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In report, my visit to Japan was an AMAZING ADVENTURE! Studying abroad taught me a lot about the business and culture of a different country, JAPAN. The purpose of this blog is to help the reader understand some of my experiences while abroad. I hope to apply the lessons I learned abroad throughout my daily life and future career.

Through this study abroad program I was exposed to the business world of Japan while also being surrounded by the Japanese culture throughout the entire stay. We had many corporate visits throughout the 17 day stay. I hope this blog helps provide some details on the corporate and cultural activities I participated during my study abroad! The blog is formatted so the most recent post is shown fist. To follow my entire stay (from beginning to end: May 9-25th) please begin on the post titled "Pre-Departure."

Enjoy!!

Osaka

A quick overview of the cities I visited while in Japan: Tokyo (8 days) Hiroshima (2 days) and Osaka (7 days). I have many blog posts from Tokyo because of the corporate activities we had planned. Tokyo was a great opportunity for me to learn about operations and business practice in the big city and capital of Japan. There is also a blog post for my visit to Hiroshima. For this post I plan to elaborate on the things that I learned while in Osaka.

Osaka is located on the south eastern part of the main island of Japan (Honshu). From our hotel in Osaka we were able to travel by use of the Shinkansen, a high speed train that was very useful during my stay in Japan. I think the US should implement better railways for travel, like Europe. Thanks to the Shinkansen we were able to visit cities like Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, Hikone, and the Awaji Island. Also the Shinkansesn got us from Tokyo to Hiroshima (500 miles) in only 5 hours!!

Some of my previous posts are about my visit to these cities and while in Osaka we were able to reach out to many cultural sites of Japan.

Himeji Castle

I was able to spend an afternoon traveling to the city of Himeji. Our professor recommended our group to visit the castle here because it as just recently opened from renovation for the past few years. This was an amazing castle, so overwhelmingly large. I learned about castles during my visit here. I learned that castles had provided a center point for many cities to be developed throughout history. I also learned that many of these places have been built upon man-made rock structures for support/protection/and intimidation. Towards the end of the day when i was about to leave the Himeji castle there was an opera like performance... so i stayed for a little to see what it was like. Very interesting! These "noh" events are done at castles across japan and it was very cool to experience this type of singing. It was in Japanese (of course) but their singing/chanting was very slow, which is different from the typical Japanese language.

 

 

 Noh performance

 

Hikone Castle, Museum, and Gardens

Here was a large area with the Hikone Castle, along with a new museum, and the gardens. This place was similar to a park on top of a hill (plus the castle and fancy architecture). There was a lot of space on top of this "hill" (more like a mountain). Here I was also exposed to the "mascot culture" that Japan is known for. During my stay in Japan I noticed the emphasis on characters or mascots to represent the company/place/or idea.

Gardens

 Museum

Primix

This was a corporate visit to a manufacturing company that creates mixers for various different production methods. Food products, batteries, and many other materials need to be mixed for use. They have an amazing facility. The CEO worked very hard to provide harmony for the employees to both live and work. He brought his company to the Awaji Island of Japan and here he built a manufacturing plant, the new office building, and even housing for the employees! This was an awesome tour and many of my colleagues mentioned that they wanted to here. During our tour the CEO mentioned how he was very influential to the Awaji Island development. He got the city government to build a hospital nearby and he also had to negotiate his plans before developing his new facility. He mentioned how he tried to get a University built! Talk about an influential person! I admired the CEO's ability to have vision for the future.

Fujitec

This was another visit where we were able to tour their building, which is the main headquarters for the company. Here they have a large testing station where they've built a tower to test their new elevators. Fujitec also has a mascot! Funny that a company which makes elevators thinks it is necessary to have a mascot to represent the image of the company. One of the members in my group asked what the meaning of this mascot was supposed to represent. "Tecky" represents Fujitec's high technology with their priority in safety.

 

Nestle

Our last corporate visit that we were able to attend while in Japan. I enjoyed this presentation very much because it was extremely informative of market culture of Japan. During this presentation we learned about the history of Nestle as a company and also their future plans/goals. Our presentation was given from a director of e-commerce and he had been a part of Nestle for over 20 years. He was very insightful and he kept mentioning how Nestle's marketing strategy goes beyond just the product. We learned that in marketing some things are consciously marketed towards the people, and then there are a lot of subconscious marketing techniques. Innovation arises when a company can market through the subconsciousness of its consumers. A company as established brand equity when the market subconsciously agrees with a companies product/perception. Nestle as recently gone to great measures to increase the perception their brand holds. During our presentation we learned that today 70% of advertising is spent on R&D while 30% is spent mass advertising (20 years ago this was the opposite case). We also discussed how for the next generation (my generation) we will have to implement e-commerce in order to maintain growth for the companies' future.

Day in Nara !!

We traveled to Nara to spend our days walking around this city! This place is similar to Kyoto in the sense that it holds a lot of ancient culture. Kyoto and Nara were both at point in time the capital of Japan. Today the capital of Japan is Tokyo. During our visit to Nara we had a guide who took us to popular sites across Nara Park. Then after our tour we were able to pick and choose what we wanted to see/do. Our guided tour was amazing! We first went to Kofukuji Temple, then Todaiji Temple, and lastly Kasuga Taisha Shrine.

Kofuku-ji Temple

 

During our visit to this temple we learned the history of Buddhism and Shintoism. Here are some of the differences from my understanding: Buddhism worships Buddha while Shintoism worships many different symbolic gods, Buddhism migrated from India while Shintoism is the native religion of Japan, Buddhism has Pagodas and Shintoism has Torri's (gate's) to show that this is a holy place. Our guide also told us how the deer here are considered sacred and in the past times if someone in the area had killed a deer, they were to be executed. Across Nara Park there are around 1300 deer! These deer walk right up to the tourists and it was quite the difference from the deer in America.

Todai-ji Temple

This temple is home to the "Giant Buddha." It was very cool to see how grand this statue really is. Here we learned a bit about what these buildings did to the community while being built. We also got some insight on how many times these buildings were rebuilt. From war/lightning many of these wooden temples have had to be rebuilt due to fire. 

Kasuga Taisha Shrine

This shrine is known because of its 3000 lanterns. The picture on the left shows an alter where people would go to worship the symbol. I really like going these temples and shrines because they are often surrounded by nature. These temples and shrines are very peaceful/blissful places to visit. It is so hard to relate these places to anything in America, so having this exposure has been a blessing.

Free-time in Nara!

After the guided tour I decided to check out some gardens!

 

 

"Just-In-Time"

For this post I will reflect on what I have learned about the Japanese business environment. Prior to coming abroad to study in Japan I was excited to see how "lean" Japan really is. "Lean" manufacturing or production is essentially organizing a process that has zero waste. Eliminating as much "muda", or waste, as possible means that the process is very lean. In a supply chain class course, I have learned that Japanese businesses are leading innovators when it comes to high efficiency and lean operations. The Japanese have coined this form of operations as being "Just-in-time."

Space is very limited in Japan, so many companies go to great lengths maximizing every inch possible. Holding too much inventory causes waste, so Japan has created a system that is highly efficient in distributing products on a regular occurance. An example of this is that fresh baked bread is transported to 7-11's multiple times each day. Also you can pay to have 7-11 ship something across Japan with a day or two! These convenience stores rely on quick and frequent delivery in order to reduce the waste of holding inventory.

This Just-in-time philosophy is not only applied to business in Japan, but is also integrated into daily life for the Japanese. Japanese culture has adapted to the limited amount of space, so many people grab their daily food when it is most convenient. While on the train, I was able to speak with some guys on their way home from work. These guys were about my age so they all spoke English. Today it is common for schools in Japan to teach English, whereas 20 years ago this was not. I asked them if they usually ate at restaurants for dinner. (I asked this question because I had been going out to eat at restaurants a lot more than I was used to.) They replied, "Yes, we don't have a kitchen." This surprised me at first (to not have a kitchen) but then I thought, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. Kitchens do take up a lot of space." The example of just-in-time operations for Japan is the amount of places to get food or drinks. First off, there are drink vending machines EVERYWHERE. Second, there are so many restaurants and convenience stores because so many people are like those guys on the train, who have to get dinner on their way home from work each day. Therefore to meet with the culture of buying things right when they need it, lean systems are maintained in production to make sure that consumers can grab food at a convenient time.

Kyoto pt.2

I was privileged with the chance to spend a day in Kyoto doing what I pleased. I am quite fond of schedules so the two nights before this day, I spent my evenings doing research to figure out what it was that I wanted to do. Realizing that Kyoto is so big with many things to do, I found out quickly that I would have to pick a few places. Creating a schedule for the day I cam up with a few points of interest where I go into greater detail on this post bellow. After our free time we had a planned presentation along with a dinner. We met with the owner of a bakery chain of restaurants who is also an MSU Alumni. At this dinner we were treated to a magnificent meal and this was perfect after a long day traveling throughout Kyoto.

Kiyomizudera Temple

Arriving here at 8am, I started the day here because of the location is on a hillside giving a nice view of Kyoto and a beautiful site to see. There is a large deck located here and these large type of structures amaze me.

Sanjusangendo Temple

Wow! After walking through this place I felt the need to spend quality time working on a special project. Because of the elaborate art here, I was left with the feeling of doing something right, no matter how long it may take. This place was truly amazing. 1001 statues of Kannon that took over 100 years to create reside here in this temple, which is one of the longest wooden structures in all of Japan. There was a lot of meaning behind the statues and also the guardian statues that are sitting in-front of these 1001 golden statues.

Nishi Honganji & Higashi Honganji Temple's

Another beautiful site! These massive structures are crazy talk! Seriously! These buildings were pure creation. These building temples were so awe-striking, I thought to myself how much time it would take to build something this massive. While thinking about this amazing building, I was focusing on how it must have took a community of people who were willing to sacrifice towards building these types of monuments. I think that today, society has lost sight of this type of communal work, but visiting these two temples was certainly a reminder for me to work with/for the community to make a grand impact.

Kyoto Aquarium

After lunch I went to the Kyoto Aquarium. It was a very hot day so an activity indoors was a great idea, plus I got to see some beautiful animals. I spent an hour to two here and bellow are a few pictures of the aquatic life at the Kyoto Aquarium.

Salamander

Eel

During my visit to Kyoto, I noticed that many temples/shrines/gardens were established and then preserved... while a city was built surrounding all of this. It was sometimes hard to locate a building because there was so much city is surrounding everything!! All in all, Kyoto is very influenced by Japanese culture and I was able to experience it during my stay in Japan!

Kyoto

Kyoto is a fascinating place with many Buddhist Temples, Shinto Shrines, Gardens, and other cultural activities. Nara and Kyoto hold much of Japan's ancient culture where history is kept through museums, temples, ect. With our group we went to the following locations.

Fushimi Inari Shrine

This Shinto Shrine is known as the Business Shrine. Many torii's (the orange gates in the pictures below) have been donated, by Japanese businesses, to the Fushimi Inari shrine. This shrine is the head shrine for the 30,000 Inari-sha shrines nationwide. This location on Mt. Inari has been a place of worship for the guardian god of businesses, prosperity, and family safety for hundreds of years. Throughout a trail are thousands of these torii's to represent good fortune towards the businesses that donated them. Over 10,000 of these gates at this location. Other shrines have these torri's to represent an entrance for a holy site (the shrine).

Kinkakuji Temple

Also known as "The Golden Pavilion", this cultural site is as beautiful as the pictures. This was truly a beautiful site to see! The amounts of people indicated the importance of this place. The large amount of people had an effect on the site, but I have recently grown familiar with dense amounts of people in one location while visiting Japan. There has been many occasions when I have been in a "full" elevator, bus, or train and yet still more people pile in. During my stay in Japan I have learned that in America we like to have lots of space... here in Japan we like to use every inch of space. The Japanese culture is very focused on efficiency and maximization while American culture tends to be more focused on comfortably and sometimes low utilization.

 

Hiroshima Visit!!

Day 1

Upon arriving to Hiroshima, we dropped our bags off at our hotel and went right to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Here there is a museum, monuments, a park, and many nostalgic places that represent the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Museum was very interesting a lot of insight on what Hiroshima was before and after the atomic bomb. At the museum, I was approached by some students who were more than eager to speak English with me. This was a unique encounter! Given the homogeneity of Japan, foreigners to Japanese are kind of rare. I think these kids expressed interest in speaking with me because then they could practice what they have been learning in their English class. I also got another unique encounter when a worker at the museum began to give a me a lecture on some statistics of the bombing and war, all in English. This was great! It is another unique encounter because I was surprised that this older woman could speak English so well. The kids are being taught English in school, but older folk are less likely to know English.

After the visit to the museum we had the day spend. I decided that I wanted to see a castle nearby, Hiroshima castle. In the bombing this castle was completely whipped out, but they worked to rebuild it in the late 50s.

 

Day 2

Our second day in Hiroshima was spent traveling to Miyajima Island, where Mt Misen is located. This island mountain was extremely fun! A great hiking trail too (about 1 km long). We had a cable car that took us up about 500 of meters above sea level, and then we hiked our way to the peak of the mountain. 535 meters above sea level!! To the left is a picture of me standing at the peak of Mt. Misen!

Also on Miyajima Island we walked through the shrine known as the Itsukushima Shrine, pictures below. Here I learned the significance of torii's for Shinto shrines (the big orange gate). Also we learned that different shrines have different areas of focus. This shrine is used to worship the deities of sea, traffic safety, fortune, and accomplishment.

 

Then after our voyage to Miyajima Island and back we went to a Hiroshima Carps baseball game!! It was very fun to see all the fans cheering on the game. A definition of the collective society in Japan was exhibited during the baseball game. Everyone was chanting together. There was not any hecklers or individualist who thought to start the wave on their own... this was a collective group of fans all cheering for the same team, the carps. There was a section in the upper deck where the away team had their fan base. I thought that this was interesting because there was a lot of empty seats here, in the away teams section, yet across the whole rest of stadium every seat was filled.