Starting an event or business idea can without much discussion be considered a challenge in itself; if you then decide to undertake this challenge in Tokyo you will find yourself facing a very tough challenge. The obvious barriers are language and culture, but you also have the infamous Japanese bureaucracy, strong business mentality and immense competition. With this in mind, my partner and I set out to complete our weekly goal of finding venues that would like to work with us, ready to face a lot of “not interested” and “who are you again?” type attitudes. We were pleasantly surprised to find most of the people we talked to very kind, patient and genuinely interested in what we had to say. There is a very positive “anything is possible” attitude in Tokyo and a lot of people running businesses with an extremely idealistic rather than capitalistic point of view.
What was even more surprising was the extent that we could use English with most of the people we encountered. As I mentioned before, the language barrier is very real in Japan, and many people who come here are usually convinced to learn Japanese before they even begin to work or live in Japan. So are Japanese people really that bad at English? ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in my opinion. We found that the Japanese people we met were at first apologizing greatly for their lack of knowledge in English, but once the ball was rolling they kept up with the discussion and were very much involved with comments and ideas. Like so many things in Japan, the act of apologizing is a mere formality, a programmed social sequence that you are supposed to act out when you encounter a foreigner. They are not near the standard of central European countries but the Japanese are not as disabled when it comes to English as they are made out to be.
The week ended, as I said, with several positive meetings and especially one venue that were very helpful and eager to hear more about our project. In truth, when we started looking at everything that had to be done to make this project work, we were a little pessimistic. It is easy to get lost in all of the difficulties and challenges ahead and dig yourself into a negative hole. The positive result from this week’s endeavors has given us a second wind that I now realize we desperately needed! The “can do” attitude that can be found in Tokyo can be compared to the classic ideology of America as the “land of opportunity”. We are up and running for now, question is how long we can go on a tank of “can do” attitude?
Things to do:
- Get out on the web
- Presentation to foreign and local clients
- Time schedule
