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"Konichiwaaa" Part 1
May 27, 2009
Amazing Journeys is off again..this time to The Land of the Rising Sun, Japan! We’re very excited to be experiencing all the rich legacies and ancient treasures that this land will bestow upon us. Its been only 140 years since the Japanese opened their doors to embracing the West, but they have done so with a flare for adopting things in their own way.
From having two cities listed as the most expensive cities in the world to having customs of etiquette that challenge the western ways of thinking, there’s no doubt that this journey will open some eyes by defining the words ‘new’ and ‘different.
Why is Japan so expensive? There are so many reasons, but here are a few:
*The Anti- Monopoly Law that hurts consumers by allowing high-priced boutiques and mom-and-pops to block the establishment of big stores and discount stores which increase competition. Sort of the opposite extreme of what we have here in the US (hear that, WalMart?).
* Japan has 392,000 wholesalers — a staggering number. Yet two-thirds of them sell to each other and not retailers or producers. Distribution channels in Japan are extremely exclusive — usually an arrangement to carry your goods also means only your goods and no competitors.
*Japan has highly taxed foreign products for so long that ANY good that sells from the West immediately has a halo of luxury around it. The higher the price, the higher the demand for it. So don’t be surprised to hear about $30 lipsticks or $300 Nike Air-Maxes. And when Johnny Walker Whiskey tried to raise demand by cutting prices on it’s JW Black, demand went DOWN, not up. Even a $5 memo pad from the US is going for $21 in Japan.
*While in the west people are taught to think critically and analyse, Japanese are taught to put up, shut up, and do what they’re told. Charity and grassroots movements are nearly unheard of in Japan. The ideas of personal growth, individual liberty, and privacy are not well defined in Japan. In fact, there is no real Japanese word for “privacy” at all. Standing up for yourself is another new concept to Japanese. So whatever retailers charge, the Japanese just pay, no questions asked. A lot of Japanese media and TV also use sensationalism to sell, and objective reality is often trampled over; “What’s that? Don’t you pay $25 for a melon and $18 for a bottle of aspirin??”
Stay tuned in our next blog on some of the strange rituals of etiquette seen in Japan. In the next blog we’ll share some of them like this one:
*Don’t wear the toilet room slippers outside the toilet room.
Until then…Siyonaraaa
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