WEEK 2
THE JAPAN SERIES
Where to sit, how to eat, what (not) to do. Read more about doing business in Japan.
DINNERTIME!
There is a definite science to Japanese business dinners. First off, where you sit is very important! Each company’s team sits on the same side of the table, with the most senior (highest ranking) folks in the middle. Everyone’s counterpart or equivalent “level” sits directly across from them, since the aim is to match seniority. As you move away from the centre, ranks and seniority decline. Things get a bit convoluted when you have an older colleague who isn’t the highest-ranking member of the team, but hierarchy beats age! It’s also an issue when you have a not terribly culturally aware senior leader who doesn’t understand why he had to sit in the middle and I sat a few seats away. I remember insisting on him sitting there and that I’d explain why later. He kept making a scene until I finally exclaimed, “Because the most senior person sits in the middle”. Instead of sitting down like a normal person, he argued that he wasn’t the oldest person at the table. After a bit of convincing, he finally sat down.
Aside from sitting in the wrong spot, there are lots of things you shouldn’t do at dinner. It’s bad form to pour into your own glass. Your neighbour should pour your drink and vice versa. It’s impolite to not finish your food, but that’s where you might want to make use of the many small bowls with lids typical of a Japanese meal to hide some leftovers. Don’t blow your nose either... just sniffle! It would be as improper as picking your nose.
As for what you can do, slurping your soup loudly is totally okay. If you want to earn brownie points with your hosts, finish everything on your plate! Savouring local food will also be much appreciated. If you’re eating nigiri, prepare yourself for the wasabi under the fish. You should also only dip the fish, not the rice, in the soy sauce (with excellent chopstick skills of course)! If you can manage to say a couple of words in Japanese, your hosts will be very happy.
As long as you sit in the right place, eat everything in your plate and pour for your neighbour, you’re all set for a Japanese business dinner.
TOILET-TO
An uncommon subject for sure, but one of the best parts of going to Japan are the restrooms!
For starters, you're supposed to wear bathroom slippers (specific slippers that shouldn't be worn outside of the bathroom for cleanliness purposes). If you're at a restaurant, there will often be slippers for you to change into outside the restroom. If you're in a mall or office building though, you will just be wearing your regular shoes most of the time.
Stage 2 beyond bathroom slippers is the treat of an experience of a Japanese toilet! Japanese toilets are super cool with control panels and a whole host of functions...written in Japanese with some funny icons to match. Luckily, the "stop" button is often the large red button on the panel. Depending on how advanced the toilet is, there is a wash, oscillate and dry functions where you can control water pressure and temperature. There might also be a "sound" option so you can drown out any bathroom-type noises. The doors on each stall don't have any weird gaps on the sides like in North America, and the doors often go down to the floor. Additionally, women's washrooms have child seats on the side where you can buckle in your infant while you do your business. Some toilet seats are also motion sensored that close and open when someone enters the room. The Japanese really do think of everything. There are even toilet showrooms!
You might imagine that some people (i.e. non-Japanese speakers) get into trouble with the elaborate panels, and you'd be right! While the "stop" button is well-marked, the "flush" button isn't always so obvious. I had a male colleague try to flush while standing in front of the toilet. He hit the wash function, and a spray arm emerged and ... luckily he had fast reflexes and ducked out of the way! He returned to the dinner table with small water droplets on his shirt and relayed what had happened. At least he didn't get a full shower - one of the yet-to-be-developed features of Japanese toilets!
OKINAWA
Okinawa is the Japanese equivalent of Hawaii/Florida - where the Japanese go on vacation! I spent quite a bit of time in Okinawa on my first trip to Japan, which was bittersweet because I spent the entire time in an office building in the middle of a city instead of seeing the beautiful beaches that the area is well-known for.
I got to see a beach on my final days on one of the islands (with my laptop bag and office clothes of course ...our team obviously fit in super well as you can imagine). The charm of Okinawa is getting to experience such unique experiences. While Japanese is the standard language, Okinawa has its own local language as well. You also won't find the mainstream Japanese food that most of us know well. Instead, there are local specialities like purple potato, soft shell shrimp, sea grapes (super fishy tasting!), and champuru (a scramble of tofu, bitter melon, pork and eggs).
There is also a typical Okinawa shirt that is almost like a Hawaiian shirt called kariyushi with bright floral prints. Although it's unlikely you will find your size, since most Japanese folks are tiny!
FOOD
Japanese food is absolutely delicious! I've never eaten a meal that I didn't like in Japan.
You'll encounter fast eats at 7-Elevens, from lunch boxes (pork cutlet with rice, spaghetti, and brew-your-own iced coffee). There's even usually a microwave for your meal, hot water for bowls of instant ramen and a small counter you can eat at in 7-Elevens! Plus, the Japanese candy options are a lot of fun and not as sweet as Western candies.
Despite 7-Elevens being a solid option for a good snack, you're likely going to want to try out other options should you ever visit. Teppanyaki is a great treat, if a little pricey, but worth a splurge. Often business parks have great lunch menus in the lower levels of office buildings, or you could even try quick eats. Sushi is a solid bet, and coffee is very good! You'll have to learn the Japanglish terms for many things - i.e., pronouncing English words with a Japanese accent. Hot-to, shoh-to, co-hee (hot, short coffee). Hambuh-ga, furied-o pot-a-to (hamburger and french fries). If you listen closely, you can probably figure out a lot of it!
A few items to watch out for if you're new to Japanese food. Chicken sashimi was quite the rage for a while - I passed on this for obvious reasons. Bonito flakes (fish flakes) are used as a topping/flavour for some dishes and are fairly fishy-tasting. If you see something that looks like flaky fried onions, it's most likely Bonito flakes. Shabu shabu is also a tricky one: it's kind of like a hotpot-style dish where you cook your meat/vegetables in a broth at the dining table. Not for the faint of heart/newbie chopstick users.
As you would expect, the sushi, tonkatsu and yakiniku are absolutely delicious. One thing is for sure - bring your appetite on your next trip to Japan! And bonus, you always get a moist towelette to wipe your hands before a meal.
AYE AYE SERGEANT
Similarly to business dinners, there is a formal protocol to business meetings in Japan.
First of all, being on time is important and you'll have to check in with a front reception area. One of the offices we visited had a nifty check-in system where you punch in a registration code on a kiosk and get automatically issued an access card for the building. Super high tech!
The sitting rule also applies (most important people in the middle) and you must absolutely introduce yourself to your counterparts and present them with your business card. I used the word "present" for a reason - you need to hold your business card with both hands and present it like a present (text facing the person you are meeting) and introduce yourself. Accepting a business card with equal reverence is a must; you need to accept someone else's business cards with both hands, take time to read it as they introduce themselves and under no circumstances should you put it in a pocket/bag immediately. It's all about being respectful to the very special present (a business card) you just received! I once had a colleague hand out her business cards like she was dealing a deck of playing cards. She slid them across the table to my horror but the client kept a stoic face and chalked it up to a lack of sophistication, I guess!
Something else to be aware of is the gender imbalance in the business world. This is changing, but the majority of your Japanese counterparts will be men. I once went three weeks on a business trip without encountering a single female counterpart in all of my meetings. Luckily for me, being foreign helped. In what should have been a surefire failure situation, it was pretty unusual for my clients to have a woman on the other side of the negotiation table, but they found it oddly refreshing. I did get a few "aye aye sergeant" and "tough lady" comments when they were reluctant to challenge me. Sometimes being different is a competitive advantage!