It?s crazy how fast the trip went by. It was really interesting learning about Japan?s business practices and how it differs from the US. We saw through our many business meetings that the Japanese people are very conservative and are risk averse. Whereas in the US, we enjoy taking risks by making the first move because that means there is a chance that would result in huge profits. Even in school, we would learn about what risks to take, and how management would try to manage it to ensure that the company doesn?t lose profit or go fail. Another interesting stuff I learned about Japan?s business culture is how they are heavy on building a relationship and making it work. Whereas in the US, we would try to go for the cheaper option and change our relationships every year. One year a company could hire a company to do this job, then next year they could hire a completely different company if it’s cheaper or better than the first one. In Japan, they would stick with 1 company and build that relationship since trust is a big element here.
My time abroad has somewhat changed my perspective of the world. I was able to gain a better cultural understanding of Japan by interacting with the locals, visiting temples, and just exploring around. I thought it was interesting how diverse Japan was. You had people from everywhere across from Asia, with many tourists coming from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Europe, and America so it was really interesting walking around Japan and being able to hear so many languages. It was also really interesting just seeing how efficient everything is. You had trains that run on time, you had people whose job would be to point at stuff, there was essentially this system that just seemed to work perfectly. My initial impressions were somewhat accurate. I knew that most of the tourist places would already be super packed as seen from social media. Personally, I thought that the food was overhyped or maybe I?ve just been going to the wrong restaurants. I thought that some of the food were great, whereas others tasted bad or normal, so it was all about just finding the right restaurant.
