Having arranged for my favorite perch aloft, I looked out the airplane window to see the northern coastline of Honshu, Japan’s main island, as it curved to an end. Hokkaido surfaced only a few miles further on. I tried to locate cities and towns but my geographic knowledge was lacking. Soon we turned inland, landing […]
Category: Japanese Business Culture & Society
Enigmatic ways of doing business; odd customs of everyday life; the pressures, frustrations, and challenges of a culture with overwhelming norms of behavior.
Confused in Tokyo
Emerging from CTC into the early afternoon sunlight, I decided to walk rather than enter the lunch competition. Sanity check 122: lunch mobs. I was amazed at how much productivity was lost by the mandate that lunch must be served and consumed in the hour between 12 and 1. Restaurants must be sized for a […]
All Nippon Airways
“Jim-san, I have a favor to ask for you,” said Fukuhara-san. “A business partner of Itochu, ANA, has asked us to make a presentation to some of their executives visiting the U.S. They will be in San Francisco in two weeks. We would like you to talk to them about recent events in Silicon Valley […]
Sayonara Noriyuki
In December of ‘97, Noriyuki was slated to return to Tokyo, having completed a standard two year stint. “I will miss you, Ichihashi-san. We have worked well together.” He agreed, offering some consolation. “We will continue to co-work when I am at KV.” We both knew it wouldn’t be the same, but at least this […]
Passengers on a Train
On the passage from Hakuba back to Tokyo, I enjoyed the scenery from my window seat. I recognized the clusters of Sugi trees, remarkably straight and tall. They would be good for making log cabins, or for beams in a house. Ahead of me were two young boys, scrambling around like bear cubs. Little sibling […]
Sesame Whiskey
Having planned to meet Hayashi-san for dinner, I hurriedly approached what looked like an office building. Glancing at my watch, I found an elevator. In and up I went. I wandered around, unsure of which illegible sign signified the doorway of an eatery. Hovering near one, a maître’d emerged and asked if I were looking […]
Post-war Japan
In San Francisco in the 1970s, I bought a sewing machine at a garage sale. Sewing was just construction — carpentry without the splinters and purple thumbs. This machine referenced a complex time in the history of our two countries: printed were the words, “Made in Occupied Japan.” My guess was that after the war, […]
Toshi’s Struggle: Alone in a Group Culture
On Wednesday afternoon I took some time to meet a friend from California. My wife Annie met Toshi when Annie was earning her Masters in Psychology at California State University at Hayward. Toshi was studying the same discipline while on leave from a training company in Japan. We invited Toshi and his wife for dinner. […]