“I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck”" ~Stanley Baldwin~

Admittedly, the above quote makes me uncomfortable. Yet if you live in Japan or work with the Japanese, it's best to stop snipping and sniping at the shallowness of a plastic culture.

Young women (for the most part) dress like carbon copies of manga women images: short skirts covering slim legs, perfectly applied makeup and designer bags usually complete the ensemble bought with daddy's moolah.

Coeds put on their sterile yet clean recruiting suits and apply for jobs which will lock them into a conformity mode for a lifetime...at least it used to be that way.

Selling anything in Japan requires good packaging and great timing. Most products and trends change in a blink of the eye, but if you have a good game plan then you can continue to prosper.

McDonald's is an outstanding example of adaptability and a game plan. Many other formerly bland-tasting fast food chains now get it because they modeled McDonald's success here.

Japan Niche Opportunity of the Week

Women's working conditions are worsening for working women of the part-time variety, according to panelists at a recent Tokyo forum. The low wages for women mean that a single mom would have to work 3600 hours a year at 900 yen per hour (the going rate) to squeak by with two school-age children.

In the last ten years or so, the number of people earning less than 2 million yen per year has increased from nearly 8 million to well over 10 million. Of those workers, seventy percent are women and thirty percent of those women earn less than 2 million yen.

While this may seem appalling to westernized women and men, in Japan this has been and always will be the norm. Nix the idea that corporations and government officials will ever change their bias ways in a meaningful fashion, even as the population decreases and the number of elderly needing support increases.

The panelist concluded that J(Just)O(Over)B(Broke) training is the answer, but that is totally wishful thinking. While women may come on the cheap, Indians and Vietnamese come even cheaper to corporate interests.

The plight of Japanese women is as much the fault of women as it is men. Women often choose home-body marriages when and if their husbands can afford to carry the financial load. The men still expect or subtly pressure women to quit when their motherly duties conflict with their workload, and a large majority of women still eventually relent.

Moreover, I have taught close to a thousand Japanese women English in my 28 years here, and all but maybe a dozen have zero curiosity about careers or entrepreneurship.

The time is ripe to teach all women self-sufficiency, not just single moms. There are scattered NGOs and other support groups in Japan doing just that, but mindsets of both gender are rigid still.

A series of regional high school after-school programs for women desiring to live independently and become entrepreneurially-minded would be a winner.

Once women graduate from high school, the education system and society as a whole sets low expectation for the fair sex, so at adult age they are locked into stereotypical roles. With few exceptions, they will seek out an up-and-coming hubby rather than the grind to success.

They must develop the self-confidence in their formative years. Many prep schools (jukus) face a rapidly-declining youth market. Many of them would be all ears about women entrepreneurial programs.

Do You Want to Introduce Your Product or Service in Japan? Looking for partners? CLICK HERE.　

Empowering Japan Resources

Glass Supplies and Manufacturers

Line Japan

Nihon Kenshi

TK Stained Glass Design

Arisawa Mfg.

Asahi Glass

Central Glass

Flat Glass Association of Japan

Okamoto Glass

Ohara

Sumita Optical

Nippon Electric Glass

Hoya

Isuzu Glass

Nippon Electric Glass

Toyo Glass

Yokogawa Electric

Citizen Finetech Miyota

Sanwa Denki Kogyo

Trimatiz

Nippon Sheet Glass

Uranium Glass Exhibition

Shin-Etsu Quartz

Soga Glass

Narumi

Hayakawa & Co.

Mitsubishi Diamond Industrial

Glass Recycling Committee of Japan

Glass Village

Satake Glass

Hot Glass Studio

U.S.-Japan Flat Glass Agreement

Asahi Technoglass

Hario Glass

Matsunami Glass

Nakajima Glass

Osaka Sheet Glass

Unitaka Glass Fiber

Nihon Yamamura Glass

Coming Up

2009 Microelectronics Show

6/03/09~6/05/09

Exchanging technical information about technologies, materials, equipment, and process materials for electronic circuits and packaging used in all types of electronic, information communications, and control devices as well as contributing to the development of the entire electronic circuit industry. For details, CLICK HERE

Over-the-Counter Drugs at Convenience Stores

This week consumers will be able to purchase nonprescription drugs at convenience stores and supermarkets as a result of deregulation.

Under the revised Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, convenience store and supermarket chain operators will be allowed to sell most nonprescription products such as cold and stomach medicines at outlets staffed with registered sales clerks. This change should pry open conceptual marketing of non-prescription medicinals and other remedies.

Maybe this is an opportunity to introduce folk remedies which will help distinguish one convenience store from another.

Inner City Hydro Power

Japan is an energy-dependent nation which, for better or worse, was crippled in its last and hopefully final war more than a half-century ago.

Since that time, its technological progress has enabled it to deal with energy concerns more dynamically than any other nation.

In Japan, the small-scaled mini- and micro-hydroelectric power plants have been regarded for a considerable time as being suitable for creating electricity in mountainous regions, but they have through refinement come to be regarded as excellent for Japanese cities as well. Kawasaki City Waterworks, Japan Natural Energy Company, and Tokyo Electric Power Company have all been involved in the development of small-scale hydroelectric power plants within Japanese cities.

How can this technology benefit your community or even corporation. Pay attention to these developments.

Back on the Farm

Many city dwellers are getting stressed out by longer work hours with minimum salary boosts and perks. Some want to escape now, while most others are dreaming of returning to rural roots if the conditions don't improve in the future.

A Japanese university is providing agrarian tours costing about $400 for those wanting to be trained as farmers. The tours are proving popular, and a savvy entrepreneur could offer overseas tours of this ilk with an interpreter in tow. Watch this...

Thoughts From Above And Below

Flow With The Flow