Advertisement
Intro
I apologize for being in a drought for the last 5 months but between putting together a three-day conference for entrepreneurial women in the Middle East and a few travels here and there, the blog took a backseat. I intend to do some catching up with this series of coming blog entries.
New Year's in Japan
Tokyo Shrine During New Year's While I previously had very little interest in visiting Japan, there was no way that I was going to turn down a trip there during the 2008-09 winter holiday to see my parents. On the way, I had a layover in Doha, Qatar’s purportedly 5 star luxury airport terminal. Let’s just say my impression was a little less than 5 star. Besides being extremely crowded and having a tax free store the size of a fourth of the terminal filled with people pushing on each other as if they were fighting for the last Tickle Me Elmo on Christmas Eve, the Qatari airport staff was generally rude and acted as if they were doing you a favor to do their job. If you are ever there, find a nice South Asian immigrant worker when you need help…forget the local
staff.
There is perhaps no greater contrast to the Middle East than Japan when it comes to hospitality and customer service. While Arabs pride themselves on hospitality, it is almost an obliged hospitality. There seems to be this sense that it is expected and so people offer you tea wherever you go. Sometimes they are genuine in their beautiful gesture and are truly hospitable while other times they are disingenuous and they seem to be just going through the motions. And while everyone recognizes what good customer service is while being served, Arabs aren’t always the best at delivering it. There is a tendency to cut corners and serve you well enough but not correctly. In fact, this is a common phenomenon in Jordan. Work is often done “good enough” but it is not done right and to get people to do the remaining 30% correctly, it sometimes takes more energy than just doing the task yourself. Unfortunately, this can be depressing and painful since it tends to decrease your confidence in people and their ability to deliver.
Then there are the Japanese. As my plane pulled down the runway to its final resting spot, the ground crew
greeted me by standing in a perfect line all dressed in spotless blue uniforms with shiny white hats as their backs arched in a minute long bow. As the plane door opened and I trotted down the steps towards the greeter at the foot of the stairs, she bowed and welcomed me to Japan. But what is amazing, is that this type of respect and hospitality didn’t stop at the foot of the plane steps or at the door from the tarmac to the inside of the airport but continued at every shop, hotel and taxi in Japan. People are constantly bowing, thanking you and doing whatever they can to make you feel respected, no matter the inconvenience it causes them. Sometimes you have to hold them back from doing things for you. While there reoccurring moments in the Arab world when a person can’t be bothered to give you a straight answer without something in return, the Japanese will lead you by the hand until you are ok to be on your own again.
Perhaps the Japanese aren’t known for being the world’s most prolific inventors, but they are perhaps the world’s most successful perfecters. Every centimeter of
Byrne Family with Shotei Hayama
Famous Japanese Cartoonist & Artist space is organized and has a purpose in Japan. The streets are clean, the people are generally well groomed and there is so much order that as a tourist with literally zero comprehension of Japanese can easily make their way around any city. I understand that perhaps some of you feel that comparing Japan to the Arab world is a bit of a stretch and unfair, but this is exactly what international investors do on a much larger and more sophisticated scale. They compare education level, worker productivity, infrastructure, etc. to determine where to invest and what to develop. Frankly, if the Arab world is to shake off its last few hundred years of stagnation and re-emerge as a competitive and vibrant area of the world as it once was, it is going to need to do much more than inviting developed countries to exploit their natural resources while maintaining rentier states. Perhaps they could start by empowering their educated, extraordinarily creative and motivated female youth and professionals.
While in Japan, my family and I visited Kumamoto(south), Kyoto and Tokyo(both in central Japan). I cannot understate the beauty and depth of Japanese history. It is sometimes brutal and can
be perceived to have a reoccurring theme of xenophobia, but it is extremely interesting and highly engrossing. In addition, the art and architecture that it has produced is distinctive and unique while its particular dance with religion (primarily Shintoism - birth ceremonies, Buddhism - death ceremonies, and Christianity - weddings) is fascinating. And there is nothing better than going to a Buddhist shrine on New Year’s, throwing a coin, ringing the bell overhead and bowing as you ask for a luck in the year to come.
Furthermore, Japan has produced an awesome food culture that only starts with sushi but also involves saki, different types of BBQ, endless noodle soups, innumerable rice based foods and of course different ways to eat anything in the sea. I could literally spend a year in Japan just studying the food culture from all the different regions. It is that diverse and specialized. And don’t be fooled by the stereotypes about Japanese being formal, strict and proper. While this definitely exists, there is also a very important part Japanese life which revolves around late nights out drinking saki. For every action there is a reaction. In Japan there is a very clear reaction
to the formal, hierarchical part of Japanese culture.
All in all, the trip was wonderful and allowed me to finally understand why after more than 30 years my father had been aiming to return to live in Japan. The people are genuine, the food is great and the culture is complex and challenging. (I by no means claim to understand any more than a tourist's impression of the country.) The next time I have a chance to return to Japan, I will go in a heart beat. It is fascinating and an ultra welcoming place. I think my mother said it best when I met her at the airport, “Mike" she said, "I really love the Japanese people.”
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0487s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Bruce
non-member comment
Welcome back!
Hi Mike, welcome back! It is always refreshing to hear about your adventures. You are a true cosmopolitan leader. Keep up the good work and keep enlightening us about these wonderful cultures. Best! Bruce p.s. Have you considered compiling all of these stories and use them as a backbone for a future book? You are a great writer and it would be great to see these adventures in a formal publication.