Japan Success Strategies for Life and Business

Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

Bolstering Opportunity for Underpaid Japanese Women in the Workforce

Saturday, March 24th, 2012

  Source: 21 Blue Jaggers Blog

Women’s working conditions are worsening for working women of the part-time variety, according to panelists at a recent Tokyo forum.  The low wages for women mean that a single mom would have to work 3600 hours a year at 900 yen per hour (the going rate) to squeak by with two school-age children.

In the last ten years or so, the number of people earning less than 2 million yen per year has increased from nearly 8 million to well over 10 million.  Of those workers, seventy percent are women and thirty percent of those women earn less than 2 million yen.

While this may seem appalling to westernized women and men, in Japan this has been and probably always will be the norm.  Nix the idea that corporations and government officials will ever change their bias ways in a meaningful fashion, even as the population decreases and the number of elderly needing support increases.

The panelist concluded that J(Just)O(Over)B(Broke) training is the answer, but that is totally wishful thinking.  While Japanese women may work on the cheap, India’s and Vietnam’s masses command even cheaper wages  to Japanese corporate interests.

The plight of Japanese women is as much the fault of women as it is men.  Women often choose home-body marriages when and if their husbands can afford to carry the financial load.  The men still expect or subtly pressure women to quit when their motherly duties conflict with their workload, and a large majority of women still eventually relent.

Moreover, I have taught close to a thousand Japanese women English in my 31 years here, and all but maybe a dozen have zero curiosity about careers or entrepreneurship.

The time is ripe to teach all women self-sufficiency, not just single moms.  There are scattered NGOs and other support groups in Japan doing just that, but mindsets of both gender are rigid still.

A series of regional high school after-school programs for women desiring to live independently and become entrepreneurial-minded would be a winner.

Once women graduate from high school, the education system and society as a whole sets low expectation for the fair sex, so at adult age they are locked into stereotypical roles.   With few exceptions, they will seek out an up-and-coming hubby rather than the grind to success.

They must develop the self-confidence in their formative years.  Many prep schools (jukus) face a rapidly-declining youth market.  Many of them would be all  ears about women entrepreneurial programs.

A good reference point for the aspiring women entrepreneurs can be found in the video below:

Female Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change in Japan from CAPI on Vimeo.

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When Dignity is Lost

Monday, September 26th, 2011


Smoke and mirrors.  The entire Japanese miracle was just that.  For fifty-plus years of one-party rule in a democracy (of sorts), business as usual meant biting the bullet when economic trends were in a tailspin and taking a few crumbs more when indicators skyrocketed.

Even the bubble “keizai” era – when making money was as easy for some as watching stocks and real estate shoot through the roof – risk-aversive, disciplined and highly-controlled Japanese – a majority of folks here – watched from the sideline as the rich and the reckless got richer and richer.

Then, when the bubble burst a majority of these gamblers and their assets went south and the conservative, play-it-safe majority and pundits who sat out the boom sneered at these fleetingly rich bums suddenly turned poor fools with taunts of “I told you so (fool)!”

So now we have the first post-war changing of the political guard, just as unemployment figures also reach post-war highs.  By western standards, of course, the less than six percent unemployment rate seems quite enviable.

But did you know that the squeaky-clean figures for unemployment do not include people who work even one hour per week, nor women (relegated to the kitchen or PTAs for good reasons or not) and who have never participated in the work village?

Obviously the number of unemployed by overseas standards would hover at between 15 and 20 percent.  That is why so many young people choose or are forced to stay at home until their mid thirties or beyond.

More and more, you see people worried that the lifetime  system has collapsed and that the prospect for gainful employment in Japan is lessening by the breath.

The collective dignity of the Japanese is shot.  Jobs are disappearing, salaries are leveling off, and outsourcing and temp working are surging.

In other words, we are at the dawn of the entrepreneurial boom.  Sayonara to salary man drudgery.  Hello innovation.  In the worst of times, the best will arise.

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Anger, the Japanese and Me

Friday, September 16th, 2011

“There is nothing more galling to angry people than the coolness of those on whom they wish to vent their spleen.“                ~Alexandre Dumas~

Many short-fuse foreigners in Japan believe that being assertive and obnoxious – the Ugly American Syndrome – in Japan will insure action in this docile country.

In my nearly 31 years here, such rudeness and overbearing, Ugly-American manner scantly brings a positive result.

One case in my very first year in Japan should have taught me a lesson about living here, but unfortunately it didn’t.  A Japanese junior high teacher whom I worked with had an extra phone line which she was willing to transfer to me.

We went to the telephone monopoly, NTT, and I could tell by the hissing between teeth that something was awry from the start.  He explained to my benefactor that my signature would not be adequate.  “I needed a hanko (personal stamp),” he stated while pointing with smug confidence to the affirming regulation.

The 5 Essential People Skills

I left their office grumbling about red tape and whatnot, but we went to a hanko shop and found a stamp with Hoshina – though my name is Posner (poh-zu-na).

We then marched back into the office ready for the transfer of the phone, but the same bureaucratic office worker said it must be Posner in katakana.

Seething, I got defiant and said “Why can’t I sign like I do at the bank?”  He took out his regs again and espoused the technicality.  Then he said, “Please make the personal stamp in English with Richard Alan Posner carved into the stamp.  I went into a tizzy and was spitting venom at a guy who was just smiling plastically and saying, “Sumimasen” (I’m so sorry), with a long, shallow bow.

The phone was never meant to be mine, I guess.  Especially because my hostility was met with calm efficiency or indifference.  Many other similar cases have occurred in my years here, and more often than not these days I just shrug my shoulders and get over it.

My mother once taught me about anger.  She said, “If you want to say or write something mean or angry in tone to another, write it down, put it in a drawer for one full day, take it out again, decide if it would be wise to write or say to the say impulsively, and if you still harbor any doubt you should go ahead with the ordeal, put it back into the drawer for two more days.  Eventually, you will note that the anger is 99 percent of the time out of proportion to the alleged act against you because your ego reigns and needs to be right and dominate in everyday behavior.

To survive in Japan, if you are a foreigner, you must heed my mother’s advice.  If you don’t, your life or business with the Japanese will seldom come to a good end.

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Snuffing Out Second-Hand Smoke

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

The number of smokers in Japan is decreasing, but the manners of many who do smoke are atrocious.

No offense meant to the billions (?) of smokers worldwide – smoking sucks…literally.

Japan can learn a lot from the way marijuana coffee shops in Amsterdam discreetly separate the straight people from the dopers.

According to a large-scale study by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, men who smoke at the age of 40 will live, on average 31/2 years less than their non-smoking counterparts.  Those who smoked two packs a day or more saw their life expectancy cut by still another six months.

Contrary to the PR blitz of semi-privatized Japan Tobacco – the only tobacco corporation in Japan – the rate of 62 percent of males smoking in 1980 is about the same as the present rate.  Life expectancy of children and spouses of heavy smoker are also suspected to be in decline, though data is somewhat inconclusive.

The Asian smoking plague is like a scar that festers forever.  But I do believe more and more people, corporations and communities are starting to wake up to the dangers of unrestricted and unregulated smoking.

Therein lays an opportunity to provide the preventive medicines, tobacco accessories and room/building designs for a smoke-free or smoke-preventive society.  This market IS going to surge.

For assistance in stopping this habit, click the banner below:

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Online English Teacher Training

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Japan is by and large an assembly line of shlock English schools selling Caucasians to the locals. The true schools are struggling to keep afloat.

For over two decades, I was an ESL trainer at major corporations in Japan.  Many of these companies contract with rather unprofessional schools that hand a textbook and tape to a teacher and send them into a classroom.

One of the most insidious tasks in these corporate jobs is to write detailed reports about how the student is doing and what they need to do to improve.  The message on each student may be just one general paragraph or a series of criteria requiring teacher comment.  This is usually a public relations sham because the courses have no set goal and little or no accountability.

If you are a highly-skilled ESL teacher/school specializing in on-site classes, then why not start by making a training tape of you or your staff’s best effort in the classroom.  The residual could be 50 percent for the producer and the remainder to be shared by contributors to the production.

For many schools that lack funding/manpower to do one-on-one training, this could be a step in the right direction in providing professionalism among temporary teachers.

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Breaking Down Barriers

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Braille and street bumps are the pluses; the negatives are that most buildings are not accessible for the disabled.

They are the basically unnoticed members of society. The disabled in Japan don’t get much respect, although there is a lot of lip service paid by local governments to providing adequate access and facilities to these citizens.

Crayon Box, a workshop in Nagoya for disabled people, recently surveyed local city restaurants in order to determine the ability of wheelchair-bound disabled to enter them. The survey covered seventy essential points about access. Results are due out soon.

As I stated, most governments and businesses give cursory respect to the handicapped. It is costly to do so and, to some members of society unfamiliar with such people, uncomfortable. This can lead to a win-win situation for access architects and equipment designers outside of Japan with viable, profitable designs and equipment in place.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, close to 3.5 million people are disabled nationwide. This is a huge market for well-received designers which can work in small spaces with minimum costs.

Do you know anybody who has such a business whom you could team up with to bring unique concepts for the disabled to Japan?  Then the door is wide open.

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You Are A Friend, Teacher or Whatever Until You’re Trash

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

“True goodbyes are the ones never said or explained.”
~Anon~

twofaced

Japanese people can be be extremely warm and accommodating to a stranger who becomes their sensei (teacher), or any other authority figure foisted upon them through proper channels.

You can teach them, boss them, and share feasts for years with them, but one day they decide that you are disposable and they disappear from your landscape like a thief in the night.

From their perspective, they are avoiding confrontation, explanation, and the uncomfortable feelings associated with parting ways.  To many westerners, however, this Japanese approach to difficult separations is feeble and insulting.

What you must learn the hard way if you live in Japan any length of time is that you are either in the group and protected or outside the group and easily disposed of on a whim.

Ironically and quite surprisingly, the Japanese are just as cold and calculating with their own tribe.  The myth that Japanese companies offer lifetime employment and a family-like setting has been a boldfaced lie for a long time.

Most corporations used to carry dead-wood employees until 62 or so.  Many now strip parasites (perhaps rightfully) of their titles in their mid fifties, then slightly to drastically reduce their wages, and finally offer a somewhat generous -though deceivingly not optional – early retirement buyout.

Most of those targeted quietly retire early rather than face humiliation in the workplace.  They may have significant savings, if their company is doing well, but they have lost their self-confidence to be somebody other than a lapel-pin loyalist to a corporate slave master.

The good news is that more Japanese are waking up to the painful reality that lifetime employment is a Faustian choice they needn’t make.

There are alternatives to being a blind follower of a bankrupt, outdated, unworkable system that will leave many poor and disillusioned in the years to come.

We must believe in ourselves – our skills and ability to find and exploit opportunities – without depending  on a crumbling, socialized corporate structure.

That awareness in our self-worth will be the key to our survival and prosperity in the next generation.

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The Japanese Escape Hatch

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”

~Peter Marshall, TV personality~

japanese demon

It has been said that Japan is changing and that the tempers of the young are every bit as explosive as that of American hotheads.  The only difference between the cultures being, say the social critics, that the Japanese don’t have easy access to firearms.

Yes, there are an increasing number of senseless, violent crimes happening almost every day in this island-nation, but all in all this country remains one of the safest on the planet.

Japanese don’t take kindly to overt pressure and intimidation.  When they are in a proverbial corner, they will bow and look for a non-violent, non-confrontational escape route.  Sometimes they will nervously blink and try in vain to act as if their adversary or intimidator doesn’t even exist.

If you are planning to make a frontal, guns blazing approach to doing business here, no doubt you will meet a great yet subtle resistance from the natives.

Don’t mistake silence or nervousness as a sign that you have won the battle or the war.  On the contrary, you will make virtually no progress by intimidation.

Inside themselves the Japanese may well be seething, but for you they will mask their displeasure with a somewhat courteous smile.

That perfunctory smile is usually a kiss of death in business relationships.

Always give a Japanese person a clear avenue of escape.  When you do so, they will appreciate your sensitivity to their discomfort and perhaps give you another try at making a good impression.

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