Another “Only in Japan” Tale!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

In ancient times in Tokyo [meaning in the 1950s] I wrote a weekly column entitled “Only in Japan” that covered events, ideas and products that were unique to the country.

Many of these things appeared humorous or childish to the average Westerner, but some of them, particularly unusual products and odd brand names, went on to become huge commercial successes around the world.

Among these early things was the name “Walkman” that Sony chose for its new portable radio, and a variety of children’s products introduced by Sanrio Company under the brand name “Hello Kitty.”

The Walkman brand name took a little while to catch on overseas, but in Japan it made perfect sense…you could listen to the tiny radio while walking around. Hello Kitty products were an instant hit in Japan because they were terminally cute – and the Japanese have an obsessive addiction to cuteness.

Itturned out that most Westerners are also turned on by cuteness if it doesn’t go to extremes, and Hello Kitty products are now bestsellers world-wide.

Despite all of the fundamental changes that have occurred in Japan in the last 50-plus years there are still many “only in Japan” things that add to the ambiance of life.

A new and intriguing “only in Japan” phenomenon is printing popular comic and animation characters, as well as the profiles of famous comedians, on toilet paper.

“Character toilet paper” has, in fact, become one of the country’s hottest souvenir and gift items among younger Japanese and foreign tourists alike. And by toilet paper standards, the rolls are not cheap – going for more than twice the amount of plain paper.

Animation studios, entertainment companies and others have boarded the character toilet paper bandwagon, opening their own retail shops.

The owner of Tokyo Atom Shop in Tokyo Central Station says that some of his customers – both local commuters and travelers – buy up to 50 rolls at a time to give as gifts.

The shop at the National Museum for Emerging Science and Innovation sells a line of character toilet paper called Astronomical Toilet Paper. I don’t know what “astronomical” refers to, but it apparently appeals to young women, said to be the main buyers.

Toilet paper sold at a shop called Yoshimoto TV Street in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, owned by media giant Yoshimoto Kogyo, features profiles of comedians that the company represents.

The comedians obviously don’t object to their descriptions being printed on paper that is used to wipe indiscriminate derrieres. One, in fact, is quoted as saying he finds this new form of publicity quite amusing.

Without intending to resort to ribaldry, the most amusing toilet incident I ever witnessed occurred at a bar that used to be across the street from Shimbashi Station just south of the famed Ginza shopping mecca.

One evening in the mid-1950s I took an American friend and his wife to the bar for a few drinks. After a while the wife, who happened to be quite tall, noted that she had to go to the toilet. I pointed to a narrow hallway, and said: “First door on the right.”

The toilet was about the size of a telephone booth and squat-style, with an elongated ceramic “bowl” over an aperture in the floor. My friend’s wife had a bit of difficulty getting into the toilet, but she did it.

Once inside the toilet she was able to squat down easy enough but when done she could not stand up or pull up her panties. Finally, in desperation, she opened the door and waddled out into the hallway in full view of the bar patrons. There, she stood up, nonchalantly pulling her undies up at the same time.

As she approached our booth, her husband and I were nearly choking in an effort to avoid laughing but she was smiling broadly. “Go ahead and laugh before you bust a gut!” she said.

Toilets in present-day Japan include the most high-tech commodes and urinals in the world. They take your temperature, check your blood pressure, analyze your leftovers, and if you want, transmit the results to your doctor. How times have changed!
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

New Japanese Technology May Result in Self-Cleaning Houses!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Modern conveniences have take much of the drudgery out of keeping houses and buildings clean—at least to the eye—but in addition to the ongoing problems of keeping bathrooms and kitchens free of unsightly visible blemishes, there are less visible as well as completely invisible problems that can seriously affect the health of the occupants.

Japanese scientists have created robotic devices that do much of the work once done by housewives, maids and cleaning personnel but these robots only go so far and do so much, have not yet become commonplace, and do not address more dangerous threats presented by homes and buildings.

Now, a Japanese research team at Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. has come up with technology that makes it possible for buildings to sanitize themselves, eradicating bacteria and mold, destroying toxic compounds like formaldehyde, and in fact, clean away dirt.

This new technology makes use of the reaction of photo-catalysts to the presence of light, both natural sunlight and fluorescent lighting, to degrade and destroy both visible and invisible contamination that plagues houses and public places—this includes keeping the sides of toilet bowls and wash basins clean, deodorizing toilets, sanitizing counters, tables and other surfaces, and keeping mirrors from clouding.

The secret of the home-and-building cleansing and sanitizing technology lies in the photo-catalytic materials that Matsushita scientists have created, and is said to just be the beginning of other potential applications for the technology.

One of the more interesting uses of the technology—developed by the Yokohama Waterworks Bureau—is to combine a “water curtain” with the glass of windows that have been coated with a photo-catalyst. When sunlight strikes the windows it causes the water to spread out in a thin layer over the glass, turning each window into a kind of self-contained refrigeration unit.

Another even more exciting use of the technology, developed by Nippo Corporation, is in road-paving material containing photo-catalytic materials that will suck in and destroy smog-causing nitrogen oxides contained in car exhaust. This paving material was introduced in 2008.

Another technological innovation in Japan that will take the old finger-print way of identifying people another step forward is being introduced by NEC Corporation. This new technology reads both fingerprints and finger vein patterns, with both biometric functions incorporated in one small device.

The device reads both the finger prints and finger veins in approximately one second, and therefore competes handily with the individual print and vein readers marketed by Hitachi, and palm vein readers marketed by Fujitsu—with the advantage that it is just one unit.

So far, the market for fingerprint and veinprint readers has primarily been offices and buildings that require high security measures, and ATM’s, but it is expected that the technology will spread to private homes, eliminating keys which can be lost as well as compromised, and to computers and other things.

And still in the extraordinary innovation scene in Japan, we now have socks and stockings that give you a foot massage. There are five places on the soles of our feet that are “pressure points”—that is, nerve endings that connect with various other parts of the body.

Acupuncturists and masseuses have long been aware of these pressure points and use them in the ministrations. Now all you have to do is to wear a “tsubosto” sock or stocking, and every time you take a step you massage yourself.

These socks and stockings have tiny protrusions made of a titanium-silicon alloy that connect with the therapeutic pressure points on the feet. The very small “bumps” apply gentle pressure to the nerves.

The socks are made by Tsubosto Co. in Tokyo’s Nakano Ward…and are imprinted with such images as butterflies and flowers to make the tiny protrusions less noticeable when you take your shoes off. I haven’t tried them, but I’m going to get a pair at the first opportunity.

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Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

Americans Adopting the Worst Elements of Japanese Culture

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

In the mid-1960s when I was a Tokyo-based trade journalist I wrote that a growing number of Americans were being influenced by positive elements in Japan’s traditional culture and were approaching the cultural sophistication that the Japanese had reached by the 10th century.

In that instance I was referring to the arts, crafts, food, poetry, literature, entertainment and sexual practices. But in the following two decades Japan’s influence on the United States was to go well beyond these areas and become a serious national problem.

By the mid-1970s many segments of American industry were being threatened with extinction by the overwhelming power of Japan’s economic juggernaut, and it was not until then that American business leaders began to pick up on the Japanese concepts of kaizen (continuous improvement), kanban (just in time parts delivery), hinshitsu (quality), miryokuteki hinshitsu (quality with sex appeal), yugo ka (fuzzy thinking), and other Japanese practices...all of which I had been promoting in my books on Japan for well over a decade.

In The Japanese Influence on America, a book I wrote in the early 1980s, I described the impact that Japan was having on American management and manufacturing processes—both of which had become obsolete and had already relegated many segments of American industry to the trash dump of history—and recommended practical steps for American manufacturers to take in order to not only cope with but to benefit from the Japanese challenge.

Now, the influence of Japanese culture on the U.S. has gone well-beyond beyond management and manufacturing processes, eating sushi, and singing in karaoke bars—all of which have their very positive sides.

On the other hand, we also seem to be hung up on adopting some of the worst elements of Japan’s traditional culture. …elements which the Japanese themselves are actually in the process of giving up.

The outmoded elements of Japanese culture that Americans are importing include behavior that is based on policies instead of principles, and hiding behind facades (tatemae/tah-tay-my) rather than telling the truth up front (honne/hone-nay). Both American businessmen and politicians have become masters of the tatemae approach.

More and more Americans are now also emulating Japan’s traditional approach to human sexuality by condoning and celebrating it. Like the Japanese of old, we now elevate prostitutes and pornographers to star status. But we do not have the structure or restraints that were built into the Japanese way and kept it under control.

Our whole economy is driven by the exploitation of sex, especially female sexuality, and sexual behavior has become a kind of free-for-all, with the only restraints being the time and place—and even these are often ignored. And not surprisingly, this element of American culture has been adopted by most other developed and developing countries in the world—driving home the old adage that sex sells.

Today’s over-emphasis on female sexuality obviously derives from the efforts of religions to mask, suppress and deny the sexuality of females—a male ploy designed to keep women on the bottom.

I am all for emancipation from the ancient religious view of human sexuality that has brought unimaginable suffering to the Western world…but it needs to be de-commercialized and humanized.

There are still many positive things to learn from the Japanese, including their use of both sides of their brains (the rational side and the emotional side), which contributes to their extraordinary design sense and their appreciation of beauty.

I recommend The Advantages of Using Both Sides of Your Brain [something the Japanese are very good at], available on amazon.com.

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Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

The Extraordinary Merits of Japan’s Modern-Day Karate

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Most countries in the world today remain awash in irrational and violent behavior because their cultures are incapable of instilling in people the mindset that is necessary to build and sustain rational, positive, humane, and constructive societies.

I believe that the physical, emotional and philosophical discipline offered by Japan’s modern-day version of karate (kah-rah-tay) training could go a long way toward reducing many of the evils that continue to afflict mankind—if not eliminating some of them altogether—and I advocate making training in this former martial art mandatory in all elementary and high schools around the world.

As simplistic and perhaps as other-worldly as it may sound, this is one training program that all children could be enrolled in at an early age that would go a long way toward instilling in them many of the cultural attributes that are the most desirable and admirable in human beings—and the only thing their parents would have to do is enroll them in this program and keep them in it from around the age of five to fifteen or older.

The story of karate as a Japanese fighting art began on the historically independent island kingdom of Okinawa after it was conquered by a Japanese warlord in 1609, and the residents were forbidden to have weapons of any kind.

Bereft of weapons, Okinawan warriors soon developed the ancient Chinese version of karate [“empty hand”] into a more formidable martial art, making it possible for them to inflict serious injury or death on a person using only their hands.

During the following decades of Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate era [1603-1867] karate was gradually subsumed into the training of the samurai who ruled Japan and Okinawa. Later, after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1867 and dissolution of the samurai class in 1870, karate became a part of the training of Japan’s imperial army and police forces.

By the early 1900s a few farsighted martial arts masters who were not associated with training the military or police forces began to teach karate as a sport aimed at developing the character of the individual, with special emphasis on respect for others, concentration, self-confidence, diligence, a sense of order, perseverance, honesty and courage.

But this type of enlightened training did not become widespread in Japanese society because of the militaristic nature of the post-samurai government—a situation that did not begin to change until some two decades after the establishment of a democratic form of government in 1945/46.

Today most people around the world are familiar with the word karate as a result of movies, video games and comic books which continue to present it as a fighting technique, but in real life most training in karate is aimed at building the kind of character and behavior that all parents would like to see in their children.

The popularity of training in modern karate is now growing in Japan, and the number of karate training centers around the world is increasing [there are over 3,000 in the U.S. alone] as more parents come to understand that its remarkable benefits include improving the character, personality and behavior of their children.

The World of Martial Arts Information Center lists these benefits as: learning the value of time, the importance of perseverance in achieving success, the dignity of simplicity, the value of character, the power of kindness, the influence of example, the obligation of duty, the wisdom of economy, the virtue of patience, the improvement of talents and the importance of respect.

Since ordinary people now have the opportunity to influence beliefs and events on a scale that was not even imaginable until the advent of the Internet, I suggest that this amazing power be utilized to introduce millions of people around the planet to the extraordinary benefits of modern-day karate with the goal of getting it incorporated into a universal Earth culture.

Anyone interested in pursuing this proposal might go to amazon.com and check out: Samurai Principles & Practices That Will Help Preteens & Teens in School, Sports, Social Activities & Choosing Careers! It is especially aimed at parents and teachers.
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

Eliminating “Old Men Smell” & Sex Pheromones

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

The creative and innovating abilities of Japanese scientists and product developers are apparently unbounded—as is the variety of areas and things that attract their attention.

Among the recent and more far-out of their innovations are lines of men’s wear that “eat” body odors.

Now if that doesn’t strike you as being worthy of serious attention and effort by developers and researchers, you may have to spend some time reconsidering the power of modern-day advertising that is designed to program the minds of viewers and listeners to buy their products.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, you may have to resort to considering the modern-day sensibilities of women who because of advertising find the smell of sweat—their own but especially that of men—unpleasant and unacceptable.

There is more. It is a given that as men age their natural body odor changes…taking on a fetid smell to varying degrees. The older the man the stronger this smell becomes, and if not controlled by bathing and other means the smell can be a real turn-off for people with a keen sense of smell.

As it happens, most men of whatever age are either not conscious of their own smell or it doesn’t bother them. Basically, it’s kind of like working in a sausage factory. After a while you don’t notice the smell.

Women in Japan and other “advanced countries” are especially sensitive to male sweat because they have been programmed to consider it both unsightly and unpleasant. And this especially applies to both outer and under garments worn by men.

Now, Japanese apparel manufacturers have mounted an all-out war against sweat-soaked shorts and suits by creating fabrics that deodorized themselves. Talk about advancing the human condition!

But what the makers, buyers and sniffers (meaning women) are forgetting—if they ever knew—is that male sweat is loaded with sex-related chemicals called pheromones that are designed to attract females and turn them on.

If the odor of male sweat is eliminated altogether—and that is obviously the direction humanity is going in—and men no longer have this invisible sexual attraction going for them, what will happen to male-female relations?

Men are already becoming feminized to an amazing degree that flies in the face of nature…a portent of the time when females will be the dominate half of the species.

If you would like to know more about why and how this is happening, go to the book category of amazon.com and check out The Myth of Intelligent Life on Planet Earth!
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

SELLING SEX IN A GLASS*

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

The entertainment trades in Japan were traditionally referred as the mizu shobai (me-zoo show-by) or the "water business." There is no agreement on how the term mizu shobai came into use, but it is fairly obvious that the extraordinary number of natural hot springs in the country and the ancient Japanese practice of bathing in them for pleasure as opposed to cleanliness led to the association of pleasure and water.

The term mizu shobai apparently came into use during the early decades Japan's last shogunate dynasty (1603-1867)—a period that saw the rise of huge bathhouses that catered specifically to men seeking pleasures of the flesh, a great network of roadside inns around the country that featured both hot baths and sexual services, and the expansion of geisha districts and courtesan quarters in every city.

During this period mizu shobai referred to all of the entertainment trades, including the theater, but in time it came to be the most closely associated with the large red-light districts that flourished throughout the country, the thousands of roadside inns that provided hot baths and sake (sah-kay), and a huge number of nomiya (no-me-yah) or “drinking places.”

While organized prostitution was subject to the control of the shogunate government and the 200-plus daimyo (die-m’yoh) provincial lords in their own fiefs, it was a sanctioned enterprise that was not under a cloud of moral righteousness. The Japanese did not associate sex with sin or the marriage contract, thus sparing themselves the suffering imposed on Christian and Muslim people by their religious leaders over the millennia.

THE ROLE OF ALCOHOL
Drinking for ceremonial as well as recreational purposes has been an established custom in Japan since mythological times, with sake (sah-kay) having been sanctified by the gods of Shinto as well as temporal leaders.

The Japanese are now among the champion drinkers of the world, imbibing sake, beer, whiskey, vodka and other drinks with equal enthusiasm. Drinking plays a significant ritualistic role in the lives of most Japanese businessmen and many professionals. (The Japanese have traditionally believed that you could not get to really know a person until the person got drunk and ignored etiquette and role-playing.)

THE UBIQUITOUS NOMIYA
The most common feature of Japan's mizu shobai today is the hundreds of thousands of nomiya (no-me-yah) or "drinking places." There are several different varieties and classes of drinking establishments, including what are typically referred to as bars, lounges, nightclubs and cabarets, along with beer halls, pubs and places that specialize in sake.

There is a great deal of overlapping in the use of these terms but there are basic differences in them, including some that are prescribed by law. One of the most important of these legal differences is that, regardless of what they are called, a nomiya must be licensed as a cabaret to employ hostesses who sit with, dance with, and otherwise personally entertain patrons. Another legal factor is that a place must be licensed as a restaurant to stay open after midnight.

In cabarets, patrons are automatically assigned hostesses as soon as they come in and are seated, and are charged a hostess fee that is more or less based on time as well as on the class and standards of the individual cabaret. If a patron has a favorite hostess, he may request her for an additional fee.

Big spenders may allow more than one hostess per guest to join them at their tables or booths. They may also allow the girls to rotate, giving more girls the opportunity to earn fees. (Some places automatically rotate the hostesses in order to run up the bills of their customers; a ploy that yakuza controlled places routinely use on naive customers, including foreigners.)

Cabarets posing as night clubs generally allow patrons to choose whether or not they want the company of hostesses — a concept introduced into the mizu shobai by the founders of the first postwar night clubs in the late 1940s, most of whom were foreigners, including some Americans.

JAPANESE PUBS
One type of drinking establishment that originated during the Edo period (1603-1867) and was modernized in the 1970s is known as izakaya (ee-zah-kah-yah), the Japanese equivalent of an Irish pub or American tavern.

There are many izakaya chains, with Yoro no Taki (Yoe-roe no Tah-kee) being the largest (and rapidly spreading to the American West Coast). Yoro no Taki has some 1,800 branches in Japan, most of which are franchises.

Another of the izakaya chains is Tsuhachi (T'sue-hah-chee), with some 400 outlets. The Murasaki chain, with nearly 650 outlets, combines the atmosphere of a cafe-bar with a furusato izakaya (fuu-rue-sah-toe ee-zah-kah-yah), or "hometown tavern."
The big attraction of the izakaya are the low prices for the basic alcoholic beverages (sake, beer and shochu), good solid food and the fact that they cater to women as well as men.

"SINGING BARS"
As most people know, one of the most popular types of bars in Japan today is the karaoke (kah-rah-oh-kay) bar, or bars that provide microphones, sound equipment and tape-decks for patrons who want to sing to the company of orchestra-like music. Karaoke means "empty orchestra," and refers to the illusion that the singer is performing with a live orchestra.

Many Japanese practice singing several songs in private (often for years) so they won't be embarrassed when they are called on to perform in public.

Singing in a karaoke bar means more to most Japanese businessmen than just having a good time. Besides relieving stress and providing personal satisfaction, such performances are seen by many as important to one's overall character and personality.

In explaining the importance of the karaoke bars to foreign guests, Japanese businessman will often say that you must understand karaoke in order to understand the Japanese, and that if you truly want to communicate with them you must learn how to sing along with them as well as perform on your own. There is a great deal of validity to this firmly held and often expressed belief which obviously accounts for the number and popularity of such bars.

The fact that very few Westerners, especially Americans, can carry a tune much less sing decently, is a social handicap when they are in Japan visiting or on business. My advice is to learn at least one song, even if it is as simple as "Old Grey Mare" or "I've Been Working on the Railroad."

Notwithstanding all of the new and different kinds of drinking and carousing establishments Japan, cabarets remain the favorite of middle-aged and older men who can afford the cost because they combine drinking with the attention of very attractive young women who are either available or work very hard to give that impression.

Even though cabaret customers may not end up trysting with their favorite hostesses, they go back time and again for the sexual lift they get— and end up drinking an awful lot of alcohol. For nowhere in the world have the purveyors of male-oriented "recreation" become more skilled at "selling sex in a glass"* than the operators of Japan's cabarets and their cadre of hostesses.
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China. For synopses of his titles go to: www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.com.
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*The phrase “Selling Sex in a Glass” was coined in the 1970s by Larry Flynt, now the publisher of Hustler Magazine, and then the owner-operator of a chain of go-go clubs in Ohio. I served as his publishing consultant when he inaugurated the magazine… initially to promote the clubs. I resigned the position when he decided to go porno with the magazine.

Asian Art of Face Reading Goes High Tech!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

The ancient Asian art of face-reading has gone high-tech in Japan. Japanese scientists are now applying high-speed photographic technology to the art, adding a new dimension to understanding human feelings and human communication—a development that could eventually change most human interactions.

This new development is being led by electronics manufacturer Omron’s Keihanna Technology Innovation Center [KTIC] in its O’kao (Honorable Face) face-sensing technology project.

The KTIC has over one million photos of the faces of some 9,000 people that reveal different facial expressions that are then related to meanings and moods—taking the art of face-reading to a level never dreamed of before.

The researchers say the new technology can be applied in many ways, from linking people with devices and machines to revealing a person’s innermost thoughts that may be contrary to what they are saying—going beyond a sophisticated lie-detector to virtually reading a person’s mind.

Japanese researchers at Meiji University School of Science and Technology (MUSST) are taking this new innovation in a different direction by linking facial movements to operating electronic devices, giving the impression of virtual thought-control.

MUSST’s main project is a robotic face [called Kansei or “Sensibilities”] that has a data base of half a million words with facial expressions that relate to meanings of the words.

The creator of the robotic face, Prof. Junichi Takeno, says his goal is to discover the mechanisms of consciousness. At this time his robot face has 36 expressions—probably more than the average person thinks he or she is capable of expressing.

Among the practical applications of the new face-reading approach: enhanced security systems; photo booth cameras that manipulate colors and contrasts to make the subjects more attractive; turn electronic devices off and on; manipulate household appliances that have embedded chips; and act as backups for drivers who become fatigued or whose attention is distracted—in other words, the ultimate remote controls.

Face-reading as both an art and science was originally studied and institutionalized in China some 3,000 years ago by physicians who began to relate facial features with intelligence, character, personality, sexuality and other human attributes as part of their health-care practices.

From the health-care industry, face-reading became a skill that was used by the Chinese military, by employers, and by men seeking more amorous female partners—the latter use making it especially popular among ordinary people. [Many of the readings are sensually oriented.]

From around the 14th century A.D. Japanese priests and others who had occasion to visit China picked up on the face-reading theory and practice of the Chinese and introduced it into Japan.

I began studying the art in Japan in the mid-1950s after being inspired by the face-reader brought in by the military in 1939 to help decide what kind of training new recruits were best suited for. He was living in Chiba at that time and readily agreed to be interviewed.

I subsequently wrote a book entitled Face-Reading for Fun & Profit, went on a lecture tour in the U.S., and appeared on the then popular What’s My Line television show in New York.

This activity helped promote the use of face-reading in the corporate world of American, with some companies using face-readers in their recruiting efforts as well as in their decisions to promote employees to higher positions.

Everybody face reads. In fact, it is the very first thing we do when seeing or meeting someone for the first time, and throughout life we continue to read the faces of people we are talking to or listening to, and everyone automatically makes judgments about the character, veracity, etc., of these individuals.

But there are over one hundred precise readings based on the size, shape and quality of the facial features, and without special knowledge or training most people recognize and react to less than half of this number.

I [naturally!] recommend my own book, which has been republished under the title of Asian Face Reading – Unlock the Secrets Hidden in the Human Face, as a good starting place. It is available from bookstores and Amazon.com

___________________________Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

Astounding Advances in Robotics Rings Bells!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Recent technological advances by Japanese scientists in robotics brings to mind the movie “The Rise of the Machines”—one of the Terminator classics starring now California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger....advances that pose a serious question.

Will the new robots now coming online—and the incredible ones that are on the immediate horizon—be a boon to mankind (as the scientists claim) or will they evolve into a new order of intelligence that becomes self-aware (as in the movie “I, Robot”) and themselves decide on what the human-robot relationship should be?

Japanese scientists, who continue to make one break-through after the other in programming robots to feel, hear, see and think like human beings, maintain that their goals are to create robots that will be able to act as assistants, caretakers and nurses for Japan’s rapidly aging population.

That sounds both benign and worthy of pursuing, especially since the elderly are expected to make up 40 percent of Japan’s population by 2055—with similar demographic changes in other countries as higher living standards and better education results in a decline in births and longer life-spans.

Scientists in Japan are now engaged in creating the technology for a range of robots that includes caretakers, general servants, technicians and engineers. Technology already developed and being used includes most of the eye, hear, arm and leg functions that distinguish human beings.

The latest advances in robotics involves placing incredibly sensitive sensors all over the bodies of robots that emulate the tactile response of human skin—a development that has far-reaching and profound implications. The bodies (and fingers) of this new order of robots are just as sensitive as human bodies.

This growing effort to humanize robots is being spearheaded by a combination of government and private industry sponsorship under the heading of an organization called the Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative (IRT), which is aimed at fusing information technology and robot technology. In other words, the goal is to provide robots with human-like skills and brains.

Project teams are well into applying new control systems developed by such companies as Toyota and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. To avoid making the robots look like humans, and therefore a possible threat, these teams are coming up with forms based on the work the robots are designed to perform.

Their public rationale is that a robot designed to do mechanical repairs on a washing machine, for example, does not have to look like “Mr. Maytag;” a robot that prepares and serves meals would not necessarily have to look like a chef. But people would surely be more comfortable if it did, and it is this human emotion that will no doubt determine the appearance of most future “domestic” and “service” robots!

The efforts of the IRT are being directed by Isao Shimoyama, a professor at the University of Tokyo, who says his goal is to create a class of robots that will be integrated into human society on the level that machines, electrical appliances and electronic devices now play.

The several million people who visited the Expo of 2005 in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture got a glimpse of the robotic world of the future, but the walking and talking robots that were introduced at that exhibition pale when it comes to the generation of robots that will go into the first stages of production in 2009.

The time has come when the Laws of Robots devised by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in 1940 should be dusted off and turned into non-fiction laws worldwide. In summary, these laws state that under no circumstances can a robot harm a human being…and they would at least set standards that scientists should follow.

In the meantime, we are getting a preview of the future!
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente (b.1928) has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info

JAPANESE SCIENTIST "CLONES" HIMSELF!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

What would you do if you were suddenly faced by an android that looked exactly like you and acted exactly the same way you act—especially if you didn’t like what you saw?

That is exactly what happened to Osaka University Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, one of Japan’s leading robotic engineers who recently created a robot that was not only in his own image but also had many—if not all—of his subtle behavioral habits.

The professor is not a bad looking fellow, so he was not upset with the appearance of his double, but what really got to him were some of the odd behavioral ticks exhibited by the robot that he found uncomfortable to watch.

It seems that the professor had programmed the android to be an exact duplicate of himself in both appearance and in behavior….resulting in him finally seeing himself as others see him…which turned out to be a bit of a shock.

The good professor was further disturbed by the fact that his peers, coworkers and students all agreed that the android was a virtually perfect clone…that it exhibited all of his behavioral traits…putting him in a position of experiencing something that no one else had ever experienced before.

Prof. Ishiguro’s creation of an android clone of himself was not inspired by any ego trip, but by a strong desire to understand the scientific basis for human individuality…something that has never been identified much less quantified.

In addition to seeing his outward self as others saw him, Prof. Ishiguro extrapolated that if his inner self was revealed in the same way both he and everyone else who saw him would be even more surprised or shocked.

While this thought was even more disturbing to him, as a scientist he saw it as a big step forward in understanding the internal makeup of humans…which led him to begin asking questions of his students that surprised and shocked them. With one telling example being asking them to compare their daily activities with that of cockroaches...which, like humans, eat, sleep and propagate themselves.

Prof. Ishiguro notes that all individuals have personalities and characteristics that distinguish them from others to varying degrees, but the lives of most people are based on their financial and social status rather than inherent qualities that differentiate them from cockroaches.

He sees this phenomenon as a cultural failure that is the source of most of the self-made problems that have afflicted mankind since day one. He says that the most important thing that humans can do and other life forms cannot do is think about the fundamental questions of life and the world at large, and respond—rationally or irrationally.

While he doesn’t spell it out, he infers [correctly] that most people do not habitually think and respond in a rational, positive manner, which more or less puts them on the level of cockroaches.
Prof. Ishiguro adds that the only people who deserve to be called individuals are those who ask what human beings are, and have well thought-out perspectives of themselves and the role in life they should play to achieve the fullest potential of human beings…which makes him a philosopher first and a robot-maker second.

Many past philosophers have come to the same conclusions about humanity as Prof. Ishiguro, but none of them were robotics engineers, and none of them had the ultimate goal of creating robots that were indistinguishable from human beings in attitudes, values and behavior.

The closer the professor gets to this goal the more important it will be for him to program the androids so that they are, in fact, different from human beings—to make sure that they are not programmed to have the human propensity for irrational thinking and destructive behavior.

All of this may appear at first glance to be idle contemplation, but given the astounding advances that Prof. Ishiguro and other Japanese scientists are making in programming robots the eventual appearance of human-like androids is probably inevitable. And at some point, they could look at human beings as cockroaches…and put their foot down!
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Japan and East Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, business journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on Japan, Korea and China, including the first ever on the Japanese way of doing business. See: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

Japanese Scientists Make Verbal Translation Break-Thru

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Throughout history languages have separated human beings into exclusive groups, making communication difficult or impossible, exacerbating their cultural differences and contributing to wars and other kinds of violence.

The primary reason for this linguistic plague is the fact that languages are the reservoir, the transmitter, and the controller of cultures. People who speak different languages have problems because they think and behave in different ways.

When working as a trade journalist in Asia in the 1950s and 60s I learned that the cultures of China, Korea and Japan were bound up in hundreds of key words in each of the three languages, and that you simply could not understand their respective ways of thinking and behaving without intimate knowledge of these key words—a fact that I subsequently used in a series of “cultural code word” books on these countries.

But technology is on the verge of eliminating some of the linguistic barriers that separate human beings—and much sooner than you might think.

Most of the world is familiar with the “universal language” devices used by the fictional Capt. James T. Kirk and the intrepid crew of Star Trek to communicate with the various life-forms they encountered during their travels around the galaxies.

Now, reality is rapidly catching up with fiction. Japan’s Council for Science and Technology Policy [CSTP] has challenged the country’s automated speech translation researchers to improve the present technology in the next five years to the point that automated translators will be a reality for Japanese who want to communicate with English and Mandarin speakers.

Prototypes of these translators have already been field-tested in China, and the word is that they worked perfectly as long as the conversations were simple. The process is based on storing hundreds of thousands of sentences and speech patterns into the devices that have exact equivalents in the target languages.

The goal of the CSTP is to have universal translators on the market for all of the world’s major languages within ten years!

The impact that this will have on the world is so potentially profound and broad that over a period of a few generations it will surely change the nature of human cultures.

This revolutionary change in the ability of human beings to communicate with each other across language barriers will inevitably increase the volume of conversations, since every word that is pregnant with cultural nuances and uses will have to be explained in detail to make the communication complete.

To fully explain the cultural content and role of the Spanish term macho (mah-choh), for example, requires several hundred words. To fully explain the Japanese term kaizen (kigh-zen), or “continuous improvement,” requires as many as a thousand words or more (there is a whole book on the subject).

If you think there is too much babble in today’s world, consider what it will be like when this is multiplied many times over by universal translation technology embedded in your cell phone!
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente is the author of more than 50 business, cultural and language books on Japan, China, Korea, Mexico, Hopi Land and Navajo Land. See his website: http://www.business-cultural-language-books-on-china-japan-korea-mexico.info/

New Crown Jewel of Tokyo Hotels

Peninsula Tokyo Sets New Standards
For Combining Culture & Convenience

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Luxurious hotels that were perfect reflections of traditional Japanese culture first appeared in Japan nearly four hundred years ago, when the Tokugawa Shogunate decreed that some 270 of the country’s fief lords would spend every other year in Edo [Tokyo] in attendance at the Shogun’s Court.

Since this edict made it necessary for the lords and their entourages to spend several days to several weeks marching in stately processions between their fiefs and the Shogunate capital, the Shogunate also required the construction of a network of luxury inns, called honjin (hoan-jeen), for the exclusive use of the lords, their high-ranking retainers, members of the Imperial family, and court nobles.

Japan thus became the first country in the world to have a national network of luxury hotel accommodations for travelers—setting a precedent and establishing a tradition that was not to appear anywhere else in the world until the 19th century.

The first Western style honjin was constructed in Tokyo in 1890, and was christened The Imperial Hotel. Patronage of the new hotel grew rapidly and an annex was soon added. In 1910 it was decided to replace the buildings entirely with a much larger facility. Work did not start on the new hotel until 1917, and the Mayan-like second Imperial Hotel was officially opened to the public on August 31, 1923.

On the following day, at precisely 11:58 a.m. the Tokyo and Yokohama area was struck by a great earthquake that destroyed virtually every Western style building in the two cities—except for the new Imperial Hotel. The designer of the hotel, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, had “floated” the foundation of the hotel on huge pilings driven into the reclaimed land, allowing the massive stone-block building to ride out the waves of the earthquake like a boat.

For the next several decades the Imperial Hotel set the standard for Western style hotels in Japan, and then it was eclipsed by a stream of new international hotels, most of which incorporated some elements of Japanese arts and crafts into their interiors and furnishings, giving them a cultural façade that brought to mind the traditional honjin of the lords.

But none of these hotels did more than add a few surfaces touches of Japanese culture to their appointments…that is until the arrival of Peninsula Tokyo on the scene in 2007—exactly eighty-four years to the day after the Great Kanto Earthquake made the Imperial Hotel known around the world.

The architects and designers who created Peninsula Tokyo incorporated elements of traditional Japanese arts and crafts in virtually every aspect of the hotel, from the entryway to the floors, the ceilings, the walls, the rooms and the furnishings—all of which complement the ultimate in Western-style conveniences.

But the builders did not stop there. They also made Peninsula Tokyo the most high-tech hotel in the world. In fact, there are so many high-tech features in the rooms that a small manual is provided for guests to guide them through the futuristic amenities…one of the most practical of which is a cell phone that acts as an in-house phone when you are in the hotel and automatically converts to a mobile phone when you are out on the town.

Naturally, Peninsula Tokyo has a selection of gourmet quality Chinese, Japanese and international restaurants, one of which takes up all of the 24th floor and provides a 360-degree panoramic view of central Tokyo and the adjoining Imperial Palace Grounds.

In addition to being across the street from the outer Imperial Gardens, Peninsula Tokyo adjoins the core business district of Marunouchi as well as the Hibiya and Yurakucho restaurant and theater districts, and is a five-minute stroll from the Ginza, Tokyo’s most famous shopping and entertainment district.

For newcomers to the Asian scene, the pedigree of Peninsula Tokyo is impeccable. It is a member of the famous Peninsula group of hotels that began in Hong Kong in 1866 and now includes properties in New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills, Bangkok, and Manila. Peninsula Shanghai is scheduled to open in 2009.

Old Asian hands arriving at Peninsula Tokyo will immediately recognize the famed Peninsula Hong Kong connection: Rolls Royce Phantoms lined up in front of the hotel for use by guests, and the lobby restaurant where breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea is served and iconic Peninsula pageboys page guests who have phone calls or visitors.
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente is the author of more than 40 books on Japan, including Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business, the first book ever on the Japanese way of doing business, published in 1959. His most recent book on Japan: Elements of Japanese Design—Understanding and Using Japan’s Classic Wabi-Sabi-Shibui Concepts.