Collin Condray’s Blog

It’s the day after JSAP 2004 and I am in somewhat of a sad mood even after being greeted by loved ones who I have deeply missed. I have had a terrific time with all of you on our trip to Japan. This was such an incredible opportunity to visit a country in such unique terms. In one month we’ve packed in a huge amount of activity. We’ve done a lot of work for this trip but we’ve had a lot of fun times and I will remember them with great fondness.

Although our trip is over it is not the end of this blog. Hopefully, we can leave some good travel tips for the people who are going on JSAP next year. I would also like to add journal entries from other JSAPers besides myself. Please let me know if you are interested in doing so.

The majority of us will meet at Dr. Stapp’s house for one last hurrah. I will also see a few of you next year as school starts up again. However, many of you will be leaving the area and it might be a while before I see you again. To those of us who are leaving I say, take care, write often, and know that if you need help, just call.

Good luck and God bless.

Tomorrow, The Real World.

We had to get to the station for our 1:10 PM train so we had a little time in Kameoka before we left. We finally kept our appointment with E-chan to pick up some Japanese food and spices for the trip home and to use in our own cooking experiences. After packing our last minute purchases, we headed up for our last meal at the yakimeshi restaurant and I think that I finally got full on eating ramen, an unusual event.

Around noon we started moving our now gift laden luggage to the train station. Normally, it takes us only about 10 minutes or so to make it from our hotel to the train to Kyoto but this time it took much longer. We had to haul all of our carry-ons and check-ins up a big flight of stairs and over the railway to the track leading to Kyoto.

At the Kyoto station our group broke up in to those who were staying in Japan and the six who were returning to America. Unfortunately, there were only a few minutes before we had to catch our train for good-byes. There were a few tears shed but promises of a swift reunion on their return to the States.

The rest of us hopped on the train to Kansai International Airport. On the way there, we had a good time playing metaphysical poker. In metaphysical poker you bet things that you don’t own. Some of the things we bet were Virtually all the places we’ve been in Japan (Seiyu, Nijo castle, Daiwa steel, Pony Hotel, etc.) Food (All the yakitori in Japan, sashimi, yakimeshi, etc.) Some of the things we saw (the Nara deer, the Seto Inland Sea boatride) Kodo Flute Boy (he was dreamy, but none of the girls have seen Legolas yet) Nhan’s swords (which I won, yes they are mine!)

Kodo Flute Boy was a very contested chip in our game. I’d say after all this time he left a great impression.

Customs and check-in were no problem but I took a picture in a secure place and was told not to do it anymore. Dr. Stapp and E-chan waited for us even after we passed security and waved us all the way to the terminal. It was very sweet.

The flight back was a long one especially since I couldn’t sleep even though I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before. The flight was only 70% full so we could move about an breathe a little more this time. I was again seated by Kelli who konked out as only she could.

When we arrived in Los Angeles we had our share of follies. Sergio didn’t get his customs form stamped and had to go back in line when he heard PSA to people lining up around luggage carousels. Tim had his ticket on his luggage pulled off by one of the workers so he had to recheck-in. I forgot to hand out the class evaluations. But we made it back home in spite of this.

At XNA everybody rushed off before we could snap one last group picture. We’ll definitely have to take one at Dr. Stapp’s house.

Then I went home.

Tomorrow, home.

Today started off a little late with a visit to the Internet cafe to send a few emails home and let everyone know when we’d be getting home. After that we headed to our favorite yakimeshi place up the road to enjoy lunch. The lady who runs the restaurant had finally come to recognize us and said that after we were finished eating we had a yakimeshi smile. With her cooking, you better believe I did!

Since all of us were down a few gifts we went to Kyoto for some last minute shopping after lunch. Tran had told us of a covered mall called Nishiki-Koji in the eastern part of Kyoto which sounded appealing since it was supposed to rain that day. We finally got the hang of Japanese subways and made it to our destination without thinking too much about it.

The first part of the shopping center was very interesting consisting mostly of seafood and other food stores with the odd clothing store thrown in. Then, it became similar to many of the other shopping areas we’ve seen in Japan with clothing, electronics, music, and other stores. My shopping karma was still working from yesterday. I was looking for my last two presents in Nishiki-Koji and found them 30% off. Score!

We were supposed to meet with E-chan to do a little food shopping but we got our signals crossed and missed our meeting with her (We’re sorry E-chan!)

Yakitori was again on the agenda for dinner at Saga Arishiyama. Dinner was great and we also got to do a little shopping afterwards. Dr. Stapp gave out the last of the JSAP awards which we accepted graciously. After it got dark, we went down by the river to shoot off some fireworks, a fairly common activity in Japan. We had a lot of fun but at some points it was very dangerous. At one point E-chan waved her Roman candle around like a sparkler and shot a couple of blasts over our head instead of over the river. Just about everyone got to shoot off one piece of explosive before the night was over though and it was a lot of fun.

After fireworks, I tried to take pictures of the beautiful scenery at Saga Arishiyama but I could never do it justice. As we were leaving to return to the hotel, my walk was again slowed to a crawl by the enormous beauty of Japan. In the sky above us there was a group of about a half a dozen loosely clustered stars with an exceptionally bright star in the middle. A wreath of grey clouds still illuminated by the long set sun distinguished the stars off from the rolling outline the dark green mountains below them. At the foot of the mountains was a lake lit up by the soft brightness of the lights from the road. It was an incredibly beautiful sight that I think I will keep with me as a treasured memento of my trip to Japan.

Since it was our last night, we decided to stay up late at the Food Spread. We played a little poker and Shannon just killed us. She got three freakin’ straights in a row. Totally unbelievable. At about 3 AM I decided to call it quits and head home. I needed a little sleep before the long day tomorrow.

Tomorrow, still more last minute gifts and the trip home.

Today we return from Tokyo back to our home base in Kameoka for a party at E-chan’s house later that evening. During the train I finally got around to sending out the postcards that I had picked up so long ago. I know these will be sent out very late but I have cool cards and stamps that I wanted to get to people. The rest of the 3 hour trip was taken up with journal writing and napping.

When we returned to the Kyoto station, we split up to find some gifts for Dr. Stapp and E-chan. Shannon and I headed out the Kyoto Budo Center for Dr. Stapp’s present, a suburito, a wooden practice sword. The trip would also take us to the Kyoto Handicraft Center where I’d hoped to pick up a few gifts that I had eyeballed when I was there before.

Unfortunately, we got lost when we got off the bus. We took a wrong turn and had to take a taxi for a 3 block, ¥640 cab ride. I think that a taxi from the Kyoto station is the best way to get here both in time and money since it was easy to get lost with the maps we had.

In addition to the suburito, I also picked up a nice iaido hakama at the martial arts stores near the Budo Center but I forgot to get knee pads for iaido. I guess I’ll have to order some over the Internet.

Next I joined Shannon over at the Kyoto Handicraft Center where she was looking for a lacquer painting of Fuji in vain. I got several good gifts for friends and family at reasonable prices. I still couldn’t find a few gifts so that means I’ll have to scramble tomorrow.

We returned to Kameoka to meet up with everyone to put the finishing touches on the presents we wanted to present tonight. One group got Ei-chan a very nice watch. We all signed Dr. Stapp’s suburito in English on one side and Japanese on the other.

E-Chan’s house is about 10 minutes away from the train station so it was a nice little walk to make us a little hungrier for dinner. E-chan’s daughter and son-in-law were there and visited with them for a while until dinner was ready. Dinner was, as you would expect, delicious. There was sushi along with yakitori and great bakery goods. We of course overate.

Afterwards, we made a JSAP name plaque for the 2004 class. Since no one was good a drawing we had to decide on something simple. We finally ended up with a design of a couple of hands reaching out to each other. The hands were created by using one finger from everyone in the group. Since we only had a few colored pen and pencils we needed something to make the Japanese rising sun in the middle. The secret ingredient, lip stick.

Tomorrow, our last full day in Japan.

Today was our big day off and we had a couple of choices open to us about what we could do. We could head out to Mt. Fuji or stay in Tokyo. We decided against Fuji because it was too much time on a train and not enough time doing stuff.

Out targets for the day were the Imperial Palace and various museums in the area. The Imperial Palace was a very impressive place from the outside but when we went in, it was under massive reconstruction and almost everything interesting was closed.

Over lunch, we decided our initial plan wasn’t working so we decided to head out to DisneySea and buy a discount Starlight Ticket there. Needless to say, it was a great decision on our part. We had a total blast there!

I was worried for a while about what kind of crowds would be there. It was the first weekend in June, on a Saturday, and there were a million or so cars in the parking lots. I just assumed there would be a ton of kids and parents there. We were pleasantly surprised though, there were quite a few people there but it didn’t seem overly crowded. I guess that a year round school year and school on Saturday kept the number of kids on hand low.

Since our time was limited so we planned to hit as many of the popular rides as we could. It required careful planning and a whole lot of running.

We first started out with Journey to the Center of the Earth (wait time 40 minutes) after snagging a Fast Pass 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ride for later. The Fast Pass allows you to get into an express line so you don’t have to wait as long. You can only have a limited number of Fast Passes at any one time however so we had to add that factor to our plan .

Journey to the Center of the Earth was pretty fun. After taking an elevator ride down who knows how long, you were ushered aboard a mocked up tunnel car. The attendants said something to us in Japanese. I’m pretty sure it was something like, “please keep your hands in the car” but it could have been anything. The car took us past some of the monsters that showed up in Jules Verne’s book. I know it sounds cheesy just to see some animated whatsits, but at some point you just let go and let yourself be absorbed into the ride. Then you can really enjoy the twists, little detail effects, and surprises that the ride throws at you. The ride ended with the best part, the long, screaming, drop down Prometheus Mountain, the highest point in Disney Sea.

We had hoped that we could get out of Journey to the Center of the Earth in time to go to the Disney-tainment show. When we left the ride and got to the show, the place was already packed and we would have to stand out side the seating area to watch the show. Even in Japan we would have stand up on our tiptoes to see over the gates and crowds. We decided against waiting for the show so we killed time in some nearby stores and restaurants and got a few pictures of Pluto until we stood in line to Encore!

While shopping, I tried on a pair of Mickey ears. A Japanese girl asked us if she could take our picture with her phone. I guess foreigners with Mickey ears are unusual for a picture. We naturally said yes but I think I surprised her when I pulled out my business card and asked her to email me the photo. She eventually did and it turns out she was an English major in college. Wherever you are lovable-dog.7.8.9@docomo.ne.jp, thanks for the photo!

Encore! (wait time 35 minutes) was a show featuring a collection of famous Broadway songs with accompanying musical and dancing numbers to go along with it. The show was in a beautiful theater in the corner of the park. We got great seats right in the middle about the 8th or 9th row. One of our fears about coming here is that everything, including the music, would be in Japanese. Fortunately, only the I recognized many of the songs but couldn’t place them with their accompanying musicals. There was music from Cats, West Side Story, Cabaret, and Oklahoma sung and danced wonderfully. Much fun was had by all.

Our next target was the StormRider just north of us. We knew it was going to be a popular ride since all the Fast Passes for it were already used up when we got to the park. True to our fears, there was an 80 minute line so we decided to go to the Indiana Jones ride to get a FastPass for later and catch a show in the meantime.

The show we went to see was called Starlight Jazz. We arrived fairly early (25 minutes) and got decent seats where we could see and be comfortable. We had to wait for about 10 or 15 minutes and the jazz band came out and played for us before the main event. They were pretty good and a nice set up for the main event.

The Starlight Jazz show hit a lot of the standard jazz tracks from the early jazz era. The host of the show was probably an American who was supposed to be channeling Cab Calloway but he didn’t really sound like he had jazz training. He had a great voice but it was too clean. The lady that sang a lot of the jazz songs, and who was also probably American, was a different matter. She had some great pipes and belted out some great music. The backup band, again, was great and they had some good dancing as well. We very much enjoyed ourselves.

After Starlight Jazz, we hustled to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. We were proud of ourselves when it took us only 12 minutes to take our seats on the next ride. That was even after stopping to snap a few pictures of the Nautilus below us.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was a pretty neat ride. You sat in a tiny replica Nautilus in front of a bubble window. The window was filled with water so it looked like you were underwater all the time. It was a pretty convincing illusion since they pumped bubbles into when you were submerging and when you looked at the car in front of you it looked like the entire thing was underwater.

Next we headed to Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull ride. We had FastPasses to this ride but it still took us 30 or so minutes to get on, not too bad. You boarded a ‘jeep’ and headed out to follow Indy on his adventures. The jeep passed by some perilous places like a old rope bridge that collapses at the last second that had us screaming. Occationally, Indiana Jones would pop up and tell us something in Japanese. Oh well you can’t have everything. The ride ends with the big boulder coming down on your jeep, and that’s where they take the commemorative picture. Yup, I looked really funny screaming like a girl.

After the ride we waited on one of the Lost River Bridges for about 15 minutes for the nightly firework show across the way in nearby Disney Land. Unfortunately, we waited in vain since it was canceled due to weather. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the weather just a large cloud moving in the distance. It was our major bummer of the day.

It was getting late and we only had time for one more ride, StormRider. So we split up, Shannon stayed in line at Storm Rider and I went after the delicious Strawberry popcorn that we had been smelling all day. When I got back to the line, an act that would get me yelled at in American, nothing happened. I guess I just played the stupid foreigner card just right.

StormRider was a lot of fun if a bit confusing. When we finally got into the building where the ride was, we got a lecture in Japanese about what StormRider was. I didn’t get much from the lecture except that StormRider is supposed to be a large aircraft of some type, that flies into storms and uses a transformer-like device to blow the storm up.

After boarding the ride, Disney again worked their magic making the experience incredibly enjoyable. Everybody entered a little auditorium and strapped into their chairs. The set was the observation deck of the StormRider so you could see everywhere the aircraft was going. You had the standard swooping too close to something in the air, but this time, the entire room moved to match the movements on the screen. At one point in the ride, after the StormRider had entered the storm, the hull became breached. When it did, little drops of water rained down on the entire crowd and really surprised us. This an other little details made it the best ride of the day.

After StormRider the park started closing down and we really didn’t really want to leave. We stayed as long as we could in the various shops near the exit and I picked up a few last minute gifts for friends and family.

Sadly at some point we had to leave. We boarded the monorail and headed back to the train station and our ride home. It turns out that we had perfect timing that night. We caught the very subway back to our hotel.

In retrospect, I wished we had spent the full day at DisneySea. Next year y’all make sure you do this or Fuji on your day off!

Tomorrow, the last trip to our home away from home.

Today is Japan Wal-Mart day but first we had to get there. Apparently we left right at the rush hour because we saw Tokyo’s infamous train station crowds. Our experience included the white-gloved train attendants who were prepared to shove the crowds into the trains so the doors can close. We arrived a little early so it seemed like we were in a little danger until our train showed up. When a train arrived, it was just like getting caught in a flood people who were clogging the escalators up to the exits. Our group had to hide behind a concrete pillar so we wouldn’t get washed away by crowds from arriving trains. Fortunately, the train we boarded wasn’t as crowded as some of the others that we saw and we were able to ride comfortably which is fine by me.

Our contact today was Mike Bratcher one of Wal-Mart’s high level executives in Japan. In December 2002, Wal-Mart bought a 37.7% share of Seiyu, Japan’s struggling number five retailer and is in the process of getting their operations up to Wal-Mart standards. The company will still be called Seiyu for the time being and Wal-Mart won’t extend their brand unless they can function with the Wal-Mart quality and price. Seiyu can’t simply lower prices in the same manner Wal-Mart currently does since it does not have a cost structure to support it. Seiyu still has a brand equity of trust as well and Wal-Mart believes that it can leverage that brand name until it can make the name change to Wal-Mart. Seiyu’s market problems in combination with Seiyu’s president realizing a need to change the direction of his company greatly aided Wal-Mart’s efforts in Japan.

Mike talked a lot about differences in culture that makes doing business difficult. To emphasize the point, he asked what he had done in our meeting that would be considered mistakes in a meeting with Japanese people. Some of the examples he cited were, no detailed meeting agenda, no biographies of the people at the meeting, and a seating arrangement that does not put the people who are in charge in their proper places.

Japanese businesspeople hate to be surprised in a meeting and want to understand what is going on beforehand. Giving them time to read all the relevant information before meeting produces wonders in results. No new information should be brought to a meeting. There is a term called nemowashi that requires everyone to be in agreement on what to be done before the meeting is even held.

Meetings must also always start and end on time and everybody should be given the opportunity to talk. Finally, it must be determined who is the owner of a particular task and when will the task will be done.

This attention to detail is also seen in planning. Not only is planning is a high priority to the Japanese business system but process planning is huge. Unlike in American where we can abstract certain parts of a plan out since we know conditions will change, the Japanese have to understand the whole plan and all the details before they can commit to it. This takes more time but the Japanese more patient, longer term view of business.

The amount of indirect communication used by Japanese businesspeople is very high especially since hard to explicitly say ‘no’. If an American encounters a problem in a meeting, he will come out and express it verbally. However in Japan, one might use a sigh or where they are looking even though they are agreeing with a course of action verbally.

The Japanese are very risk adverse since public failure and the attendant humiliation and loss of face is very bad. Start up experience is not liked here since failure in those businesses is common. No adrenaline junkies need apply. This attitude makes it difficult for American retailers since not everything promoted works. Instead, risk shouldering is a more common tactic used. The risk of failure is shared among many people which is a more acceptable outcome to a new business venture.

Hierarchy is very important. The official lead may not have real decision making power. It is hard to give a differing opinion especially to a superior. You are also not allowed to bypass your superior. Mike recounted a time where they asked one Japanese manager to talk to another manager to get a particular task done. Since the second manager was not in the first managers chain of command, he could not simply have a conversation and complete the task. Rather, he had to spend considerable time working his way around with his chain of command where he could get his message to the appropriate person.

Finally, Mike emphasized the importance of translators. He gave us a though experiment to show the importance of translators. Try to translate the ideas given by one person in the room, restate what they say, to someone else in your own language. If your translators is translating 80% of that ideas, that is good, but a 30% translation rate is bad. To avoid these kinds of problems, give your translators the notes to the meeting just like they were another business attendee. This lets the translator know what they’re talking about when they are translating.

The evening activity is a visit to the famed Kodo drum troupe. We arrived a few hours early to the concert hall since Dr. Stapp had arranged for us to see Kodo warm up and practice some before the evenings concert. Jun Akemoto, manager of North America tours, was our guide at the practice very impressive and very loud.

After the practice we talked with one of the members of the troupe who grew up in Missouri just like Kelli did. He talked about how he joined Kodo. He was trained as a jazz musician but went to the tryouts on the small island off the western coast of Japan where Kodo is based. At the tryouts, they look for general aptitude and spirit. Once you are accepted, you stay on the island for a two year apprenticeship. During that time you run several miles a day, plant rice and do other farm work and also practice music. In addition to drums, you also learn how to play the flute and to sing. After you complete the apprenticeship, there is a one year probationary period where you go on the road and play with the group. If you pass this step, then you are in the group for as long as you want.

The Kodo members are in excellent shape (as many of the ladies in our group noticed) and look like male models. During several of the drum sessions the drummers are wearing nothing but a loincloth. This prompted me to suggest that they drop the drumming and make a Kodo home workout video. I’m sure they could clean up.

Tomorrow, free time in Tokyo!

Today is another busy day for us. Our first stop is the US embassy to discuss trade and other commercial issues with the diplomats here. We will be leaving a little early to have breakfast with Dr. Stapp’s friend.

There were a quite a few police along the streets leading up to the embassy. Dr. Stapp was even stopped by a Japanese police officer as we walked up the main gate of the embassy. Fortunately, Skip was able to get the guards attention and get us through.

Then we began our security check as we entered the main embassy building. We had to walk through a metal detector and our cameras, cell phones or Palm Pilots had to be checked in to avoid bomb threats. Japan’s elections won’t be held for some time so I didn’t worry too much about terrorist threats at this time.

Breakfast was a pleasant surprise. It was mostly your standard American fare, bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, etc. and we could get our eggs well done. It was, however, staffed by some of the surliest polite people in Japan. “You want bacon with that? Sure, I’ll get your bacon, sir.”

The first meeting of the morning was with Joel Fishel. He gave us a little information on his background and his current position. His undergraduate degree was political science but he also has an MBA. Before his posting to Japan, he spent three years in Beijing and four in Hong Kong. The last two years have been in Japan. Although, he is paid a lower salary than some of his contemporaries back in the US he has some pretty good perks that make up for it. He is required to take a 6 week long vacation in the US so he doesn’t go native. Most of his local expenses are taken care of and he gets COLA for the host country which in the case of Japan is quite large.

Mr. Fishel is a member of the Foreign Commercial Service which is a part of the Department of Commerce and not the Department of State like regular diplomats are. He is responsible for helping American companies operate smoothly in Japan. He is not a trade representative who are sometimes considered the bad guys since he does not have to fight local battles against Japanese government and business interests.

He next gave us a breakdown of who works at the embassy. 35-40% of that embassy staff are diplomats while the rest are becoming increasing more law enforcement oriented. Common concerns are drugs, smuggling, terrorism, and counterfeiting. Of the approximately 600 people who work for the US government in only 60 perform commercial work.

Then he began to talk about why Japan is still a very important player in the world economy in spite of the growth of China. There is still lot of wealth in this country and will be for a long time. Currently, Japan is 2nd globally in terms of total wealth. The second reason is that it is much easier to do business in Japan now than 20 years ago. Most tariffs and have gone down but there are still non-tariff barriers such as the various kierestsu and cultural characteristics such as xenophobia and a highly perfectionist attitude that keep foreign competition out.

Revolution/evolution going on in the retail sector was the final thing that Mr. Fishel mentioned. In Japan everybody takes a piece of the profits at every level of the supply chain passing a higher cost to the consumer. The relationships between the members at step of the chain are more important than ultimate price. However, Fishel believes that Japan will look more and more like the West as price becomes more important not only in Japan but globally.

We left Joel to head to the agriculture briefing. We met Clay Hamilton who explained the job of the Agricultural Department in Japan. They are primarily involved in export to Japan issues but they also collect data on trade policy and sanitary issues such as pesticides, BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease), etc.

He had a Power Point presentation ready for us that outlined what the Agricultural Department did and some information about food and Japan. Some of the interesting bullet points about Japan are:
Japan has had some bad food safety scandals which make consumers very concerned about where their food comes from. People like to see their food being made in restaurants and will pay 20-30% if safety can be guaranteed. Store generics are used not as a lower price alternative as they are in the US but as a safer alternative than branded products. The generics have picture and background of the farmers who produced the product to reinforce this image.
Bar scanning of beef in stores and you can find out where it came from and who the parents are. Theoretically one can trace beef back many generations
However, this system only traces the safest beef. These kiosks are in many grocery stores but hardly anybody uses the system
Japan imports 60% of its calories.
Farmers in Japan are aging, less than 2% are under the age of 30.
Japan has half the people but spends almost as much as the US does on food.
Changing demographics are starting to catch up with Japan. They have had to close schools because there are no children to fill them. This is hard to believe from my travels in Japan. I see tons of school groups and lots of pregnant women on the train.
Trying to reduce rice production.
Japanese consumers are very convenience oriented with several chains set up to cater to this. There is a Family Mart, Lawsons, am pm, etc. on every corner, sometimes literally. On one block I saw an am pm convenience store on three of the corners.
Convenience stores are becoming more flexible as well. 7-11, for example, has a truck that comes by to change out its freezer cabinets from breakfast to lunch to dinner foods everyday.
Japan doesn’t allow GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Japanese consumers don’t like GMOs and the laws allows no more that 5% of a food to be genetically modified. This is unlikely to change since retailer’s profit margins are small and can’t risk any losses by introducing new biotech foods.
Chicken is hard to compete against other Asian countries
More health , conscious, more vegetables, yogurt, addition benefits added, etc.
Japanese consumers are demanding more more style in their food. Water bars serving dozens of different brands of water are popping up and groceries are concentrating on making things look better.
Demand for ethnic food is growing, particularly in Asian cuisine and fusion foods where a Japanese twist is added to ethnic foods. An amusing example of this is how Starbucks is replacing many of its coffee based items with green tea. For example, you can get green tea cappucino at Starbucks. Bagels are also another up and coming food.
More value and more choices are appearing. High end/low end stores are appearing within the same company.
Gender roles are changing, more men are cooking.

One of the big topics facing the Agricultural Department is the importation of American beef by Japan since the discovery of BSE. Since that time, Japan has imported its beef from Australia and New Zealand. However, there are working groups between the US and Japan should allow the importation of American beef again by late summer.

Next we had an economics briefing by John Wecker, First Secretary of the Economics Section and Daniel Chen, an intern on his first day. Wecker’s belief is that the Japanese economy picking up after 12 or so years of downswing but he’s not sure if its permanent. As an officer of the US government he wants to encourage Japanese economic growth because Japan is an economic driver for Asia and the world and the US and Japan have shared values such as democracy, Iraqi reconstruction, and regional stability.

Mr. Wecker named three groups that provide suggestions for the various players in the commerce between the US and Japan. They consist of the Economic Partnership for Growth, where sub-cabinet members of both governments discuss common issues, Private Sector Government Committee-non-governmental, creates issues for the Economic Partnership for Growth to discuss and the Regional Reform and Competition Equipment group.

After Mr. Wecker’s overview he answered some questions. Here are a few of the things he discussed:

Telecommunications
NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) the national phone company is still 40% owned by government, which discourages private growth. Since NTT has been deregulated, broadband rate cheapest and fastest in the world. $40/month for 40 Mbps. Yes, 40 Mbps is the number he gave. Wireless expected to grow just as broadband has in the past year or so.

Free Trade
The US wants Japan to get involved with Doha development accord in WTO. They are also working on free trade treaties with Singapore and Mexico, however, they do exclude products they don’t want in their country.

Japan and China and US
US deficit is greater with China now, not with Japan. The pressure has now been turned away from Japan and put on China

Outsourcing
IT outsourcing hasn’t occurred yet in Japan because there isn’t a large pool of Japanese speakers overseas.

Japanese Banking System
Japanese banks have been having problems with bad loans. US thinks Japan should restructure the banking system to discourage bad loans. The Oversights Financial Services Agency (FSA) is the regulatory agency that oversees the banks. It has been pressuring banks to stop giving new loans. However, there has been private/public inbreeding of positions of power. It is common for someone working on the FSA to retire and go to work for a private corporation.
Japan also has unusual reporting rules for its financial statements. No one can understand how footnotes in reports work and this hinders foreign investment.

At lunch, Skip gave us a military briefing. Japan buys a lot of top military hardware from US. It has some of the most advanced aircraft hardware outside of the US. Japan is unusual in that the carrier Kitty Hawk has its base here. The Kitty Hawk is an older carrier with a conventional power plant but the US Navy wants to replace it with a nuclear carrier. Japan is resisting this since it is leery of nuclear power.

Skip finally warned us about the Roppangi are where we’ve been staying. Several bar clients have been slipped mickeys and have been robbed. You have been warned.

After the embassy, we had the rest of the day free so we returned to the hotel to change. After changing we headed out to the next stop of the Akihabara. In one of the subway interchanges, I see a guy in blue came out of the corner of my eye and put his hand on Nhan’s shoulder. It was one of a pair of police officers who had stopped Nhan and had began to ask him questions. All of us almost at once wailed “Alisa!” who had gotten a little ahead of us. She came back and talked with the police to find out what was going on. There was no specific charge, I guess Nhan just looked like a criminal. After showing the police our train passes they let us go. I think the fact that Alisa can speak fluent Japanese really helped us out.

Now for the main event of the day, maybe even the trip, Akihabara. Probably the best way I can describe it is nothing but one long street of BestBuys, CompUSAs, and Circuit Citys interspersed with comic book and fightin’ robot toy stores with the occasional video game arcade thrown in. It was a real gadget geek’s dream.

There, you could find almost any tech you want, cameras, phones, MP3 players, computer components everything. I think we saw some of the smallest computers I have ever seen. I wish I could have picked one of them up since it would have made my travel burden lighter. Everything we saw was slightly ahead of the US but costs 30-40% more than in the States. Since I don’t have a job yet I figured I could wait for a while before I bought something cool.

The first stop we made was at a store called Gamers. It is one of a chain of stores with lots and lots of manga and anime. There were 6 levels of stuff. It started off with a couple of levels of comic books, then a couple of levels of DVDs and video games, and then a couple of levels of toys and card games. None of it made much sense to me since I don’t follow manga but I wished I knew how to read Japanese so I could make sense of it.

The final stop we made was at a local arcade. I guess I’m too used to playing PC games. I just can’t play something that doesn’t have a mouse and a keyboard. I got killed at all the games we played. I wound up playing a few of the older games but at a ¥100 a pop where I didn’t get killed in the first five seconds.

That being said there were some cool games being played there. There was a giant fighting robot game where you sit in the cockpit of one of these machines and fight it out. Several large screens let everybody watch to see what you were doing. I thought about playing this game but I didn’t bring enough money to climb the learning curve and to endure the embarrassment of getting killed repeatedly in front of everyone in the arcade.

After spending a few hours we went to Shibuya (which I pronounced Shi-BOO-YAA! Which made it sound more fun.) I think all of Tokyo was there since it was amazingly crowded. I still don’t understand how I wasn’t knocked down by someone. Shibuya reminded me of Piccadilly Circus with the large TV screens mounted on the sides of buildings. There was even a huge advertisement for the upcoming Harry Potter movie, all in Japanese of course.

We were supposed to meet another group who had mentioned they had gone to see the Japanese Chippendales (a group that will remain nameless for a price) at a well known landmark but the other group couldn’t find it (or couldn’t they?). So we wandered up and down the streets of Shibuya.

Shibuya seemed to be a prime shopping and entertainment district with tons of shops and a few movie theaters. They also had some restaurants and including a doner kebab (Turkish gyros) stand. Since I hadn’t had one of these since Vienna I jumped at the chance to order one. Tim also joined me for one as well. Usually, doner kebabs come with a yogurt based sauce that I don’t usually like. This stand offered a couple of other sauces that I had not seen before such as a hot and chili sauce. I had a ketchup based sauce on my doner kebab and thought it was fabulous.

Since I had gotten so little sleep in the past couple of nights I returned home around 8 PM to catch up on my journal and to try to get to bed early. I also wanted to find the wireless hot spot that my classmates said they could get in their rooms. After about an 45 minutes walking around the hotel with NetStumbler I noticed that there was a hot spot apparently coming from outside of my window. The signal was such that I had to put it on top of my TV and stand up to actually get a usable signal. It was a 802.11b connection but it was free so I uploaded a ton of pictures to my site and made a few posts on my blog. I also got to IM Kathleen which was a pleasant surprise.

Tomorrow, Wal-Mart/Seiyu and the Kodo drum company.