＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<Added on 2019/9/18>
Although this is not about exports, I would like to introduce a first-class hotel in Tokyo that has set its accommodation prices at “international standard prices.” This is a similar idea to that of Mercedes-Benz, and I think it is a welcome move.
Due to aging, the Hotel Okura Tokyo main building closed its doors after 53 years of operation and reconstruction work began in 2015. However, the Okura Tokyo, which was completed on the site at a cost of approximately 110 billion yen, opened on September 12, 2019.
The old building was a masterpiece of Japanese modernism, and even sparked a movement to oppose its demolition. However, the effort to preserve the old building’s lobby by replicating it within the new structure also attracted attention.
However, what I would like to point out in particular is that “room rates have been brought closer to international standards.”
The average price of 70,000 yen per night at the top-end brand, Heritage, is roughly the same as that of foreign luxury hotels operating in Japan. It appears that they are aiming to attract wealthy overseas guests with “international standard prices” and “higher quality service than ever before.”
Previously, over 60% of the hotel’s guests were foreigners, but as a result of the hotel’s active acceptance of group tourists in order to increase occupancy rates, the average price per room fell to 20,000 yen.
The hotel said, “Going forward, we will shift our policy away from chasing occupancy rates and instead focus on increasing the value of the hotel.”
I believe this is the beginning of a movement in which the average spending per guest at Tokyo hotels will come closer to international standards.
1. The export prices of Japanese products are too low
When U.S. President Trump first took office, he became the first foreign leader to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, raising hopes that Japan-U.S. relations might improve both politically and economically.
President Trump has repeatedly made worrisome statements such as “America First,” “protectionist claims,” ”the problem of huge trade deficits with Japan and China,” and “the problem of automakers hollowing out their factories (the current situation of relocating overseas).” However, some are optimistic that these issues can be gradually resolved thanks to the trust between the leaders of Japan and the United States.
However, the situation has changed since then, with President Trump announcing his intention to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and promoting bilateral negotiations that would make it easier to strike down individual countries. In response to President Trump’s announcement that he would impose high tariffs on China, China has responded with retaliatory tariffs, raising concerns about a trade war with China.
It has also taken a hard-line stance against Japanese auto exports, announcing the imposition of a 20% “high rate tariff.
I think an effective measure would be to gradually raise the “export price of automobiles” and, even if this results in a temporary decrease in sales revenue and sales volume, change the company’s structure to one that will generate stable profits in the long run.
As I wrote in a previous article about “Japan’s excessive quotas（「日本の過大なノルマ」）,” there is a well-established perception that German Mercedes is a luxury car, so of course it’s expensive. Just as this is the case with Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, I believe it is time for Japanese automakers to establish the image that “Japanese cars are high-performance, so of course they are expensive.”
Instead of doing so, they pursued “high performance at low prices” to the extreme, and as a result, they became the enemy in the United States and other countries, who said that “Japanese cars are being sold cheaply to increase sales, and the US’s trade deficit with Japan is increasing.” I think this is the influence of Konosuke Matsushita’s “Waterworks Philosophy.”
The water philosophy is a management philosophy that aims to lower prices and make them easily available to consumers by supplying large quantities of high-quality products at low prices, like tap water.
2. We need to shift gears from price competition to quality competition
If things continue this way, we will be drawn into a “price war” with China and South Korea, which will turn into a “bleeding race” that will continue into an endless “war of attrition” until one of us collapses.
At this point, I think Japan should move away from the desperate “price war” and shift gears to a “quality war,” reduce the operating rate of factories, and adjust the speed of both production and sales to switch to “cruising speed.”
In the case of salaried company presidents, it may be difficult to change the way things have been done, as they have a strong desire to achieve quick success and short-term gains and avoid a decline in performance during their term of office.
However, in the case of a company president from the founding family, like Toyota, I think it may be easier to make such bold changes in management policy.
Fortunately, Japanese products (MADE IN JAPAN) are now highly regarded by people overseas as being of high quality, with extremely few breakdowns, long life and excellent reliability.
I once heard from someone who lived in the US that in American automobile factories, workers in the assembly line sometimes drink canned Coca-Cola while working and throw the empty cans onto the hoods of their cars. This is unthinkable in Japanese automobile factories (including overseas factories).
Of course, the empty cans on the hoods will be removed before the finished cars are shipped, but I feel like the attitude of the factory workers toward their work, as well as the discipline and quality control, are incomparable to those in Japan. I haven’t seen it myself, so I can’t say for sure, but…
President Trump is enthusiastic about reviving automobile factories in the Rust Belt, an industrial region that includes Detroit, and creating jobs, but I think Japan should also accelerate the return of automobile factories to its home country and move in the direction of producing high-quality, reasonably priced automobiles. In this article, we have used automobiles as an example, but the same can be said for other Japanese products.
What do you think?