7 ms·

I just moved to Japan, and it's fascinating that connotations (including my previous) with Japan are "High tech, futuristic, efficient" when in reality it is, "

I just moved to Japan, and it's fascinating that connotations (including my previous) with Japan are "High tech, futuristic, efficient" when in reality it is, "slow moving, traditional, and (frequently) inefficient." I can comment more as to why / how. This woman is not only fighting cultural norms of the _world_, but also Japan. Software engineering, in general, lags so far behind the rest of the world, save robotics. It's starting to change, and I'm glad that people like Wakamiya-san are preventing the creation of a 'conventional software engineer'. Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc.

huseyinkeles 8y ago
>> I can comment more as to why / how. please, I'd like to hear your observations.
- olingern 8y ago
  I'm from the south in the US, specifically the Appalachia (`app-uh-lai-chuh` for us) region. The culture I grew up in and Japan aren't so dissimilar. That's partly why I live in Japan. Aside from people being on time and getting food to you -- "things" (for lack of better term) move slow here. Some examples: - It took me three weeks to get a debit card from one of the national banks here. They have a web login and send me an email every time I swipe my card; however, there's no way to check my balance online. - At restaurants / coffee shops you'll stand in line for an exceptional amount of time. In NYC, if a line gets "out of hand" baristas / servers shorten the amount of attention they give to each customer. It's expected when you get to the counter, you know what you want. Not in Japan (or at least all the places I've visited). Many times people will get to the counter, after standing in line, and debate with their friends what to purchase. It's always great that you know the person behind the counter is giving you their full attention, but it's frustrating when you're behind 2 - 3 people who are taking their time with their purchase. It's especially ironic in a culture that is fixated on not inconveniencing others. - Swiping a credit card is weirdly complicated. In most places in the USA / the rest of the world -- it's a 'swipe and go' sort of deal. In Japan many systems are geared more toward physical money and transit cards (Passmo / Suica). In many cases, using your bank card requires closing the transaction on the register, printing a receipt, keying this in on another machine, waiting, and signing (in some cases). The efficiency that transactions happen with in the USA is definitely something I took for granted. - In terms of it being traditional here, I liken current Japanese culture to the US in the 1930s - 40s. A majority of people who work in Tokyo will be in suits (sometimes known as 'salary men' depending on their position), and the gestures of bowing and greeting are much like America's pre-WWII culture of tipping hats / more formal language. I've always been fascinated with more humble, traditional culture(s). I think it attributes to better humans. Though it seems like I'm giving Japan a hard time in some ways -- it's just "different," but I wanted to highlight some of the ways that (as a foreigner) your predispositions affect your expectations of a culture. I largely attribute my own to media coverage of Japan in the U.S. Tangent to all of this. One of my favorite things that was unexpected, but obvious once I knew about it was the Japanese concept of "monozukuri"[1]. Many things are so well crafted here, because of a cultural emphasis on producing things with quality. I also think this is a part of why things move slow here. Americans are so focused on immediacy that there's a line of books exploiting that, Sam's "Learn X in 24HRs." I respect Japan for not being the "face paced" culture SF / NYC have turned into. Tokyo feels so tame in comparison, and (for me at least) that's a good thing. 1 - http://www.japanintercultural.com/en/news/default.aspx?newsid=88 http://www.japanintercultural.com/en/news/default.aspx?newsi...
  - gt2 8y ago
    Interesting observations. But for me, (been in Japan many times over the last 5 years), I didn't notice any of the items you mentioned. Seemed similar to NY/SF speed in Tokyo, Osaka, and Yokohama. To me, there is less or no small talk- definitely in places like Lawson and 7/11, but even department stores, with local or foreigner customers. I noticed things go slower in Kyoto and other small towns, but no slower than small towns anywhere else in the world.
    - olingern 8y ago
      > To me, there is less or no small talk- definitely in places like Lawson and 7/11, but even department stores, with local or foreigner customers. Even though I'm pretty basic, there are a couple of cashiers I'm friendly with / make small talk. I think it's there if you initiate it. Albeit, I'm pretty friendly / jovial. > I noticed things go slower in Kyoto and other small towns, but no slower than small towns anywhere else in the world. I think it depends on where in Tokyo you are. Ginza feels slower than Shibuya and Shinjuku to me. I'd say Tokyo is most like LA in how many different "feeling" neighborhoods / micro-cities you have within one area.
  - wst_ 8y ago
    > Many things are so well crafted here, because of a cultural emphasis on producing things with quality. I think this, at least partially, is the culprit behind being slow. Quality requires time, years of practice, sweat, dedication and experience. And it works really well for craftsmanship. Japan is well known for it's craft, art, cuisine and aesthetics - even in trivial cases like design of manholes or disposable shopping packages. Unfortunately, the same doesn't seem to work for technology, especially for IT. Learn a language/framework today, forget tomorrow, rapidly switch to more efficient solution, keep up with industry standards and everyday learn something new. There's no place for "learn once - master whole life" concept in current enterprise environment. Maybe with exclusion of basic principles. Everything else change on a daily basis. Yet, Japanese web pages tend to look like messy amateur pages on GeoCities 20 years ago and financial institutions wouldn't change for ages (actually, their online pages looks even worse.) I do disagree about restaurant lines, though. I've yet to see so well organized crowd. And people do know what to order when they reach the counter because in most places they have a menu in their hands long before they get there. And any other lines, on that matter, especially when you compare Western train/metro stations.
sdrothrock 8y ago
> when in reality it is, "slow moving, traditional, and (frequently) inefficient." Since you just moved here, I would also consider the "whys" of those problems you see. Approaches are probably different from what you're used to elsewhere, but that doesn't necessarily make them inefficient or bad -- just different from what you're used to.
- olingern 8y ago
  Agreed. You can see my other comment, but I think it takes some time to wrap your head around and reconciling the differences.
discordance 8y ago
I attended a Microsoft developer event in Tokyo today and was surprised that all of the keynote engineer speakers were female. Might have been a bit of a marketing exercise, but nonetheless it’s a really good thing to see.
- staticelf 8y ago
  If gender doesn't matter, why is it a good thing to see more of a specific one?
  - rwmj 8y ago
    If 100% of their engineers are women then yes they still have a problem. If it's a sign that they have a more even balance then it's a good thing because they're not wasting/ignoring 50% of the potential pool of people, and because diversity of backgrounds leads to better decision making and more innovation[1] which presumably as a tech company is a desirable outcome. [1] See references to papers in this blog posting: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/10/diversity-trumps-ability.html http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli... and also https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
    - madmulita 8y ago
      It might be a sign of exactly the opposite. Unless we know the method used to pick the speakers, it's all speculation.
- laurieg 8y ago
  Interestingly, I've was unable to attend a developer event in Japan last year due to my gender. I find all sorts of different types of sexism in Japan, but also lots of young hardworking people who have no time for it.
  - logicallee 8y ago
    Can you elaborate? What happened exactly and how were you informed?
cup-of-tea 8y ago
> Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc. How about not idolising anyone? Those role models you list are each admired for completely different reasons. What's wrong with them? At the moment your comment seems sexist.
- olingern 8y ago
  Right. Sexist. Okay. I'll bite. Since I'm clearly in the wrong here, I'll let you explain to minorities, women, and non-gendered people why there aren't any people in the engineering limelight that look like them. While you're at it, please figure out how to break into their subconscious to make them believe that they're capable while the rest of the world shows no clues of that. I'll be waiting.
  - surfmike 8y ago
    Totally agree we need role models from all groups and should make sure especially that the ones who are minorities get all the attention they deserve. That doesn't mean that our existing ones should be undesirable because of their gender and race.
    - klodolph 8y ago
      > That doesn't mean that our existing ones should be undesirable because of their gender and race. Do you think that's an argument someone is making here?
      - surfmike 8y ago
        Yes, I think parent saying "rather than" means that they prefer one over another. A both/and additive approach to diversity is much more just and healthy than an either/or zero-sum one. Indeed the latter just becomes discrimination in another form.
  - nateconq 8y ago
    I don't get the current obsession with sexism in IT. Are you not at all concerned about other fields such as nursing, human resources, and teaching?
fouric 8y ago
Why Grace and not Jobs/Gates/Woz? Please elaborate - I'm curious.
minicoolva 8y ago
I am in Japan, too How to contact you?
Sohakes 8y ago
Having Alan Turing as a role model helped me immensely with internalized homophobia. When I was younger I honestly thought there weren't many intelligent gay man, and that it was somehow a proof that I was never going to be really good. That was until I discovered Alan Turing was gay, and actively researched about intelligent gay people. Role models that are like you are so important. One day a friend asked why I got excited when I discovered some guy I admired was gay, and then I realized that he doesn't understand because he has lots of people like him in any area. I know it sounds kind of tribalist in a way, but when society puts you down because you are in a certain group, it's really hard to avoid thinking you are "limited" because of who you are. After seeing lots of people like me, it's less important to me to have these role models since now I know I'm no less of a person because of who I am. Point is, I don't think most people understand the impact of having role models that are like you, and that's why they don't "get it" when people talk about it.
- olingern 8y ago
  > When I was younger I honestly thought there weren't many intelligent gay man, and that it was somehow a proof that I was never going to be really good. That was until I discovered Alan Turing was gay, and actively researched about intelligent gay people. Indeed. Young people believing in themselves and feeling that the field will accept them is incredibly important. It reminds me of this quote from an article [1]: > ...any healthy child—if taught early and intensively—can be brought up to be exceptionally successful in any field. Children should be allowed to enjoy their childhood, but I think there is some ground to be covered in exposing more demographics to computer science early. [1] - https://daily.jstor.org/chess-grandmastery-nature-gender-genius-judit-polgar/ https://daily.jstor.org/chess-grandmastery-nature-gender-gen...

huseyinkeles 8y ago

>> I can comment more as to why / how. please, I'd like to hear your observations.

olingern 8y ago
I'm from the south in the US, specifically the Appalachia (`app-uh-lai-chuh` for us) region. The culture I grew up in and Japan aren't so dissimilar. That's partly why I live in Japan. Aside from people being on time and getting food to you -- "things" (for lack of better term) move slow here. Some examples: - It took me three weeks to get a debit card from one of the national banks here. They have a web login and send me an email every time I swipe my card; however, there's no way to check my balance online. - At restaurants / coffee shops you'll stand in line for an exceptional amount of time. In NYC, if a line gets "out of hand" baristas / servers shorten the amount of attention they give to each customer. It's expected when you get to the counter, you know what you want. Not in Japan (or at least all the places I've visited). Many times people will get to the counter, after standing in line, and debate with their friends what to purchase. It's always great that you know the person behind the counter is giving you their full attention, but it's frustrating when you're behind 2 - 3 people who are taking their time with their purchase. It's especially ironic in a culture that is fixated on not inconveniencing others. - Swiping a credit card is weirdly complicated. In most places in the USA / the rest of the world -- it's a 'swipe and go' sort of deal. In Japan many systems are geared more toward physical money and transit cards (Passmo / Suica). In many cases, using your bank card requires closing the transaction on the register, printing a receipt, keying this in on another machine, waiting, and signing (in some cases). The efficiency that transactions happen with in the USA is definitely something I took for granted. - In terms of it being traditional here, I liken current Japanese culture to the US in the 1930s - 40s. A majority of people who work in Tokyo will be in suits (sometimes known as 'salary men' depending on their position), and the gestures of bowing and greeting are much like America's pre-WWII culture of tipping hats / more formal language. I've always been fascinated with more humble, traditional culture(s). I think it attributes to better humans. Though it seems like I'm giving Japan a hard time in some ways -- it's just "different," but I wanted to highlight some of the ways that (as a foreigner) your predispositions affect your expectations of a culture. I largely attribute my own to media coverage of Japan in the U.S. Tangent to all of this. One of my favorite things that was unexpected, but obvious once I knew about it was the Japanese concept of "monozukuri"[1]. Many things are so well crafted here, because of a cultural emphasis on producing things with quality. I also think this is a part of why things move slow here. Americans are so focused on immediacy that there's a line of books exploiting that, Sam's "Learn X in 24HRs." I respect Japan for not being the "face paced" culture SF / NYC have turned into. Tokyo feels so tame in comparison, and (for me at least) that's a good thing. 1 - http://www.japanintercultural.com/en/news/default.aspx?newsid=88 http://www.japanintercultural.com/en/news/default.aspx?newsi...
- gt2 8y ago
  Interesting observations. But for me, (been in Japan many times over the last 5 years), I didn't notice any of the items you mentioned. Seemed similar to NY/SF speed in Tokyo, Osaka, and Yokohama. To me, there is less or no small talk- definitely in places like Lawson and 7/11, but even department stores, with local or foreigner customers. I noticed things go slower in Kyoto and other small towns, but no slower than small towns anywhere else in the world.
  - olingern 8y ago
    > To me, there is less or no small talk- definitely in places like Lawson and 7/11, but even department stores, with local or foreigner customers. Even though I'm pretty basic, there are a couple of cashiers I'm friendly with / make small talk. I think it's there if you initiate it. Albeit, I'm pretty friendly / jovial. > I noticed things go slower in Kyoto and other small towns, but no slower than small towns anywhere else in the world. I think it depends on where in Tokyo you are. Ginza feels slower than Shibuya and Shinjuku to me. I'd say Tokyo is most like LA in how many different "feeling" neighborhoods / micro-cities you have within one area.
- wst_ 8y ago
  > Many things are so well crafted here, because of a cultural emphasis on producing things with quality. I think this, at least partially, is the culprit behind being slow. Quality requires time, years of practice, sweat, dedication and experience. And it works really well for craftsmanship. Japan is well known for it's craft, art, cuisine and aesthetics - even in trivial cases like design of manholes or disposable shopping packages. Unfortunately, the same doesn't seem to work for technology, especially for IT. Learn a language/framework today, forget tomorrow, rapidly switch to more efficient solution, keep up with industry standards and everyday learn something new. There's no place for "learn once - master whole life" concept in current enterprise environment. Maybe with exclusion of basic principles. Everything else change on a daily basis. Yet, Japanese web pages tend to look like messy amateur pages on GeoCities 20 years ago and financial institutions wouldn't change for ages (actually, their online pages looks even worse.) I do disagree about restaurant lines, though. I've yet to see so well organized crowd. And people do know what to order when they reach the counter because in most places they have a menu in their hands long before they get there. And any other lines, on that matter, especially when you compare Western train/metro stations.

sdrothrock 8y ago

> when in reality it is, "slow moving, traditional, and (frequently) inefficient." Since you just moved here, I would also consider the "whys" of those problems you see. Approaches are probably different from what you're used to elsewhere, but that doesn't necessarily make them inefficient or bad -- just different from what you're used to.

olingern 8y ago
Agreed. You can see my other comment, but I think it takes some time to wrap your head around and reconciling the differences.

discordance 8y ago

I attended a Microsoft developer event in Tokyo today and was surprised that all of the keynote engineer speakers were female. Might have been a bit of a marketing exercise, but nonetheless it’s a really good thing to see.

staticelf 8y ago
If gender doesn't matter, why is it a good thing to see more of a specific one?
- rwmj 8y ago
  If 100% of their engineers are women then yes they still have a problem. If it's a sign that they have a more even balance then it's a good thing because they're not wasting/ignoring 50% of the potential pool of people, and because diversity of backgrounds leads to better decision making and more innovation[1] which presumably as a tech company is a desirable outcome. [1] See references to papers in this blog posting: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/10/diversity-trumps-ability.html http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli... and also https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
  - madmulita 8y ago
    It might be a sign of exactly the opposite. Unless we know the method used to pick the speakers, it's all speculation.
laurieg 8y ago
Interestingly, I've was unable to attend a developer event in Japan last year due to my gender. I find all sorts of different types of sexism in Japan, but also lots of young hardworking people who have no time for it.
- logicallee 8y ago
  Can you elaborate? What happened exactly and how were you informed?

cup-of-tea 8y ago

> Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc. How about not idolising anyone? Those role models you list are each admired for completely different reasons. What's wrong with them? At the moment your comment seems sexist.

olingern 8y ago
Right. Sexist. Okay. I'll bite. Since I'm clearly in the wrong here, I'll let you explain to minorities, women, and non-gendered people why there aren't any people in the engineering limelight that look like them. While you're at it, please figure out how to break into their subconscious to make them believe that they're capable while the rest of the world shows no clues of that. I'll be waiting.
- surfmike 8y ago
  Totally agree we need role models from all groups and should make sure especially that the ones who are minorities get all the attention they deserve. That doesn't mean that our existing ones should be undesirable because of their gender and race.
  - klodolph 8y ago
    > That doesn't mean that our existing ones should be undesirable because of their gender and race. Do you think that's an argument someone is making here?
    - surfmike 8y ago
      Yes, I think parent saying "rather than" means that they prefer one over another. A both/and additive approach to diversity is much more just and healthy than an either/or zero-sum one. Indeed the latter just becomes discrimination in another form.
- nateconq 8y ago
  I don't get the current obsession with sexism in IT. Are you not at all concerned about other fields such as nursing, human resources, and teaching?

fouric 8y ago

Why Grace and not Jobs/Gates/Woz? Please elaborate - I'm curious.

minicoolva 8y ago

I am in Japan, too How to contact you?

Sohakes 8y ago

Having Alan Turing as a role model helped me immensely with internalized homophobia. When I was younger I honestly thought there weren't many intelligent gay man, and that it was somehow a proof that I was never going to be really good. That was until I discovered Alan Turing was gay, and actively researched about intelligent gay people. Role models that are like you are so important. One day a friend asked why I got excited when I discovered some guy I admired was gay, and then I realized that he doesn't understand because he has lots of people like him in any area. I know it sounds kind of tribalist in a way, but when society puts you down because you are in a certain group, it's really hard to avoid thinking you are "limited" because of who you are. After seeing lots of people like me, it's less important to me to have these role models since now I know I'm no less of a person because of who I am. Point is, I don't think most people understand the impact of having role models that are like you, and that's why they don't "get it" when people talk about it.

olingern 8y ago
> When I was younger I honestly thought there weren't many intelligent gay man, and that it was somehow a proof that I was never going to be really good. That was until I discovered Alan Turing was gay, and actively researched about intelligent gay people. Indeed. Young people believing in themselves and feeling that the field will accept them is incredibly important. It reminds me of this quote from an article [1]: > ...any healthy child—if taught early and intensively—can be brought up to be exceptionally successful in any field. Children should be allowed to enjoy their childhood, but I think there is some ground to be covered in exposing more demographics to computer science early. [1] - https://daily.jstor.org/chess-grandmastery-nature-gender-genius-judit-polgar/ https://daily.jstor.org/chess-grandmastery-nature-gender-gen...