chance. This year, in early May, I visited the five Rigaku group companies in the United States and held a series of town hall meeting to explain the business results for 2021, the medium-term management plan, and the newly established MVV (Mission Vision Value) statement. Thank you to everyone who took the time to attend these meetings. Through these meetings, I got the impression that many people are not aware of the overall picture of Rigaku as a company. So I used this opportunity to introduce the global Rigaku that our Chairman Hikaru Shimura has grown over last 50 years, and the Rigaku that we would like to aim for in the next three years, with our stock listing in mind. I want us work together as one global Rigaku, a Rigaku that is confident to do things our own way, and as a company that our customers can always rely on to bring them the best solutions. With this in mind I think it is necessary for everyone to learn more about Rigaku and to feel a greater affinity for its goals and purpose.
Arriving in Houston from Japan on April 30th, over the following 7 days I visited RAC and ART in Austin, NSI and RAD in Boston, and RIT in Detroit. The photo shows the ART team who I met on May 2nd for dinner at a restaurant in Austin. The spectacular sunset and lake views were really impressive. When I was working at Hitachi, I visited more than 100 hospitals in the United States and visited many cities in the United States. This was my first visit to Austin, and I thought its beauty was really fitting as Texas’s state capital. The temperature in Austin that day was already above 80 ° F, which was close to summer, but Boston, where we went the next day, felt like winter at less than 60 ° F. | 
