Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

It is often quite amusing to see online (and real-life) comments about foreigners living in Japan.  For the wide-eyed newbies a couple of years into their residence in Japan, the full-hearted embrace of Japanese society is still quite palpable.  They speak of how clean the streets are, how good the services are , and how convenient the public transit can be.  But when one checks in forums full of old-time Japan residents a decade or more into the country, a whole new different picture emerges.  In comments laced with open cynicism, the old-timers criticize the lack of change of a country that treats them as exotic animals to be gawked at endlessly.

About five years after she became a sensation in her native Japan, professional house organizer Mair Kondo found fame in the West through her new show on Netflix.  By helping both common people and celebrities clean out their cluttered homes in a show watched by millions, KonMari, as she is otherwise known, almost single-handed created a platform that redefines what it means to be happy.  In a rather simple and straightforward manner, she argued that to achieve true happiness, people must limit themselves in terms of physical possessions.  But throwing away unwanted items, the resulting cleanliness brings joy.

Once in a while, one gets to meet one of those people who take upon themselves to learn as many languages as possible.  After conquering one language, they practice the language through conversations with native speakers and equally minded language learners, all the while moving to study another new language.  They call such behavior "a hobby" based on a fascination with cultures.  Others, already having a hard time learning one foreign language , not to mention one after another, simply describe those with the language learning hobby as "naturally talented at learning languages."

An e-commerce firm can become successful in a few different ways.   Having a great selection of high-quality products at bargain prices certainly help.   So is having convenient payment methods and great customer service when things go awry.   But no part of e-commerce operations leaves a greater impression on potential customers than being able to deliver purchased products quickly, safely, and at exact times designated by the customers.   A previous article on Tech in Asia already made clear the importance of product delivery in overall customer satisfaction.   Similarly, several academic studies have shown the importance of logistics management and capacity to customer satisfaction and firm performance. Furthermore, a survey in the American and European markets showed that 38% of online shoppers will never shop with the e-commerce provider again after suffering a negative delivery experience.

Reading through some of the Master's theses produced by University of Tokyo students, I am struck by just how abstract some of them sound to the layman.  Referring to one obscure study after another, their authors simply assume that whoever that is reading their outputs would simply know by heart all the supposedly groundbreaking studies by famous scholars.  Such careless assumption goes back my previous argument that academics and non-academics simply do not communicate on the same page, leading to academic works not being taken seriously outside the tiny professional academic research community. 

Economic inequality is not new.  It is a phenomenon that has haunted human civilization ever since agricultural production became systematic and people saw the benefits of accumulating wealth in one place.  A ruling elite with the power to organize the institutions and structures of society came to tower over others, giving them the ability to reshape how society operates to benefit themselves.  The result is the rise of an elite that is both politically and economically powerful, often in a hereditary manner.  For too long, the general populace was OK with such an elite, notably because there was a belief that anyone can become equally as powerful and rich through individual efforts.

The Japanese are, by now, famous in the developed world for the hostility of the general public toward the prospect of mass migration.  Even as the government mulls policies that increase the number of foreign workers in the country, the media, both mainstream and otherwise, debate whether the shift to the extreme right under in way in Europe is a result of uncoordinated, unstructured, and unprepared nature by which millions of Africans and Middle Easterners streamed in.  What is implied, of course, is that the Japanese do not repeat the mistake of mass migration that the Europeans brought upon themselves.