Are you VANILLA? or PISTACHIO?

Let me talk about my blog title (be the pistachio) a little bit before I continue to write other Japanese business posts.

You will probably think that I am a big fan of pistachio and yes, I love them. But I WANT TO BE the pistachio, and that is a little bit different story.

My Love for Pistachio
I like the taste of any kind of nuts, but pistachio is something special. For me, pistachio is sweeter and more flavorful than other nuts. Also the color of green is out standing among other brown nuts. The size of whole nut is tiny and it makes pistachio very precious, too. I have liked pistachio from when I was little, but I started to love them after traveling to Italy. I won't forget when I had pistachio gelato in Italy. I cannot help falling love with the rich flavorful taste.

Whenever I go, if I find pistachio flavor food or drinks, I started to order them.

So, these are the reasons why I love pistachio. Again, I WANT TO BE THE PISTACHIO. What does it mean?

Pistachio fascinates people
"How does the world see you" is a great book in terms of branding ourselves. In the book, the author talks about "Are you Vanilla? or Pistachio?" and I really liked the part.

According to the author, vanilla ice cream appeals to the maximum number of people with the minimum whining. On the other hand, pistachio ice cream is a distinct and polarizing choice. However, the people who like pistachio usually re-e-e-a-lly love it. People will drive across town for it, they'll pay more for it, they'll talk about it and remember it. Vanilla ice cream is a commodity and pistachio ice cream is a minority. But pistachio engages the minority very well. Dell is vanilla, and Apple is pistachio. Ford Taurus is vanilla, and Fiat 500 is pistachio. If you are not creating a negative response from somebody, you're probably not very fascinating to anybody.

I used to love pistachio because of its taste, color, and preciousness. However, this book gave me another cool aspects of pistachio. What I attract most is always unique things and interesting people. If I choose, I choose extraordinary things and experiences, not ordinary ones. This is they reason why I want to be the pistachio.

"Settai" -a wired Japanese business culture

Let's study some Japanese words today. "Omotenashi" and "Settai", how do they sound like to you?

"Omotenashi" is a Japanese way of hospitality and customer service. The word became popular when Japan got the right to hold 2020 olympic game. Japan used this word to Olympic committees to explain how Japan can give great hospitality to the sports players and audience from all over the world. One of the famous Japanese news caster gave a presentation to the committees (actually she is a half French half Japanese, so she gave the presentation in French) and used this word with hand gestures. A lot of Japanese imitated the gesture and of course joked about it.

Omotenashi is one of the beautiful aspects of Japanese culture. However, it can be transformed into a wired thing and one of the example is "Settai" culture. If I translate "Settai" into English, I would say "To make customers feel that they are treated as a king or queen. Usually hosting company spend tons of money for food and other activities. In other words, wast of money." This "Settai" culture is one of the keys to get business in Japan. Let me explain a little bit more.

1) Normal Settai: Restaurant + Kyabakura (girls bar)

Even in America, there is a customer dinner. However, Japanese Settai need much longer time and cost a lot. Usually people go to a izakaya style restaurant (if it is an important dinner, people go to fancy restaurant such as Kobe beef steak house or traditional Japanese food) and move to Kyabakura after that. Kyabakura is like a girls bar but it is super expensive bar. One customer can get one girl to serve alcohol for them and it costs $70-100 per hour per person (depend on the quality and location of the bar). Also, people can sing a song like a Karaoke bar. The relationship between Japanese salarymen and Kyabakura is so deep, so I need another blog post for this.

2) Golf Settai

Another popular settai is playing golf with customers. I used to work as a sales rep and the first big spending after I joined the company was golf club set. My senior told me golf set is one of the must-have tool for sales rep in the Japanese business. American business people also play golf with customers, but it is more relaxed atmosphere. On the contrary, a lot of Japanese sales people don't like playing golf with customers. That is because sales people have to "omotenashi" to their customers. They need to pay attention that if their customers feel happy and satisfied. This is more like a server or waiter.

3) Business travel Settai
If the business involved with a travel, sales people become "travel agency." They ask customers where they want to visit and take them the location. For example, I used to work at Japanese company and they had a manufacture company in Himeji. When our customer want to visit the plant, we take them to see Himeji castle and took them to a restaurant where they could eat famous food there.

4) Other Settai
If the company has a sports team, participating it can be another settai. My old colleagues played soccer with customers and also went to see the game on weekend.

Building a good relationship with customers are very important. However, Japanese business people spend too much money for this settai and I think this is wast of money. If this settai culture is absolutely needed for the business success in Japan, I don't expect the Japanese growth in the future. Japanese people should rethink how to spend their money more wisely.

Do Japanese business people work too much?

When I was reading a Japanese business news paper the other day, I found an interesting article about the way Japanese people work. According to the article, there are two different types of business people in Japan. One is real Bari-bari people, and the other is fake Bari-bari people. Let me explain the concept of bari-bari first.

In Japanese language, we use onomatopoeia a lot. For example, Doki-doki is the sound of the heart beat, Waku-waku is excitement, Shiku-shiku is when we cry, Gera-gera is when we laugh very hard and a lot more. Bari-bari describes the situation of "doing something very hard". Therefore, in the news article, Bari-bari people means business people who work extremely hard.

If I look back my experience working in Japan, I've seen both Bari-bari people, real one and fake one. I worked for Automotive industry and that was on of the oldest and busiest industries in Japan, so the majority of people who I worked with were real Bari-bari people. They usually worked until midnight (literary midnight like 12 am. I've worked at the office until 4 am.) Even if I had a business dinner with my customer, I went back to the office after the dinner if I needed.

Now I'm doing an internship in a company located in Santa Clara, CA and I don't see any Bari-bari people like in Japan. People at the company usually go back home before 6 pm and if they work until 8 or 9 pm it is "long hour work." I would say, start ups are regarded as Bari-bari though. However, there is a difference between start ups here and traditional Japanese companies. People at start ups work hard because they have to survive and they have a passion. On the other hand, people at Japanese companies work hard because they have royalty and pride. (I will talk about this topic another time!)

According to Laura Bridgestock, who reported on Trends in International Student Mobility, "Many Asian nations have a reputation for particularly long working hours." "East Asian economies such as Singapore and Hong Kong all come out well avobe the US in average hours worked per year, and in countries such as South Korea and Japan government initiatives have been introduced over the past decade to try and bring working hours down in order to improve employee health and quality of life."

"Life work balance" is one of the well known expressions in Japan nowadays. Many companies try to change the current situation. However, long working hours are often still the norm. I don't blame Bari-bari Japanese because they made what we are today. However, I feel we should focus more on business people's happiness and wellness. That is one of the keys to get back a strong energetic Japan like in the past.