Sunday, August 25, 2013

Do Japanese Have a Tendency of a Double Personality?


Japan is an international country. Walking on the street in Tokyo, you will meet many foreigners, American, European, Asian, African, Oceania, from all over the world. Those non-Japanese people living in Japan know a lot about Japan. Sometimes they know better than Japanese do. Many of them live in Japan for business reasons, others do simply because they love Japan.

It is my pleasure to meet these people who are attracted by Japan and talk enthusiastically about what they like about Japan, as a Japanese born. Many of them talk about Japanese people as well. 90% of these people like Japanese people, too. They say that Japanese are polite, courteous, kind, calm, generous, and so on. Once in a while, however, I come across non-Japanese people who are either puzzled, confused, or disturbed by Japanese behavior.

Quite unfortunately, these puzzled and disturbed non-Japanese people are the ones who are closer to Japanese livings and Japanese people. Those are men and women who married Japanese. Others are ones work for Japanese company. I see problems with foreigner child who attend Japanese school, some times.

A Korean national woman once told me that she feels that Japanese tends to have double personality. She said to me that her mother-in-law invited her to her husband mother's home one time. Her husband's mother asked her relax, ask anything, eat anything, and be at home anyway she wanted. Her mother-in-law even told her feel home like her own. She was glad her mother-in-law is this much kind. She thanked her mother-in-law. Basically she spent relaxed time in her mother-in-law's home.

After she came back home, she was shocked to learn that her husband's mother is upset about her behaviors in his mother's home. Her husband told that his mother upset because she does not follow basic rules in somebody else's home. Her mother-in-law thinks she is rude, does not know how to greet, and not polite enough.

You may think that this kind of thing can happen to any culture to any people. It may be usual in-law problem. But, the worst was, when this Korean lady visited her mother-in-law again, her mother-in-law's attitude toward her was nothing changed and nothing unpleasant. She was smiling, asking her to relax and be at home. This Korean lady was totally confused by her mother-in-law. She started to think that her mother-in-law has double personality.

It may not be as serious as her case, one time my American boss expressed his frustration about Japanese management saying that they speak about long-term business strategy, but all they care is profit of that month.

You might have heard "Public and Private Concept" in Japanese culture. Original Japanese is "Hon-ne-to-Tate-mae". Every culture in the world has this concept. You do not wear pajamas to go to public place. You need to wear suits and tie going to office. But Japanese tends to separate public and private very strictly. This confuses non-Japanese people. Bad attitude in side of Japanese is that they tend not to tell to the person, they hide the feeling and keep smiling.

But, please do not worry. It is nothing difficult to cope with this kind of Japanese mentality. Whatever you hear from Japanese, if you keep your politeness and courteous attitude and stay inside of common sense rule in front of them, they will be amazed how good you are. They are not double character. They are a little more rule oriented than the rest of the world is.




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Sunday, August 18, 2013

What Song Zi, Chinese Ancient Strategist, Teaches Us


Precisely, Song Zi (Japanese "Son-Shi) is not a name of person. It is a name of a book. That is the textbook of art of War. This book was written around BC 500. Professionals believe that real strategist, either "Song Wu" or "Song Ping", was the author.

"Song Wu" was a commander who formed King's back palace army (Secret Service for the king) and taught the importance of discipline. "Song Ping" was a general in ancient China whose legs cut off from the lost war by enemy country. Legend says that he still fought and could lead his country to victory at the end.

"Song Zi" has several meanings in war history. There are several note-worthy advices with respect to the war. Before this book came out, people believed that to win or lose in a war was God will. That was why warriors pray for God so anxiously before war. "Song Zi" is the first book of war, which told people there are reasons to win or lose a war. Man Kings, generals, and worriers learned how to win the war and "Dos and Do nots" in war from this book. This is the first book in human history on art and science of war. World famous strategy and political elements "Ten, Chi, Jin" - Help of God, Advantage of Location, Support from People - appeared in this book.

2nd point is the fact that "Song Zi" is talking about the meaning of war. As a book of strategy, unfortunately, it does not deny war. It says, however, "War affects not only army and government of a country, but also people, food production, and national wealth. Therefore, the decision makers should not easily exercise this option."

"Song Zi" was The Textbook for famous generals in the history. It is said that Napoleon Buonaparte read it and used its strategies in many battles. Maybe the last person in modern history used strategy of "Song Zi" was Mao Zhedong in China. He used "Song Zi" strategy not to be defeated by Japanese Army in World War II, and win the battles against National Army lead by Jing Jie Shi.

This book categorizes various strategies in terms of location, number of soldiers, training, timing of attack, formation, and so on. All are about art and science of war.

This article is not to show you how marvelous "Song Zi" was, as a strategy book. This article is to draw your attention to the last part of this strategy book that mentions the ultimate and utmost strategy. Please remember that this book was written 2500 years ago. It says as final and ultimate strategy, after its 35 Chapters detailed strategies, as 36th Chapter, is not to fight to death but run away from your enemy to survive.

I hope one day there is no war at all on earth.



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Sunday, August 11, 2013

You Can Train Yourself to Be Happy


Human beings are born with emotions. Even newborn babies have their ability to express their emotions by smiling, laughing, and crying. Emotions from newborn babies are fresh, innocent, and admirable. They are straight to express their emotions to anybody and are not afraid of doing so. As babies grow, they encounter many things, good or bad. They learn how to maneuver their emotions for their favor. When they want their parent to buy them a toy, they beg, first, pout then, and cry if not satisfied.

At the same time, they begin to build a wall around them not to reveal their real sentiment. Young children, looking forward to a birthday gift, may be disappointed, because they are not getting something they wanted. They learn that their disappointment is big if their expectation is too much. They begin to control their emotion in the sense that they do not over-joy, not to be badly disappointed.

As they grow, it is inevitable to develop negative emotions. They may think, when they are happy, that they should be careful not to be over-joyful, because they know they might be disappointed if they are over-joyful. It seems that people become more negative than younger days, as they grow. As one gets old, he tends to believe that he was happier in his younger age. This seems to be the mechanism to cause negative sentiments.

Some people develop resentment, cynicism, skepticism, and depression. Instead, there are people who are always cheerful and happy. One may wonder why those people can be happy all the time. It may be their nature. They might have been born that way. Instead, however, they might have trained themselves to be happy instead of unhappy.

Even experiencing same occasion, one feels grateful, the other feels sad. A soldier, who lost his arm in a war, could be depressed by his loss. It is quite understandable. He could be, instead, however, glad he did not die in fighting, all because he lost his arm and sent back to hospital. Why does this difference happen? The ones who could be happy and grateful for the same occasion, which they experience, tend to train themselves to be glad and happy, consciously or unconsciously.

In the movie "The Matrix", Mophius explained to Neo that the feeling is only an electric signal which brain receives to feel. If one has negative circuit, he feels negative. If the other has positive circuit, he feels positive. Human beings are so well-built system that we can repair or rebuild our circuit in the way we want. If one trains his mind to feel negative, he becomes negative. If he teaches his head to respond positively, he drives him to be happy and positive person.

The training to make one happy person is quite simple. One can keep trying to take a look at the bright side of things. Every cloud has a silver lining. In one's saddest time or worst experience, one can pick something, which he can be grateful. It is easy to write this way, however. It is a different story if one can really do it. Again turning to the movie "The Matrix", it is as Oracle told Neo that knowing the path is different from walking the path.

The effective method of this training is to write "Gratitude List". If one keeps diary, he can use his diary to try this method. At the end of a day, we can open our favorite diary book and write about happy occasions we had on that day. One or two would be okay, but you can consider as many as possible. You need to think seriously what made you glad and happy. You may be able to use your PC or Blog, but some advised that hand writing is the best. In this way, your mind will be trained to look for happy matters and feel happy about whatever comes to your life.



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Sunday, August 4, 2013

What Is Happening After the Recession Is Over


According to leading news media, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) officially announced on September 20, 2010, that the Great Recession was over June last 2009. NBER announced that the recession. lasted 18 month, the longest in post World Ward II period, ended in June 2009, and economy entered into raising period. The matter of fact is any of ordinary people do not believe the recession is over.

Although news media talked about depression since 1930's this time, the economy did not go that awful partly thanks to business bail out program as well as new house tax program. In early 2010, economy was showing slight sign of recovery, even. This summer, however, observes slight slowing down of the recovery process. Media reported bad news such as trade deficit, stagnated employment promotion, durable goods sales down, and so on. Especially housing market has down shift after ending of tax refund program for a new house and second house. Sales of the new house were 12.4% (276,000 houses) against the previous month in July, worst in record since 1963, according to the sources.

It is particularly bad to feel the economy situation is not pleasant seeing what is happening in this place, where we live. In the block of our house, there are 2 foreclosures and 1 short sell in past 6 months. All these happened after June 2009. It was even after the recession is over.

It was our next-door neighbor. They had vacated their house and gone without particular notice. It was so sad and upsetting see this family had disappeared almost overnight. I used to talk with their grand mother on the street. We saw their kids playing skateboard in their front yard. The owner family some times invited their friends and had small parties. Now all of them had disappeared.

Next one was a house, which located on the other corner of our home. It has been vacant for 3-4 months now. This family had 2 small dogs, which used to come out and play with our dog, when we walk our dog. We greeted each other and used to have a short talk in front of their home or our home.

The last one was fairly recent. The house is 2 blocks away from our house. The family still live there, but the house is in short-sell by their bank. If the short-sell does not happen, the house will go into foreclosure and family needs to move out. They held BBQ style lunch and dinner so often, and we heard their playing music when they had BBQ party. Now, they have not done any BBQ party anymore. The home and family are totally silent.

It looks like the economy is not recovering. Instead, there are lots of people who are suffering from the past wounds of business activities. It does hurt not only the one, who suffered foreclosures or financial difficulties, but also the ones who are close to them.

I hope we see real recovery of the economy very soon. What will be the locomotive to bring the economy up again? Will it be medical or bioengineering?




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