{"id":6907,"date":"2021-04-06T21:17:56","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T21:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=6907"},"modified":"2021-04-06T21:17:56","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T21:17:56","slug":"japan-a-county-of-low-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/japan-a-county-of-low-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan \u2013 A County of Low-Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you hear \u201cJapan,\u201d what do you think first?\u00a0 Anime?\u00a0 Sushi?\u00a0Some may think of \u00a0\u201chigh tech<\/u>\u201d (\u30cf\u30a4\u30c6\u30afhaiteku) first.\u00a0 But sadly, the Fukushima incident and COVID-19 have revealed that Japan was a pretty low-tech\u00a0<\/u>(\u30ed\u30fc\u30c6\u30afro-teku) country.<\/p>\n

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Photo taken and used with permission from Dalton Waldock.<\/p><\/div>\n

Japan has been famous for<\/u>\u00a0(\u301c\u3067\u6709\u540d\u306a de yuumeina) robots for factory automation and entertainment\u00a0<\/u>(\u5a2f\u697dgoraku).\u00a0 But none of their technologies worked when the Fukushima Nuclear incidents happened.\u00a0 Almost none of their robots were usable in the highly radioactive and highly technology-unfriendly environment, and the first robots that entered the facility were donated by iRobot of the US.<\/p>\n

But we had the toilet that cleansed you with just the appropriate temperature and force of your choice.\u00a0 And we had a brilliant toy dog from Sony to keep you company.\u00a0 And who could live without Nintendo and PlayStation?\u00a0I believe Japanese technologies focused on comfort and fun, instead of risk management.<\/p>\n

When the tsunami attacked the Fukushima nuclear facilities in 2011, the emergency electric power system stored in the basement\u00a0<\/u>(\u5730\u4e0bchika) was submerged in water and became inoperable.\u00a0The facilities are close to the ocean.\u00a0Didn\u2019t they think it was not really a great idea to have the emergency system in the basement?<\/p>\n

This reminded me of the technology that a Japanese consumer electronics company marketed in the 1990s when I was a high-tech analyst.\u00a0There was a new video deck that you could program to record your favorite TV programs up to 365 days ahead\u2026.\u00a0OK, was it practical\u00a0<\/u>(\u5b9f\u7528\u7684 jitsuyoteki)??\u00a0 Did we know our favorite TV programs would be still produced then?<\/p>\n

I have to think that something has been missing in the Japanese high-tech industry from these two examples \u2013 lack of risk management and lack of reality.\u00a0 However, I am the first one to say that \u201clack of reality\u201d is not all bad.\u00a0 You need that to think something unconventional.<\/p>\n

In my previous life, I dealt with many Japanese college students.\u00a0When they came to the US for a short-term study, very few brought a laptop\u00a0<\/u>(\u30ce\u30fc\u30c8\u30d1\u30bd\u30b3\u30f3noto pasokon) with them.\u00a0 My child who grew up in the US did not leave the house without his laptop since middle school.\u00a0 There are two reasons for this.\u00a0 1) Japanese young people use a smartphone\u00a0<\/u>(\u30b9\u30de\u30db sumaho) for almost everything, and 2) they are willing to use computers set up in the university.<\/p>\n

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Image by 1820796<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

According to the Newsweek Japan article<\/a>\u00a0based on the PISA 2018 (Program for International Student Assessment conducted by OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development,) only 35% of 15-year olds in Japan surveyed answered that they used a laptop at home as opposed to 63% in Korea, 73% in the US, and 94% in Denmark.\u00a0 It was lower than the developing counties.\u00a0 And the usage rate at school was the lowest among the 79 countries surveyed.<\/p>\n

When it comes to digitalizatio<\/u>n (\u30c7\u30b8\u30bf\u30eb\u5316dejitaruka), it is worse!\u00a0 As I live in the US, I live in a digitalized society.\u00a0 I can do almost every business online.\u00a0 Not in Japan.\u00a0 Here is one of my many experiences\u00a0<\/u>(\u7d4c\u9a13 keiken).\u00a0 In Japan, you need a hanko (a stamp that has your name curved) for any official documents and services.\u00a0 I was in the US, so the US headquarters let me use my signature instead.\u00a0 A decade later, I tried to execute some transactions \u2013 not onlinebut on snail-mail, might I add.\u00a0The bank said that my signature was not correct.\u00a0 I said \u201cLook, the signature you have is from 10 years ago at least.\u00a0 You see, the writing changes in 10 years.\u201d\u00a0 They said that they understood but they could not accept it.\u00a0 So typical!!\u00a0They said that they would mail me the new signature registration form, and I would need to fill it out and mail it back along with my passport and driving license by snail-mail.\u00a0 The whole transaction took well over 2 months!<\/p>\n

Things progress\u00a0<\/u>(\u9032\u3080 susumu) very slowly in Japan.\u00a0 I still need to print out the address change form and contact form online and snail-mail them to a bank.\u00a0 It is extremely sad that huge disasters\u00a0<\/u>(\u707d\u5bb3saigai) like the Fukushima nuclear accident and COVID-19 are the driving force\u00a0<\/u>(\u539f\u52d5\u529b gendouryoku) to make the Japanese think and admit\u00a0<\/u>(\u8a8d\u3081\u308bmitomeru) that something may not be working right and think that a change is necessary.<\/p>\n

I will write about the slow digitalization in Japan and the problems that it has been posing in the COVID-19 society in my next blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

When you hear \u201cJapan,\u201d what do you think first?\u00a0 Anime?\u00a0 Sushi?\u00a0Some may think of \u00a0\u201chigh tech\u201d (\u30cf\u30a4\u30c6\u30afhaiteku) first.\u00a0 But sadly, the Fukushima incident and COVID-19 have revealed that Japan was a pretty low-tech\u00a0(\u30ed\u30fc\u30c6\u30afro-teku) country. Japan has been famous for\u00a0(\u301c\u3067\u6709\u540d\u306a de yuumeina) robots for factory automation and entertainment\u00a0(\u5a2f\u697dgoraku).\u00a0 But none of their technologies worked when the…<\/p>\n

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