I don’t say these vices do not exist in Japanese society. They exist but their degree is nominal when it comes to their nation or society. In all the developed nations, the medieval vices have evolved to take more modern forms. India is still in passing phase of primitive and medieval vices and needs to meet the precondition of developed country to see the modern vices. There is nothing wrong in having them. Vices are just like by-products of a production environment. As in every production environment, India should think and plan disposal of its ‘social waste’ so that it can rapidly rise in the current world order.

Japan and Britain have proved that size does not matter and if it matters, it matters through thought process and strategy and vision and overall passion for one’s country.

There are many other smaller states like the ones in Gulf or in Asia Pacific that have left trailblazers in the economic development of their societies and country. But no one offers more eye openers than Japan. Sitting on the most fault lines of our earth, where reportedly one thousand earthquakes hit any given year, this is amazing and humbling.

During this period of my life, I am having certain realizations and am able to correlate my assumptions, readings, and hearings with my realizations to get altogether a new meaning of life, interpersonal relationships, business and culture. This may owe to my enduring effort to use management concepts for daily life situations and vice versa. I am also able to constantly think towards higher level of abstractions for the troubles countries are facing, why people do what they are doing, and why businesses succeed or fail despite their fair enterprises. Abstractions help me understand this world better.

I have heard in India that language is the biggest mascot of one’s culture and compromising on it means compromising with the heart of the country. When I was growing in India, I used to hear that the visiting Russian prime minister spoke in Russian. Chinese premier spoke in Chinese at the UN. One of India’s former prime ministers spoke in Hindi (India’s national language) at the UN when he was a high profile minister some decades ago. I used to feel pride of such instances as a nationalistic attitude but I never realized the essence of this till I visited Japan.

I am completely astounded to see how Japanese have preserved their language to the point where it seems they are foolish not to know any other language (read English).

At least this was my first reaction and not to say even now sometimes I feel that (you see my imperial thinking here!).

After some months I have realized that Japanese do not need English to advance their nation. They can very well do that with their mother tongue. They have actually proved it and this is not just the nationalistic feeling or cultural hindrance but conscious effort to promote brand Japan.

They could have very well become yet another US terrain as they are heavily adapted to US way of living but this was not to happen. At least in the last sixty years it seems to have a much focused approach to preserve their original culture and language. One can find repeated instances of ‘elegant Japan of Edo period’ in the tourist booklets and while conversing with native. Their places of pleasure such as parks, game zones, natural beauty, city infrastructure and lot of public amenities remain untouched by foreign hands just because of heavy usage of Japanese ‘Kana’ and ‘Kanji’ characters which are not only too tough to learn let alone master, but also keep these places only to be enjoyed by native themselves. Getting to know the details of this society needs a fair understanding of the language and they have been smart enough not to reveal it to a foreigner by speaking English. It is though surprising to know that many of the Japanese youth is English trained in USA and not in Britain as the Asians would like to believe. This gives an interesting turn to my understanding. As an Indian, raised in India, I generally believed that the English I wrote or spoke is the Standard English. As with British ruling India of around two hundred years, we learnt sophistication and English the British way. At this point I must tell you that a large part of Indian hinterland lives in one of the biggest depressions; of not speaking English very well. Conversing in English is somewhat a status symbol and adds great value to the personality of someone. With the craziness for English speaking in India, it is easy to guess that Indians speak the Queen’s language the best – grammatically best. When I visited UK, this was all too confirmed.