Yōkoso – welcome to the Japan category of this blog. This blog was inspired by my love of Japanese culture and their consumer trends. I was introduced to chambara films thanks to being a fan of Sergio Leone’s dollars trilogy. A Fistful of Dollars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.
Getting to watch Akira and Ghost In The Shell for the first time were seminal moments in my life. I was fortunate to have lived in Liverpool when the 051 was an arthouse cinema and later on going to the BFI in London on a regular basis.
Today this is where I share anything that relates to Japan, business issues, the Japanese people or culture. Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Lawson launched a new brand collaboration with Nissan to sell a special edition Nissan Skyline GT-R. And that I thought was particularly interesting or noteworthy, that might appear in branding as well as Japan.
There is a lot of Japan-related content here. Japanese culture was one of odd the original inspirations for this blog hence my reference to chambara films in the blog name.
I don’t tend to comment on local politics because I don’t understand it that well, but I am interested when it intersects with business. An example of this would be legal issues affecting the media sector for instance.
If there are any Japanese related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.
It has taken me far too long to finish Chip War and write this review, so apologies in advance. Chip War was one of the FT’s best business books of 2022. In reality it’s a book about history, that happens to feature businesses.
The lens shaping everything else that I have written here
I am a sucker for books on the history of technology and Chip War was right in my wheelhouse. It complemented, rather than overlapped some of my existing favourite technology history books like Bob Cringely’s Accidental Empires, John Markoff’s What The Dormouse Said or most of Michael Malone and Steven Levy’s output to date.
The author
The author Chris Miller wasn’t a familiar name to me. Unlike Cringely, Markoff, Malone or Levy; Miller is an academic rather than a former journalist. Miller currently teaches international history at Tufts University. Chip War wasn’t his first book, his previous ones have focused on Soviet and Russian history. As a technology sector outsider, Miller’s Chip War has a very different tone my other favourite books from the genre.
It also allowed Miller to view the history of semiconductors in terms of a global perspective, that I hadn’t previously seen done.
On to Chip War itself
Other reviewers have used words like ‘outstanding’ and ‘epic’ to describe the book – which while being a reasonable guide to overall quality and length of read aren’t really all that helpful. It took me six months to read as a casual book. This is partly down to a hectic work schedule and that its a long book. I suspect that some readers when they reviewed the book seem to have thought ‘long’ as difficult to read. It’s actually 351 pages ignoring acknowledgements and the footnotes at the back of the book. Being an academic Miller worked hard to source everything in Chip War.
The book starts in the post-war period as the defence industry moves from being focused on hammering steel to developing smarter systems using semiconductors. That road takes the book past Texas Instruments and the early Silicon Valley of Bob Noyce and other members of the treacherous eight.
The book also zooms out to cover the Soviet Union’s failed efforts to replicate Silicon Valley as well as domestic industrial espionage and the start of globalisation which begat the current industry.
The Japanese challenge is covered in depth as is the rise of Korea including challenges that the industry faced in the early 2000s. The rise of Taiwan and its use of semiconductors as a hedge against invasion from the mainland. European tool maker ASML gets its own section, which is a case study in how to make a virtue of necessity. Finally it covers the technology conflict with China. Bring this up to date circa 2022.
If you are student of Silicon Valley history, then Chip War is unique in the way it puts everything in context. There were some completely new parts to me such as the political role that Sony founder Akio Morita played in advocating for a robust Japanese semiconductor industry as part of reasserting Japanese importance internationally.
You can get hold of Chip War here. More book reviews here.
Switching off as a choice is a relatively new phenomenon. A few blogposts ago I talked about how consumer internet usage started for me 25 years ago. Back then going online was an active choice. In my case I would have to travel to an internet café. Later I would have to dial-in to an ISP or log into a wi-fi network.
Confluence of always-on elements
Wireless home broadband allowed seamless connectivity around the house or the workplace. The next thing that changed was laptop battery battery life improved to the point that one could realistically work for a 8 hours on writing or emailing at a conference or coffee shop without a power cable. Social media became a thing, first it was a positive influence, but gradually it had a more complex social impact.
Finally there was smartphones. Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm and Microsoft smartphone attempts gave way to a duopoly of Apple and Alphabet’s respective eco-systems. I went back to an old presentation that I did a number of years ago. Here’s a chart from it, that I pulled together of publicly available active user numbers by time from December 1997 to April 2016.
The dramatic take off in Gmail email accounts in 2011 and beyond is down to the rise of the Android operating system. By 2013, smartphone users were engaged by a series of compelling always-on applications to counter switching off.
Ged Carroll for IMM Conference, Hong Kong (August 2013)
Switching off became important. ‘Crackberry‘ – a light hearted take on smartphone addiction and an ability to turn off peaked as a thing as far back as September 2009 according to Google Trends. 12 months later the Crackberry book advised us on how to put down our smartphones. Four years later, the self-help books became more strident in their exhortations: Put Down Your Damn Phone Already: A (loving) rant about your obnoxious cellphone use being a case in point.
The biggest concerns now, seems to be about two things where correlation if not causality supports beliefs about:
From a professional perspective and increasingly a personal perspective, consumers have become smartphone human cyborgs.
Class as a determinant of switching off
Switching off is also about culture and behaviour. A discussion that I had with a friend about phones being turned off and put in a box before a night at the opera, reminded me of how ‘class’ in its widest sense can be one of the biggest determinants of switching off. You see it in homes that put phones away before a family dinner, or cinema-goers who are happy to turn their phone off before the main feature starts.
The bulk of people may have the devices as always-on pacifiers. This quietens children and is seen as a continued source of confidence and validation rather than switching off.
Secondly, we’re also seeing a small proportion of people choosing to use feature phones as a way of disconnecting. This might happen all the time or at the weekend, when they don’t want to be bothered by Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp messages.
The world’s last internet cafes – Rest of World – Internet cafes were more than just places to log on. They emerged in the waning years of the 20th century — a post-Cold War moment full of techno-optimism. Sharing a global resource like the internet “was going to bring different people in different cultures together in mutual understanding,” historian and author Margaret O’Mara told Rest of World. It was an era in which, both physically and digitally, “people were moving across borders that before were very difficult, if not impossible, to cross.”
MLM or multi-level marketing is where people who need to make money buy product from a company like Avon, Amway, Herbalife, Nu-Skin or Tupperware. Usually the franchisee doesn’t buy directly but through a contact. They may be a long way down in a chain of sellers, which means you end up with a pyramid scheme. Some have described the onboarding and seller communications as a cult. (Disclosure, I did a bit of agency work on Nu-Skin when I worked in Hong Kong, I got to see products, but not how they were sold).
Financial freedom
The real product of MLM seems to be hope. Discussing the downside of MLM at this time is important. Financial freedom is going to sound particularly appealing to struggling middle class households wrestling with the cost of living crisis and rising mortgage interest rates.
These videos by Sean Munger give a really good insight into Amway.
Ponzinomics
Robert Fitzpatrick’s self-published Ponzinomics seems to be the most cited book talking about the underbelly of MLM. Here’s an interview with him.
Soviet space programme
Enough time has gone buy for us to know how innovative the Soviet space programme was. Some of the innovations were dictated to them by limitations in production campacity. I came across these films about it.
And how Russian closed cycle rocket engines surprised NASA after the cold war.
I, Claudius
Robert Graves period drama novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God were remade in 1976 as a 13 part TV series. (The first two episodes are called 1a and 1b, presumably to avoid an episode 13, given that theatre as a whole is superstitious). In 1965, the BBC had done a documentary about the unfinished 1937 film version and had found bringing their version to television difficult due to production rights still tied into the 1937 production.
I, Claudius was considered to be a high water mark from point of view of audience viewership of more high brow material and latterly critics consider it to be one of the best TV programmes ever on British TV.
Hello Hong Kong
I received post from friends in Hong Kong and the package had a large sticker highlighting the Hello Hong Kong campaign which the government has been using to paper over the cracks left by its authoritarian pivot.
Hello Hong Kong mandatory sticker.
One part of me thought that ambient media such as the sticker might be a good side hustle for mail services everywhere. As I dug into it, I found out that the staff ‘had to’ put these stickers on the packaging and at least some of them were doing so reluctantly. At least some customers were reluctant for their packages to be ‘propaganda banners’ for the Beijing backed regime. Meanwhile 7/21 alleged government backed triad actions are still fresh in the mind of locals.
YKK
You don’t think about how YKK clothes zips work effortlessly, but this Asianometry documentary gives you insight into the Japanese zip manufacturer.
Starbucks Rewards as massive bank
I used to use the Starbucks pre-payment system back when I could use it in both the UK and Hong Kong, but a rupture came in when Starbucks removed its rewards scheme from stored value cards to an app. So I found this video by ColdFusion reframing the Rewards scheme as a large bank like pool of money more akin to PayPal’s float than Avios loyalty points.
Apollo project astronauts off the record
On everything from the context of Project Apollo through to their views on climate change.
Restaurant of mistaken orders
A Japanese pop-up retail project with restaurant servers who are suffering from dementia. I was sent the link by a friend of mine from Japan – the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders really brings the impact home.
An interesting documentary from 1971 that explores the idea of ‘The Irish Race’ – it is one episode in a 10-part documentary series ‘We The Irish’. It features some of Ireland’s leading public thinkers at the time including Conor Cruise O’Brien and Seán Ó Faoláin. ‘Race’ as a term is more problematic now than back then as there were so few Irish people who weren’t white European looking as Ireland was a next exporter of people rather than welcoming inbound migrants until recent decades. Secondly, the Irish people were constantly having to establish their identity, culture, language and accomplishments in the shadow of their former colonial rulers.
Ó Faoláin an internationally famous short-story writer, a key part of the Irish arts establishment and a leading commentator and critic – a role played by the likes of Fintan O’Toole today.
The discussion about the Irish race was an essential part of decolonising the Irish identity; by emphasising Irish distinctiveness and salience rather than reinforcing racial superiority. A process that countries like Singapore and Malaysia would wrestle with in subsequent decades too.
Tracing The Irish Race
Ó Faoláin starts his discussion with the book Facts About Ireland that was published for over three decades by the Irish Government. The book itself is like a more in-depth version of the CIA World Fact Book profile on Ireland. It was available in souvenir shops up and down the country, my parents probably have my copy of the 1979 edition that I purchased from Salmon’s newsagent and post office in Portumna
O’Brien was part of the Irish elite. His father was a journalist for a Republican newspaper pre-independence and he married into the political establishment of the Irish Republic. But that shouldn’t take away from his achievements in the various facets of his career by turns was an Irish diplomat, politician, writer, historian and academic.
The series also marks a different kind of high brow factual television than we are used to seeing now.
The Case for a Hard Break With China | Foreign Affairs – U.S. theorists and policymakers ignored the potential risks of integration with an authoritarian peer. Globalization was predicated on liberal economic standards, democratic values, and U.S. cultural norms, all of which were taken for granted by economists and the foreign policy establishment – the arguments in the article are not new, what’s interesting is that they are being run in Foreign Affairs magazine and that should worry China
Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints | Reuters – Tesla years ago began exaggerating its vehicles’ potential driving distance – by rigging their range-estimating software. The company decided about a decade ago, for marketing purposes, to write algorithms for its range meter that would show drivers “rosy” projections for the distance it could travel on a full battery, according to a person familiar with an early design of the software for its in-dash readouts. Then, when the battery fell below 50% of its maximum charge, the algorithm would show drivers more realistic projections for their remaining driving range, this person said. To prevent drivers from getting stranded as their predicted range started declining more quickly, Teslas were designed with a “safety buffer,” allowing about 15 miles (24 km) of additional range even after the dash readout showed an empty battery, the source said – fundamentally dishonest
Six Bubble Tea Chains Plan IPOs in Bet on China Consumer Revival – Bloomberg – Firms with fast franchise growth not allowed to list onshore. Mixue, ChaBaiDao, GoodMe among firms weighing listings. Who is to say that these businesses won’t be like Luckin Coffee? If the Chinese government won’t allow them to list at home and they don’t want to list in Hong Kong, one has to wonder about the state of these businesses
A couple of things about this video. Major Australian TV network asked YouTuber ColdFusion to make this documentary. YouTubers are now competing against TV production houses for production briefs. Secondly, the video offers a positive take on how machine learning may impact healthcare.
JustoffJunction.co.uk – genius app for planning British motorway travel, the reason why you would care would be the inflated prices at motorway services stops
The two stand out films of the summer are Barbie and Oppenheimer . Oppenheimer is a biopic of scientist and Manhattan Project lead J. Robert Oppenheimer, based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer went on to lead the projects Los Alamos lab. Los Alamos National Laboratory has gone on to do scientific research on defence projects as well as health related projects. Casting of Cillian Murphy provides a good physical resemblance of Robert Oppenheimer.
J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic
Oppenheimer is a complex film with the story told in the form of flashbacks. It also tries to reinterpret Oppenheimer for the present day, with a sense of guilt that Oppenheimer never personally expressed. But Oppenheimer had been concerned about the nuclear arms race and weapons proliferation. He opposed the subsequent development of the hydrogen bomb. These positions along with his friendships with communist party members in the US, led to him losing his security clearance in 1954.
J. Robert Oppenheimer via the US Department of Energy
Barbie
Barbie looks to bring to life Mattel’s toy characters Barbie and Ken. Barbie was introduced in 1959 as a copy of a German fashion doll line. The fashion doll line came out of a cartoon strip in the Bild tabloid newspaper. Mattel went on to buy the German originator and shut it down. But by this time the German doll moulds were bought or copied by manufacturers in Hong Kong and Spain.
1990s vintage Barbie
The Barbie movie addresses head on the cultural and design legacy of Barbie alongside present-day culture wars
Barbie starts off in a matriarchal fantasy world; Ken is represented as a boy toy
Eventually Barbie and Ken end up in the real world. Barbie meet her owner who accuses her of setting unrealistic beauty standards
Ken learns about the male patriarchy, which means a battle of the sexes ensues when they both return to toyland
Barbeheimer
Both Barbie and Oppenheimer were released in the cinema at the same time going head-to-head with Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. This led to cinema goers taking advantage and buying a ticket to see each film one after the other. The practice of watching Barbie and Oppenheimer as a double-bill became so common it was given its own name Barbenheimer, when then became a thing in the news, on podcasts and social media. It has been credited with listing the business performance of cinemas, while sit on the edge of a recession. In fact in the UK, for some of the weekend, both Picturehouse cinemas and Vue cinemas websites were having trouble handling customer traffic.
Google Tests A.I. Tool That Is Able to Write News Articles – The New York Times – One of the three people familiar with the product said that Google believed it could serve as a kind of personal assistant for journalists, automating some tasks to free up time for others, and that the company saw it as responsible technology that could help steer the publishing industry away from the pitfalls of generative A.I.
