Comment by harisenbon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by harisenbon | Hacker News Reader

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.

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