Increasingly, corporate executives who don't speak Japanese are coming into Japan. Unlike their predecessors, they expect their employees to be able to communicate in English.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The fact of the matter is that fewer people in Tokyo are able to do business in English than in many other big Asian cities, like Shanghai, Seoul or Bangkok.
If Japanese companies don't reform drastically and implement English as their daily business language, the economy will only continue to contract.
Japanese is a very difficult language.
Since my Japanese isn't very good, I had to have an interpreter to communicate with most of the crew.
I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation.
I know just enough Japanese to get by if I get lost and greet an audience properly, just from having a lot of Japanese friends and being there over the years.
The recipe to an unhappy life in Japan is to want to be Japanese if you are not. Anyone who wants to penetrate the country is setting themselves up for tears and disappointment.
Japan is quite weird because they wait for you to say something before they respond. You can literally hear a pin drop, they don't make a sound until you say something to the crowd.
I feel very keenly the eyes of the foreign media on our country. And I think a lot of Japanese people feel that things are not working the way they should. When the time comes, I will put myself forward.
Opening new stores outside of Japan is important, but training our employees is even more important.
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