The Art of Waiting in Japan

If I had a dime for every minute I have waited on a Japanese train platform, I'd be a rich man. - Rorschach (the blogger, not the shrink)

When you're selected to go on your first business trip in Japan, there is the excitement of going to a foreign country, seeing a different culture, and honing your skills in international business. This is all true, but there is one thing that veterans of Japanese travel forget to mention: it takes a long time to get anywhere over here and you end up doing a lot of waiting.

Let's take yesterday. I met my local sales guy/guide/interpreter at our Tokyo sales office at 8am and we returned to the same area for dinner around 7pm. In those 11 hours I had one meeting with one customer that lasted 2 hours. The other 9 hours were spent in every form of ground transportation available in Japan: subways, Shinkansen (bullet train), taxis, and of course, walking. And there was a lot of waiting in one spot for each of those. There may be exceptions to this rule, but since I started doing business in Japan in 1998, this has been pretty standard, and other people who have done sales and meetings here tell me the same thing.

Just arriving here takes waiting. You get off a 12 hour flight and are through customs and just want to get to your Tokyo hotel and get some sleep. Guess what? Taking a "limousine bassu" or Narita Express (fast train) to downtown Tokyo will add at least 1.5-2 hours to your trip.

So, what do you do? You do the same things the locals do while they're waiting, and here is what I observe, by order of frequency:

Sleep - By far the number one thing Japanese do while they are traveling and waiting. They sleep on subways, trains, in waiting areas, in coffee shops, sitting down, standing up, I have seen it all.

Read - You see a few novels, but you see a lot of comic books. Not the kid action hero ones you remember from your youth, but 3-4 thick tomes that usually have a lot of violence and sometimes sexually explicit material (called manga). Actually, seeing men reading "real" pornographic material in public isn't uncommon, and at those times you just have to remember that cultures are different.

Wireless Internet - It is frowned upon to talk on a cellphone in a train or subway, but you will see a large number of people clicking away on their cellphones, using the internet. When cellphone internet usage exploded in Japan, U.S. vendors got excited about this service. What they forgot is that a majority of Americans aren't stuck on trains and platforms for hours at a time with nothing to do, so the penetration rates in the U.S. never even remotely approached usage in Japan.

Work - In the world's second largest economy that has a reputation of breeding workaholics, you would expect to see a lot of working, but it is actually rare. If you do see it, it is usually pen and paper, and rarely to you see someone on the Shinkansen whip out a notebook computer and go to work.

Strike up a Conversation - Extremely rare. An Eastern European friend told me about being on a plane that was grounded for a few hours in Poland and within 30 minutes everyone on the plane was talking, arguing politics, and telling stories to the total strangers next to them. This is definitely a cultural thing and not common in Japan

As for myself, I always have a novel handy when I leave my hotel for meetings in Tokyo and always bring several with me so I don't run out of material.




posted by Director_Mitch @ 5:30 PM (Permalink)
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There's No Venti In Japan
Ah, back in the country that gave my blog its name. I've been here around 20 times, although this is my first time back in over two years. I'm actually staying in an area I know very well - Shinjuku - so that I know where a Starbucks is close to my hotel (as well as some fine restaurants).

I love the Japanese culture and people, but they can't make a cup of coffee to save their life. It took an American chain to come here and show them how it's done. (yes, their culture has been based on tea, and our tea technology is vastly inferior, as is our toilet technology).

The Starbucks in Japan, and all over Asia (I actually went to two in Korea and have been to one in Taiwan before) are pretty much the same as the ones in the U.S. - the layout, interior, the aprons, everything (Ed: Mitch, that's why they call it a chain).

The one thing that the Japanese Starbucks didn't bring over with them is the American beverage portions. You find out over here that Asians either don't drink a lot of fluid, or Americans are a lot more thirsty. If you get a drink on a plane, it is served in a 4 oz. dixie cup. If you get a drink of water at a restaurant, you might get a "huge" 6 oz. glass that takes two swallows to deplete. And there is definitely, absolutely, no Venti sized coffee portions in this part of the world.

There is one exception to the beverage portion rule in Asia: alcohol. If you ask for a Kirin "Ichiban", you get a 20 oz. bottle instead of the typical 12 oz. bottle. In fact, pretty much all the booze over here can be supersized if you ask for it.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 3:27 PM (Permalink)
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Selling Internet by the Slice
Here I am in Seoul's Incheon airport patiently waiting for the THREE HOUR LAYOVER my idiot travel agent scheduled. The good part is that there is a coffee shop here that sells internet time by the hour.

I have never tried the Starbuck's wireless services, but from what I can tell, you have to go through a process to sign up, and maybe even do a monthly billing thing (can anyone verify this?). Here, you walk up to the counter and buy a "card" that has a password. You hook up via wireless and enter the password on the card and you are on-line! A little clock pops up telling you how much time you have left. No sign up. No hassles. And at $3 an hour, a darn good deal.

I thought I would be doing limited blogging on my trip, but with S. Korea being one of the most connected, wired countries in the world, I should have known that getting on-line here would be pretty easy. Curious to see how I do in Japan and Taiwan.

For those of you transiting through Incheon, the internet cafe is hard to find and not advertised - I actually stumbled on it by mistake. It is on a "mezzanine" level right above International Arrival Gate "E". Not something you are going to casually see from the check-in level on the third floor.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 11:20 PM (Permalink)
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Merry Buddhamas!
Today is Buddha's Birthday and a major holiday in Korea.

In many countries, this date is celebrated on April 8. However, in Korea it is celebrated on the 8th day of 4th month of the Lunar calendar, so it can hit anywhere from early to late May.

The ceremonies that take place today in the Buddhist temples are supposed to be really interesting to see, but unfortunately I won't have time see one since I am on my way to Japan today (it should be noted that Christians, at about 50% of the population, just outnumber Buddhists, and both Christmas and Buddha's birthday are major holidays).

posted by Director_Mitch @ 2:53 PM (Permalink)
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Nice Respite from American News
Been over here several days and haven't seen nor heard of Abu Ghraib, which still seems to be getting 24/7 news coverage over in the U.S. The sinking of the Hyundai car transport is what got all the headlines this morning, along with Korea's Presidential Crisis of the Week ^TM. International news concentrated on N. Korea's repatriation of Japanese citizens after kidnapping them decades ago and the fact that they still hold in captivity 500 S. Korean citizens kidnapped since the end of Korean War (and people want to trust this country with a nuclear treaty?).

Bush's speech did make the news and it was actually playing in the domestic airport this morning with a Korean voice over. Bush's Korean voice unfortunately didn't sound like him, and I think he may have had a problem with coming up with direct translation terms for "Evil Doers" and "misunderestimate".

posted by Director_Mitch @ 1:50 AM (Permalink)
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This IS One Way to Provide Internet Access in a Hotel Room
I am out of the fancy business hotel in Seoul and down in one of the "smaller" cities in the south of the country: Gwangju. (It has 1.5 million people compared to Seoul's 10 million).

I am now in a Holiday Inn level room, but it DOES have internet access: there is a complete desktop computer in the middle of the room with internet. It is housed in a special locked security desk, so I can't yank out the internet cable and plug it into my own laptop, and the wall connection isn't standard.

I suppose I could figure out a way to get into the desk it but am too jetlagged to bother. After all, it does serve my basic internet needs, although all the menus in Explorer and Windows are in Korean, as is the keyboard when I toggle a switch: ㅡㅑㅅ초 디ㅣ ㄲ댤디 .

At one point a "chat" window opened up on my screen in Korean. Just think, I might have had a date for the evening if I had known how to respond...

posted by Director_Mitch @ 1:23 AM (Permalink)
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Glad I Didn't Connect Through a French Airport
What's everyone doing blogging in the middle of the night at 4:30 am? I notice a few asterisks to the right indicating recent updates...

Wait...It's 4:30 am MY time. Damn jet lag. I stay up for over 24 hours straight, going to sleep only when I hit the pillow in Korea, only to wake up less than 6 hours later because my body is saying "Mitch, what the hell you doing asleep in the middle of the afternoon? Get up!" The scene in Lost in Translation with Bill Murray sitting up in the middle of the night in his hotel room was dead-on for trans-Pacific travel. At least I can blog.

I'm just glad I got here safely after seeing the airport collapse in France. I'd make a snide remark about French engineering, but we had our own freeway collapse in Colorado last week. Like flying isn't stressful enough without worrying about airports collapsing around you.


posted by Director_Mitch @ 12:21 PM (Permalink)
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