In Japan, Young Face Generational Roadblocks | Hacker News Reader

In Japan, Young Face Generational Roadblocks

nytimes.com

99 pointsgamble33 comments

The part about Horie was kind of interesting.

He was really seen as someone to rock the boat, and as someone who could really turn around the stodgering top-down society that is Japan. It's probably safe to say that most of the youth of the country were rooting for him, and the new economic growth that he would most likely bring to Japan.

Then he f-ed up, and got caught up in stock fraud. I know that he's still appealing the decision, but the evidence against him was pretty huge, and the backlash was rather dire.

Up until that point, all the proponents of Horie were saying "Look! This young guy is brilliant, making tons of money, and can change the way Japan operates!" When he got arrested, that changed to "Look! This young guy broke the law, was making tons of money, and pretty much guaranteed that the youth of Japan will forever be trapped beneath their senile overlords." (Ok, that last part might just be me)

sorry, it seems I'm still a little peeved about the whole thing.

Yesterday I was talking with the (rather young) CEO of a automotive-electronics startup and he was saying that Japan's industry is slowly dying because of a lack of desire to innovate. He said "In order to succeed in the Japanese market, you can't introduce something new because it'll get shot down. You need to go abroad, do your research, make demos, make it work, then bring it back to Japan and say 'Look what we're doing abroad!' ".

I hope this country does great things (because I don't have anywhere else to go), but I really worry about the future of a country that doesn't value its youth to such a degree that they lose all motivation.

Japan seems like a different place. Its a country that loves systems of harmony so much that the police are only now trying to break away from their collaboration with the gangs, and sometimes failing. Established newspapers have a system of collaboration with news sources (like government officials) that they are tasked report upon. Among all these harmony systems is the seniority = age system. Even corporate finance loans are often based on social connections rather than creditworthiness. Its not hard for me to see why people would question Horie's arrest as a system turned against the young in that context.

>Even corporate finance loans are often based on social connections rather than creditworthiness

Here's the thing. EVERYHING. I mean EVERYTHING in Japan is based on social connections. Not just business, but every social interaction you have with any person anywhere will in most probability be based on who you know, and what connections you have.

Which is one reason why I think it is very hard for foreigners and foreign companies to make head-way in Japan.

In my decade here, I have a small smattering of connections, but nothing as wide raging as what your average Japanese person would have. But even my small smattering has helped me secure a great deal on my house loan, get a great deal on 3 cars, get me more high-quality furniture for my house than I could ever imagine, and free food at my favorite high-class restaurant.

None of this is because I am a good, or even out-going person. It's only because I've become indebted to someone, or have someone indebted to me. (お世話になります has never been so true)

"お世話になります has never been so true"

Translation, please?

"Thank you for your help." Though there may be some specific connotation of those words that doesn't easily translate to English.

This reflects my experience in Japan; overall, people here are terrified of change. Even within most companies, the tiniest of changes need to be communicated and agreed upon by every separate group, before anything can actually happen.

While this is true, I think Japanese culture mostly just makes this more obvious. A big part of it is based on perception (in western culture, change is much more accepted generally, and people tend to show/believe they change much more than they actually do).

For example, what happened during the Meiji area is pretty unique in world history AFAIK, and that was a gigantic change. My experience in Japan is that people are less willing to change things, but are much more willing to change once they agreed on the nature of the change (that's part of what makes Japanese company still efficient today: people are willing to sacrifice a lot for something else than their own self if they believe it worths it).

There is no question that Japan is facing huge challenges as of today - but I would not bet on Japanese society not being able to deal with it once they really have no choice. Also, the young people the article refers too are actually between 25 up to 40 years old (people entering the job market after the bubble in mid 90ies), so mathematically, old people who benefitted from the pre-bubble system will be less and less influential

What's the old corporate training line American's get before doing business in Japan? Something like "In Japan it can take forever to come to a decision, but once made, it's executed at a frightening pace."

Oh no it's not. The Japanese are, and I'm generalizing quite heavily here, not good at getting going, or at going quickly once they get moving.

What they are really, shockingly, amazingly good at, is doing things well once they do get moving.

Over here, quality matters more than anything else, and it shows everywhere -- even the 'dollar-store' (100 yen shop goods) have shockingly good quality.

I admit I've never worked in a big company, but I'm told the same thing often happens in big US corporations. It certainly happens in US universities.

>You need to go abroad, do your research, make demos, make it work, then bring it back to Japan and say 'Look what we're doing abroad!' ".

I don't find that so awful. At least they look at what works abroad. That's better than changing all the time and being blind to everything outside your own borders.

This is largely directionally accurate. (Especially for young ladies -- curious that the NYT missed that angle, one would have assumed they would be all over it.)

On the plus side, persistent market inefficiencies are a gift from God if you're prepared to exploit them. (Where else can you find Californian purchasing power at engineering wages which would be skimpy in small town Iowa?)

Can you clarify that last sentence a bit? (I think you mean, things are enough cheaper in Japan that a skimpy salary still has great purchasing-power-parity... but I thought as a highly-urbanized country, Japan had relatively high prices for everything from real estate to food. I could easily be mistaken, and would love to hear examples of what is cheaper there, and where.)

Japan is a rich nation, by any measure you want. Japanese twenty-something engineers are not rich people. You can take their labor and use it to sell to other Japanese people, like their parents or the beneficiaries of Californian-public-employee-esque sweet retirement deals.

(See also: Demand Media, which does the same equation except it substitutes "stay-at-home moms" for 20-something Japanese engineers.)

Most persistent market mispricings of labor should be profitably exploitable.

how long more do you think it will take for young japanese to realize they're "profitably exploitable"?

I can't claim to be an expert, but I visited Japan last year and found that you can get away with eating very cheaply if you want to. Lawson 100 yen shops, Za Watami and Watamin Chi FTW! We found this awesome Tonkatsu place (it was a chain, I forget the name) in Kyoto where you could get a great feed for an average price.

Plus if you're willing to be a little more adventurous and get off the beaten track, there's always some cool little hole in the wall where you can find interesting food at reasonable prices.

And the service in Japan - pretty much regardless of what price you're paying - is amazing... you have to experience it to believe it. I came home and was in culture shock for a couple of weeks whenever I went into a restaurant or retail store.

Likewise accommodation (at least the kind used by travellers) was also average to cheap if you were willing to do a little research before hand (http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/en/ was what I used mostly). However if what I was told by people living there is anything to go by, longer term accommodation can get pretty expensive.

But you can also spend as much as you want if you're looking for luxury food, hotels, ryokans, whatever.

This held pretty much true for us all the way from Tokyo to Kagoshima.

Customer service is amazing, as long as you stay within the script -- once you leave, you're screwed.

In the US, the Starbucks barista will be slower and waaaaay less formal, but she'll probably not worry if you're a penny short.

In Japan, if you are one yen short, you aren't getting the latte you've ordered, even if it's already made, because Those Are The Rules.

I feel the US is in roughly the same boat.We have more freedoms, but our whole system puts pressure on promoting higher education, while simultaneously providing no promise that there will be a way to recoup the debt load. Our mentalities, of protecting a gentrifying population, are stifling future generations access to the same privilege that prior generations had.

My personal view on the situation, is that we need to step back and look at what this system of higher education has done. And then start focusing on vocational training, in HS, apprenticeships, and on the job skill training.

>We have more freedoms

Such as?

It seems that we might look back in history and see the rise and fall of Japan in a single generation. Culturally, founder CEOs are given the utmost respect, while hired CEOs are looked at almost as figureheads. By the time Japan really started to decline in the 90s, most of the entrepreneurs who rebuilt industry after the war were gone- leaving their companies rudderless. The political sphere is even worse, corruption and cronyism abound. Japan, the unstoppable juggernaut, is now ruled by old men lining their pockets.

Surely there are lessons to be learned here.

It's probably more extreme in Japan, but you could say a similar thing is happening all over the western world right now, a decade later.

Deru kugi wa utareru

Cross-reference with "An Innovator Leaving Japan"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325704

http://synaptify.com/?p=613728

OT: Ikiru "To Life" (a 1952 film about one man and Japan's human crushing bureaucracy) is one of Kurosawa's best

http://www.acepilots.com/discussions/ikiru.html

Loved that movie - it didn't make me ever want to visit japan despite our family roots there.

I loved that movie (it's on Netflix for those who have it). Gave it 5 stars.

Just as a little tidbit, the phrase "deru kui wa utareru" (kui = kugi), 「出る杭は打たれる」 means "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

I think I understand now why the "otaku" cultural industry is so vibrant. A bright, working-class high schooler knows he can't become a president at Sony or Misubishi, but if he's good enough, he can write the next YuYu Hakusho or Naruto. He can start by publishing an indie doujinshi with a group of friends. That's how some of the best-paid manga writers in Japan began.

Direct link to bypass log in page: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/asia/28generation.ht...

A nation that produced Sony, Toyota and Honda has failed in recent decades to nurture young entrepreneurs

Why did those companies succeed?

Because they had a very much blank slate after the war, when the old order was not only toppled, but ashamed and humiliated, and the old good-old-boys networks were destroyed or at least weakened.

Furthermore, the nation was hungry, not literally, but hungry for success, so they worked extra hard. The success of post-war Japan is built on the 16-hour workdays of countless salarymen. Those peculiar post-war conditions are long gone.

Oh, yes, literally too. There were more people in Japan (return of imperial forces and families) and less food. Millions were hungry, and some starved to death.

This looks like an amazing opportunity to start a company and hire talented young people.

See the comment above by rshigeta and my reply as to why that will be a lot harder than you think.

I wish it wasn't, but a society based entirely on social connections that is resistant to change is a hard place for an outsider to start a company.

Would there be an opportunity to hire undervalued local talent if you were export focused, and didn't care about the local market?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com