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You Know That You're in Japan When ...

With countries being so homogenised today, particularly advanced countries, its cool to spot things that make you think "Wow you could only see that here in ...wherever".

I know that I'm in Japan when ...

When I see a crowd at a small shop in the basement area of a railway station mall discussing the merits of five varieties of pickled plums. The most popular processed form is the umeboshi, a sour, pickled plum that is usually enjoyed with cooked rice or with tea. The umeboshi has one of the most typical Japanese flavors. The interest in the flavor is not unusual in such a strong food culture, but the sticker price of $100+ per kilogram comes as a shock, and the demand is strong. (Tokyo - near Yurakucho Station)

When I see the crowd at 9pm Sunday at the local bathhouse where fathers and mothers take young sons and daughters off through opposite doors for the Sunday scrub. This is modern Japan yet the commercial bathhouse is still enormously popular. The noise of younger children enjoying their Sunday scrub and bath en-mass (the girls and women being heard over the large separating wall that falls short of reaching the ceiling) generates a strong community sensation. (Okazaki- Aichi Prefecture)

When my 6 year old niece is asked if she would like to go shopping with Grandmother or come to the Toyokawa Inari Shrine and she chooses the Shrine. She chooses the Shrine because she loves the sweet vinegar pickled seaweed that is served in the small dishes to those who make appropriate donations. So she comes for the seaweed, in preference to what she knows Grandmother might buy her out shopping together. (Toyokawa is one of the three largest Inari Shinto Shrines in Japan. People come here to pray for good fortune, as the shrine's Shinto guardian is the deity of prosperity and wealth. A Zen temple and a Shinto shrine co-exist on this site, a scenario was common until the Meiji restoration, when temples and shrines were officially separated.) (Toyokawa - Aichi Prefecture)

When I choose a Morinaga icecream and find not only creamy vanilla but also red bean paste spread down the centre surrounding the stick finished with a blob of mochi sticky rice at the base. This tastes great, and where else would you imagine red bean paste and sticky rice inside top grade icecream?

When the octopus leg that has just been turned into fresh sashimi on Awaji Island twitches with freshness before being plunged into the soy sauce. (Awaji Island - Hyogo Prefecture)

That's when you know that you are in Japan.

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How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632.

Global Mobile Roaming - the Frustration Continues as Carriers Creak at the Seams

Despite the astounding productivity that we can achieve through mobile phones the madness in global roaming continues to destroy value for customers.

Normally I rent SIM cards for each country to avoid the ludicrous rates the carriers impose on roaming customers. However this requires that I notify people of the new number every time I move between countries. On a recent around the world trip I decided to stick with my chosen domestic carrier and to manage my calls closely, in order to make it easy to contact me through my usual number.

According to an unattributed article by the GSM Association 'roaming is the key to the success of the GSM platform. It goes on, "Roaming is at the heart of the GSM value proposition and has played a major role driving the global spread of the technology."

"Mobile users tend to associate service access and availability with their handset devices rather than their locations or service providers. So as long as they have their device with them customers feel they should be able to use the same services they use at home wherever they are in the world. And over the years GSM operators have developed the network, service, inter-working and billing capabilities to satisfy such expectations," says the article.

Fine words, but the substance has not been delivered even for GSM let alone 3GSM. This is not because of technology but because of incompetent commercial negotiations and lack of interest on the part of the operators in servicing roaming customers - except to gouge them (me!) for voice roaming fees.

My chosen local carrier is Hutchison 3, and the first mistake I made was that I assumed that global roaming agreements were widely in place. I discovered to my detriment that no such agreements exist in Finland and in Portugal which were both key countries on my itinerary. That was my fault because I kind of thought that since the 3 network dropped back to Vodafone in Australia when out of 3 network range that the default global carrier would be Vodafone and its roaming partners globally. That was wrong and this left me totally without communications in those countries.

But even more frustrating is the fact that when in countries with a 3 network that the roaming only gives basic voice and text services. I had again simply assumed that 3 would provide full services to visitors in countries where they have a network, such as the UK. In London, after barely being able to get a 3 signal in central Kensington, I found a 3 shop in High St Kensington who tested my phone (Motorola 920). They announced that my phone was fine but that I could not use email or any other data services even though I am a 3 customer in Australia. I had planned to use my full 3 services, particularly email, quite heavily. Unfortunately I found that the whole mobile internet was denied me because 3 Australia apparently does not have a full service roaming agreement with 3 UK.

It is bad enough that the carriers' commercial agreements for roaming exploit us customers when we need such services. Even worse when we can't even be given a choice to be exploited!

It is frustrating and inconvenient at the very time when you are seeking convenience and effective communication in a foreign environment. And it is frustrating because in the case of 3 it is not a technical problem but a commercial decision to restrict services.

All this just demonstrates how primitive the industry is as a global service industry, despite some fabulous mobile internet developments within certain markets by certain carriers, and despite the overall marvel of the functioning global telephone network.

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How can I help? Email me; Call (Australia) +61 403 345 632.

Talent To Burn - An Economics Lesson from the Mocking Bird Izakaya

[Tokyo, some time ago] Sadly, Chiba-san had to agree. Miss Nakabayashi’s chances of getting a challenging and productive career were very slim.

By this time the MOCKING BIRD Izakaya was getting busy. The locals are used to gaijin-san drifting in from the Aoyama President Hotel across the street. After the ritual compliments about my fluent (very poor) Japanese, and thumbs up all around after discovering I had a stomach for sashimi, we got down to serious business and discovered our kinship around the choice of Asahi Super Dry.

Mr. Chiba, the coach of the Gakushuin University softball team, was initiating Ms Nakabayashi, the new Team Captain, in the history and the competition and this year’s strategy. Yes she was a leader, she was bright, she would have a top grade law degree, but yes she was a woman. True, the latest survey showed that the percentage of graduates receiving informal job offers in their last term had turned up from the all time lows of last year. This year saw 77.7% of males and 70.0% of females receive informal offers, up 0.4% and 2.2% respectively. One might reasonably speculate however that the quality of ‘informal’ offers to the females was of significantly lower quality then those offered the males. After all, there remains chronic underemployment of women and their talents right across corporate Japan.

Can Japan afford to continue to waste these talents, of half its population, I asked Chiba-san?

No.

Will it change?

Not soon.

Ms Nakabayashi nodded her head as she listened.

E-Commerce in Japan has not crashed, in fact it is booming by way of an unfashionable reversion to EDI-style transaction processing. But the Internet bubble had burst, and with it the opportunity for many talented men and equally women, showing huge initiative and creativity, to build wealth and add value to the economy. The creativity that is alive and well in many corporate individuals will now have to squeeze its way up through the leveling and consensus in the old way.

Can a nation that wastes so much talent and initiative again climb to be the economic superpower it once was? I don’t know but I lean towards the positive. And with some harnessing of the nation’s full talents as the locus of economic power moves towards the PRC, certainly yes. The challenges of the corrupt and inept national leadership can be overcome, the forthcoming mass destitution facing middle management can be buried, and the decimation of small business can be carried because of the private savings and corporate globalization.

The next night, in Shinbashi downing sashimi with my friend from Mitsubishi Corporation, I proposed to him my hypothesis:

Japan will become a roaring powerhouse once again within 10 to 20 years don’t you think?

No.

When?

Never again.

The sentiment leaves a bad taste - so we have another Asahi.

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My latest engagement in Japan is as a Panelist at a major joint networking and business development round-table event on Thursday, April 15, 2004, at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. JAPAN MOBILE ROCKS will bring together top mobile industry executives, developers, strategists, planners, and academics from Europe, Australia, and Japan for a combined round-table session on Japan’s wireless Internet and its growing success.