“I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt.”
~Robert Cormier, writer and journalist~ 

Unless you were raised in a cave, you most likely have been subjected to or acted as a bully at some point in your life.  This was not just a school-day phenomenon.  In subtle and not so subtle ways, it continues throughout our adult lives in our homes and our workplaces.

He or she – the bully – is like the bulldozer or a Sherman Tank that dominates or attempts to dominate by force, intimidation or guilt.

Japan is a nation controlled by such dominating souls, though on the surface of things everyone tries to convey a society of disarming smiles, consensus and non-violence.

A foreigner living in Japan for a short time may well be convinced of the niceness of the natives compared with people from their own country.  But looks can be and often are deceiving to the initiate.  And once the hooks’ of domination and manipulation have set in, your entire life can become like a slab of beef on the butcher’s block ready to be sliced and diced on the whims of others.

How did you deal with bullies in your youth?  Fight or flight?  I dealt with one persistent bully by popping him with an eight-year-old’s right hook.  He cried, his father came in protestation to my father, but my father supported me for being a man.  That boy stopped pestering me and eventually became his true friend.

Against the grain of consensus thinking when dealing with the Japanese, I believe it is in your best interest to draw your line in the sand early in business and personal relationships.

If not, your Japanese counterparts will lack respect for you and dominate you with a mixture of guilt and uncertainty.  Just because they choose vagueness and innuendo, does not mean that you should or have to buy into their mentality.

You cannot compete nor thrive when trying to play mind games with the natives.  Know your true north in life and you will never be unsure of whether to play the passive-aggressive role out of self-interest or to openly reject others because they don’t have your best interest in mind.

Communism and socialism have never worked effectively because people never contribute equally to the final result.

Do your utmost to be diligent, thoughtful and positive in business and personal situations in Japan, but become acutely aware of when to say NO if people guilt-trip you about with the sinkhole concepts of common good, consensus or wa.

Stay out of this silent pressure cooker so prevalent here.  Be bold and assertive, but ditch the western bravado or the Ugly American mien.

Nihongo de Care-navi has both Japanese and English pages to designed to help all kinds of Japanese learners and their supporters.

Access this free resource HERE.

A comprehensive database of Japanese government procurement notices and procedures can be obtained by visiting JETRO and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs(MOFA).

Japan is in need of a stimulus to bring visitors back and stimulate economies in devastated regions. Source: Japan Probe Blog

The Japanese government seems to give lip service (at least) to the proposition that they want to increase tourism.  Many individual cities and prefectures have taken over their local promotions from large travel agencies, hoping that the local touch will make the travel experience to their region more pleasurable and perhaps more reasonably priced.

Here’s what the Japanese National Tourist Organization says about traveling in Japan (and I agree):

The Japanese islands stretch over 3,000 km with a rich variety of scenery in climates ranging from sub-artic in the north to sub-tropical in the south. Volcanic mountain ranges teem with hot spring resorts, while a history going back thousands of years gives each region a distinct cultural character. In short, Japan is a tourist paradise. On these pages we suggest some examples of incentive tours or excursions centered on major cities.

There is a company called Live Quality Check in Austria that arranges tours based on a pay-what-it’s worth price tag.  This system can lure locals and visitors from overseas to the more remote, out-of-the-way villages and regions.  The idea is to get a bunch of local  merchants to collaborate in offering a wide array of choices of hotels, golf courses, restaurants, outdoor activities, etc.

Before the patron decides on the price they are willing to pay, they fill out a survey reviewing their tourist experience.  This helps local  tourist bureaus streamline their list of quality merchants and thus increase the chance that visitors will be satisfied, recommend the area to friends  and associates, and return themselves in the future.

With more and more local tourist bureaus taking over marketing campaigns from tour agencies, no doubt many of them would be receptive to this idea.

The pay-what-you-want idea has caught on worldwide, and if you can cut a deal with regional businesses then the profit potential could be exponential.  You could even start a pay-what-it’s-worth network of merchants regionally or nationally in Japan.

Source:  United Nations University

Japan is an energy-dependent nation which, for better or worse, was crippled in its last and hopefully final war more than a half-century ago.

Since that time, its technological progress has enabled it to deal with energy concerns more dynamically than any other nation.  Those advances were seriously challenged a year ago when the devastating earthquake and tsunami seriously damaged the Tohoku Region and had a ripple effect into the Kanto Region.  Twenty-three of 27 nuclear power plants were shutdown as a precaution after the event, and remain offline.

In Japan, the small-scaled mini- and micro-hydroelectric power plants have been regarded for a considerable time as being suitable for creating electricity in mountainous regions, but they have through refinement come to be regarded as excellent for Japanese cities as well. Kawasaki City Waterworks, Japan Natural Energy Company, and Tokyo Electric Power Company have all been involved in the development of small-scale hydroelectric power plants within Japanese cities.

How can this technology benefit your community or even corporation.  Pay attention to these developments.

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.

I was astounded the first time I saw a perfectly square persimmon in Japan.  But farmers are getting more and more innovative.  Above, witness the pyramid and the heart-shaped watermelon.  Shaping fruit could well become an outstanding niche opportunity inside or outside of Japan.

It could also branch off into fruit and vegetable art, something I think the Japanese would literally eat up…

Here’s a video of many more great food art ideas to chew on for Japan…

Sometime ago I read an article about McDonald’s titled: “Going Down-Market in Nutrition.”  McDonald’s reclaimed its position as the top selling fast food “restaurant” chain in Japan. The company has sales well exceeding 500 billion yen, becoming the first in Japan to exceed 500 billion yen.

In recent years the Japanese consumer has started to accept cheap, not-so-wholesome food, clothing and services without a blink.  There was a time when nobody who was anybody would buy damaged fruit and vegetables at the supermarket.  It was one of those “We are all middle class” thingies which stigmatized the purchase of used or expiring goods and services.  Those days have passed.

Nowadays, thrift is in and I believe it is here to stay.  The trend means that wholesalers and retailers want to unload perishables and other stuff costly to stock or warehouse before it expires, spoils or perishes.

The need to track and make available perishables, damaged package goods and unsold inventory at heavily discounted prices is a challenge which will be addressed more efficiently in the coming years.

If you go to many supermarkets in Japan in the early evening, for example, the stock clerks are often discounting foods 10~50% at that time.  Other goods are kept in a refrigeration unit at all times of the day with things such a tofu, milk, luncheon meats, etc. whose expiration date is nearing expiration.

The challenge is to coordinate a database – for example, at 500 yen a month for consumers and 2000 yen a month for shops – that tells you which stores offer what discounts at that moment.

It can even get more efficient than that.  A particular challenge: How do you keep perishables in stock and on the shelves without having them spoil? Researchers at Agrotechnology & Food Innovations (A&F), an applied research institute at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, are using radio frequency identification technology to find the answer.

However the identification of damaged or perishable goods which will be trashed can be made, a community database feeding into a nationwide database system can  drastically cut waste, save consumers boatloads’ of money, and increase the bottom line of most wholesalers and retailers

Can you create or have you created such an ingenious system?  Japan – known in the past for its convoluted distribution system – is ready to embrace it.

But in a world of choice with many online shopping portals and auction sites blooming, the days of social media indifference are numbered.  Just this past month, LinkedIn became localized in Japan and, with ongoing education in the virtual grapevine, it will in the next few tears crush the long-held custom of annual recruiting.

The same is true of Facebook, with its varied ways of building rapport with your customer or client base. Companies in the modern world must be prepared to go the extra mile using social media networks to spread the word about their products and services, address customer complaints or concerns, and educate their potential buyers about the reasons to choose their company over others.

Being social and sociable are not optional anymore, but many companies are becoming interested or concerned about how to reach customers where they hang out online.

Significantly, there is anew start-up called the Japan Social Media Manager Association which is trying to catch the social media wave.  They plan to launch a social media manager course early next year in Japan.  The trainees passing the course will be issued a certification certificate.

Social media in Japan is not a fad.  It’s a fact of life.  Main Street businesses -with proper education and training – can draw many more customers ready and willing to spend money NOW by using stealthy social media strategies, including cellphone apps with daily promotions.

The golden era social media is dawning.  If you are a great talent in social media, I may be able to help you establish your credentials in Japan.  Contact me at administrator@successinjapan.com.