Compliance is not enough

The family took a one-week vacation in Japan’s less popular destination which is Fukuoka. I had been here once just to catch sakura, or cherry blossom, season in the spring way back in 2016. My memory of Fukuoka is pleasant as I found it to be the more affordable version of Tokyo. I found many Tokyo favorites, such as well-known Japanese brands for food and clothing, but in a less crowded space.

A visit to Japan is both an inspirational and aspirational one. We aspire to be first-world when we see how everything works in a Japanese metropolitan city. And I guess even in remote towns like Nagano, where I had the pleasure of visiting also in years past because of the ASEAN-Japan Women Entrepreneurship Linkage Program (AJWELP). This program took me to towns sometimes a train ride or two away to see how social entrepreneurs work in this first-world country.

Another occasion to experience Japan was when I joined the Asian Productivity Organization media tour to Aomori, the nation’s apple capital. Here we saw how cold storage can preserve a whole season’s apples, garlic, onions and this gives me hope that soon our farmers will have such facilities to extend the life of their fresh produce. That is what we aspire for. And visiting Japan should inspire our private sector investors to replicate what works in keeping food safe and cheap in a temperate country.

Even when you use their toilets, you tend to think that the Japanese people keep their thinking hats on no matter where they are – office or toilet, home and beyond, they seem to keep thinking of how to make things work better. Notice how they have perfected the toilet bowl and its features, including some “manufactured” noise in case you need background noise while in your most private moments (albeit in a public toilet). The toilet paper rolls never run out, and the soap dispensers all work.

I do not want to complain about what we see here in our own soil, but when you visit even a remote fishing town in Kishi, the toilets work and there is running water. Like everything is thought of as the best standard, not something done just to get a permit to build a facility. I find that “compliance” mentality should change to “progressive” thinking – what else can we do to make it better. Rather than what can we do at the minimum just to comply and get that permit going. Which is what we find in airports, toilets in government buildings and the like. You are actually surprised when water runs in a toilet.

I guess it all starts from the home and school. If toilets in schools have no running water, people take it as the standard. Get your pail and pour the water yourself. And it continues to homes without running water in toilet fixtures. Why? Why is it not the minimum standard?

The next thought is about trash and garbage. Do you notice why there are no trash cans in Japanese street corners? It is I guess to make you keep your trash where it belongs – in your home or office or in proper waste bins in convenience stores. I think this is where culture plays a big part – less trash is better. And keep your trash with you until you find a proper disposal area.

There are signs everywhere – for people to read, Google translate and simply follow. There are directional signs, instructional signs for anything (open here, etc.) on anything and everything. This is why it serves tourists well (hello, DOT) when there are appropriate signs on every street corner, every chance to inform and explain. With apps like Google translate, language barriers no longer exist anyway, as long as there are instructions or signs. Did you ever think of that as a great tourist attraction?

Today’s tourists are served well by all these apps on a smartphone – an app to translate many languages, an app you can speak to and maps for every purpose and destination. So all we need to do in our own country is to make better signs – and bigger signs and instructions, even in Filipino.

The other observation I made in a restaurant is how quiet the kitchen people are. There are no shouting matches, orders being announced as you would find in other places. The kitchen is quiet but efficient. I guess it is a culture thing – they make noise (and music) in karaoke bars but there is silence in the work place, be it an office or a QSR kitchen. Notice how people talk in hushed tones. For our own people, horseplay and talking loud seems to be normal even while at work. Do observe how people behave in airports, department stores and other public places. It is normal for two colleagues to talk about what they ate last night, what movies they will watch and other mundane topics to keep the socials alive. That is here in our country. But I reserve my comments about culture for another column.

As we were in ramen country, the nieces and I went for late night ramen in one of the places where no one spoke English. We just went to a machine, pressed some buttons and voila! We had the most satisfying Hakata ramen in a joint only locals go to – no English spoken here. And the people just ate their bowls of ramen, then left quickly for others to be able to sit and eat, too. Of course, I mistakenly ordered more green onions but that was OK. A little experience in Japanese efficiency and “lost in translation.”

This trip to Japan just inspires me that we can do more to improve our tourism, our facilities and our general idea that “compliance is enough” when we build things and facilities. We should be a little more like the Japanese in continuing to think about how we can improve how things work. There is hope.