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"My impression as to your cheap labour was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see
by jacobwilliamroy 8y ago
"My impression as to your cheap labour was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see your men at work made me feel that you are a very satisfied and easy-going race who reckon time is no object. When I spoke to some managers they informed me that it was impossible to change the habits of a national heritage."
This excerpt appears in Ha-Joon Chang's book "Bad Samaritans" and it was written by an Australian consultant with regards to Japan in August 1915. Chang also mentions Sidney Gulick's 1903 book "Evolution of the Japanese" which also stereotypes the Japanese as "'easy-going' and 'emotional' people who possessed qualities like 'lightness of heart, freedom from all anxiety for the future, living chiefly for the present.'"
I don't have details on Brazil, but I am almost certain that this "Brazilian time" is just a symptom of some completely reversible, systemic problem that is making it difficult to do business with high-technologies in Brazil.
- Berunto 8y agoSo how long does it take to change the mindset and behavior of a complete country? ~80 years?
- jedmeyers 8y agoAnd losing a world war? Something really shocking has to happen for the whole country to rethink ways of doing things.
- lostlogin 8y agoApplied to other countries, what did the second one teach that the first didn’t?
- gricardo99 8y agorepetitio est mater studiorum “Repetition is the mother of all learning”
- Klover 8y agoThis is not useful in the slightest. What was different after the war was a late 20th century boost in economy for Japan. Does Uganda learn as much every day because of a quote?
- raziel2701 8y agoIt taught them that they're pacifists.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- masklinn 8y agoWWII Japan is the result of its about face, not its cause.
- Tharkun 8y agoTo anyone who finds this interesting and wants to explore this further: i can recommend the book 'Modern Japan: A Very Short Introduction'.
- jacobwilliamroy 8y agoJust a caveat, I am not an economist, and am quickly approaching the edge of my knowledge. I think that time is not really a factor here. Institutions like the IMF and WTO passively suppress the economic development of poor countries by withholding incentives unless they behave like rich countries. I don't think this is done out of malice though, because I've met people who genuinely believe that forcing businesses in Mozambique to compete directly with the U.S. economies of scale "creates a level playing field" and doesn't inhibit their growth in certain key industries at all.
- laughingman2 8y agoI think its done out of malice however they dress it up. Ignoring history of how stolen wealth from colonialism and protectionist policies of the west during the colonial era etc when its convenient to do so is nothing but malice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St... President Ulysses S. Grant stated: For centuries England has relied on protection, has carried it to extremes and has obtained satisfactory results from it. There is no doubt that it is to this system that it owes its present strength. After two centuries, England has found it convenient to adopt free trade because it thinks that protection can no longer offer it anything. Very well then, Gentlemen, my knowledge of our country leads me to believe that within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade. Now America and its lackeys in IMF and WTO want to do the same to the poorer countries.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoIf it is done with malice, it's the dumbest, waste of malice evil project ever because nobody really benefits. It is not done with malice. The IMF/WB believe that nations that have basic infrastructure, basic forms of democracy, low corruption and relatively open markets ... will be successfull. This is neither malicious nor entirely naive. It's pragmatically naive when you consider the leader of some nation may take a 10% cut off the loan, hire his buddies to 'build the dam that never gets built' and then of course you have a nation in debt ... but those debts are not advantageous to the West at all, so the conspiracy theories are wrong. Now - where there is actual malice is when a large, Western industrial conglomerate might win a big contract and so they influence, bribe, fake data - and then get the contract to 'totally overbuild' some kind of capacity leaving a nation with way more than they need. That's malice, but it's definitely not the IMF/WB or lending nations that win there.
- psergeant 8y ago“in establishing the rule of law, the first five centuries are always the hardest.”
- YinglingLight 8y agoOne generation. Hint: it involves women and birthrates.
- aikinai 8y agoThat’s fascinating! Does the book have any insight into how Japan made the complete 180° in I guess a few decades? The Meiji Restoration was already incredible but I thought the work ethic was there throughout and helped make it possible. I had no idea there was also a revolution of work ethic.
- johnchristopher 8y agoWait, what ? What makes you think (and other commentators) that it's the Japaneses who changed and not the view held by post-colonialists ? (Managers complaining about their workers ? How weird)
- jacobwilliamroy 8y agoIt wasn't just the Japanese. "Korean time" was a thing back when Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Germans also used to be stereotyped as dishonest, thieving, dull and overly emotional before their country industrialized. There is correlation between stereotypes and GDP.
- baud147258 8y agoLike the sterotypes common in (Western) Europe regarding Eastern Europe, like for the Polish people?
- kingofhdds 8y ago>Germans also used to be stereotyped as dishonest, thieving, dull and overly emotional before their country industrialized. Any links on this?
- j9461701 8y ago>Any links on this? https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3739&context=gradschool_theses https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h... TL;DR (it's a 213 page grad thesis) Old Germany used to be basically Hufflepuff, a simple-minded, loyal, obedient rustic bumbler who's too stupid to really be a threat or even much of a partner. New Germany arose post-German unification and especially post WW1, where the stereotypes shifted to the modern more sinister concept of a nation of amoral mad scientists and clockwork soldiers - largely as an attempt to justify Germany being the great rival of England.
- freddie_mercury 8y agoSimilarly, I read Pachinko a novel about Koreans in Japan in the period 1910-1940 (mostly). Koreans were all lazy, unintelligent, untrustworthy thieves. A stereotype that few would still hold today.....
- jacobwilliamroy 8y ago"Korean time" used to be a thing. Before the "Miracle on the Han river" (which was actually a carefully orchestrated economic development program run by the South Korean government and not a "miracle" at all) South Korea was one of the poorest countries on earth.
- southerndrift 8y agoBeing poor doesn't proof not being on time. It just means that they didn't have access to technologies that could have improved their efficiency.
- skgoa 8y agoLikewise, Germans were used or being drunk, largely unproductive and simple people. Then Prussia conquered conquered a large number of the german principalities and forced the other ones to join in a new German Empire. A massive economic boom followed, during which Germany was thoroughly industrialized.
- abledon 8y agoDid you read a book on this?
- cm2187 8y agoIt's amusing and in line with what my grand mother who grew up in the early 1900s Indochina told me about her (french) dad doing business there. The Chinese had the reputation to be super reliable and men of their word, while the Japanese had the reputation to be unreliable and ready to cross you at the first opportunity. On a longer time scale, it is hard when you look at Italy or Greece today to think of how the same population was once Sparta, the army of Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire. Populations evolve.
- chrischen 8y agoThe unreliableness of Chinese-made goods is usually due to incompetent Western firms cost-cutting and communication errors arising from cross-globe, cross-language collaborations. It's unfortunate nobody blames the CEOs for made-in-China, just the Chinese people for making it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoI'm not sure that swapping one incorrect sweeping generalisation for another is really the answer.
- barry-cotter 8y agoIf you really believe that there are a lot of sourcing and quality control jobs here in China that would be happy to employ you if your Mandarin is as good as your English and you have manufacturing experience. All the people I’ve met in those businesses have a quality control everything attitude because if you stop checking they’ll start shipping you shit.
- wozniacki 8y agoThe Chinese had the reputation to be super reliable and men of their word, while the Japanese had the reputation to be unreliable and ready to cross you at the first opportunity. What has been the observation off late of those very same peoples? Have the perceptions markedly changed? If so, how?
- 8y ago
- ufo 8y agoI am not sure a racist account of 1915 Japan is the best source to explain Brazil's technology sector, to say the least.
- jacobwilliamroy 8y agoI agree that a racist account of 1915 Japan doesn't really say very much about what's going on with Brazil's economy. But I do think it's important to notice that when the BBC is saying something like "Brazilians are always late" there might be more going on than just a lazy culture. I was hoping someone whose started a business in Brazil would come along and tell me what it's like. I really know nothing about the country.
- oscargrouch 8y agoThe article is talking about a party. Its not in the bussiness context, which as a Brazilian myself i can say, it works with punctuality as expected.
- foobieoutsider 8y agoBrazil is a huge country, with 200M inhabitants, an area as big as the continental US and a diverse population composed of imigrants from all over the world. What we hear from outsiders is almost always based on local and limited experiences (like this one from the BBC, limited to Rio). There's no single "Brazilian culture".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 8y ago>I don't have details on Brazil, but I am almost certain that this "Brazilian time" is just a symptom of some completely reversible, systemic problem that is making it difficult to do business with high-technologies in Brazil. Or inversely, it's a western problem that makes it difficult to live humanely and stress-free and incurs great human toll -- and at the point when we're so technologically advanced to not need it as much (but are great at creating busywork for ourselves).
- chairmanwow 8y ago“Western problem” yikes. To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit if you were to sharpen your position, as there is something deeply intriguing about your point. With that said, I also find issue with content of your argument. Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic.
- bumholio 8y ago> Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. You hasten to generalizations. It's entirely possible that the economic success of the Western societies had historic roots in the industrial revolution and the mechanization of human life it entailed. But it's very hard to prove the same reasons hold today - it might be the case where the historical effect is confused with the alleged cause. The strong economic growth of countries like Brazil or South Africa seems to indicate that, at least to a point, economics can blend with a relaxed attitude. Modern technology, offline communications like email, telecommuting and just in time fabrication could well usher in an era of high prosperity and low stress. Maybe these countries are laboratories of the future.
- trhway 8y ago>Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic. punctuality doesn't necessarily means efficiency. Punctuality itself comes at a cost. Somewhat similar to low latency. Your argument reminds about those Scrum proponents who tout that decreasing the latency and increasing synchronicity - what the Scrum is really about - would miraculously lead to throughput increase. Which it never does, and usually it has quite the opposite effect (exactly as expected from the systems theory and experience)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bane 8y agoThere was a significant national effort to change the same "national character" in South Korea after the war. Massive initiatives to institute a "bali bali" (hurry hurry) culture in the workplace and was seen as a national strategic need. Here's an interview with an industrialist that describes the transformation: http://blog.lucforsyth.com/2012/01/under-pressure-byun-ho-san-part-1/ http://blog.lucforsyth.com/2012/01/under-pressure-byun-ho-sa...
- pwaai 8y agoThanks for bringing up that book it was lost in my memories and now I just ordered it on kindle.
- wodenokoto 8y agoHigh-jacking top comment to note that the original headline, under which most of any of the discussion was written was: "Why Brazilians are always late" Always being late, and always being late to parties are too very different accusations. If you just read the new headline ("In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party") and checked comments before reading TFA, you might be confused.