Clueless in Japan

Japanese young people avoid being leaders according to a recent TV survey.   When "leadership training" has been regarded as key skills in many countries, I am clueless why it is such an opposite attitude in Japan.  Why do Japanese youngsters avoid leadership opportunities?  Kayo came to enlighten me at a recent Toastmasters meeting with a speech. There are 3 reasons according to her analysis: (1) Perceived responsibility Japanese people might be intimated by the responsibility as a leader. In the old time, the ultimate way to demonstrate a person's integrity is called "hari-kiri" which is a ritual suicide with a sword. When other cultures promote communications when misunderstanding arises, Japanese and its neighboring Asian countries (such as China, Korea) have a different way to end all doubts. I can imagine why people would avoid committing to leadership opportunities if this means that their lives can be at risk. (2) Limited leadership role models When...

I have many WOW moments in Japan, and a lot of them are contributing to the amazing work by Japanese farmers. This summer, the eggplants are having a revolution. At the farmer's market, in addition to many sizes/shapes, for the first time in my life, I saw white eggplants and jade eggplants.  The white eggplants really look like white eggs - making me appreciate the name "eggplants" more than ever. I have found cookbooks dedicated to eggplants in the bookstores - not 1, but 2.  One is for Japanese-style cooking of eggplants. The other is for Western-style cooking of eggplants. I plan to try them out before the summer ends. 💋

 My work place held an annual event to showcase our products, services, and achievements. It attracted hundreds of potential customers. It was also reported at several TV news channels and newspaper. It was a great success. After the event, the organization committee sent an event report internally, and they summarized this event by a short sentence: お陰様で 無事 終了いたしました。 I was very puzzled after consulting the English translation on  無事（ぶじ）: it means safe, issue-free, peaceful, or quiet. It is puzzling because - from the culture that I come from -  We will hope that our troops return from a war or family return from a North Pole adventure safely. This PR event was not a dangerous event. We may wish a business negotiation to be issue-free or a political dispute to be peacefully resolved because these are situations where controversies and disagreements are expected. This annual event had no such elements in it. We would not be proud to conclude our  biggest annual m...

I was recently given the opportunity to work with a team under the leadership of Mr. Takada. His slogan for this term is  " 鳴かぬなら、そういう種類の  ほととぎす ". As expected, I was quite clueless even after I asked help from google translation. Finally, a friend came to enlighten me. ほととぎす (ホトトギス/杜鵑) means the cuckoo bird . In Japan, there are the 3 famous Haiku Poems（俳句）by Warriors in the Sengoku era（戦国武将）. They are famous because each haiku poem shows warrior’s characteristics. -   Nobunaga Oda（織田信長） said, `If the bird does not sing, I will kill it.’ (鳴かぬなら　殺してしまえ　ホトトギス) -   Hideyoshi Toyotomi（豊臣秀吉）said, ‘If the bird does not sing, I will force it to sing.’ (鳴かぬなら　鳴くのに代えよう　ホトトギス) -   Ieyasu Tokugawa（徳川家康）said ‘If the bird does not sing, I will wait until it starts to sing,’　 (鳴かぬなら　鳴くまで待とう　ホトトギス) There are many followers to imitate this expression including Mr. Takada's version:  鳴かぬなら、そういう種類の    ほととぎす What does it mean? My Japanese-speaki...