After Tokyo

Since we are on our plane to Sapporo, I want to write some of my thoughts about Tokyo and Japan so far. We stayed in Tokyo for a week, visited 9 corporations, watched baseball and Sumo, attend Alumni dinner and enjoy the Japanese culture here. Right now, when I watched back, I am so impressive, we did so many stuffs in this week and learned so many.

As I said in one of the pre-lecture when we were in East Lansing, one of my reason I want to come Japan is because their innovation in supply chain. As a result, I observed every day to see how Japanese people lived and how the companies operated here. I feel everyone focus on their own jobs and walk so fast, people keep using every minutes effectively. Japanese came out the just-in-time in the first place, I think this has a reason for that, they do not have so many natural resources as US or China, so they have to make sure every pieces of material should be fully usable and they should keep a low inventory rate on hand, because they do not have so many land to hold those inventories.

Another thing, is the politeness of Japanese people. Every companies we went can feel that. Everyone would say hi to you, not matter they knew you or not. This also can be felt in different shops and restaurant, this make me feel the service level is really different compare to US and China.

Before I came, I thought Japan should be similar as China, however, most of the details is quite different, and those small facts if we can learned and used in Chinese business or life, there would be an improvement. I think this is why I attend different study abroad program, learn different culture and combine them, then improve myself.

(This is an interesting photo I had when I walk around the city, this shows how Japanese people make every inch useful)